Building a Real Estate Business That Thrives in Any Market Cycle

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Erika interviews Jennifer Collins, a seasoned real estate professional and brokerage owner. Jennifer shares her journey into the industry, her shift toward commercial investing, and how she supports her team of agents. She emphasizes treating real estate as a business with clear goals and solid strategies.
Jennifer also offers advice for investors and agents on tracking KPIs, avoiding common pitfalls, and embracing market realities. She highlights the importance of networking, creative financing, and consistent activities like lead generation and follow-up, noting that flexibility and persistence are key to long-term success.

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
    • Jennifer Collins’s Website
    • Jennifer Collins on LinkedIn
    • Jennifer Collins’s Phone no.: (918) 645-3795

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Jennifer Collins (00:00)
  At the moment the common pitfalls that I see with new investors is they’re getting information from other other podcasts and other people which is amazing

  Making their margin to be like 36 to 40 to 50 percent profit margin on a deal It’s really tough to do that in this market. So how do you adjust your expenses?

  How do you find those deals?

  even if you’re only making a 26 % profit margin or a 28 % profit margin.

  That’s, depending on the property,

  that’s still a really good thing. the pitfall is what I tell them, don’t step over dollars to pick up dimes.

  because there’s been a lot of things that you pass on and that you just don’t realize I keep trying to tell you and then you come back and you’re like, that really was a good deal.

  Erika (00:00.802)
  Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host Erika and today I’m excited to be chatting with Jennifer Collins. She’s been making serious moves in the residential real estate space. Jennifer, it’s awesome to have you on the show today.

  Jennifer Collins (00:17.315)
  Thank you, I appreciate it.

  Erika (00:20.3)
  Yeah, so let’s dive on in because our listeners need to know more about you. Can you share what your journey was like to real estate?

  Jennifer Collins (00:32.33)
  My journey to real estate kind of was just one of those situations where I was helping a friend and we both were both entrepreneurs and she was helping me do stuff with my business and vice versa and so I kind of fell into that with doing real estate and stuck with it because it just fit the lifestyle that I needed at the time for my kids. I had little kids and that just worked.

  I could create the schedule that I needed to create around the lifestyle that I wanted.

  Erika (01:09.112)
  That’s exciting. Jennifer, fast forwarding today, what would you say your main focus is in the market?

  Jennifer Collins (01:17.436)
  Right now, my main focus in the market is commercial real estate, commercial investing, commercial mortgages. That’s my main focus. I do have my own brokers. I did open it up. That is my second. Well, I think they’re neck and neck. They’re both, they’re twins. I love them equally. I have my own brokers that I opened. have 10 agents under me already. So that’s a big.

  strive to make sure that they’re successful in a market that’s going back to what I know as a normal market being here for about 16, 17 years and they’re experiencing coming off of the crazy COVID market. So I really am excited about getting them to grow their business as well.

  Erika (02:03.362)
  Yeah, absolutely. And for you with your role overseeing the agents, what have you found to be the most helpful with supporting your team?

  Jennifer Collins (02:16.842)
  Navigating the narratives that we all have in our face all the time is the challenge. We have social media, we have podcasts, we have people that are always the, the professional, listen to me. And there’s a lot of talk and a lot of information, false information at some point that’s out there. And so how do they decipher that?

  the age-old thing like, I see this agent doing all this and but do you know the other side? It’s not always what you see, you know, so having them understand really my biggest, biggest, biggest thing that I tell them and I tell even the new loan officers I had yesterday is really not about selling a house. It’s not about, you know, I got this person a house. It’s not about, I got this person alone. It’s about running a business. And how do you run your business? What you

  Yeah, that’s what we do. That’s the commodity we sell. We sell ourselves and the stuff. But how do you set yourself up to understand this is a business and what money threshold do you want to make? How do you want to get from point A to point B? What do you want to stay in? Commercial real estate, residential real estate. Do you want to do, you know, investors? Do you like only that? Having that conversation and making sure that they’re successful in their business plan is so rewarding.

  Erika (03:41.376)
  Yeah. And Jennifer, you know, you, you also love helping investors as well. When it comes to investors trying to enter a new market, can you walk us through how, how you help them with finding those new deals and entering a new area?

  Jennifer Collins (04:00.289)
  Yeah, every area is different, every market’s different. The biggest thing when you’re coming to, let’s just use multifamily for an example, everybody wants a certain cap rate or everybody thinks that I have this project. Like I’ll give you an example, they came to my investment group, have a wonderful plan, they have a wonderful…

  and renderings, have all the stuff and asking for funding and then having this pro forma of rents that would support making the money, the ROI back, not understanding that I have a very good, a very good, aware of the economy of that city, of that area. And it’s just, that’s not gonna support what you think it is. So how do, now that we’re here, how do we move that around a little bit?

  Erika (08:01)
  All right. And Jennifer, I know that you also work with a lot of investors and help them out with finding properties, especially people who are looking at going into a new market and diversifying. Can you walk us through that process more and how you help investors find properties that, you know, end up being a successful deal?

  Jennifer Collins (08:27)
  Right. everything is an investor just wants to get that. There’s a lot of KPIs that that an investor wants to meet and every investor has a different KPI that they’re benchmarking. So what is that benchmark? What is that? Where does that fit for you? That’s the first question. So now I understand. OK, that’s where.

  you what your focus on and where you want to see that. So where’s the property is most of it. Everybody wants to make sure it cash flows. ⁓ Especially if I’m doing a DSCR loan. I definitely needed to meet a ratio to cash flow. So there’s that the big conversation I have with the investors is can this project if they pick up a project in the market being a remodel project or an opportunity for them to invest in

  and a bigger development project, will it make them money? And from their understanding, they just need to understand market rents here are different, time on market is different, the economic factor is different, how many people are in that income bracket that can support those rents and stuff like that. There’s not a lot of that unless they’re gonna do a ⁓ I forgot the name of that study, that survey. It’s gonna slip my mind.

  Feasibility unless like there’s a really good in-depth feasibility study and even then some of the feasibility studies if the person isn’t From the area it can kind of be skewed because data is data and number is numbers. But you know It’s the same as people are going I know how much I weigh but when they look at me, they’re like you ate that much. It’s like you listen listen It’s numbers, but it’s it can be it can be different. It can be skewed visually So I’m giving them that awareness of the market is really great

  Erika (10:20)
  Yeah, when it comes to investors that you’ve worked with, especially new ones, what are some of the common pitfalls you see?

  Jennifer Collins (11:05)
  At the moment the common pitfalls that I see with new investors is they’re getting information from other other podcasts and other people which is amazing that You know word the margin of making Making their margin to be like 36 to 40 to 50 percent profit margin on a deal It’s really tough to do that in this market. So how do you adjust your expenses?

  How do you find those deals? How do you get to where you need to go? And to show them really, you can make a business decision, even if you’re only making a 26 % profit margin or a 28 % profit margin. That’s, depending on the property, that’s still a really good thing. the pitfall is what I tell them, don’t step over dollars to pick up dimes.

  because there’s been a lot of things that you pass on and that you just don’t realize I keep trying to tell you and then you come back and you’re like, that really was a good deal.

  Do you still have it? No, I don’t still have it anymore. I work with a lot of people. having them understand those margins is a really, really key for them to not A, lose money throughout the project, get into a house and then all of a sudden, there are $30,000 over budget and understanding what that margin looks like.

  per market.

  Erika (12:33)
  for let’s say we have an investor reach out to you right now. What’s ⁓ one underrated strategy that you recommend, whether it’s a flip or a rental?

  Jennifer Collins (12:49)
  ⁓ underrated strategy.

  Erika (12:54)
  you know, anything creative.

  Jennifer Collins (12:56)
  think that getting a good strategy right now is to partner, you can partner with people and get, I’m a firm believer of we can go far with our knowledge and we can go farther with others. So you can get a little more things done if you get the right people in the right room. And then on the flip side of that, you can get too many partners and then there’s too much going on and there’s not enough there.

  So ⁓ that’s a creative way to kind of think about stuff like that. Really just going out and having those conversations. I have conversations with people, homeowners all the time about, I I got people that will pay cash for your house. Let’s just figure out how this works. people come to me with pre-foreclosure or foreclosure issues, and then now they need to sell it. But how do I negotiate that with the bank to get money? So I have an opportunity there as well.

  being open to having discussions with the owners as far as how to help them, and then getting the resources to help them is good.

  Erika (14:01)
  Yeah, absolutely. And Jennifer, you’ve been in the business for a while. So I’m sure you know this as a real estate pro that, you know, eventually, you know, there’s a moment where things get real. Maybe a deal went sideways or you had to pivot fast for a client. Can you share one of those moments along your journey and what you learned from it?

  Jennifer Collins (14:26)
  There are a lot of those moments. There was one in particular we had and it was actually it was pretty interesting. I don’t know why they didn’t see it. I had a portfolio. of the three of the properties that they had in there were going up to foreclosure. They wanted me to sell them. So I did my best to sell them. And ⁓ of course, two of the properties had already went to the sheriff sale and got

  did whatever foreclosed on it and it just was what it was. And the third property, we were talking about it and I said, listen guys, you are on this other side of this coin telling me, hey, we need to find another investment while we’re figuring it out, but you have this great investment right here.

  Let’s figure out how to negotiate with the attorneys to get this payment where it needs to go and then get this property up and running and sell it and make that profit. And then it ended up, just, so through the two, three attorneys, we…

  navigated that discussion, remodeled it, and made a really good profit margin for that and didn’t have to eat that. So it’s just looking at stuff from a different angle. Sometimes they don’t see what they’re talking about right in front them until somebody says something to them.

  Erika (16:24)
  Yeah, absolutely. And for our listeners here who are looking to level up and, you know, build a stronger network, what kind of connections have been a game changer for you in the real estate world?

  Jennifer Collins (16:40)
  Having good funding partners that are creative is really, really important. Having good investment partners that are creative as well. It’s what I have learned in real estate. It’s not black and white. It’s not always cut and dry. And they teach you that this is it. This is how it goes. If you’re FHA loan and this house and that car, you know, and it, it, it’s not what it is. You get into it and

  There’s quiet title suits, there’s divorces, there’s deed problems. There’s so many things. So to be flexible through all that, you just have to be. It’s always learning, it’s always changing, it’s navigating the chaos. That’s what I call it, just navigate the chaos. Nothing surprises me, nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing, literally nothing.

  So it is what it is.

  Erika (17:43)
  For any of our listeners here who just became an agent, what kind of advice would you give them?

  Jennifer Collins (17:52)
  Keep doing the activities. That’s what I tell the new agents here. There’s only five, six things you gotta do that make you money and you’re gonna do them every day. I think I shared on my Facebook page this morning is success is boring. Success is really boring. I do the same five things every single day and that’s because those five things make me money. Everything else doesn’t make you money then yeah, they have to get done. I.e. we were talking about leveraging. I need to leverage some of that. ⁓

  at the end of the day, do those activities, just keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it. I had a new agent, she just started, I had to do the same thing, I even sat next to her, let’s keep doing boring, and she’s like not even three months in, and she’s got three contracts. So she’s in production because we just keep doing the boring and we just get really good at being boring.

  Erika (18:49)
  So you talked about there’s five things that you do. What are those five things?

  Jennifer Collins (18:56)
  come up with this. had my business coach tell me that. So this is not mine. This is not my key stuff. Lead, generate, lead, follow up. Sometimes those go in different orders. So if you’re new, you’re lead generating and to make your follow up list. Me now, I have an exorbitant amount of follow up that I have to do. the tides has turned a little bit. So I do more follow up with everybody than I do bringing in new business because my pipeline is just that way.

  Erika (19:22)
  Jennifer, before we wrap up, if someone wants to reach out, connect, or maybe they need help with finding their next investment property, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

  Jennifer Collins (19:35)
  My cell phone number, I tell them you can call me anytime. I will answer the phone after 6 p.m. I’m a text messenger because I have a 13 year old. He truly believes he has nine lives. So I’m probably fussing at him that he doesn’t. So you can text me after six. My cell phone is the best way to get a hold of me. And then email, of course, is the second best way. So that is definitely my email address and my phone number are both on my website, compassrealtok.com.

  and that you can find any information you need there.

  Erika (20:13)
  Well, Jennifer, thanks so much for being on the show and sharing your story and all your expertise.

  Jennifer Collins (20:21)
  Thank you.

  Erika (20:24)
  And for our listeners, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pros podcast. We’ve got more conversations lined up with pros like Jennifer who are out there building fantastic real estate businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.