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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Finith Jernigan, who shares his journey from a chemistry background to becoming a real estate investor. Finith discusses the importance of technology in real estate, his strategies for success, and the lessons learned from challenges faced in the industry. He emphasizes the significance of building strong relationships and operational improvements for long-term success in real estate investment.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Finith Jernigan (00:00)
If you just buy, you know, it’ll all work out. Well, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. So, and I think you can, and I think you can, you can do a lot better if you do a little bit of, ⁓ you know, make sure you do your homework and not only do your homework, but do it with the thing of, Hey, I’m going to own this for 10 years, you know, or longer, you know, ⁓Quentin (00:01)
Yeah. That part. Yeah.Finith Jernigan (00:23)
know, make sure everything makes sure all the, all the, all the hatches are buttoned down and make sure that all the T’s are crossed. The eyes are dotted and, cause it’s so easy to get in. If you have the down payment and people want to get you in realtors, want to get you in, everybody wants to get you in and then you’re in and you guys start have issues and you’re like, I want to get out and they’re like, Oh, we can’t helpQuentin (00:38)
Yeah.Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And you know what I’m going say? I’m excited, excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest that’s going to give you some knowledge. He’s going to peek through things from his lens. I’ll tell you a little bit about him. This guy, know, when it comes to real estate, he brings tech to everything that he does. And we know tech is up on the rise.
I think we argue if you’re not using technology, right? Technology is expanding. And so I’m excited, you know, once he got bit by the realistic bug, was like a sugar rush to him. And so I’m excited for him just to take us through his journey of where he is, what he does, and for us to peek through his lens. And so I want to introduce you guys to Mr. Finith Jernigan. Forgive me, sir. How you doing today, Mr. Jernigan?
Finith Jernigan (03:05)
No worries. Doing great. Thanks so much for having me here. I really appreciate the invite and I love talking about real estate stuff. So, yep.Quentin (03:11)
Perfect, man, perfect. Now listen, this guy, he’s professional and pro, but he gonna let me shine today. Like this is what he does, but we gonna do this thing together. You know what I mean? But no, I’m just, yeah, I’m just playing around, man. listen, man, thank you for being here. Listen, I want you to take us into your world. I want you to tell us what your main focus is these days. If you wanna give us a little bit of a origin story about how you got into real estate, we love origin stories.Finith Jernigan (03:21)
Absolutely.Yeah.
Quentin (03:38)
And then also tell them what markets you operate in, like where you are. So Mr. Finith, listen, sir, the floor is yours,Finith Jernigan (03:38)
Yep.Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Yeah. So my background is in chemistry. So I have a PhD in chemistry. So I’m a scientist by training and, uh, uh, started a company up in Boston and, uh, that sold and, uh, during COVID I, know, like everybody else went down to Florida and then you saw the value spiking and I was like, well, you know, I’ll just start off with one start small and, uh, ended up buying and selling a condo down there and,
you know, got lucky like, you know, it’s easy when all the property values are going up to make money, you know, but, ⁓ you know, so, but it’s just kind of like sparked. I’d always wanted to do it since I was a kid, during real estate, I had friends that owned, you know, big commercial buildings or, know, ⁓ fathers of my friends that owned and, know, they just had this like really nice asset sitting out there that, know, they could, once it was paid off years later, they could retire on. So
Quentin (04:17)
Yeah, absolutely.Finith Jernigan (04:38)
You know, I was, I was thought real estate is like a passive, you know, passive thing that, Hey, you know, even if you’re doing something else, you can get involved in and, if you do it for long enough, you’re to get to be really, really good. So, you know, that’s kind of the, kind of the approach I’ve, I’ve taken. So, you know, I went down there during COVID, found one property. ⁓bought and then a couple of years later sold
And then, uh, you know, my, company that I had founded sold and, which was nice on a lot of levels. And, um, you know, it
kind of doing real estate part-time, you know, and still, still doing it. Uh, you know, it was doing a part-time for a number of years, but more down in Florida. Um, that’s the soon pretty well. Um, but, uh, realized like, if I really wanted to get into it, I needed to, um,
you know, really needed to expand out and really get some education rather than just, ⁓
You know, trying to learn it trial by error on my own. So I started reading lots of, lots of books, you know, started getting
Quentin (06:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Finith Jernigan (06:28)
like, how do you calculate all of the different parameters that you need to know? How do you calculate runs? How do you, you know, is there a way to auto calculate that with scraping data from Zillow and Redfin? And you’re probably not supposed to do that, but, there’s certainly ways to, to, get a good idea of what, what a property should, should sell for. And I started working.On those types of things as well. And I took this really good course. I want to shout out to this guy, Flip System was super good. That was very, very helpful by Antoine Martel. That was a super helpful course to go through. You he really laid it out really nicely on, you know, what’s something supposed to sell for, what do you think you can sell it for, you know, how much can you do back envelope calculations for renovations and.
Quentin (06:56)
Mm-hmm.Finith Jernigan (07:16)
And things like that. you know, initially thought I was going to be like, ⁓ do, do house flipping and you know, that it was a lot of work. You know, it was a lot of, and it looked to me to be a lot of risk as well. So if you don’t have a good exit, you don’t have a good exit plan, you have to sell, you know, I’ve been in that situation before, which is not the best to be in. And, ⁓ you know, and then I started, ⁓ kind of getting into more of, know, can I find, ⁓Quentin (07:25)
Yeah, yeah.Finith Jernigan (07:43)
things that you can improve and then really pump that ARV up pretty tremendously. Buy some Renault, some cheap and expensive, well not cheap, but just inexpensive, just like quickly done I would say, renovations, things that are not complete, down to the studs Renault, but just like can you replace the bathrooms, kitchen maybe, and then put coat of paint on and it’s…Quentin (07:56)
Yup, yup, yup.Finith Jernigan (08:09)
you know, substantially more valuable type of situations. you know, they’re hard to find, of course, but you know, once you find them, then I started moving into, into that. don’t know if this is long lines, what you want to talk about, but you know, it was, it was more, more just a more, kind of got away from a buy and hold to buy, improve, and then hold a type of situation. So that’s kind of where I am now. And, that’s really what I’m most interested in, in, focusing on.Quentin (08:20)
no, yeah, you’re good.Finith Jernigan (08:35)
those type of, those type of situations, especially where you can pull all the money out. That’s, that’s a super interesting to me. And I’m also, I’m beginning to look at much larger, you know, deals as well, like some 25, 35, a ⁓ unit trying to get into that rather than just looking at, you know, smaller multifamily or individual ⁓ units as well. So, but it’s, you know, to me, it’s a process. I like, I made a ton of mistakes and I learned and I’m going to continue to learn and.Quentin (08:42)
Absolutely.Yeah.
Finith Jernigan (09:05)
You know, one thing I found about real estate is nothing is a short process. You know, you’re not trying to buy and hold for a year. You’re trying to buy and hold for 30 or whatever. So, ⁓ at least I am. ⁓ and a lot of the successful people I know, they don’t, they don’t like trade. It’s not like a trading thing. It’s more of a.you know, buying and holding for long periods of time, claiming all of the tax deductions that you got, you know, that’s another thing. You know, I a property that was losing and I was like, you know, pulling my hair out and, you know, it wasn’t losing a ton. So it was still like losing consistently where, know, the lease is locked in.
And then you’re, you know, ⁓ just makes me a little uncomfortable. And, but then I talked to my accountant at the end of the year and he was like, no, we wrote all that off. And, the losses were substantially smaller than I thought, which made me suddenly comfortable with it. So, you know, it’s things like that that are easy to, it were easy for me to,
Quentin (09:44)
Yeah.Yeah.
Finith Jernigan (10:34)
they’re easy to like be told, but going through it makes it.a lot, it, you it makes it a lot different. You start to get, at least I’m, feel like there’s kind of a feel I’m starting to get now. So, yeah.
Quentin (10:46)
Absolutely. No, man, I love it, man. Thank you for taking them down, the journey, the origin, thank you for walking us to where you are, what your main focus are these days. And man, I just want to ask, what are some of the key strategies that you have identified that’s really kind of helping you within business and within real estate?Finith Jernigan (11:05)
Yeah. So within, I think like maybe start like higher level and then, like overall it’s, noticed in myself, I just, the, I just like, ⁓ if it’s a character flaw or whatever, like I like to jump in with both feet too quickly in some things. And especially in real estate, like, if you’re like trying to like tradeQuentin (11:20)
Yeah, I got you.Finith Jernigan (11:25)
something, like a trade crypto, if you jump in too quickly, you can jump out, you know, in real estate, you can get a lot bigger trouble by jumping in too quickly because you can’t get out.Quentin (11:34)
Yeah,Finith Jernigan (11:35)
So I’ve,Quentin (11:35)
absolutely.Finith Jernigan (11:36)
uh, you know, noticed that on a business on a higher level business, I have businesses outside of real estate that, know, I’ve kind of like, uh, but you know, jumping in and those businesses and getting out are not so critical. You know, that’s one thing I’ve, I’ve noticed with, with real estate is that once you’re in, you’re in, so you need to make it very, uh, you know, build the case, build the investment case for why you want to purchase this, uh, you know, in a lot more depth than.I had been doing in other areas. so, you know, that, that’s one thing I learned, ⁓ you know, and then really more closely related to real estate was the, ⁓ you know, looking at the trends, looking at the long-term trend and, ⁓ you know, realizing that it’s a longer investment cycle, I think, and because it’s a long investment cycle, like a down trend could last a lot longer than.
you know, something in say equities or some other type of business that the, you know, an aviator and the uptrend can last longer too. So you should really be thinking, you know, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the kind of day to day of life that you forget the longer, or at least for me, you know, for me, I forget the longer term, like, Hey, maybe now is not the right time to get in. Maybe now is the, or maybe, you know, maybe it’s the time to get in, uh, you know, even more so, you know, so.
Quentin (12:34)
Yeah. Yeah.Yeah.
Finith Jernigan (12:59)
Um, you know, it’s really been considering those and those are more like psychological like things, I think they’re more like psychological, how you think about it rather than, um, you know, day to day and tech has been a huge thing too. I’m not sure you could do your competitive unless you’re, you know, really looking and have, yeah, yeah, very, uh, you know, uh, able to, but, know, with the, with the coding and, and Geni stuff, you can very quickly put together a quick script that’llQuentin (13:03)
Yeah.That part.
Finith Jernigan (13:27)
You know, pull whatever, every data that, that, that you want. So, you know, I initially just said, you know, I had this like,If you just buy, you know, it’ll all work out. Well, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. So, and I think you can, and I think you can, you can do a lot better if you do a little bit of, ⁓ you know, make sure you do your homework and not only do your homework, but do it with the thing of, Hey, I’m going to own this for 10 years, you know, or longer, you know, ⁓
Quentin (13:36)
Yeah. That part. Yeah.Finith Jernigan (13:58)
know, make sure everything makes sure all the, all the, all the hatches are buttoned down and make sure that all the T’s are crossed. The eyes are dotted and, cause it’s so easy to get in. If you have the down payment and people want to get you in realtors, want to get you in, everybody wants to get you in and then you’re in and you guys start have issues and you’re like, I want to get out and they’re like, Oh, we can’t helpQuentin (14:13)
Yeah.Finith Jernigan (14:17)
You know, so after that, not that I’ve had it like that, but that’s just kind of how it.Quentin (14:17)
Yeah, right, right, right. Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.Finith Jernigan (14:25)
I’m certainly not a 30 year professional at this, you know, I’ve, feel like I’ve made a lot of mistakes here in the last, but I’ve had a lot of successes too. So it’s like, you know, it’s always a learning process. I feel, um, so at least in my experience, that’s how it’s been. Yeah.Quentin (14:27)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah. Yeah.
Absolutely. Well, listen, man, I’m going to ask you something. I ask everybody
that comes on because you just hinted to it. You had a lot of wins and you’ve had some losses. And I ask everybody this question because there is a journey to success. Right. And I like to tell people and show people the journey because, you know, entrepreneurial shift, real estate, making deals,
losing out on deals is not always easy. And so there are moments when things get real deals go sideways.
moments when you have to pivot fast. And so is there like one story that maybe you can think of that maybe you can share with our viewers? Because different people are at different journeys, right? And some people may really be stuck in a bad situation. And I just kind of want to give them a little encouragement. You know what I mean?
Finith Jernigan (16:04)
Yeah, no, absolutely. So I this house that my wife and I had, ⁓ essentially we’re flipping in, ⁓ New Jersey and, ⁓ you know, it was our like third one and, ⁓ the market slowed down and we’re sitting there like, my gosh, you know, this was not like a rental either. This was just like one that everything happens to work, you know, and the prices are appreciating it all. You tend to just make out when you’re trying to do that. And, this one, was, think we, ⁓was last spring, we ended up closing, but it was like in the middle of the winter that we had listed it, like February or something like this. ⁓ you know, it really, ⁓ we had multiple issues, the construction just costs more than we thought. So we had a contingency budget, but when the contingency budgets, you know, that puts you in more of a danger zone. you know, it was really like ⁓ being able to just calm down and realize like, we know it’s going to be okay. You know, we got out at basically break even, which is.
you know, frustrating on a lot of levels because you don’t make anything. So you’re putting all this work into it and you’re not making anything. And you know that, but that, but that’s fine. It didn’t go too far south, but you know, in the middle of it, I was really stressed out, you know, and ⁓
Quentin (17:07)
video.Finith Jernigan (17:19)
You know, at that point, I, you know, you think about like, what can you do to fix it? But in real estate, there’s not a lot you can do. You know, you’re in it. You did the construction, you made all the right decisions. And that’s what I kind of feel like, you know, I had made all the right decisions. So, you know, in the end, the outcome is somewhat not up to me. ⁓ so I got to accept that and, ⁓ really just be like, Hey, what can I learn? And I learned a heck of a lot from that. I learned like.Quentin (17:28)
Yeah.Finith Jernigan (17:47)
Hey, maybe don’t do flips that can’t be, uh, rented out easily and not too big of a loss. You know, so I started, uh, you know, I changed my whole strategy based on that, but I don’t think you, you you definitely don’t learn that when the price is just going up. Yeah. It’s, just seems like everything’s magic. It’s to work out and it’s easy to do when the prices are going up, but when the price start going down, you start getting in a, in a little bit of a trouble and,Quentin (17:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Finith Jernigan (18:13)
You know, I really, I really, ⁓ just kind of, it was like, you know, have to have to just push, continue to push through this. And, ⁓ you know, that’s, that’s easy to say, but it’s, it’s hard to do. would just say too. So I just realized I don’t think that many people do it, you know, as well. So by being, you’re in the arena, you know, you’re working and you’re actually doing this, you’re learning, you’re. You know, realizing that’s progress. That’s not just cause you didn’t make a ton of money yet, or just cause you lost out on one deal does not mean like long-term that.Quentin (18:24)
Absolutely. Absolutely.There you go.
Yes, sir?
Finith Jernigan (18:43)
Real estate is an awesome investment.Quentin (18:45)
Absolutely.Listen, let me ask you this, man. What are you most focused on solving next? Like, what’s the next real goal for you?
Finith Jernigan (18:53)
Yeah. Yeah. So I’m trying to do a lot of operational, you know, ⁓ trying to improve a lot of operational, issues, kind of like, you know, get the accounting done. So I found a really good, ⁓ bookkeeper now that kind of have like the, kind of scaling. it’s like, if you bring a new property on, I want all the books to be super clean. ⁓ you know, I’ve, I’ve been working on that pretty hard and, ⁓Quentin (19:09)
Yeah.Yes, sir.
Finith Jernigan (19:16)
that’s not something that, you know, I did initially before I was just like, I was going to try just whatever, whatever credit card in my personal one, but that’s probably not the way to go. And you miss, you miss expenses and suddenly you’re, you’re not going to be able to deduct them. You know, that’s not a recipe for long-term success. So, you know, a lot of it was, ⁓ I have a pause here. You know, I had a couple of markets that, know, the, lenders that I was using didn’t really want to lend on or they weren’t as enthusiastic, which.Quentin (19:20)
Yeah, got you.Yeah.
Yeah.
Finith Jernigan (19:44)
is fine, you know, and then I said, Hey, I’m going to use this time now to really improve everything. So when it does take off, I’m going to be able to move like it lightning speed. ⁓ that’s kind of the, mode I’m in right now. And, cause you know, like, look at the long history of real estate. Like it’s just cause there’s a little bit of a slowdown does not mean it’s not going to, can’t pick up and it can’t pick up faster than you can imagine. So, ⁓ you know, that’s my like main focus for right now, I would say.Quentin (19:52)
Yes, sir.that part.
Third part. Now, man, you got to put those strategies and those systems in place. Like you said, that’s the foundation. And as you build on the foundation, you want to make sure that foundation is solid so that we can keep building on and keep building. And then, you know, when success comes, the systems are already in place. And so I love it, man. ⁓ I do want to get your ⁓ your perspective when it comes to relationships. let me know how you feel about building relationships, growing your network.
Finith Jernigan (20:20)
Yep.Quentin (20:39)
Like what’s made the biggest difference for you when it comes to relationships?Finith Jernigan (20:44)
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that’s the, a relationship with a realtor has been super important to me. Like it’s like, wouldn’t, I probably wouldn’t buy, know some people will go and buy things without it, but you know, I have great realtors that I really, really like working with. And I’ve had others that I haven’t liked working with and I’ve had to cut, you know, ⁓ cut it out. So it’s like, ⁓ you know, really cycling through people until you find somebody you really like to enjoy working with has been super, super critical. And especially if you’re not in this state, you know, that’s, that’sanother thing you really have to trust the people and you know and I generally trust but verify you don’t see it’s actually happened just no matter what he no matter who it is I’ll make sure I verify some of this stuff just because you know it’s so easy to got like there’s so many transactions that are happening in the bank statements that I’m not saying anything’s off but if you’re not watching that like a hawk you don’t know how profitable you are you know you don’t really know where you stand and something could very easily get away from you I found
Quentin (21:21)
Loved it. Yeah.Finith Jernigan (21:42)
like expenses can get out of control. And usually like if you’re paying attention, like a hawk expenses get out of control. ⁓ and you can see it start to happen and you can adjust to it really quickly.And having a, having a realtor and a property manager there that can, really stay on top of that for you and, has been critical, but they’re not going to do that if they don’t like you. And if you don’t have a great relationship with them, if you give them a hard time for like pointless bullshit, they’re not, I’m sorry. you give it for pointless stuff, then, ⁓ you know, yeah, yeah, they don’t like, like that, but there’s an actual issue and you deal with the issues head on or save a difficult tenant and they’re difficult and.
Quentin (22:03)
Depart. Depart.Yeah. no, no, you’re fine. Yeah.
Yeah.
Finith Jernigan (22:19)
you know, you know about it. If you can make sure you’re, you stay on their side and realize they’re trying to do their best and you know, difficult time. can be a pain for so many reasons. ⁓ but you know, at the end of the day, they’re trying to, they’re trying to help you. So if you can do as much as you can to empower them to, ⁓ make their life easier, like I, I’ve just done small stuff just to, like they asked me to do something that really should be their job.Quentin (22:30)
So many reasons.Finith Jernigan (22:44)
You know, it’s like, you can’t do that a ton of times, but you definitely want to do it like a few times just to, just to help them and make sure that they, ⁓ you know, are watching out for you. So, ⁓ you know, think I have relationships like that, that are very solid that, ⁓ at least I think so, you know, it’s, you know, and, I hope they would say the same thing. So.Quentin (23:04)
Yeah, yeah.Now I know that in my mind, man. I’m sure they would say the same, you know, just getting to know you. I know it’s only been a brief period of time, but you seem like a straightforward, solid guy. so, yeah, I’m sure they would say the same, But listen, I mean, I thank you so much for everything that you said, the knowledge that you’ve dropped, taking us on the journey of where you’ve been and where you are now. But listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you,
I don’t know, maybe you got a podcast, maybe somebody can come and listen to it there. How can people reach out to you, man? How can people stay in contact with you?
Finith Jernigan (23:36)
Yeah.Yeah, yeah, sure. So I have an email address and I have this company I created called Finith capital. And my email is just [email protected]. Um, feel free to reach out. have a podcast I’m launching as well. It’s prez, uh, venture. It’s a more like a tech science focus though. So it’s not really real estate. So, but, uh, you know, it’s definitely we talk about a lot of tech tech topics there. Um, that’ll be, that’ll be coming out here. I have a bunch of people I interviewed, which is, which is really cool. And,
But other than that, happy, definitely want to connect with more people in real estate, especially on the East Coast. I think there’s a lot there. Definitely looking for more markets and participate in other syndications and things as well. So yeah, feel free to reach out to anybody.
Quentin (24:25)
love it, Well, listen, Mr. Finith, thank you so much, man. Thank you for taking time out being here today. Thank you for your story, for your perspective. Just thank you for, just doing things the right way and bringing that knowledge and inspiration to the viewers here. And so thank you so much, man. I really appreciate you,Finith Jernigan (24:45)
Absolutely, no,no, thank you. Thanks for having me. Have a great day.
Quentin (24:49)
Absolutely. Well, listen, everyone, you got the value from Finith. You got the value from this conversation. Hit the subscribe button. That way you can continue to come back and we’ll alert you when we’re on and when people who are given this knowledge and value, you can just come in and grab it. So thank you, sir, once again for being here and to everyone else. We will see you on the next time.
