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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Kristen interviews John Yeressian, a seasoned real estate investor and professor. John shares his journey from commercial leasing to becoming a successful investor in Los Angeles. He emphasizes the importance of building a supportive network, finding trustworthy team members, and understanding market trends. John also discusses the current opportunities in office space and the resilience of the LA real estate market. He concludes with his passion for teaching and giving back to the community.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
John Yeressian (00:00)
the lure of real estate, I think for most people ⁓ is, ⁓ is they see how much money is involved.And I would see the checks they were making. So I was a young kid looking at $20,000, $30,000 checks. I go, wow, that’s what you make in a month? They said, no, on one deal.
And I was like, can do like four of these.
Kristen (01:56)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with John Yeressian He’s a professor and an LA investor. I’m excited to get into it. He has such well-rounded experience in the industry. Thank you so much for being here, John. So tell us how you got into the real estate industry to begin with. I know you’ve kind of tried a bunch of different things.John Yeressian (02:09)
Thank so much.Yes, so I actually was started off in commercial leasing as a leasing agent. So I would find space for companies and places like that. And then I saw an opportunity to make money on the sales side. So when the sales and then eventually became a broker and then working with clients that were investors and flippers, I looked at this picture and I said, you know what, I think I need to go on the investment side of real estate. So
I went from selling real estate, selling the product to people, to actually investing myself. It’s one of the only businesses where you want to buy your own supply. So ⁓ the way to retirement and building wealth in real estate is purchasing real estate. So I got into that, investors ⁓ guided me. I saw what they were doing. I was buying and selling for them. I was happy that I was making a commission.
buying side and then when they put it on the market I was making money on the sales side and you know I was making you know 30-40 thousand dollars on the transaction but then their bottom line was a hundred thousand two hundred thousand I said wait a minute I got to get into this investing and flipping so I ended up being a real estate investor in Los Angeles
Kristen (03:34)
Amazing. And did you lean on mentors or networking groups?John Yeressian (03:39)
Yes, so I belong to ⁓ many different investor groups ⁓ and you know, I think it’s very vital that you need a group of ⁓ supporters around you, mentors. I don’t think anyone gets into this business without having somebody to guide them. So ⁓ a team around you that could support you, especially in the beginning is really important, but ⁓ because there’s a lot to learn about real estate. mean, someone just come in in the market saying, I want to flip a home.It’s not as simple unless you you know, you need to you need a network for us and they need a team like architects contractors You know down the plumbers electricians the trades all the single trades ⁓ You know even civil engineer, right? So you got to draft things so a team around you is one of the most key aspects of being an investor and In order to get that you need to actually be part of investor groups. So if you’re not networking
you’re not building a team around you, you’re not talking to people about what’s going on in the market, other people to relate to, then ⁓ it’s very difficult to be like a solo investor on your own. So this is a very social career path ⁓ and you got to have a team. It’s just so vital. keep saying that again, but you got to have a team around you, ⁓ mentors that could teach you and people that could guide you on how to do things correctly and what they did, they failed.
They show you like, I did this, it didn’t work, so try it this way. They’ll save you thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in the future and time too, so that’s really important.
Kristen (06:07)
Yeah, and as you’re building this team, what are your tips for kind of finding people that align with your vision and your values?John Yeressian (06:15)
So that’s really important because it is a shark tank out there like any other business. So you gotta build a trustworthy ⁓ team. So the way I built the team is ⁓ my investors that I was buying and selling to, I said, hey, I wanna get in on this. I don’t wanna make just the commission. I wanna be part of the group. So ⁓ I got into it by working with…So I had a license. License really helps getting a real estate license because it opens up a lot of doors. So I always tell my future investors, go, you know, I talk to them and they some say that, hey, I don’t need a license. I’m just want to be on the investing side. And I tell them, you know what? That the key to opening up networking opportunities and meeting people is obtaining a real estate license. So for me, I had…
I understood investing in risk, but I had very little interest in it because I was looking at the commissions. And I’m like, wow, I can make 30, $40,000 as a transaction. But then when these investors were my clients and I’m seeing the big checks, and I said, wow, I need to switch on this side, but I didn’t know how to do it. But most investors are very open to helping other people invest because…
Real estate has tons of places to invest in, tons of markets, commercial, residential, office space, warehouse space. There’s a lot of business for everyone to make money and eat in this business. So I was lucky enough to meet them through being clients, but investor groups, I think, are key to opening up opportunities. So if you want to build a team, you start there. ⁓ Another place I found,
opportunities, surprisingly, is ⁓ I want to learn a little bit of construction ideas, techniques. So I actually took myself, I took a course in basic fundamentals of construction at Akamie College and
You know, everyone around there were future contractors. I took everyone’s name in the future. You know, I needed stuff. called them. go, Hey, still learning construction. It’s like, yeah. I said, can you help me on the flip? I need to rebuild this, rebuild that. So, um, that, that really is a key, think way to, if you want to build contractors around you, take a construction class. Um, I went in there, I told the first day I told him, said, I’m not here to learn construction. I’m not going to be a contractor. I want to know what’s going on in the business. So I can identify.
how much tearing down this wall is, how much work that’s gonna take. But I’m also here to meet contractors. I’m in the real estate business, so you’d be surprised everyone was just like, here’s my number, call me in six months when I get my license, contractor’s license, know? Yeah.
Kristen (08:49)
Right.Right. Yeah, and I feel
like that’s a really good point to kind of learn these aspects yourself because I’m sure you get very different quotes from people.
John Yeressian (09:15)
Yeah, they’re all over the place. You know, I just had one ⁓ on a flip job. It went from 40,000 to as high as 120,000. So contractors are all over, you know, and it’s not always the cheapest one is the best code. It’s also the good quality of work too. So quality varies. And if you find a good contractor,that can work with and you trust their work, say stick with them. I tell fellow investors, go, if you don’t have a contractor, I got one. But sometimes they’ll tell me, hey, I got a guy I trust. go stick with them. I’m not giving you my number, my contacts number, because if you like someone, you stick with them. And I always encourage to have one or two backups because ⁓ contractors always get busy. ⁓ And you got to have an alternate too.
For example, one of my top
favorite contractors ⁓ like three four years ago when Texas had a flood and if you guys remember that I call my contractor said have a flip here in LA he said I left I said where you at he goes I went to Texas because we’re building homes and insurance is giving us you know the insurance companies for property they’re giving us checks to build entire homes and he goes I’m here for the next two three years building
So I had to fall back to an alternate contractor. So always have like your favorite one, a backup one, and maybe a bench player, like a third backup that you can call. But that’s the case for anything, know. Plumbers, if you have a plumber or electrician, you got to have more than one contact. have to have to. Otherwise you’re stuck. Yeah.
Kristen (11:32)
Yeah,absolutely. kind of, you know, I know that as you were a broker and you saw these big commission checks, I think that’s what gets a lot of people into the investing world. I would say most people into the investing world. ⁓ Did it start out like that or was that something you kind of had to build to?
John Yeressian (11:53)
Well, you know,the lure of real estate, I think for most people ⁓ is, ⁓ is they see how much money is involved. So they look at it, you know, they always look at, I think I was ⁓ in high school and I realized, you know, there’s money to be made in real estate, right? I didn’t understand what passive income meant, but I knew that if I, if I built ⁓ enough assets that I could live a comfortable life in the future. But the way to get in was, you know, ⁓
I would call agents and talk to them. said, hey, how’s this career? Can you tell me about how it is? I’m considering a career in real estate. And they would be like, come over to the office, shadow me. And I would see the checks they were making. So I was a young kid looking at $20,000, $30,000 checks. I go, wow, that’s what you make in a month? They said, no, on one deal.
And I was like, can do like four of these.
I said, please, like, show me how to do this business. So my entrance into the real estate world shifted. know, I knew I always wanted to be an investor, but I got in through the sales side. It does take a little while.
to build a book of business in real estate. the first year has a high washout rate ⁓ because in the sales side, it’s more cutthroat, like shark, it’s more of a shark tank. You’re competing with other people. But the beauty of real estate is the longer you stay in the commercial sales or broker side, ⁓
the less work you put in and the bigger your paychecks get. So I tell a lot of people that it’s like an inverse triangle, right? So all the work is in the beginning. So you’re building your client base, your marketing, people don’t know what you do. So once you build that, the work starts going like the workload you put in, your time goes lower, but your paychecks get bigger because right now, you know, I get people calling me still on referrals. He’s like, can you help me buy a house? You know, do this.
And unless I’m in a big flipping project, I’ll pick up those clients still. But right now I do more of the investing side. But clients still call me. I don’t even market no more. They’re just calling me and they’re saying, hey, can you sell me a house? And I look at it go, oh, this is a $2.5 million home. So it’s a good $100,000 commission check. Why not?
Kristen (14:22)
Yeah, absolutely. And so you’ve been in the game for 20, 25 years. You’ve seen a lot of market shifts. Where are you seeing us today? What’s your perspective on the ups and downs?John Yeressian (14:24)
Yeah.Yeah, so that’s a great question. ⁓ One of the problems with new investors is anytime I work with them, they always say, well, if I buy this in six months, the market changes, you I can’t sell the property. I’m stuck with it. You know, what do I do? So I tell them, said, look, I’ve been in this business, like you said, for a while now.
I’ve seen, you know, three major shifts ⁓ and especially the 2008 Great Recession, which I called that as the Kmart. If some of you guys remember Kmart.
came our blue light special. So anyone that had some insight or knowledge in real estate knew at that time was when the millionaires were being made. So millionaires are made on a down market because that’s when you buy right so the buying part is where you make that money. So a lot of ⁓ people were losing homes investors were nervous they didn’t want to stuff. The only question was the big question mark timing the bottom we didn’t know how far down
I know it’s gonna go but so back to the like the new investors I always tell them like if you can’t sell it you can always rent it it’s one of those products that there’s multiple things you can do with it so if you put on the market and you can’t make a hundred thousand dollars you can always put a tenant in there they’ll pay for your rent for the next you know three or five years whatever you need whatever time they’ll pay your mortgage off and I said
By that time you’ll have a lot of equity and then you’re not worried about the mortgage payments. But it’s one of the only products where you could remodel a house, make it look nice and new, put a tenant in there. Five years later, ⁓ even though the property, the new renovation has been used, ⁓ it still goes up in equity. mean, it’s saying go buy a car, drive it for five years and then sell it for more money.
That’s what real estate does. So you can buy a house, use it, know, and then sell it later and you’re making money. The appreciation on real estate is incredible. And especially in California, Los Angeles, like I know everyone.
about tax rates and stuff but the weather outside is like beautiful it’s December it’s 80 degrees so you know we’re in the t-shirt and stuff going out December I do like when I go like East Coast I do some real estate investments in New York and stuff it’s snowing all right so
And then when it snows, know, like people are not out. So it’s a whole different environment. You got to deal with different conditions. But LA, it’s beautiful. Everyone’s out there. Everyone’s moving around. Money’s moving. When I see the traffic on the, 110 freeway in LA, most people say, my God, that’s a lot of traffic. And I look at it I go, that’s an opportunity because that means there’s a lot of money going back and forth. People are working.
are doing things so it’s good to see semi trucks cars the busier the freeway is the more money there is in real estate and business that’s how you gotta look at it
Kristen (18:16)
Yeah, absolutely. And I know thatyou’re excited about investing in office space right now, so I’d love to talk about that.
John Yeressian (18:25)
Yeah, so there’s a great opportunity in office space because those prices have really bottomed out because you know the adjustment to teleworking and like ⁓ different modalities to office work now. Office space significantly has gone down so you’re not finding a lot of like businesses that want to rent office space.But as a real estate investor, you gotta take advantage of that opportunity, right? So you gotta look at that and say, oh, prices are down, let me pick up this office space, but let me convert it to another use, right? So you can change it to retail space or change it to warehouse space. Or what a lot of people do now is take an office space and convert them into residential units and selling them off.
It’s loft living type of things, really hot right now. So you find a building that’s two or three stories that used to be commercial office space. I’d immediately convert those into single family residences, condo units, exposed ceilings where you can see all the piping. It’s really trendy right now. And sell them, there’s more money in that than office space.
Kristen (19:31)
Yeah, absolutely. So you’re pretty optimistic about where we’re at in the market now. I think a lot of people are confused and there’s a lot of different information being thrown out.John Yeressian (19:41)
Yes, so like the market, the real estate market, especially in Los Angeles is constantly, you it’s always hot. California is the fourth largest economy in the world. So when you put that into perspective, there’s always going to be a big demand for real estate, like constantly. So you don’t make a mistake investing in a hot city that’s, you know.busy with people, traffic, we got millions of people here. I tell people this is one of the only states where you can get fired from a job and find a new job within two weeks because I travel all over, I was in Oregon one time and there was a guy I was talking to, this is about a year and a half ago, he got laid off from his job and he’s looking for work for about a year and a half and he can’t find anything so he was driving Uber to pick me up from the airport. But if that was Los Angeles, he’d be
employed in a couple weeks because just there’s so much opportunity there’s so much money and so just an example a guy like that you know if he’s struggling with mortgage he might lose his house in Oregon but in LA right he’ll find another job and figure out how to pay his mortgage so that’s why there’s a demand for real estate in LA although we are seeing like not in LA specifically nationally foreclosures ticked up a bit
And I think that has to do not with the real estate market, it has to do with these AI trend. Because AI is replacing some jobs and they’re calling these like permanent layoffs. So there’s gonna be shift soon.
on employment opportunities. But LA is still a hot market because even though there’s foreclosures, you got thousands of investors awaiting to buy foreclosure properties and sell them. it’s a survival. LA is a survival of the fittest because people always ask me, how are these homes going up in price? How do people afford these homes? I go because the people that have the money will be in Los Angeles and they’ll outcompete other people. So it pushes people out.
like right so there’s always demand just keep going up in LA.
Kristen (21:58)
Well, I think that’s great positivity for us to end on. Tell everyone where to find you.John Yeressian (22:05)
So yeah, they can follow me. I do have Instagram. It’s J and my last name, Y-E-R-E-S-S-I-A-N, Yeressian And I’m all over the internet on different medias, but I also teach courses in real estate. So if anyone’s interested in teaching, they can find me at El Camino College, the director there for the program.also teach at different schools, USC, UCLA sometimes as a guest lecturer, adjunct. So I like to teach people how to invest in real estate. So I don’t do it for the money. That part I do for the passion because my real estate professor changed my life. It wasn’t for him. I would have never been in his field. And when he passed away, he said, I want you to be teaching real estate to other people.
That’s why I’m doing it because he’s watching from up there. So yeah, I love doing it. You see people’s eyes brightened when they learn about investing and I tell them how to do it, how to get their license. And then they come back to me and say, guess what I did? I invested and I made money and now I feel comfortable because I don’t have to work for a paycheck. That’s the joy I get.
Kristen (22:59)
Yeah.Well yeah, you’re
giving back to the community. That must feel really good.
John Yeressian (23:21)
I lovedit. Yeah, I loved it.
Kristen (23:24)
Well, thank you so much for being here, John.John Yeressian (23:26)
Thank you.Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Kristen (23:29)
And thank you everyone for listening. I hope you learned a lot, got some good inspiration. Definitely check John out and we will see you back next time. Bye.
