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Show Summary
In this conversation, Andrew Howard shares his journey from being an entrepreneur in the food truck industry to becoming a successful real estate investor and wholesaler in Dallas, Texas. He discusses the evolution of his business, the challenges faced in the wholesaling market, and the importance of adapting to changing market conditions. Andrew also delves into his experiences with fix and flip projects, the significance of marketing strategies, and his recent venture into new construction. Throughout the discussion, he emphasizes the value of relationships and referrals in building a successful real estate business.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Andrew Howard (00:00)
Man, so like I said, I did my first deal in 2020, February of 2020. I never forget, we made three grand on that deal. But they opened a door to show me like, man, this is possible. But from there, our first year, man, just to show how the progression went, our first year we did about 150 in sales, you know, with no knowledge of the business. Our second year we came out and did 400. And this is in 2021. In 2022, we did 800.Dylan Silver (02:01)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a real estate entrepreneur, investor, content creator out of Dallas, Texas, built multiple successful ventures in real estate, wholesaling, fix and flip, new construction. Please welcome Andrew Howard. Andrew, welcome to the show.Andrew Howard (02:21)
Appreciate it Dylan, happy to be here, man.Dylan Silver (02:23)
It’s great to have you on here. were talking before hopping on. I had just moved, or I shouldn’t say just, but in the last two months moved out of DFW abroad. You’re in Dallas. You were talking about Deep Elm before hopping on here. Have you always lived in Dallas?Andrew Howard (02:40)
I am born and raised in Dallas, yep. I went to school out in Houston for like two years, but other than that, I’ve been here, man.Dylan Silver (02:47)
I do want to talk about this briefly, because I love having guests on the show from Texas and from DFW specifically. When people think of Texas, if I had to bet on it, there’s four majors, right? San Antonio, Austin, Houston, DFW. They’re really thinking of the DFW Metro. Am I wrong in saying that? They’re really thinking of DFW.Andrew Howard (03:07)
Definitely thinking of DFW. Second would probably be Houston, but first is always DFW.Dylan Silver (03:14)
And this is why, I mean you’ve got.Football, you’ve got the Cowboys, right? But you’ve got Fort Worth, you’ve got the Stockhearts, Dallas major business hub. I had lived in San Antonio for about five years, maybe a little more, and no knock against San Antonio, but when I moved up to DFW, I was like, wow, this is a different beast, because it felt like everywhere I was hiring, San Antonio had this weird quasi-recession happening. now since, it feels like they’ve definitely come out of that, but Dallas in general feels to me like so,
much of the center of Texas. I do want to ask about real estate though and I typically ask this at the top of the show, how did you get into the real estate space? What was your entry point?
Andrew Howard (03:56)
Man, so it’s a weird story actually. So I owned an app. So I’ve always been an entrepreneur. And so in 2014, a group of friends of mine, the food truck scene was getting really big in Dallas. This one they were making Cloud One Park and all of those things were coming into play. And we saw it as an opportunity. We had read somewhere that, you know, the food truck industry was going to be a billion dollar industry by 2025. We’re like, how can we get into that? And so.We did, you know, we started catering, we raised enough money, ended up doing a crowdfund campaign, raising the rest of the money we need, cashed out on a food truck, ⁓ started this concept with absolutely no, with no background in cooking or any, no culinary background at all, just an idea. And we started that business, we ran that business for five years and we had a great time. It was really fun, me and three friends of mine, but having a business with friends,
We never established upfront what the roles and responsibilities were. There was absolutely no structure. We were just completely hustling.
And so I had my son during that time and it came to a point where we were just having fun, not really making money. And I’m like, you know, I can’t do this anymore. And so we dissolved that business to save the friendship, sold the food truck. And I told my girlfriend, who’s now my wife, I said, man, I’ve been doing this for five years. Like, this is my identity. I don’t know what’s next for me.
Dylan Silver (05:56)
Yeah.Andrew Howard (06:10)
And she goes, well, I just saw a guy on a breakfast club podcast talking about wholesale and real estate. And I think you could do that. ⁓ And I looked into that, got on YouTube and in three months I was ⁓ interviewing for a transaction coordinator position for some guys who were hiring here in Dallas with a wholesale company. Got the job with those guys, worked there for three months. But again, I’m an entrepreneur at heart. So I was still looking to source my own first deal.those guys ended up seeing me marketing a deal that I had in a Facebook group. They fired me on spot. ⁓ And I had been conversing with another guy in the Facebook group who was from Florida trying to figure it out, who’s now my business partner. And I told him, say, hey man, I just got fired today marketing this deal. So I’m all in. ⁓ He was like, well, let’s do it, man. And we’ve been business partners ever since.
Dylan Silver (07:04)
Do you remember who it was in the breakfast club who was the guest that was talking about real estate?Andrew Howard (07:09)
Man, it was a black guy. His name was Mark something. I cannot remember his last name, but he was wholesaling. Yep, he was talking about wholesaling.Dylan Silver (07:17)
but he was a wholesaler.So this is what year we talking about is a 2021 time frame. What year?
Andrew Howard (07:26)
No, this was 2019. I started my business in 2020. Right before the pandemic, we sold our first deal.Dylan Silver (07:31)
Okay.Okay, so 2019 timeframe, I got into wholesale in 2023. I’m trying to paint a picture here in my head also for our audience what’s going on. this is still interest rates are good interest rates, right? People are buying lots of deals, wholesale is blown up. You you’ve got the faces, people saying wholesale deals, cash for keys, creative finance, and you’ve got so many different avenues. At the same point in time, the market is so bullish.
Andrew Howard (07:45)
⁓ man.Yeah.
Dylan Silver (08:00)
that it’s not yet inundated with wholesalers. Walk me through what that year was like and the vibe in wholesale.Andrew Howard (08:09)
Man, so like I said, I did my first deal in 2020, February of 2020. I never forget, we made three grand on that deal. But they opened a door to show me like, man, this is possible. But from there, our first year, man, just to show how the progression went, our first year we did about 150 in sales, you know, with no knowledge of the business. Our second year we came out and did 400. And this is in 2021. In 2022, we did 800.So I mean, was just double, double, double. mean, was deals were selling like hotcakes, man. It was hard to not sell a deal. I mean, this is what we’re talking about. Bidding wars. I mean, the market was just scorching hot. We got spoiled, man. It was, it was crazy.
Dylan Silver (08:46)
Yeah.why wouldn’t what
it was? I want to ask you about coming out of those years 2023, 2022, 2023, market changes, interest rates go up harder to now do fix and flip. I felt it. I’ll tell you, I got out of wholesale. I was nowhere near on your level. I had done about 20 deals, which I was proud of. But I then decided, okay, I got to get into this ground up construction game. I got to understand because there’s a lot of fix and flippers that seem to be moving to that. What do I do?
I got my real estate license, got my short sale and foreclosure certification, and now here I am getting more into media. What was that time period like for you, and did you start to realize, hey, wholesale’s gonna be out there, but I gotta get involved in these other verticals. Did you pivot your business at all?
Andrew Howard (09:41)
Yeah, so right in 2023 is when I did my first fix and flip. And so me and my, well, I would say at the end of 2022. So me and my wife got into it. That was our initial goal was to get rentals. That was our retirement plan. And we were going to do fix and flips. And it just so happened that my company is now sourcing these deals.And so it definitely did slow down. I mean, the first thing to go were like our hedge fund buyers.
And then other buyers, went from being able to sell deals at 80, 85 % ARV to write down the 65, 70%. And so it was a dramatic change in the spreads that we were seeing and the interest that we had, the number of buyers who were calling, the bidding wars definitely stopped. And so it was a lot more, you you gotta kinda eat what you kill, especially in terms of Dispo.
we started to see a lot more wholesalers come in because the market was so hot the previous three years, people were telling everybody like, hey, this is how you get six figures. This is how you make money. This is the easiest entry point into real estate. And so we saw influx of new wholesalers come in that kind of tainted the game due to lack of ethics and just a lack of knowledge, honestly, you know. ⁓
Dylan Silver (11:17)
everybody.Yeah. Knowledge.
Andrew Howard (11:34)
And so a lot changed. And so that we did start doing the fix and flips, me and my wife, we saw, I mean, like I said, even at the end of 22, it was still kind of a good market where we were selling those, making decent money and transitioning into 24 and now 25. I just came off my latest fix and flip where I lost 30 grand, you know, you know, so I mean, it’s, it’s challenging, man.Dylan Silver (11:54)
I know.It’s not an easy space.
And I know you’re involved, Andrew, in ground up construction. You still have the wholesale arm going as well, but you have had to diversify and pivot here. I do want to ask, paint a picture for me and our audience here. What was going through your head when you’re seeing, you had scaled the business from breaking in in 2019, starting out on your own, did 150, did 400, now market shift. Boom. You’re having to get into these new
areas, what was the thought process like? What were the conversations that you were having with, you know, within family, with business partners? Where was your mindset at when you were getting into these new verticals?
Andrew Howard (12:39)
So I would say, man, right at 24, I had a conversation with my wife and business partner that I no longer saw the long-term vision for wholesale. This because we’re starting to see a lot more red tape. Some states are not allowing it. Some states want you to have a license. They want you to be a realtor in order to wholesale. And so when it’s…That’s typically like a trickle effect, like an avalanche. It starts small and then it gets into bigger states because we’re making these checks, the government isn’t seeing a tax on that, so they’re not making money from it. So that’s always gonna be an issue, especially when that popularity grows. so we started to… Man, ⁓ I’m sorry. What was the direct question again? I’m so sorry.
Dylan Silver (13:28)
No, that’s okay.And really you answered it in a way because I was trying to get the picture of what was the situation like behind the scenes when you, I mean you’re talking about doing numbers as a wholesaler and then having to realize, okay, maybe I might have to pivot my business. Maybe I might have to add in a vertical here. You’re involved in fix and flip, you’re involved in new construction, so clearly you went that route. And you know, in talking to so many people, Andrew,
The consistent thing is you’ve got to be able to stand tall but also kind of keep your knees bent because you never know when you’re going to have to shift. And it can hurt a little bit. It can be like, well, this was working. I don’t want to have to stop doing this. But just like you had the pivot from the food truck business, for instance, you know, OK, well, this is a different market. I have to go. Now I got to go here. Walk me through the fix and flip space because there are folks who may be unaware.
Andrew Howard (14:10)
Yeah.Dylan Silver (14:25)
There is a lot of synergy between wholesale and fix and flip. You’re typically selling your deals to fix and flippers, but doing it yourself. That’s another thing, right? Walk me through that.Andrew Howard (14:36)
Yeah.So fix and flipping was different because you have to have some level of understanding with construction, construction costs, having a budget and things that can pop up because once you, you know, on initial look, you don’t see all of the problems that could be wrong with this property. And without that experience, you can miss a lot of things. And so my first couple of deals, you know, they were
almost turnkey, just small cosmetic flips. We might’ve changed the carpet, some painting, changed kitchen cabinets and things like that. But as we got deeper into the game, had to, in order to make a spread, we have to pick up properties that had more work that needed to be done. So now we’re running into issues like plumbing. know, one deal went from eight grand in plumbing costs to after they did all the digging to 30 grand. We were not accounted for that. And then I bought a property, I had no idea that
Dylan Silver (15:19)
Yeah.Andrew Howard (15:29)
The electrical was outdated, so that ended up being an extra $12K into my budget.Dylan Silver (16:17)
These things, assoon as you take down one wall, you’re looking at subfloor issues, now you’ve got cracks in the foundation, you take down the wall, you’ve got ⁓ mold, plumbing, now you gotta disclose, right? So there’s all these issues that come up, and I’ve even known investors telling me, like, look, I’ll buy anything after this decade, because if it’s before this decade, I’ve seen this construction issue. So then people go into this. I do wanna pivot a bit here and ask you about ⁓ your company.
Andrew Howard (16:22)
Yep. Yep.Yeah.
Yep. Yep.
Dylan Silver (16:44)
Home affordable, right, home affordable, and then also how this ⁓ mixes in with the other ⁓ businesses and deals that you’re involved in.Andrew Howard (16:54)
Yeah, so Home Affordable is strictly the sales and marketing company, the wholesale company. So we do 99 % wholesale and I say 99 because we’ve also done a fix and flip within the business. But we didn’t stay on that route with the company for long. But I mean, being able to source your own deals is the pinnacle of real estate. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. If you can go direct the seller and get the properties for as low as possible.then the end game is endless. You can fix and flip, you can do rentals, you can do whatever you want because you’re getting these properties at the lowest possible price direct from seller. And so, mean, it’s the perfect beginning for us to go vertical in other situations. All my 11 flips, I bought those deals from the wholesale company. The land that I have that I’m doing my new construction, bought it from the wholesale company. So the marketing from the wholesale company puts me in position.
to do other things within real estate.
Dylan Silver (17:51)
I want to ask you about the vertical integration sourcing the land deals for the new construction, the homes to the fix and flip. But I also want to ask you about strategically without giving away all the gold, Andrew, ⁓ the ability to find buyers in wholesale right now. It’s not the same market that it was previously, right? If you can, without giving away the gold, what advice would you have for folks who may be scaling a wholesale business? Maybe they’re doing a deal a month or a deal every other month.and they wanna get more traction, they’d like to see more traction, they may have acquisitions, but they’ve had difficulty finding buyers. What feedback might you have for those folks?
Andrew Howard (18:29)
Man, so first of all, do good business. We’ve been in business for five years and 30 % of our lead flow is strictly referrals. ⁓ So that comes from people who see me marketing on social media. They know me from school, Facebook, whatever the case. They say, hey, my grandma’s selling the house, my uncle’s selling the house. Whatever the case may be, we get a lot of business that way. We’ve worked with a lot of people who have multiple properties. So maybe we bought a house in 21, now they’re ready to sell another one in 2024.realtors that we’ve worked with who had off-market properties. We were able to buy their listings or off-market listings very quick. They come back and say, hey, I got somebody else who’s looking to sell. So a lot of business comes from referral for us. And then also we do mostly inbound marketing. So I’ve been on radio since 2021. And so we get pretty much the other 70 % of our lead flow from radio, from that.
Dylan Silver (19:17)
Hmm.Andrew Howard (19:28)
inbound marketing channel, is more expensive than outbound, you know, your texts and your cold calling. But there’s a level of trust already created when those people reach out to us because they hear me on the radio and they’ve been hearing me for four years.Dylan Silver (19:32)
Sure.want to ask you about that specifically the radio but also marketing in general. You’re involved in radio. You’ve got a presence online. You’ve also built other businesses as well. What is your approach to marketing? And then also right now people have so many options. A.I. radio print social media you know pay per click leads. You mentioned some of the outbound that people can do. All this is either time or money. Right.
As far as your approach to marketing and folks who may be listening, what feedback would you have on the marketing?
Andrew Howard (20:18)
Man, I honestly, because a lot of people reach out to me to start wholesaling and that’s the first question I ask. How should I get leads? ⁓ And we’ve done everything, every form of marketing works. We’ve done texting, cold calling, RVM. We’ve done everything except billboards. We’ve got deals from Bandit signs, door knocking, everything. And so it really just depends on your characteristic and what you can deal with the most, what your capacity is to call.take calls and things like that, how big your team is. So it really just depends strictly on your capacity, but every form of marketing works for us. Like I said earlier, I had a business before, so I know radio works. I know who our target audience is and how I can reach them directly. And so ⁓ that’s the approach that we took with radio. had some connections there, so it just made a lot of sense for us. ⁓ But when it comes to the marketing, man, you know, really,
you kind of just got to split test. I say you got to test a lot of things and it depends on what your cash flow is. If you don’t have five, 10 grand of money, you can’t do radio right now. You’re going to have to drive for dollars and do some cold calling. If you got money for SMS, which is also a cheap way entry point, then you got to do that. So it depends on what your bank account looks like and what your time capacity is.
Dylan Silver (21:19)
Yeah.I want to ask you about getting into the new construction space as well. I’m very much in favor of this. I think there’s a lot of momentum right now in new construction. I also think with the smaller housing and alternative dwelling units, even, you know, type of getaway like glamping, right, which you see in the larger North Texas area and oftentimes in the borders with other states as well. So much of this is being moved.
towards new construction. And I’ve seen a lot of wholesalers fixing flippers and the like get involved in new construction, but there’s a learning curve, right? You’re having to put up homes at this point in time. When you were getting into the space, did you have partners to get in a new construction? Were you aware like, hey, this is a totally different skill set? What was that first, you know, entry point into new construction like for you?
Andrew Howard (22:17)
yeah. yeah.So ⁓ it was like a full circle moment for me because when I first started wholesaling with that other company that I told you about, I was a transaction coordinator. The first guy I ever sold land to because that company was only selling land. They weren’t doing homes. They were only wholesaling land. And so I met a guy who was building houses down in Greenville, Texas in 2019. And just so happened that same guy is now my mentor. So I took a mentorship program. It’s called The Gentleman Builder. I plug those guys because it was…
great 16 week program where we actually started the program with a vacant lot and built that house up in 16 weeks hands-on with those guys. And so I completed that program, I believe in March. ⁓ And then I just purchased my land a month ago. And right now I’m just in, I’m still in the beginning phases. I’ve cleared the land, I’ve got it graded. So we have it leveled out and I’ll be starting my foreign boards and foundation.
Dylan Silver (23:12)
Wow.Andrew Howard (23:31)
more than likely on Monday. And so I’m still in the beginning phases of that. But I mean, I went through that 16 week program and I mean, the resources that they provided, the trades, I mean, they give you everything. And so that’s been great. And then I already had a relationship with the guy. And so I’m right there neck and neck with him, you know, in terms of what the next steps are, if I don’t have the answers and just through my wholesaling career, I’ve sold land.been selling land for the last five years. So I know a lot of the guys developing in DFW and have built rapport and relationships with them as well. So I have a lot of associates who are doing this every day. And so it was kind of easy entry point for me, you know, with that mentorship being the added layer.
Dylan Silver (24:12)
You never know when these people are going to be a resource to you down the line. think it’s a testament to real estate in general. Like one relationship can really ⁓ reap a lot of benefits, even years in the future in this case. ⁓ We are coming up on time here, Andrew. Where can folks go if maybe they’ve got a deal they’d like you to look at, or maybe they’d just like to reach out to you and get some feedback?Andrew Howard (24:25)
100%.Man, so I’m on everything so on Facebook Andrew Howard just my first and last name I’m here in DFW on Instagram realestate_show1 so real estate show is what they call me on YouTube search the super entrepreneur everything spelled correctly so the super entrepreneur where I talk about real estate but mainly just entrepreneurship and everything surrounding LLCs to help people get started forming their businesses
Dylan Silver (25:06)
Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.Andrew Howard (25:09)
Man, thanks for having me, Dylan. I appreciate you,
