Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel podcast, host Michelle Kesil speaks with Jaffer Hussain, a seasoned real estate investor with over 20 years of experience. Jaffer shares his journey from corporate America to real estate, discussing the various branches of his business, including fix and flip, buy and hold, and mentorship programs. He emphasizes the importance of philanthropy in his business goals and the lessons learned from past failures. Jaffer also provides insights into his mentorship program, focusing on community building and helping others achieve financial freedom through real estate investing.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jaffer Hussain (00:00)
killed it that first yearThat was kind of our downfall. We wanted to move faster than necessary. And, you know, we ended up going off and ⁓ buying a bunch of property, a bunch of land in Florida.
But then there are certain things that happened in the economy that put us in a difficult position.
we got a little bit cocky and we started taking a little more chances. And unfortunately, that kind of slapped us on the hand, which is OK.
It’s a growing lesson. We definitely learned a lot in that process and it made us stronger. And then we took that and we just kind of adjusted, recouped to what we could and then we moved forward and now we’re building much bigger things.
Michelle Kesil (02:15)
Hi everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Jaffer Hussain, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate investing space as well as educating others. So yeah, excited to have you on the show today.Jaffer Hussain (02:35)
Thanks for having me.Michelle Kesil (02:37)
Awesome. Yeah, I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching your investing business and supporting others in their own growth with investing. So let’s dive into all of that.Jaffer Hussain (02:52)
Sounds good.Michelle Kesil (02:54)
Yeah,just first off, for those who are not familiar with you and your world, can you give this short version of what your main focus is?
Jaffer Hussain (03:03)
Yeah, so my bread and butter is real estate investing. So we’ve been investing in real estate for over 20 plus years. ⁓ I also work with my partner, Junaid, and we’ve been developing, you know, our real estate business in several different areas ⁓ here in the Chicagoland area. So we have, you know, our fix and flip branch. have our buy and hold. We have our long-term rentals, short-term rentals. And then we also have a mentorship program that we started as well.to kind of share all of our learnings with everybody else and try to get them involved in real estate as well.
Michelle Kesil (03:39)
Awesome. So are your investments all around the Chicago area? Were you nationwide? How does that work?Jaffer Hussain (03:48)
Yes, we’ve done a lot in a lot of different places. our main source of real estate investing is in the Chicagoland area, but we have done things in Florida and other areas as well. We recently kind of stood up our off-market acquisitions branch of the business, which we’re looking at working in different states as well. So ⁓ most of our efforts are in Chicago, but ⁓ we’re looking nationwide.Michelle Kesil (04:14)
Awesome. Yeah, so what has been like your key to getting this business started and yeah, keeping it going smoothly?Jaffer Hussain (04:23)
Yeah, so well, I I started in corporate. I graduated from DePaul. I worked in corporate America for several years and it was just not fulfilling and it’s just not something that I wanted to do. So I started investing in real estate over 20 years ago and I started doing it very slowly. I do like one or two deals per year and I realized that I need to move a little bit faster if I want to get this thing going. So I did hire some mentors. I partnered with Junaid andAnd after I did that, I went from one to two deals to 10 deals in that first year that I partnered up with Junaid. I learned a lot of information from several different mentors and was able to accelerate my development ⁓ from the real estate investment field. And then from that, we just continued to grow every single year, make changes, make adjustments. We started off with fixing and flipping, then we had some rentals that we kept. And then we started saying, okay, well, instead of depending on other people to find deals, let’s find
our own deals so we started up that off-market acquisitions branch and then with all that said then people started asking us for help on their deals or getting involved in real estate so we said you know what why not start something where we can help ⁓ other people invest in real estate as well so we started up the mentorship as well so every year there’s something new and we keep kind of progressing and adding to the mix and you know diversifying our different streams of income as well as you know keeping it all within the umbrella of real
state so that’s kind of how we’re functioning
Michelle Kesil (06:45)
Amazing. Yeah, that sounds like some good teamwork and I love that you’re bringing that to others as well that are looking for that support. So what are like some of the goals that you have for like this next phase of your business?Jaffer Hussain (06:56)
Yeah.Yeah, so most of our efforts are rooted in philanthropy. So obviously we all want to make money, but there’s some seriousness behind where we want to make money. It’s not just about making money, getting nice cars, having fun, that stuff. That’s all great. That’s just icing on the cake. But the real root is basically use this business to help other organizations and other individuals for financial freedom and then also different programs.
that organizations may have. So now it’s just kind of scaling. ⁓ We’ve proven what we do well. We’ve proven what we should stay away from. We’ve had our lessons with our losses ⁓ and learnings with that as well. So yeah, we’re successful in everything, but it doesn’t come without losses. So we did ⁓ have our fair share of learning lessons. But now we’re at a point where we can scale up.
We’re building faster and quicker and doing much more volume and along with that we’re bringing folks along with us on the ride with respect to our students. all the stuff that we’ve learned we’re bringing it down to our students giving them access to our networks and helping them achieve what we’ve achieved in a shorter time frame than it took us. So they don’t have to go through all the pitfalls that we went through and that’s really we want to focus
really heavily on being able to help others get to where we want to get to get to where they want to get to and bring them into the realm of know philanthropy so yes we want to teach them how to make money but also how to give back to the community as well.
Michelle Kesil (08:51)
I love that. That’s so important to have a bigger vision than just your own material possessions. That’s, yeah.Jaffer Hussain (08:57)
Yeah.Yeah,
yeah, 100%.
Michelle Kesil (09:01)
So you mentioned that you’ve experienced losses and learning lessons. Can you share some of those stories of what maybe some of those shortfalls were and like what you learned and how you overcame them?Jaffer Hussain (09:16)
Yeah, it’s really just about zeal and aggression, right? So like we came out of the gates, like I said, after I joined with Junaid, wekilled it that first year and we did like 10 properties, you know, after I was doing like one or two a year and we’re like, okay, this is great. Let’s move real fast. That was kind of our downfall. We wanted to move faster than necessary. And, you know, we ended up going off and ⁓ buying a bunch of property, a bunch of land in Florida.
on starting to do builds and everything and everything was going great. But then there are certain things that happened in the economy that put us in a difficult position. So we kind of took a bigger bite than we should have. And I think everybody’s going to go through that as they grow from business because we had a lot of success coming out of the gates and then we got a little bit cocky and we started taking a little more chances. And unfortunately, that kind of slapped us on the hand, which is OK.
It’s a growing lesson. We definitely learned a lot in that process and it made us stronger. And then we took that and we just kind of adjusted, recouped to what we could and then we moved forward and now we’re building much bigger things.
Michelle Kesil (11:07)
Amazing. What are maybe some of the lessons that you’ve learned from your years in investing that you now share with your students so like they don’t have to go through those trenches?Jaffer Hussain (11:23)
Yeah, yeah, never fall in love with a property or a specific deal. Be very diligent on running your numbers and if it doesn’t make sense, don’t force it.and don’t try to move so fast, right? Moving steady and slow is going to get you much further along. It may not feel like it, but you know, you don’t have those setbacks. that, you know, continuously have small wins, small wins, small wins, stack up on the wins, and then you’re going to see the value coming up. So I mean, those are the kind of lessons that we learned as real estate investors and kind of pass along to our students.
Michelle Kesil (12:04)
Amazing. So yeah, if you are maybe too able to go back in time and like tell, you know, the younger version of you that was starting to invest some advice and strategies, what are some of those things that you would share?Jaffer Hussain (12:23)
Yeah, so the biggest thing I would say is number one, I would have started much, much sooner. That’s the biggest thing. And number two, I would have invested in mentorship much, much sooner ⁓ because yes, everybody can do stuff on their own by reading and stuff like that. But there are certain things that you learn from mentors that you can’t read from. You can’t get from reading books. You can’t get from, you know, just, you know, looking online. ⁓ That level of mentorship.very critical and there’s so many people out there that bring benefit and value and everybody brings a different mix to it. So I think those two things are the biggest. I started earlier and then hired mentors and learned from them much earlier and I would have been much further along if we did that but at the end of the day everything happens for a reason and there are certain times for things to happen and that’s how it is.
Michelle Kesil (13:22)
Yeah, absolutely. So what are some things that you are focusing on right now when it comes to, yeah, like your new projects and business?Jaffer Hussain (13:34)
Yeah, yeah. So there’s two things that we’re focusing on right now. ⁓ We’ve kind of slowed down on the fix and flip part of our business. We are ramping up on the off-market acquisition. So that comes with, you know, staff. hiring, we’re hiring employees. We’re building out processes. We’re building out our software. We’re doing a lot of things to kind of get that going. It’s going really well so far. It’s just about scaling now. So fine tuning and scaling that piece of the business.So we’re focusing heavy on that and then we’re also putting a lot of focus on trying ⁓ to get this mentorship at a point where we can bring more people in and help them out and be part of this community and start growing that as well. So those are two things that we’re really focusing on for the rest of the year here.
Michelle Kesil (14:25)
Yeah, and what does your mentorship look like? Like is it like the group program is online? What are kind of like things that your main pillars are for this program?Jaffer Hussain (14:36)
Yeah, so we like to make it as easy as possible for everybody. And we know that there’s a lot of mentorship programs out there. And every mentorship program has value, in my opinion, as long as they’re legitimate people, of course. And they’re very costly. like, Janae and I, we’ve spent over $100,000 of ourto get our get mentorship in real estate. So we understand that it’s very expensive and we want to make it very achievable and feasible for people. ⁓ So there are different options that we have for our mentorship program but essentially what we get is we have online courses, online modules that that our students will get full-time access to lifetime and then we have weekly coaching calls between two three coaching calls every single week on various topics.
And then we have access to our network of tax advisors, of estate planners, of lawyers, of contractors. If you’re here in Chicago, you can benefit from the contractors. ⁓ We have access to all of our templates and contracts that they can use for their transactions. ⁓ And then of course they have one-on-one access to Junaid and myself as well. So all that encompassed in the program where we cover a variety of
topics. So you’ll see like other mentorship programs they may focus on just wholesaling or they may focus on just the BRRRR method or they may just focus on fix and flip. Like I said, Junaid and I have spent over $100,000 to learn all of that. So we have creative financing, fix and flip, short-term rentals, mid-term rentals, buy-in holes, commercial properties, ⁓ you know, everything that you can possibly do in real estate. We have exposure to that and we bring that to the table ⁓ with that support.
Michelle Kesil (17:05)
Amazing, yeah, sounds like a very all-encompassing program and anyone can just sign up for it online or is there any like criteria like someone needs to be at a certain level?Jaffer Hussain (17:18)
Yeah, that’s a good question. what we like to do is, you know,We focus on positivity and we want to make sure we bring the right people into the group. And this is a community that we have, right? So, ⁓ it doesn’t necessarily mean that we want everybody in this group. ⁓ we’re going to be very selective. We want to make sure that we don’t bring any sour apples into the group. So there is a little process that we go through as far as making sure that it’s a right fit. ⁓ for us, it’s not about, course, everybody wants to make money, but it’s not just about generating money. It’s to make sure that we’re bringing people in that can bring value to the group and also
get value from the group. So there is a little bit of a process that we go through in terms of having somewhat like an interview to get a sense of who they are, what they’re trying to accomplish, do they fit with our group in terms of the goals, the mentality, the psychology, the positivity, all those things matter to us. So this is not just like an open free invitation for everybody. We want to make sure we bring the right people in. So ⁓ there is a website
that we can share with you guys which allows you to set up a call with either Junaid or myself and then we’ll walk through our program in detail, we’ll walk through the the goals of the individual and then we’ll extend an offer if they’re if they’re a good fit for us.
Michelle Kesil (18:40)
Awesome, I love that. Yeah, it’s good to be in charge of like the energetics of the group and making sure everyone’s on the same page.Jaffer Hussain (18:50)
Yeah, 100%. ⁓Michelle Kesil (18:52)
So yeah, when it comes to investing, like what kind of deals do you most enjoy doing?Jaffer Hussain (19:03)
Yes, when we work with the off market acquisitions, we come across people that are really in difficult situations. ⁓ And ⁓ you’d be surprised to know, like, you know, a lot of people that are selling their homes, they’re selling for a reason that is not so glamorous, right? It’s like, it’s really a difficult situation. Either somebody passed, passed away in their family, ⁓ either they’re having financial difficulties, health issues, family issues. ⁓ We deal with a lot.of different types of issues and the coolest part about real estate is that ⁓ yeah we’re in the business to make money but we are not ⁓ we are not a group of people that want to take advantage of anybody so our company is named homes to harmony ⁓ the reason is because we want we want to make sure that it’s a harmonious relationship with the seller we’re not looking to steal a property from them so we look at all the different opportunities to help that individual
In
the process of helping that individual naturally like we end up making money, but that’s not our goal, right? It’s definitely something that is important. I’m not gonna lie. I mean, we’re in the business to make money, but we’re not in the business to take advantage of people. So we’re different in that sense from an investment point of view is that we go into the property and oftentimes I ask the sellers, know, why do you want to sell? ⁓ And I try to find ways for them to keep the property.
which is genuine because I feel like, you know, keeping property is valuable, but in some cases, like people are not able to do so. And if that’s the case, then we want to get the best outcome for them. And that’s what makes it fun is like we are able to craft deals that get them out of their difficult situation as best as possible. And then also we’re able to make money as well. And, and we’re not hurting anybody in that process.
Michelle Kesil (20:58)
Yeah, that’s so important. I really love that perspective of trying to help everyone and make it a win for everyone, not just for your own pockets.Jaffer Hussain (21:10)
Yeah.Michelle Kesil (21:13)
So when it comes to like growing your network and creating new relationships, what has made the biggest difference for you?Jaffer Hussain (21:22)
You know, just getting out there and interacting with different people ⁓ has exposed us to people that are like-minded in the sense that they’re looking to help people as well. Like the coolest thing about entrepreneurship and business and real estate is that, yeah, there’s a lot of bad people out there, but there’s bad people everywhere. But the majority of people that are successful, they are extremely helpful. ⁓ So you’ll find somebody that they may be moresuccessful than I am, but they don’t shy away from helping me if I needed help. ⁓ So those are the kind of people that we strive to look for. you know, oftentimes when you’re in those circles, you see the same people over and over again, and you’ll find out that, you know, these are the group of people that you want to associate yourself with. you know, we strive to help people and by helping people, you meet other people that want to help people and it turns out to become a nice small
network and that’s what we have to offer to our students as well is like we have a bunch of folks that are invested and interested in helping them grow. ⁓ Yes everybody’s making money in the process but they’re also growing everybody else’s business and if everybody else’s business grows then you know the people that help them out their business will grow as well so it’s a whole ecosystem.
Michelle Kesil (22:46)
Totally, I love that. Relationships and that community building is so important in this space.Jaffer Hussain (22:51)
Yeah, yeah.Michelle Kesil (22:54)
Awesome. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, collaborate, learn more, where can they find you?Jaffer Hussain (23:02)
Yeah, so they can go to our website, training.homestoharmony.com. ⁓ That’s the best way to kind of get a sense of what our program looks like and then it’ll allow you to book a call with myself or Junaid. ⁓We don’t have a sales staff, so you’ll talk directly to us. So it’s not like a gimmicky, ⁓ go through this whole process. You’ll talk directly to myself or Janae, then we’ll, go through the process and make sure you’re a good fit. and even if you’re not a good fit, we want you to walk away from the call with something of a tangible value that you can have a blueprint on how to, how to invest in real estate, even if you chose not to work with us, which is perfectly fine. At the end of the day, that call is a, hopefully a benefit to whoever, whoever books
that call. again, just training ⁓ at homestoharmony.com. That’s the best way to get to all of us.
Michelle Kesil (23:55)
Awesome. Well, I really appreciate your time, your story and your perspective. So thank you for being here.Jaffer Hussain (24:02)
Thanks for having us, appreciate it.Michelle Kesil (24:04)
Yeah, of course. And for those tuning into the show, if you got value from this, make sure you subscribe. We have more conversations coming with operators just like Jaffer who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you all on our next
