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Show Summary
In this conversation, Jeb Fuller shares his extensive experience in real estate, focusing on his journey from being a certified commercial appraiser to becoming a successful investor. He discusses the importance of valuation, education, and the transition from residential to commercial real estate. Jeb emphasizes the significance of mindset, experience, and building strong relationships in the industry. He also provides insights into investment strategies and the current market landscape, highlighting the need for adaptability and continuous learning.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jeb Fuller (00:00)
my first investment was when I was 18. I literally bought a house that was actually at one time a one room schoolhouse. And when I bought the house, the first mortgage payment I had was $165 and 81 cents. And I was literally at 18. Am I going to be able toafford this, right? rented it out and that was my first rental
Quentin Edmonds (01:56)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. Listen, I hope this gentleman don’t mind me saying this, but y’all we got a living legend. Like we have, we had somebody here. He’s been in the game for a long time. he is an expert when it comes to evaluation and appraising. he’s been in the business for a long time, so it ain’t going to be nothing I can throw at him that he hasn’t already did already figured out, but I’m so excited that he gets to tell his story and take us through his journey.So I introduced to some Mr. Jeb Fuller. Mr. Jeb, how you doing today, sir?
Jeb Fuller (02:30)
Good. Thank you for the invitation. It’s great to be here.Quentin Edmonds (02:33)
Absolutely. It’s great to have you on and Mr. Jeb, I’ll be honest with you. I kind of want to dive right in. So I would love for you just to tell the people what your main focus is these days. Mr. Jeb, if you want to give them a little origin story about, you know, how you got into real estate or how you got to where you are now, we would love to know that. And then tell them what part of the world you’re in, what markets you operate in. I’m sure they’ll get a kick when you answer that. But Mr. Jeb, sir, the floor is yours.Jeb Fuller (03:01)
thank you. Thank you for everybody for watching this great podcast. I’ve watched some of them and you gain a lot of information in these podcasts. I’m a real estate educator, butmy first investment was when I was 18. I literally bought a house that was actually at one time a one room schoolhouse. And when I bought the house, the first mortgage payment I had was $165 and 81 cents. And I was literally at 18. Am I going to be able to
afford this, right? rented it out and that was my first rental and eventually I kept going and growing and growing and then I said well I grew up on a farm great worth ethic but my grandfather instilled you got to get an education you got to have that college degree I don’t want you staying on the farm now the farm probably is worth two million dollars nowadays but you know he wanted me out of there.
So I found a college, Pace University in Manhattan, offers a bachelor’s degree in real estate. So I sold some of my real estate, put myself through college, and I learned a lot in the Manhattan real estate market, let me tell you. But since then, there’s been many decades, and I don’t want to say how long, I just say 30 plus at this point. But I’ve been through every investment possibility there has been. I bought and sold notes. I’ve sold an
managed houses. I was the guy that started the first yellow letter and that was by an accident because I was getting my auctioneer’s license. I went to a wholesale auction and when I bid I didn’t realize I was buying 50 cases of paper and it was the yellow letter and I yellow paper so I use that for the yellow letters but things were lot different back then. Then I mailed out 250 letters and I got 10-12 deals out of that 250 letters.
In the last six months, I’ve mailed over 40 something thousand pieces of mail, but my target’s different now. I focus on commercial. I’m not trying to flip a house and make 10, 15, 20,000. I’m looking for something that can make me a million in five to seven years, because at this point, what I’m at is in rotation. I’ve done my 1031s scaled up, and now I look at a property that I’m going to keep for five to seven years. It’s going to be in my rotation.
and during that rotation gain a million dollars in equity. If at the end of the five or seven years it doesn’t and it’s still good cash flowing, then I just hold it because I have nothing to lose. All my properties are high equity properties. I don’t go anything above 60 % in equity. So at this time, it’s just slow roll, but very healthy in the margins.
Quentin Edmonds (06:36)
I love it. I love it. I think you are the first person I heard ever say you so real estate to get some of your properties to put you through college. that. I mean, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. I mean, that’s, that’s amazing in itself right there. Really.Jeb Fuller (06:55)
Well, I think you can be overeducated in real estate. You know I the bachelor’s degree that satisfied the family, you know, but then when I went out and wanted to make my mark in the world by not working for somebody, then they all said, you’re wasting your degree, right? And since then I went to NYU for some grad studies in real estate. Just two months ago, I took the Warren class for ayou know, real estate investment valuation, which primarily focuses on big institutional, you know, properties. But uh I’m always educating myself. I’m also a licensed educator, but there’s always something new to learn. But many of these people, you know, they come out with these gurus or these classes. And I’ll be honest with you, the two, I got here right on my desk. This book from William Nickerson,
copyrighted in 1957. And this one, this is showing my age, but these were now these were published before I was born. But in this one, how to profit by rehabilitating real estate also from 19. This is the BRRRR method. Okay, nobody invented the BRRRR method 10 years ago. They invented the Ackerman. But you know, it’s, you know, everything, there’s very little to learn.
As far as the investment part of real estate, the things you got to know is the tax law, how to take advantage of 1031s and how to have staying power. Now, leverage in real estate is your biggest friend and your biggest enemy because you don’t want to be over leveraged. You got to be able to hold out the down times. And during the downtime, the great mortgage crisis, 2008, I worked for one of the biggest banks in the country. was there.
their top REO asset manager. So what I did, they give me hundreds of foreclosed properties. And at the end of every month, this is how that system worked back then. Everybody’s going to say, boy, I wish I was in that market then. I mean, a lot of people lost a lot of property. I would get the call from Texas, you have to sell 30 properties in the next two days. And it would be 25, 30 cents on the dollar bang gone. Well
I wish I could have bought back then too, but yeah, I was carrying nearly 75 houses myself and people weren’t paying the rent. Yeah.
Quentin Edmonds (09:24)
Yeah, no, thank you, man. Listen, you have a You brought up the the book said listen the bar method wasn’t invented 10 years ago. It’s just the acronym, right? That’s that’s that’s the only thing that’s that’s new to put a kind of brand on it, right? So I want to ask you What are? Some of the strategies you use throughout the years with business and actual personal What are some of your personal strategies that you use as well? You know, I know some people might do meditation orSome people may do a lot of reading. So what are personal strategies that you’ve used off the years? What are business strategies that you’ve used it out throughout the years that helped you be successful?
Jeb Fuller (10:38)
Well, you know, I’m always, you know, the self help kind of guy, the books kind of those. Mandino was one of my favorite authors. I actually got to meet him once. And like these books that I showed you from the 1950s, those are classics. I mean, I have a library that’s over 1200 books on real estate, you know? So I used to read constantly. So that…But you got to keep the positive mindset because this business is going to knock you down. And in order to stay and be profitable, you got to be able to do the long-term. We all hear about the stories where I bought something last year and I made $200,000, but they hold it and then the market goes down and then they over leverage. you know, it’s like a stock. You buy it for 10, goes up to 20, you don’t sell. Now it’s at three. So you got to know the cycles. You got to be able to weather the cycles. And that’s
Some things, you know you have to have in the mindset, not only the technical aspects of investing in real estate, but the you’re going to have maybe a significant other that can’t weather the storm as you can or you might not and you bring it home and it’s too stressful. So you really got to keep the positive mindset. But a lot of the positive mindset will remain if you invest right to begin with, if you’re not taking these chances.
you
Quentin Edmonds (12:04)
Yeah, beautiful,beautiful. So let me ask you this throughout your years, have you learned some things that you forever the learner, right? Forever that, you know, educate yourself. Have you had to learn anything the hard way? Have you kind of found education because of some adversity? Is there any time you had adversity as you was growing?
Jeb Fuller (12:25)
Yes, definitely. That’s why I tell her, you know, I try to instill my kids, you don’t need a college degree like me. Experience is going to be the best teacher, right? You go out and you’re investing your first real estate deal. And you’ll learn more than the 1200 books I mentioned, right? You’ll learn more than the college degree I mentioned, because experience is the best teacher. So I’ve learned, you know,Like I said, at one time I said, I’m going to have 100 houses or it’s going to kill me. Well, I nearly had 100 houses at the same time and it nearly did kill me. And I would always, when times got tough, I’d go to the commercial real estate, either warehouse, retail center lot, and I’d flip that to subsidize my residential houses. I was doing it backwards and I did this for literally two decades. I should have been going, flipping to the commercial way earlier than I did. I got stuck.
in this, ⁓ it’s like now everybody says, ⁓ in these funds, I owe a thousand doors, own a thousand doors. When they didn’t invest enough to buy a thousand doorknobs, right? Well, I was getting stuck in the commercial. You got to make the jump to better quality properties and get your leverage down. Keep it healthy. You you want to have 40 % leverage in your properties and move forward that way.
take advantage of 1031s. If I had to tell my kids what to do, You know, buy a house as soon as you can. Everybody wishes they bought the houses when they were 3 % mortgage rates, three and a half. Well, you should buy one every year. Never sell, just rent, rent, rent. When you get to the 10th one, because you can get 10 mortgages, then you say, well, can I sell a group of these and move up to commercial? And that’s what I did. I moved up, stepped up.
And then you get one commercial, then you get two, then you get three, then you get four, then you get five. And the first one ends up being worth two million dollars. you’re aging the seventh one. By the time that seventh year comes, that one’s worth too many. So then you start rotating them out one by one to even higher properties.
Quentin Edmonds (14:41)
I love it. Great method. Great method. Let me ask you, what’s the next real goal for you? What’s next for you? What are you targeting next?Jeb Fuller (15:30)
Well, you know, I’m either in a plane or in the car so many times. I’m a certified general real estate appraiser commercial in Maryland, Tennessee, Virginia, D.C., North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Hawaii. As you see behind me, there’s a bunch of Hawaii stuff. So I’m trying to focus more time in Hawaii than I am in the rest of the states. But every day I’ll get a call, you know, from somebody investing a fund or a group or a bank.to look at a commercial property. So I’m always on the road or on a plane looking at commercial property because real due diligence is not armchair underwriting. It’s for these commercial properties. It’s going out and seeing them. I can look at a hundred properties. I could take a hundred Wendy’s restaurants in the country and it will show me all the cap rates. And out of that hundred, there’s probably three you should invest in, 40 are dogs and the rest are just, okay.
You know, nothing’s it’s just gonna be a steady net net net. So You know, I would like to focus more obviously I want to spend more time in Hawaii But when you look at cap rates in Hawaii for a old 1960s 1970s 10 unit they’re built like Cinder block construction. So the interior wall on the exterior wall the wash and dryers on the porch The AC is a window unit the cap rates the cap rates 4 %
because there’s so much money there. So you really can’t invest in Hawaii. But I have no investments. I have them up and down the Eastern seaboard from DC to Atlanta. My properties are usually along 95, 85 or 75 within a mile of an exit. So, you you go where you can make the money. You go where the demographics are growing. You go where the traffic’s increasing and then you let time do the magic.
You know, everybody says, by right. Yeah, by right by right in the right location by right where the per capita income is going up by right where the traffic counts going up. That’s how you buy right this
Quentin Edmonds (17:38)
He’s give listen you you’re giving the people a lot of free nuggets man, and I hear you dropping the nuggets in there Listen, do you have a favorite place to invest? I know you’re focusing on worry, but do you have a favorite place that you like to invest?Jeb Fuller (17:53)
Well, I like to invest, you know, I won’t invest in DC. know you’re getting in and out, you know, they have a thing called Topo in DC and the tenant has the first option to buy the property after you put the contract on it. So, I mean like Tennessee. I love Tennessee, North Carolina. I love Georgia. love. so those are probably myQuentin Edmonds (18:00)
Understood. Understood, sir.Jeb Fuller (18:22)
But you know right now I have two offers going out and one of them is in South Carolina and one of them is in Virginia. Fairfax County, Virginia, around the DC area, you know Prince William County, Loudoun County, all great because the demographics are so strong. They’re building all those data centers there. Raleigh-Durham for years, everybody from the…North wants to move down to the South, but not all the way to the South. Raleigh Durham’s great you know. Tennessee is great. There’s so much opportunity in that pocket, but everybody you hear at every podcast, especially the multifamily buyers, I’m buying in the Southeast, I’m buying in the Sunbelt. So there’s a lot of competition there, but there’s still a lot of deals there because population growth and the per capita income is increasing.
Quentin Edmonds (19:18)
Absolutely. Listen, I want to, last thing I want to do, I’m going to pick your brain a little bit about relationships. You know, been in it 30 plus, forever the learner. I know people always trying to pick your brain, but I do want to know how do you evaluate relationships? Like, has relationships been important to you along your journey? Has they impacted you in a positive way? Like, how do you evaluate and look at relationships within what you do?Jeb Fuller (19:44)
You mean personal relationships or business relationships?Quentin Edmonds (19:47)
Many more business relationships,but you can answer it both ways, business and personal, if you want to.
Jeb Fuller (19:52)
Yeah. Okay. I’ll do both. Personal. Make sure you have a significant other that’s supportive. If you don’t, you’re never going to make it. It’s going to either destroy the marriage or you’re going to try to make that marriage happy. And it’s not going to work because you’re not going to be happy because you’re going to have unfulfilled dreams. You’re going to have something that a goal you knew you could have made them made and it got held back. Business relationships.Honesty is the best policy. always tell everybody, your name is the most important thing you’ve got and how you treat people, you know, it doesn’t matter. I mean, my grandfather was the worst landlord. You know, every sad story, boom, boom. Oh, don’t pay the rent this month. They’ll pay the rent this month. You know, you got to have. You really got to be heartfelt with working with tenants, but you cannot let them take advantage of you. You got to.
draw the line with financial investors. There’s some that will just, you know, I stay away from trying to get partners. Everybody asks me, can you invest my money and do that? I try to stay away from that. There’s a few I’ve done, but they’ll, I’ll call them up and they’ll say, I’ve got this million dollars. Can you find me a property? I’ll say yes. And other ones I want to invest in, but they call you three times a week and want you to get them a real estate lesson. And I can’t deal with that. So you gotta,
know the boundaries of the relationship, financial and business. And there’s a book called boundaries, think, and that probably applies to both personal relationships and business relationships. You got to have boundaries and you got to know what you’re comfortable with. I started like being the recluse because, you know, everybody tries to call me. I mean, I get banks calling me every day. Can you do this? Can you do that? You know, I’m selective in what I do now. 15 years ago, you know,
I never wanted to say no to business. Now I say no to two thirds of the business because not that, you know, I’m older, but you know, I’m overbooked as it is. So I can be selective. I’m only going to take the business relationships, the banks, the servicers, the investors that understand they’re calling me for a reason. They know my experience, they know my knowledge, and they also know I don’t
spoon feed them, I’m not going to hold their hand. I’m telling them the bottom line and it’s the truth.
Quentin Edmonds (22:26)
Well,I love it, Mr. Jeb. think you talk about boundaries. I think that’s a great message. I don’t hear a lot of people talk about it enough in personal life and in business life. But sometimes in business, you got to have boundaries, especially when you talk about having that supportive significant other. Sometimes, you you got to have, you too got to determine the boundary. Like, hey, this is acceptable. This is not. This is what we agree upon and this is not. And so I love for you to preach that message and hear that message and put that message.
out into the world because I think it’s so important.
Jeb Fuller (22:57)
Communication is king. Besides cash.Quentin Edmonds (23:01)
Ilove it. I love it. Yeah, I have somebody that say if cash is king context is queen, right? Like the context communication Surrounding yourself that that gotta be queen. I gotta be number two or you became either way You got to have that communication is so important. So yeah, absolutely Absolutely. So Mr. Jeb This has been wonderful If someone wanted to reach out to you connect with you learn more about what you’re doing Can they get in contact with you if they can how would they get in contact with?
Jeb Fuller (23:30)
Jeb Fuller on LinkedIn. ⁓Quentin Edmonds (23:33)
⁓ Jeb Fulleris, don’t get no cleaner than that. Jeb Fuller on LinkedIn. ⁓
Jeb Fuller (23:38)
websites but you know they’ll they’ll eventually find me everybody finds me I try to hide but they find me.Quentin Edmonds (23:44)
Absolutely.Well, listen, with that being said, I appreciate your time today. I really appreciate you taking some time out. I appreciate your story. I appreciate your perspective. This has been really, really a blessing. So thank you so much for being on.
Jeb Fuller (23:57)
Thank you. was great to have you on. Thank you very much.Quentin Edmonds (24:00)
Solisten y’all got the value from Mr. Jeb. You can’t tell me you didn’t so please make sure you are subscribed You do not want to miss out on our amazing content and amazing people How would you know if you beat the guy that invented that yellow letter, right and get the story behind how it happened You ain’t gonna get that nowhere else but here’s but so definitely make sure you subscribe Mr. Jeb I thank you so much and to everyone else. We will see you on the next time
