400 People Investing $400 Each to Buy Real Estate and Transform Communities

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Show Summary

Rene’ Jones shares the inspiring story behind $400blackdollars.com, a community-focused real estate initiative that started after the George Floyd incident. Discover how he raises capital, selects markets, and empowers tenants to become homeowners and investors, fostering community development and financial literacy.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • $400 Black Dollars’ Website
    • Rene’ Jones’ Email Address: [email protected]
    • $400 Black Dollars on Instagram
    • $400 Black Dollars on Twitter

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Rene’ Jones (00:00)
  So we came up with the concept of 400 black dollars. And it’s basically taking 400 people from a specific neighborhood, investing $400, and actually going out and purchasing ⁓ rent ⁓ income properties, and then putting individuals into those properties from the neighborhood. And then once they get into the property,

  After five years of us teaching them financial literacy, getting them involved in the community, then we give them those homes through a low interest loan.

  Dylan Silver (02:02)
  Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Rene Jones with 400blackdollars.com is a single family investor in Oklahoma and South Carolina. Welcome to the show, Rene.

  Rene’ Jones (02:14)
  Thank you, thank you for having me.

  Dylan Silver (02:17)
  I’d like to start by asking you the backstory of 400 Black Dollars. We were talking a little bit before hopping on, but for our audience, what was the backstory for

  Rene’ Jones (02:30)
  So we basically came about from the George Floyd incident. As I mentioned, my sons wanted to go protest. And my question, as I always try and challenge them, was, hey, what are we going to do after the protest? And through that conversation and more conversation, it was there’s nothing wrong with protesting, which I’m a firm believer in. If you have a problem, then you need to let people know about it. But what do you do after the protesters are all gone?

  how do you continue to have some type of effect on what you were protesting about?

  So we came up with the concept of 400 black dollars. And it’s basically taking 400 people from a specific neighborhood, investing $400, and actually going out and purchasing ⁓ rent ⁓ income properties, and then putting individuals into those properties from the neighborhood. And then once they get into the property,

  After five years of us teaching them financial literacy, getting them involved in the community, then we give them those homes through a low interest loan.

  We’re not going to go out 30 years, we’re normally like 10 to 15 years, between 10 and 20 basically. ⁓ And then we’ll basically teach them how to become a homeowner during that timeframe. When they start off renting, we help them with everything involved in becoming that homeowner through credit.

  And like I said, getting involved in the neighborhood and then ⁓ basically turning home over to the individuals.

  Dylan Silver (04:01)
  Now, when you were getting

  started, if we take that first property, what was the process like for raising the capital for that first property?

  Rene’ Jones (04:12)
  ⁓ it was interesting. When we did our pilot program, it was grabbing a bunch of people that I knew that were frustrated with the process, our processes in certain things in the US. I mean, obviously, we’ve come a long way from 400 years ago when the first slaves basically hit the shores. But there’s still a lot of work to be done. So getting people involved.

  getting a smaller group involved and then purchasing those properties and then finding the right tenants. That’s the problem when you do what we’re trying to do. You can’t just throw anybody into the property. So you want to throw somebody in there that understands the vision. They understand it’s not just a nice house. It’s something that we want you to actually be ⁓ a homeowner, but we also want you to understand the community, whichever community that is, and we want you to be actively involved.

  and what’s happening in that community. So finding the right people, that was more difficult than actually finding the investors.

  Dylan Silver (06:03)
  Yeah, I was speaking recently with ⁓ several investors in Chicago, actually. And Chicago is an interesting dynamic because within the city of Chicago, you’ll have

  Aldermen’s that are in charge of individual areas. And so one of the issues, whether you’re an investor in Chicago and the Carolinas and Oklahoma and Texas and Miami, wherever you are, you want to know how the community is doing, right? Because this is going to impact not just the community at large, but also your investment, right? And so speaking with, you know, people who want to change their community, one of the ways that often gets overlooked is to be an investor. Because look, if you’re

  Rene’ Jones (06:34)
  Exactly.

  Dylan Silver (06:45)
  In the case of the guest that I was speaking with, they were saying, well, we have a crime problem in Chicago, but because we have tenants who are in this multifamily building that we own, we are having to advocate for them. And we have a larger voice because look, if people are moving out, this impacts not just us, but it impacts the community as well.

  Rene’ Jones (07:06)
  Exactly. And I don’t think, I mean, during the pandemic, a bunch of people started talking about investing in property and they wanted to get involved. I think it became more of a financial issue or a financial means of doing something different as opposed to just getting involved in communities. But I think people are realizing now there’s a lot that goes along with owning property. It’s not just what you see on TikTok. I’m going to

  are on HGTV, I’m gonna buy this house and then within 30 minutes of the show, I’m gonna have it completely renovated and make my money back or throw a tenant in there. As you said, there’s a lot that goes into purchasing a home, turning it into a rental property, and then trying to make sure that it becomes a productive rental property, not just from a financial perspective, but with the tenant.

  Dylan Silver (07:59)
  Now, I would like to ask

  you specifically about the strategy for bringing up not just the ability to influence the body politic of an area, but also the tenants as well. I’m hearing these are people who you’re assisting not just finding a place to stay, but also themselves become investors down the line.

  Rene’ Jones (08:24)
  Yes. not, there are a lot of people out there that they want to own a home. They don’t necessarily want to be an investor. I mean, obviously there’s advantages to that, but there’s also disadvantages if you’re not ready or don’t understand what you’re getting into. But it is very difficult to change someone’s mindset because if you’re a renter, a lot of people are renters because they have a renter’s mindset.

  So to sit down and explain to someone that we want to rent to you, but we don’t want you to come here, move in, and you stay there for a couple of years and leave. We want you to come here with the mindset that you’re going to ultimately within that five to seven year period, five year period, that you’re going to become a homeowner. So now the mindset changes. Just the conversation that we will have with them.

  is a conversation that you would have with a homeowner and not a renter. So if something isn’t going right, then it’s not going to be, hey, why is a car parked on the lawn? It’s going to be, hey, you know what? That car being, your car being parked on the lawn is actually causing the neighborhood to look bad. So it becomes a completely different thing. And then you get them to understand that they need to affect the change

  Dylan Silver (09:39)
  That’s right.

  Rene’ Jones (09:48)
  and not just the landlord telling them, your damn car off the lawn.

  Dylan Silver (09:52)
  You’re pivoting a bit here, Rene. You’re active in two markets that are in different areas of the country, Oklahoma and South Carolina, and both great markets. And I also think opportunities for people to get into investing without spending Los Angeles or New York pricing or Miami pricing. How did you get active in those two markets?

  Rene’ Jones (10:49)
  Well, we were already active in South Carolina, and ⁓ it just seemed like the right thing to do because we had the infrastructure in place already. ⁓ It was just this program we put together and said now, instead of focusing on which what we were focused on was multifamily, instead of focusing on multifamily, let’s transition over to single family. And then in Oklahoma, ⁓

  That was sort of a personal thing. Someone came about that was a relative, I didn’t know was a relative, told me there were opportunities. ⁓ Based on that, I’m a research guy. So I wanted to do a little research check on it. And then checking on it, I seen there were opportunities there. And then me and my business partner went down there, looked at it, and said, all right, now let’s basically dive into it. And we ended up start, we started acquiring properties in Oakland.

  Dylan Silver (11:41)
  Now 400 people investing $400, that’s 160,000, was there something specific about that number where you thought, okay, this is a good spot for us to have as our pro forma or our metric? How did you come up with the $400?

  Rene’ Jones (12:00)
  It started

  from when, like I said, when you start looking at slaves coming over from Africa and what took place. It’s been 400 years. So yeah, so that’s what it was. From 16, I forget the year, I think it was 1619, 1620, something like that. So yeah.

  Dylan Silver (12:10)
  Okay.

  Yeah, I hear you.

  There’s multiple times there. The pivoting a bit here, the ability to raise capital is something that a lot of real estate investors struggle with, but then also it becomes some people’s niche, right? Do you have any advice or feedback for folks who may be looking to do something similar in a market near them, whether they have experience ⁓ raising capital or if this may be their first time?

  Rene’ Jones (12:50)
  Well, I would normally people are going to start with friends and family, which means you’re going to lose some friends and your family is going to hate you. But that’s just normal. As long as you’re trying to do the right thing and you’re able to produce, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. But when you start with your friends and family, which I think is the best thing to do, I see a lot of tick tockers go get this long, go do this and start an LLC. That’s OK.

  But if you’re having financial issues, then the bank’s not going to want to deal with you. And if you’re having financial issues or personal issues, then your family’s going identify, why would I give you money when you squandered away the $20 I gave you? So to answer your question, I think it comes down to having the right circle, having the right people around you. If you have the right people around you, number one, they’re probably going to be able to help you finance something.

  If you have the right people around you and they can’t help you finance something, I’m sure they can point you in the right direction to finance something, or the right people to finance something. People, think, watch these podcasts like this and they hear all these lofty ideas. And I think some of that stuff is really good for more seasoned people. But when you’re starting out, you are going to probably have to go with your friends and family circle. And depending on who’s in that circle, that’s going to probably push you over the top.

  or it’s gonna pull you back down and you’re gonna end up being stuck not able to do anything anyway.

  Dylan Silver (14:21)
  Aside from the, you know, being able to own ⁓ property and then, you know, participate with multiple people in that ownership process and then improve the lives of, you know, the tenants of these properties, have there been any other, you know, secondary or tertiary benefits that you’ve seen from this endeavor?

  Rene’ Jones (14:42)
  of helping people. Just sitting down, having conversations with tenants and especially tenants in communities where information is lacking. I think it was Malcolm X said, if you want to hide something from a black person, then put it in the library, put it in a book or put in a book and then put it in the library.

  Which is when you look, especially within the black community, a lot of information doesn’t make its way down to the people that live within these impoverished areas.

  So for me to be able to take the little bit of knowledge that I have and to get my business partners or investors that are capable of teaching people but just don’t have the platform to be able to speak to a lot of people and explain to them, even if they’re not a tenant, but even someone just calling up trying to find out about the property and then we start explaining our program, being able to educate them and have them continue to call us and say, I like what you had to say.

  I’m interested in getting involved or I’m not interested in getting involved. I just want to know is this a good interest rate to purchase this car I’m about to buy and to get involved in people’s lives. That’s the benefit from my perspective.

  Dylan Silver (16:31)
  Yeah.

  I would like to ask you about building that sphere. It sounds like this has been really a natural organic process with investors and then also expanding into the community. Some folks sometimes struggle with that and that might not be their strong suit. But if you’re going to be involved in real estate or in community development in any capacity, you’ve got to be out there, you know, networking with people. Do you have any advice for folks who may be looking at getting into this space and not sure how to start

  building their sphere.

  Rene’ Jones (17:08)
  Yeah, I would start going to local meetings within the community just to understand what’s happening within your community and then to start meeting people within that community. most people, they, I think people have gotten with our society being the microwave society, we want success tomorrow when in actuality that doesn’t occur. But being able to talk to people and then talk to more people.

  being able to listen to people’s being able to understand what people do, how they may have an effect positively or negatively on what it is you’re trying to do. If you don’t get out into your community, then it’s going to be very difficult to try and build up a network of individuals that have the ability to help you. And especially if you’re planning on investing.

  in Oklahoma or in South Carolina or North Carolina, you need to get into those communities and understand the people. One of my big things, like even whether it’s South Carolina or Oklahoma, we see guys standing on the corner and we go over there. They may be drinking beers and some now marijuana is legal in certain places, they may be smoking, I don’t do it. But hey, that doesn’t mean I can’t stand there and have a conversation with an individual and actually use the person.

  Dylan Silver (18:24)
  conversation.

  Rene’ Jones (18:29)
  that lives in the community to tell me about the community. I don’t need to do any outside research. I need to talk to that guy on the corner and see what his thought is about me trying to come in there and buy that house that’s been vacant for two years. And he’s gonna tell me, hey, this isn’t the right community because of the gangs, because of this, whatever it is, or he’s gonna tell me, you you clean that house up and this community is pretty good and you probably won’t have any problems. So.

  Dylan Silver (18:57)
  Yeah, that’s exactly

  right. mean, real estate is a contact sport, right? So oftentimes people are trying to delegate and find technology in ways that they could potentially remove some of the social aspect of it, but knocking on a door, talking to someone who’s living in the area, that could oftentimes be your biggest asset and key material when underwriting a deal. We are coming up on time.

  Rene’ Jones (19:25)
  And people,

  Dylan Silver (19:27)
  Go ahead.

  Rene’ Jones (19:28)
  well, I was going to say, people, look for outside sources to try and elevate them. But as my mom said, all men are self-made, but only the successful ones will ever admit it. So you have to get out there and do the work on your own before you start talking to investors and understanding things. There’s nothing wrong with going to the meetings and doing all that. But once you get past that, now get out in the streets and figure out what’s going on in those neighborhoods.

  before you start throwing your dollars or someone else’s dollars into that neighborhood only to find out it wasn’t the right thing to do.

  Dylan Silver (20:02)
  Yeah, that’s exactly right. Especially if you’re working with other people’s money. We are coming up on time here though, René. Any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you?

  Rene’ Jones (20:06)
  Exactly.

  Well, we’re still investing in multifamily in different areas. ⁓ Like I said, Oklahoma, South Carolina, we’re looking at North Carolina and some other places that I feel ⁓ haven’t, we actually have been looked over and have an opportunity to get involved. ⁓ So we’re gonna see how that works. And this year, based on what I think the economy is doing,

  I think if you don’t get involved in real estate over the next three years, maybe five, but I think three to five years, you probably will never have an opportunity to do it. think prices are just gonna shoot up. And if you look at what they did from before the pandemic to during the pandemic to today, I think many people will be priced out. we’re actively trying to actively get involved with what’s going on over the next year. You can get in touch with me at [email protected]. You can go to the website, send an email. ⁓ We are on Instagram and Twitter. It’s all the same, 400blackdollars. So anyone looking to get involved or find out more information, reach out to me and I will respond.

  Dylan Silver (21:25)
  Rene, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for your time today.