How a Contractor Became a Real Estate Investor

Kristen Knapp (01:31)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen Knapp and I’m here with Randy Eaton. He’s an investor and the owner of Handy Randy, general contracting business in Missouri. So excited to get into everything, investing, contracting, and just, you know, share some tips and tricks with everybody. So thank you for being here.

Randy Eaton (01:49)
Yeah, no problem. Appreciate you having us.

Kristen Knapp (01:51)
Awesome, so kind of just start out, how about you just give a general background on yourself and how you got to where you are today.

Randy Eaton (01:59)
⁓ So as far as Hattie Randies, we started back in 2011. ⁓ Kind of just was sick and tired of working dead-end jobs, you know, just not really being able to provide for the family. ⁓ So at one point I just, you know, looked at the wife and said, you know, let’s take the last few thousand dollars we have and invest it into some tools. ⁓ I’ve always had a little bit of background.

you know with my grandpa or what not just what we would call tinkering around in the garage, know building stuff in the backyard or what not. So I just kind of took that little bit of a passion and just started this was back in the days kind of before Facebook a little bit. Not quite, but you know we would use Craigslist a lot to post ads and find a lot of business that way. ⁓ And so we just kind of started a little mama, papa, little handyman company. ⁓

And so we did that for probably close to eight, nine years before I finally realized that I didn’t have a company. actually had a job. ⁓ so I had created a job for myself and in order to change that, I had to change certain things about what I was doing to actually get it to be a company and to run. So then that led to obviously a few years of ⁓ trial and error with different stuff.

learning about business, because this is all coming from not having any education with any of it. So ⁓ where we are today is we do everything from commercial to residential. ⁓ We are a ⁓ small mom and pop handyman company that kind of services everything from the roof to the floor inside and out. Over the years, we have

grown into the mobile home space. We do a lot with mobile homes in the sense of rehabs, repairs. ⁓ Like I mentioned to you earlier, we ⁓ even go as far as moving setting, ⁓ demoing, I mean, just all aspects of it. And then this year we have grown and wanted to expand more into outdoor living. So we are getting more into the deck space.

uh… we’re doing a lot more taxon pergola’s uh… kazebo’s stings like that uh… so we uh… we kinda or can all over the place but we are kinda honing into like what i just said those those last couple things the outdoor load living and things like that uh… at the same time in the background i like to do investing into real estate that’s essentially my retirement plan uh… so with that we uh…

we look for distress properties uh… we look for you know any any and every opportunity with real estate i joke until my kids are time there’s a million ways to make a million dollars in real estate so uh… you know what we started to do because in the beginning we didn’t really have much to work with in terms of uh… credit money so we did a lot of creative financing with folks on we uh…

during the code days that gave me the opportunity to kind of down in and deep dive into how these things work.

As far as you know the creative finance aside of things subject to use and seller financing just how this worked and inside and out and stuff so we we found a couple properties that fit that criteria and we executed those some rehab them with our our handy brandy’s crew and then.

turned those into our first couple rentals. So that’s kind of what got our foot in the door. ⁓ We since then, it’s gotten into, you know, just everything, you know, we, I wanted to learn about tax property. So we took one year and we learned a little bit about that went down and we bought us one. ⁓ We still currently have it, I don’t know what we’re gonna do with it, but it’s there for the future for what we decide to do. ⁓

So that’s kind of where we’re at today. then we’re as far as the future goes, we are looking at doing some future opportunities in the the region and state here. ⁓ There’s certain ⁓ developments going on ⁓ and we are looking to ⁓ fill a housing crisis with that. are looking to go in and build, ⁓ you know, regular single family homes. I’m looking

to talk with a couple people about maybe doing some small communities, where we could buy a couple 20 acres and put a few homes on that, ⁓ to where, like I told you before, we’re extremely deep into mobile homes. So we’ve talked about maybe even creating a mobile home community as well. So those are the things that we have in the future that we’re looking to do over the next year or so. So that’s kind of the path we’re heading.

Kristen Knapp (08:01)
That’s awesome. mean, there’s so many things I’d like to touch on from what you just said. The first being you’re essentially self-taught in all of this contracting, correct? That’s incredible.

Randy Eaton (08:10)
Yes, I will say

I will say I did go at one when I was 16 years old, I did go to Chop Corps. I went there for about a year and a half and got certified in the trade of HBI, which is Home Builders Institute. So essentially maintenance. Little did I know then that I would be owning a handyman company 10 years later. ⁓ So ⁓ I did have a little bit of training with that. But again, they they taught a lot of ⁓ basic skills and

Coming from the background that I had with my grandpa and whatnot, it was already kind of self-taught.

Kristen Knapp (08:46)
That’s incredible. mean, there’s so much and there’s so many different facets of your industry. I can imagine when you first got into it, it was maybe intimidating undertaking.

Randy Eaton (08:57)
definitely ⁓ you know when you and even still to this day there’s stuff that you know i i can counter we were just going to a permitting process you know and i i i pulled in dealt with hundreds of permits but there’s just you there’s always one little thing or this and that that you know that you just didn’t know about or i joke and say last year we had a ⁓ a a department of the county that we never even

New existed and they popped out of woodworks on us and you we had to deal with a couple of issues that you know, but it it’s just ⁓ there’s always a learning curve and the best ⁓ the best thing to it for me is you know, well, let’s go back to what you know, like I said with my grandpa, what he always taught me was you know, try to learn something new every day. If you learn something every day, that’s 365 things a year that you learned that you did not know. So that’s kind of one thing that just drives me just I love.

If it’s something I don’t know, I gotta know.

Kristen Knapp (09:54)
Yeah, and something that really stood out that you said is you were starting up this business and you realize you created a job for yourself but not a business. And I think that’s such a powerful observation because I think a lot of people confuse the two. And how did you take it from just a job for yourself to an actual company?

Randy Eaton (10:11)
Right.

right well and that’s hard that’s hard and self to recognize that it’s hard and self like what i told you and that’s it’s you’re the s we know what some of my weaknesses are uh… it was implementing people in the right positions uh… first knowing that that is what you need and then seeking and finding the right person for those positions and uh… that is still something we struggle with today but uh… what i do know is that you just keep your you’re i a year out you look for talent that is out there and

You hope that they come aboard and join and have the same vision that you do.

Kristen Knapp (11:26)
Totally hiring people is tough.

Randy Eaton (11:28)
Yes, definitely. Finding good help is hard, especially in this industry. ⁓ Everybody can swing a hammer. Everybody can use a drill. But putting competence and ⁓ skill and just, it’s a bit more. But yes, good help is hard to find in this industry.

Kristen Knapp (11:50)
Yeah, and then

as you’re making the transition, well not necessarily transition, because I know you’re doing both still, but when you started adding investing into the business, that seems like such a seamless transition because you were already doing so much work with investors. Can you just talk a little bit more about that and how it just made sense as your next step?

Randy Eaton (12:11)
So like I said, I mean, it got to a point to where once I realized this was just a job and I needed to create a business, know, retirement came up, you know, came into the picture. You know, was like, so what am going to do for this? you know, in other words, do I want to be doing this when I’m 50, 55, 60 years old? Do I still want to be out here ⁓ in the field, you know, running crews and doing things like that? And ⁓

for me the answer was no high i did not so i needed to advice plan to get me out of the field and what i kept seeing it was all these investors and different property managers and all these all these people kept coming to guys like us and we’re looking you know it was almost like we had to see for sauce of what they were looking for and i quickly realized that that was for me

I get labor at cost. get the material I call. get everything at cost. So because I can take my handyman company and the knowledge and apply that to our own real estate investments, I have the upper hand more so than a lot of investors do. Because for an investment company come in and do what we do, now they got to become a general contractor. Now they got to employ employees. Now they have to, I hate to say it like this, but babysit people.

⁓ So once I realized that that’s what we had, then it was just a matter of, okay, so how do I do what they do now? And I just started kind of watching, learning, asking questions from certain folks. ⁓ And then, like I said, come here, come along COVID. And it just kind of allowed me the time to sit back and say, okay, I’m going to deep dive into these different strategies of how I can get my foot in the door. And for me, was, I used creative financing.

We subject to and did a couple of seller financing homes, mobile homes. And that’s what we used to get into the real estate game and got our first couple of rentals. yeah, for me, it was almost like a no brainer once all the flags started kind of going up and I just had to really start paying attention. It’s what it really boiled down to.

Kristen Knapp (14:33)
Wow, yeah, that’s incredible. That’s another aspect where you kind of are self-taught and have to just figure it out. Seems to be.

Randy Eaton (14:41)
Yeah. Well, it

ain’t always good. mean, there’s a lot of times it’s just like, I’m wasting a lot of time if I could just fast forward. You know, the whole like seminars, you know, what’s great about a seminar is that, you know, you got a guy, this is of how it was described to me. You know, what is a seminar? What is the value from it? Is you get a guy that essentially cramps 30 years of experience into a matter of a few hours or a few days and you’re able to capture that. that was the frustrating part.

for me throughout this journey is how much time it takes and the lag in, okay, well, I guess I gotta go through this journey to get to this or to know about this or to learn this lesson or whatever. but yes, I mean, it’s great in some aspects, but in others it can be, you know, just a daunting.

Kristen Knapp (16:11)
Totally, I mean especially since you were so skilled in your handyman construction company and then you’re taking on something new, it is kind of daunting to have to start from essentially zero. Didn’t sound like you started from zero, but it is daunting.

Randy Eaton (16:25)
100%.

Right, 100%.

Kristen Knapp (16:29)
Yeah, and tell me more about the mobile home market and the opportunities there. I know you do a lot of work with those.

Randy Eaton (16:36)
So ⁓ for me, again, we just got into this probably five years, four or five years ago as far as the ⁓ investing side of it for us. And it just kind of blew my mind with the amount of rent that they were getting. It’s essentially the same. mean, a three-bedroom home is the same as a three-bedroom mobile home. So when I realized that and seeing, okay, well, you

just hypothetically we can get in and out of these homes for fifty thousand dollars and yet i can get you know twelve grand and rent per year out of it i mean it was just i couldn’t believe the numbers and and and

it’s almost like you’re letting the cat out of bag when you start to talk to people about it because you’re it’s it’s it’s almost like you can’t it can’t be the can’t be that good and when you get into this and you know what you’re doing as far as that i mean a lot of people look at mobile homes and they they think that they’re the worst in a home and from to me it’s that there’s differences but there there are no there’s differences but there’s no difference if that’s makes any sense like it’s a two by six and two by six you know i a

uh… a glass window and i the words of door now is a different sizes do that you know things like that yeah of course but with that you just change suppliers you just change where you get your your source of material uh… so you know for me there’s there’s a lot of opportunities there uh… and you know it’s so that’s again that’s kinda why we’re we’re looking in heading in that direction as well

Kristen Knapp (18:18)
I mean, that sounds incredible. It sounds like a great opportunity that a lot of people probably just look over, because maybe it’s not the sexiest thing in the world. But I mean, the numbers sound great.

Randy Eaton (18:28)
Right, right. mean, and there’s a lot of cases, like I said, the numbers can be better and then a single family or multifamily deals. ⁓ So but, you know, for us, it was just we we gave it a try and it’s so far we haven’t had, you know, ⁓ not going to have had any bad experiences or bad, you know, anything with it. So, ⁓ yeah, and I I.

I would highly recommend everybody kind of go and look into what you can do with your local markets and whatnot. But ⁓ that for us was the door opener and allowed us to get into other single families. And like I said, we’re looking at trying to do communities now. So that’s a big stepping stone for us.

Kristen Knapp (19:16)
Yeah, yeah, talk more about the communities.

Randy Eaton (19:21)
So with that, mean, like there’s bigger fish in the pond, if you will, that are investing millions upon millions of dollars in the area with, we’ll use a Lake of the Ozarks, for example, they’re getting ready to put in by the end of 2026. There’s a huge resort going in, resort and theme park, restaurants.

stores everything there you know at this point this half a billion dollars is what they’re investing in out there so and at this point the housing before this exists the housing market is super super short ⁓ they they just it’s it’s that there’s not enough supply to keep up with the demand so and and now you’re going to be adding thousand more you know thousands upon thousands more jobs and ⁓ influxing the tourism in this area as well

It’s just, it’s the housing is going to, it’s, more than a crisis at this point. So I feel like this, I mean, again, anything you do out there from building single family homes to small communities to, you know, what, like I said, what we’re looking at doing is, you know, getting, you know, 10 some tens of acres and turn them into small communities, whether it’s, you know, mobile home communities or, you know, hypothetically 20, 30 acres with,

thirty forty fifty homes on so ⁓ began that’s just kind of the direction we’re heading we’re looking at talking to people for looking you know to partner up with different investors to but on this journey with us

Kristen Knapp (21:01)
That’s incredible. That seems like such a great step. And in terms of the contracting business, as investors are doing their own properties, what’s something you wish investors knew, working with ⁓ a contractor? Because I’m sure you see everything. I’m sure you see the mistakes and the over budgets and all that. So what’s something that you would want to say about that?

Randy Eaton (21:05)
Morning.

in the sense of, what I would want the investors to know would be,

It boils down to if you’re trying to do things at cost and at budget, like I said, you got to start weighing out the option of do you want to open up and run your own company and oversee guys or do you want to have a company come in and do that for you? So with that, there’s a premium. And I know a lot of investors, they want to come in and they want to get this done as cheap as possible. the numbers.

working their bigger and all this stuff but at the same time they ⁓ i think they lose sight of the fact that you’ve got a guy here that is is ⁓ running the show you know overseeing everything and ⁓ i i’ve run into that a little bit over the years is where you get the client that wants to be a property manager ⁓ i’m sorry not property manager but a

a general contractor and GC the job, right? And I feel like if you hire a general contractor, that’s what you’re paying them for, is to schedule guys there to get the job done, to get X, Y, Z, what you agree upon done, and ⁓ to allow that to happen, and not sit there and try to, if you will, cut his legs out from underneath them. And essentially just to see our work.

to see what general contractors are actually worth. You’re paying us for a service, let us provide that service essentially.

Kristen Knapp (23:19)
Absolutely, I think that’s great. It’s great advice feedback all of that ⁓ So yeah, I mean this has been a very quick 20 minutes. It seems to have flown by but where can people learn more about? ⁓ your business

Randy Eaton (23:34)
They can find us, you know, all over. We’re Handy Randy’s LLC. You can find us, look us up on Facebook, Google. You know, we’re, like I said, we’re all over the place. So, I don’t, I shut up with my phone number on here? You can reach us at 314-917-2386. That’ll get you directly to me.

Kristen Knapp (23:54)
If you want, yeah, you’re more than welcome to.

Randy Eaton (24:04)
and we can talk about your next project.

Kristen Knapp (24:09)
Well everybody, please take advantage of that. It sounds like, you know, Randy has so much to offer. So thank you so much for being here today. This has been awesome and I know that people learned a lot.

Randy Eaton (24:19)
No problem. And I appreciate you having us.

Kristen Knapp (24:21)
Awesome. Okay, bye.