How Jesse Allen Balances Family, Flips & Financial Freedom

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Jesse Allen, a real estate expert who emphasizes the importance of authenticity, communication, and systems in the real estate business. Jesse shares his journey from traditional sales to a more people-focused approach, highlighting the significance of emotional discipline and understanding clients’ perspectives. He discusses his goals of building a legacy for his children through real estate investments and the power of honesty and consistency in business relationships.

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Jesse Allen (00:00)
Yeah. So like my biggest mantra, and you can ask any of my friends or family, like the biggest thing I’ve always said is what if it all works out? And so we’re really great at figuring out like how something can’t work, but we’re terrible at figuring out how can something work. And I think that’s what makes the difference between successful entrepreneurs and non-successful entrepreneurs is one’s figuring out a way to make it work. One’s figuring out a way that it can’t.

And so focus on the positive.

Quentin (01:59)
Hello, hello. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And my guests may not know this, but y’all know what I like to say. I’m excited. I’m super excited to be here. I’m super excited about my guests. This guy and the way he does his business, he has a way to just make things simple. Things that may seem like it’s very complicated, over your head, he has a way to just simplify.

I was just telling them, think he’s very, very great at communicating and I think y’all are going to find it out. And so I am so, so happy to introduce you guys to Mr. Jesse Allen. Mr. Jesse, how you doing today, sir?

Jesse Allen (02:38)
I’m doing great. I appreciate you having me on here.

Quentin (02:40)
Absolutely, man. Listen, I appreciate you being here. Hopefully I didn’t put no pressure on you, man. But listen, just, know, y’all good, good, good. See, great, great. Because you know who you are, man. You know exactly who you are. I just, I’m just excited, man, to have this opportunity for our listeners, our viewers, to see things from your lens and hear things from your perspective. You know, you’re the expert here. And I like to kind of get my voice out the way and actually

Jesse Allen (02:46)
No, no, you’re good. Yeah.

Quentin (03:10)
put your voice more on in the megaphone, right? So I’m going to, I, but this is what I want you to do, man. I want you to just take us into your world, right? Take us into your world. Tell us the things you’ve been focused on. Tell us what markets you’re operating in. Tell us, you know, a little bit about yourself, but, yeah, man, just, just, if you don’t mind, Jesse, take us into your words and talk to us about, you know, what it is your business does.

Jesse Allen (03:32)
Yeah. So for us, it’s all things real estate. You know, I mean, we have the investor side of it. We also have the real estate sales side of it. And so we just wanted to figure out, you know, how do we mesh those two things together where, know, if it doesn’t benefit one company, it benefits the other company, but either way, you know, it’s always about making sure that the person’s taken care of, you know, the seller, the buyer that we’re talking to. And so, you know, for, for us, you know, we started out just

slinging homes, you know, just talking to people. And I’ve done it both ways. You know, I’ve sold houses for money where like, you know, you’re looking for that next paycheck and I didn’t like the way it felt. And then I started changing the way that I wanted to do business where it was more about the people. And you can ask any of my past clients, you know, or anybody that we’ve done business with, like it’s going to be a win-win at the end of the day, or we’re not going to do the deal.

And I truly care about them. Like we’ve pulled up the houses with, you know, buyers before, and we’re just like, Hey, this ain’t the house for you. You know, like, you know, based on what you told me, like I wouldn’t feel comfortable you buying this house. And so I think people really appreciate just the, the genuine, person that we come off to be and that who we truly are. And so, that’s, that’s kind of, you know, working with investors when you’re on the real estate sales side of things, you know, you start to see.

you know, what you’re making as an agent versus what they’re making as an investor. And the question always that everybody always asks is, know, why not me? And so we started asking ourselves that question and that’s kind of what made us jump into that.

Quentin (05:49)
I echo, that’s the sense I pick up from you is just the authenticity and the honesty. It shines through to me and I have no idea you’re the same way with your clients and people that you’re connecting with. And I love how you said, listen, we on the investor side and the sales side, know, it’s like built in lead generation. you got, you like, can, it’s quick. You guys like, can, we can help you either way. And I think that’s just a brilliant concept and strategy.

Of course, I like the way how you say you just simplify things for everybody. And I appreciate that. And that’s not always easy in this climate, right? know, some people still trying to figure out how to make it simple. So I would love for you to tell me what’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly.

Jesse Allen (06:30)
I think for us, it’s just being surrounded by great people and then having some kind of model or system that you follow. A lot of people, they buy with emotion or they make decisions based on emotion. And there’s one thing that you’ll learn is that when you buy with emotion, there’s always going to be a regret at some point during that transaction. so looking at

You know, do the numbers work? Yes, they do. That’s great. Let’s move forward. If the numbers don’t work, Hey, it’s no hard feelings. Like I don’t have any ill will toward that person or toward the house. It’s just the numbers just didn’t make sense. And I think that’s what simplifies things because then you either get a green light or you get a red light. Like there’s no gray area in there at all. And so, mean, we were buying houses from people that are looking for a cash offer. Like, I mean, I’ll let them know too. Like, Hey, this is what we can offer you in cash.

But hey, based on your situation, the condition of your house, like it, it financially doesn’t make sense for you to sell this house to me. And like, Hey, let’s get it on the open market. And some people just don’t want to go through the hassle of that, which I can’t fathom that in my mind. Like it, it, kind of takes me off guard, but at the same time, like if that’s truly what they want, of course I want to be the person to help them with that.

Quentin (07:38)
I mean, what I love about you, you you said it earlier, but you kind of alluded to it now, like just systems. I think I said to you the same, when you know who you are, you know what to do. you like, listen, you like, got systems, when you got systems in place, it kind of keeps you from getting emotional because it’s like either, it makes sense or it don’t. I don’t have to get emotional about it. I don’t have to get attached to it. If it makes sense, it makes sense. And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But that’s all.

Jesse Allen (07:45)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm?

Quentin (08:03)
predicated on the system that you have in place. Like when you got that system in place, you know what to do. You know who you are. You know how our business flow, you know what our motto is. And so I love that. And I think that’s an amazing nugget that you shared about, you know, just not being emotional. And, but I’ll be honest with you too. I do want to talk about emotions a little bit because you know, there are moments when things, when things get real, right? When deals go sideways.

Jesse Allen (08:22)
Yeah.

Quentin (08:28)
a time when you have to pivot fast? so tell me, you can share a story like that, and maybe where you was able to keep your emotions out of it and let your discipline take control. I know, know, sometimes one deal is not like the next. So is there a time when you had to pivot fast?

Jesse Allen (08:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think, mean, so my wife, her risk tolerance is extremely low. My risk tolerance is extremely high. And so when we’re looking at flip properties, you know, like I can see the end product, I can see the vision for it. And so when we first started, you know, a lot of times it would be, Hey, we’re going to buy this house. The numbers make sense. And she would look at the house and be like, why are we even looking at this? Like, there’s no way that we should be buying this house. And so knowing that she’s a very analytical person, that’s just her personality in general. You know, I knew.

It wasn’t about the money we were going to make on it. wasn’t anything like that. She wanted to see the numbers. She wanted to know that it was going to be a safe bet. She wanted to see the plan laid out, who was going to be doing the work. And so I think that’s where, you know, you can’t get frustrated that somebody’s different than you like that. You just have to look at how are they seeing this problem or how are they seeing the situation and how do I show up to better communicate with that person so that they understand.

not necessarily from my point of view, but from their point of view. And I think that that’s important. Whether you’re dealing with sellers that you’re buying investment properties from, if you’re in real estate agent, you’re working with buyers, like how do they look at it? Or even people that are funding your deals, know, everybody’s going to be different. Some people want to be more hands on. Some people just want to send you money, receive money. And so just knowing what their personality is like and making sure that you tap into that.

Quentin (10:36)
Again, man, I can see like, you know, you being censored. I love how you just brought up your wife and talked about, you know, the differences in your processing. Me and my wife, we always talk about that all the time, how we process differently. what that does do, because we process differently, but when it comes to the same conclusion, it ups out communication. And that’s what I heard you say, like even communicating with your clients, talking it over, like learn their perspective, you know.

A lot of times us being husbands, get that training being with our wives. So when we start to talk business, we’re able to talk and communicate, overly communicate if need be, just to make sure everybody’s on the same page. Because that’s what it’s all about, us being on the same page. Because we want everybody to win. And it makes no sense if everybody, the communication is broken down. It’s going to be chances. There’s going to be some type of, you know, wrinkle or I can’t think of a word, but we’re not going to be on the same page. I’ll just put it like that.

and so thank you for that. A lot of people don’t talk about that. I appreciate that type of honesty and perspective. And honestly, that will help you from just dabbing in this business to being in it for the long term, making those connections and communications, you know, cause I know you talked about, that a lot of people come to you and bring deals to you. Like you don’t have to necessarily go looking for them, but that shows to me that there’s communication and connection with people within, you know, your circle. So yeah, I love that, man. I love that. So yeah.

Jesse Allen (11:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah. Well, and also,

know, whenever, whenever you get into business, people feel like you have to put on this persona, like you have to become a different person. And that’s where, you know, like the salesy voice comes in and like the used carsman stigma comes in. so my advice to everybody is like, whenever they’re talking to somebody they’ve never talked to before, speak to them as if you’ve known them your entire life, or as if they’re your best friend or your family member. Like if you had to pick up your phone and call your brother or your mom or your sister today, or your best friend and

and

talk to them about investing or buying and selling a house. Like how would you speak to them? You wouldn’t put on a suit and tie and get proper and stand up straight. Like you would be relaxed and have a good conversation with them. And what I’ve realized is by doing that, you you’re more comfortable, but they’re more comfortable too. Like that wall they put up whenever they know that you’re doing something real estate related that instantly gets broken down and it kind of catches them off guard when you’re like, Hey, how have you been doing today? Or, Hey, how’s your week going? Like

Yeah, we don’t have a script we follow. We don’t do any of that. Like we’re just having a conversation.

Quentin (12:59)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m gonna take a shot at some people, man, but you and I sound like we’re similar husbands. You know, a lot of people, they get their sales pitchy kind of routine because some of them within their marriage, they still trying to manipulate their wives and sell them for, you know, in, treatment. Yeah. But you know, it’s like, no, you ain’t gonna manipulate she and we gonna talk about this thing together. But anyway, that’s a whole nother podcast. That’s a whole nother podcast. But anyway, but man, I, I, no, I honestly, that’s a great nugget.

Jesse Allen (13:13)
Yeah.

You

Good.

Quentin (13:25)
Talk to them like they’re your best friend. Talk to them like you want real relationship with them and just not some kind of reciprocal transaction relationship, right? And so, yeah, I understand that for sure. Let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? Like, what’s the next real goal for you?

Jesse Allen (13:42)
⁓ I mean, for us, was, you know, we wanted to build passive income. You know, our goal was to, you know, we have, we have kids that are 11, nine and eight right now. And, know, people set up college funds, you know, they set up all these different accounts for their kids that are taken care of. And so what we wanted to do was hand our kids an opportunity. And so our goal, when we started buying rentals rather than flips, I mean, we still flip houses, but we just use that money in a different way to purchase rentals.

We wanted to hand each one of our children two houses that were already paid off and rented out to where

They have options like, Hey, if you want to continue the business and you want to keep those rentals, now you have passive income. can grow on, if you want to sell those houses and go chase your dream and paint for two years, like do whatever you want to do. If you want to go after music theater, whatever it is, you know, you can, you have your options. And if you want to refinance those houses and pay for your way through college, like do those, but our kids will never say that they didn’t have an opportunity to do what they wanted to do. And so that’s the biggest thing for us is like.

Hey, think about what you want to do with your life. You don’t have figure it out right now. By the time that you graduate high school, like be thinking about, you know, if I could do anything and make money doing it, what would I want to do? Great. Go out and do it. Chase that dream for two years, three years, however long that money lasts. But once it’s out, she’s out.

Quentin (15:40)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Brother, I’ll be honest with you, man. You say three kids, 11, nine, eight. I’ve heard people wanting to leave one house for their kids. You say no, two houses per kid. Did I hear you correct on that? That’s two houses per kid. no, that’s, man, that’s amazing. That’s a goal. That keeps you motivated and I love that. You want to make sure your kids have options. Man, that’s brilliant.

Jesse Allen (15:46)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, no, you heard it correct. Yeah. ⁓

Quentin (16:08)
That’s amazing. And that’s big. And I’m glad you got that in place. I’m glad that that’s your next motivation. I’m glad that that’s the next move that keeps you going. And I love it, man. so we talk, listen, we talk a little bit about relationships and I know there’s a lot of people listening. You’re giving them a ton of great nuggets. And so I want to take you in this kind of leaning in this direction. Cause I think they need to hear this from you. When it comes to building relationships,

and growing your network, what has made the biggest difference for you?

Jesse Allen (16:40)
think just being open and honest and just doing what you say you’re gonna do. You know, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me that they were gonna…

show up at a certain place or buy a certain house or call a lender or whatever it may be and they didn’t do it. I’ll tell you right now, like I wouldn’t have to work in real estate anymore. Like I’d be set for life. And so that’s the biggest thing. Like if you truly don’t think you can do something, don’t say you can do it. And you know, a lot of people are so scared to ask for help or say, Hey, I don’t know, but let me find out or Hey, I’m not sure if I can make that happen, but let me work on that and get back to you. Like they’re just so scared of like,

losing something in that moment, whether it be their pride or their ego or a dollar amount or a client, whatever it might be. But I can promise you like honesty will go a long way in this business. you know, I know over the last three or four years, there’s been a ton of people get into the investment world and that’s great. A lot of them just don’t know where to start. I would say just start by being yourself and being honest with people.

Quentin (17:36)
I mean, I’ve heard you say honesty. I don’t know how many times the podcast. And so, I mean, you know, I mean, to me, it just shows me your through line. You know, that’s the through line, being honest, integrity, building meaningful relationships, real relationships, talking to people like they are part of the family in a sense, part of the friendship, part of the real connection, part of the real relationship. These are the through lines that I keep hearing from you. And so, so refreshing, so amazing. so…

Jesse Allen (17:40)
you

Quentin (18:04)
We’re coming up to coming towards the end, but when I’m talking to someone like you, I like to sometimes pivot to a question like this. Is there anything that’s kind of been on your mind, on your heart, anything as far as maybe inspiration, education, motivation that maybe you would want to share with those that are listening? I would love to open up the opportunity for you to do that if there’s something like that on your heart and in your mind.

Jesse Allen (18:26)
Yeah. So like my biggest mantra, and you can ask any of my friends or family, like the biggest thing I’ve always said is what if it all works out? And so we’re really great at figuring out like how something can’t work, but we’re terrible at figuring out how can something work. And I think that’s what makes the difference between successful entrepreneurs and non-successful entrepreneurs is one’s figuring out a way to make it work. One’s figuring out a way that it can’t.

And so focus on the

so for us, you know, we’ve, we’re really great at taking things that sound complicated. You know, a lot of people want to get into investing, but the biggest things that we hear is, I don’t have the money and I can’t find the deal or I don’t have the contractors. Like there’s so many excuses of why something won’t work. And

being somebody that came into this business with absolutely nothing and turning it into, know, and now we make a hundred grand in passive income off of our rentals alone. And then we still have our flips and we still have a real estate business and we never miss our kids games. We still spend time as a family. Then it’s like the, the limiting beliefs that we tend to have, I can promise you, they’re not the things that are holding you back. So money will be the least concern that you have. And so

The next big thing for us is like, we get on calls all the time and we teach investors across the country. so with time being so limited, getting on a call with one person at a time for 30 minutes or an hour and teaching them everything I know, isn’t feasible. And so how do we get that information out to like thousands of people to where they can tap into it at any point and it gives them the information. And the thing that we’ve learned.

For the longest time, I thought that like, hey, this is a great idea. I can’t share it with anybody because somebody is going to steal it, rip off my business. Lack of information is not the problem. Lack of implementation is the problem. You know, there’s thousands of books that tell you how to be a millionaire, but how many millionaires are there in the world? Not very many. It’s because people struggle with consistency and it’s because consistency is boring.

Like before I got on the call with you, I was making phone calls and some of those calls are great. Some of those calls aren’t great. And when I get off this podcast, I’m to make more phone calls. so consistency is probably the most boring thing that you’ll do in your life. But consistency is the thing that will get you from point A to point B the fastest.

Quentin (20:39)
Mmm.

Yeah, man. That was absolutely great. That was absolutely great consistency. Like, yeah, sometimes the most successful thing you can do is get used to just doing the same routine over and over and over. But again, it goes to the system, right? When you have a system, know, put it in place. Do the discipline of the system. And that way you don’t have to, as you say, get emotional.

Jesse Allen (20:42)
Yeah.

Quentin (21:05)
I don’t to get emotional. I have to be moved by emotion. So, man, I thank you. Thank you so much, man. Listen, before we wrap. No, no, go. You got something else to say? I don’t want to you off, ⁓ OK. Yeah, I ain’t Jesse. Because listen, you’re driving these gyms. If you had something else to say, I want to be quiet so you can say it. But listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate and learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you,

Jesse Allen (21:10)
Yeah.

No, I was just saying, no, no, I’m not cutting it out. No, you’re good.

Yeah.

⁓ yeah, honestly, probably email is the best way to get me. ⁓ I’m also on Facebook, Instagram. I mean, I have a tick tock account, but that’s just like, find the scrolling every once in a while when I get up before the kids get up and stuff. So, AGL properties is a real estate business. So if you just look up AGL properties on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll find me there. we don’t have a page for our investments or anything like that. We kind of keep that just within the family and stuff. And so, yeah, AGL properties, Jesse Allen, you guys can reach out to me anytime, send me a message.

Quentin (21:39)
Yeah.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Jesse Allen (22:00)
I’m telling you right now like I am always happy to help however I can like if you have a question don’t hesitate to reach out I promise I’ll get back to you

Quentin (22:07)
Love it. And can you say it slower for me a little bit? Is it H-G-O properties? Am I hearing that?

Jesse Allen (22:12)
Nope, it’s

a AGL, so it’s on my shirt right here. So it just stands for our kids initials. So we have Ashton Gage and Lennox.

Quentin (22:17)
Got you. I

got you. Actually engaged in Linux. That is amazing. Actually engaged in Linux. I love it, man. Oh man, listen, sir. I appreciate you so much, man. Thank you for your story. Thank you for your time. Thank you just for your perspective. This was a great episode and I know Alveo has got a ton of just value from it. So again, Mr. Jesse, thank you so much. So I appreciate you so much.

Jesse Allen (22:23)
Yeah. ⁓

No, thank you. I appreciate it, Q.

Quentin (22:44)
Absolutely. And now everyone else, listen, I just said it to him. I know you got value from this. So please make sure you subscribe. You do not want to miss out on these amazing conversations. I’m having them every day. We have amazing people just like Jesse. You do not want to miss out. So just go ahead and subscribe. This is one click. Click up, then you subscribe. That’s it. Then I can stop bothering you. So again, Jesse, thank you to everyone else. We’ll see you in the next time.

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Investor Fuel

How Jesse Allen Balances Family, Flips & Financial Freedom

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