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How New Construction Partnerships Help Investors Avoid Risk and Scale Faster

By January 28, 2026Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Scott Sorensen, a seasoned real estate investor with over three decades of experience. Scott shares his unique approach to real estate investing, focusing on new construction and innovative strategies that allow investors to participate in the market. He discusses the importance of market analysis, building trust with investors, and navigating the high-end luxury market. Scott emphasizes the need for patience and strategic planning in real estate, highlighting the opportunities available in the Nashville market and beyond. The conversation concludes with insights on fostering long-term relationships with clients and the importance of creating valuable living spaces.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Scott Sorensen (00:00)
    Absolutely. And that’s what we’ve, kind of taken that model to heart. ⁓ I, there was times when I would pull off the market in certain areas, like when we lived in park city, which we did for a long time, I would just sit and I, my investors will be wearing me out. Hey Scott, we got something coming. I’m like, you know, it’s not a good time. We’re going to wait. We’re going to sit I don’t want to put

    my own money, their money at risk. And so we’re very conscientious about trying to find the right deal at the right time. And we share all that information with you so you can make that educated decision with us.

    Micah Johnson (02:04)
    Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Scott Sorensen, who’s been making some serious moves in the real estate investing space for about three decades now. Scott, welcome in, man. How you doing?

    Scott Sorensen (02:18)
    Doing great, how’s everybody?

    Micah Johnson (02:21)
    I’m doing good. hope all the listeners are doing good out there too. And I’m excited for you to be on today and our pre-recording call, and you’re going about real estate in some pretty unique ways that I’m excited to dig into. So before we get to there, for people who may not know you yet, what’s your main focus right now and what markets you operate in?

    Scott Sorensen (02:40)
    Yeah, we definitely take a different twist or different look at real estate and we have some different opportunities from your normal fix and flip. We’ve kind of allowed people to participate with us in new construction. And in that, it’s been a really great thing that we’ve done over 300 times around the country, mostly in the Utah market, but we’ve branched out now. I’m in the Nashville area now and so we’re adding some places. We have some stuff in South Carolina and Florida as well.

    Micah Johnson (02:54)
    Mmm.

    Scott Sorensen (03:10)
    We’re all around the country, but we really are going to focus mostly right now in the hot market, which is Nashville.

    Micah Johnson (03:17)
    Okay. And take us into now a little bit deeper, how it is that you approach and giving more people access as investors to the new construction space. Cause that’s historically, that’s a tougher one to get into just as an investor. Cause there’s a lot of moving parts in that world.

    Scott Sorensen (03:34)
    There is. So

    when we go through this process, first of all, we all stay in our lane, right? I’m the builder. I do what I do, which is try to build these homes as quickly and efficiently as possible. But again, it depends on what the market in that particular sector is telling us. So in the Nashville area, in the Park City area, it was the high-end homes that we could really dig into and find some traction with.

    that if we hit this price point with this square footage in these certain areas, we were going to be able to probably pull a pretty good number. And so we understood that at a high level and we did a lot of front end research and you know, it’s great knowing the areas like I do. And then same thing in Nashville. I spent the last six months since being here, really focusing on the market. What’s selling, what’s not, what’s moving, what’s not, how long are things on the market? What’s the breast pipe? ⁓

    price point, what’s the best square footage, how do we match that all up? And so we do a lot of work on the front end to ensure that we’re taking the right steps. The last thing we want to do is build a home together and have it sit for a long time. So we try to do that work on the front end. Again, when you’re at a higher price point, there’s probably longer turnaround times than there is if you’re under 500K, those homes move really relatively rapidly, but there’s also less of a return on those. So we don’t see the high numbers.

    You know, I’ve done homes with investors that we both put a million dollars in the bank. So we kind of go the sky’s the limit anywhere from five grand land deal in Florida to, you know, where we’re putting a million five each in our pocket at the end of the deal. So we have structures for everybody ⁓ from, you know, a small investor to a juggernaut. And I deal with a lot of people. We have a lot of relationships that continue to do.

    Micah Johnson (05:53)
    Wow.

    Scott Sorensen (06:17)
    with us, they come back and come back and come back. I usually, you know, we cash out a one and I, instead of having to worry about their 1031 exchange money, I sent hand them the packet, they go right into the next one. And so it’s been a nice process for us. In all 315 that we’ve done across the country, we’ve never gotten the hole on any deal, we’ve always come out on the plus. So we’re very mindful trying to keep ahead of, you know,

    Micah Johnson (06:41)
    Man.

    Scott Sorensen (06:45)
    No one can predict the market 100 % for sure. We all know that as real estate investors, but we are pretty protective and we put ourselves in a pretty good situation before going in. And of course we have every exit strategy covered. Hey, what if this house sits for a year? What do we do? Well, we probably furnish it and do short-term rentals out of it for a while until it can turn or is that area conducive to short-term?

    Micah Johnson (06:48)
    Mm-hmm.

    Scott Sorensen (07:11)
    rentals, some places are and some places aren’t. know all of that going in and have all those exits already ready just in case. ⁓ The good part is we usually don’t have to go that route. We build a really nice high quality home that’s a little bit nicer than everything else in the neighborhood, but our costs are much more aligned because we do this at a high level. I do what I call value engineer and we go through those homes with a fine tooth comb.

    to get it the best price point possible, to give the people the look that they want, but give us the space that we need in the deal to make money.

    Micah Johnson (07:49)
    Man, what I love so much about what you’ve said so far is how much front end work you’re actually doing. It’s not random. This ain’t point shoot aim that y’all are out there doing. It is a very intentional process where again, even, even you hear a lot in the industry that, know, you make your money on your buy.

    And I do enjoy that term because the more you know, upfront and prepared upfront, now you know, if you’ve got a deal or not. Another one of my favorite quotes is we’re deal finders, not deal manufacturers. You can’t just make something work everywhere. You got to go with market is it in like you’re talking about. And one thing that was interesting that you mentioned earlier was you do met, you go across all the price points, which is fascinating, making sure that whatever investor you’re working with is comfortable.

    in terms of the money that they’re going to bring, because that’s how you were describing it. They’re going to bring the money, you’re going to do your lane and be the builder, and then put something together. Where in that scenario, someone waiting a year to make a million dollars, that’s not a bad deal. That’s not abnormal for an investor to have money out for a year waiting for it to come back. So all in all, man, you’ve put together quite the product for folks.

    Scott Sorensen (09:05)
    Yeah, it’s been, it’s been really good. It’s been good for us. It’s been good for them. And like I said, we have about a 92 % repeat clientele. So we do this at a pretty high level. ⁓ We’ve done over 315 homes now and we’ve got, think 16 on the books for 2026. We’re always constantly turning over and looking for the right area and the right spot and the right combination of size and all the things that go into that. And again, we don’t have a crystal ball. So.

    Even in those instances where, you know, hey, we have to reduce the price to sell it. We’ve never, we’ve never gone backwards. So we’ve always come out. I think the least amount we ever made on a house was 50 K that we split. We made 25,000 each and both of us were kind of like, all right, we got to have a bad. Okay. So, you know, at end of the day, yeah, well, and I

    Micah Johnson (09:54)
    Right, better than paying out 25 page.

    Scott Sorensen (10:32)
    I’ve seen people that have gone through that, I’m fixing flips. You know, how many times do you go in there and you start pulling drywall off and next thing you know, you’re having to do electrical and all these other things. That’s what’s great about new construction. know exactly what’s going to happen in that house build from start to finish. There’s no mystery. They’re not guessing. If I’m going to have a lot of issues structurally or any of other things, I know because I’m doing it from scratch. And so when we go in, we don’t have a lot of those curve balls. And so we, have a very good game plan in play.

    Micah Johnson (10:38)
    Good.

    Scott Sorensen (11:02)
    And again, I’ve built over 600 homes in my life. And so we have a pretty good understanding of what the homes get a cost. You know, we’ve had some, a lot of volatility in the market as far as ⁓ price points and lumber jumps and all those types of things. We usually stay ahead of that pretty well. And ⁓ we’ve never had any real issues. If I give you a budget, that’s what the budget is. Like we were comfortable with that number in that process that we do together. We partner.

    And, you know, like I said, you’re in charge of the land and we’re in charge of the build. We’re driving the bus. So it allows me to build homes at a much faster pace and keep costs in control. If I’m waiting for on a custom build, someone to pick out their flooring and their roof and their all the stuff decisions that have to go on, you know, a custom home build would usually go a year and a half to two years a lot of times. And especially on the high end homes.

    Micah Johnson (11:57)
    Mm.

    Scott Sorensen (12:00)
    And what I finding is when we’re doing these homes, I already know, we start with the end in mind, we know exactly what’s going in every home. And we do this very relatively quickly. Our average home build on a very, as an example, a 5,000 square foot custom home would be six to eight months, which is more like a production type of deal. But it allows us to move much quicker, much with much more purpose.

    Micah Johnson (12:09)
    Right.

    Scott Sorensen (12:28)
    It saves everybody money. Now, if there’s instances where we feel like we should slow down, we’ll do that. But most of the time it’s go as fast as we can. Let’s make as much money as we can strike where the iron’s hot. And again, we only play in the best markets. if Nashville’s hot, we’re going to be here. If Park City is hot, we’re going to go there. If Florida is better, we’re going to go there. If there’s opportunities in South Carolina, we’re going to go there. So we’re pretty open and flexible, but we really.

    try to specialize in a few main parts. ⁓ I’ve done everything from starter homes to $35 million homes. So we run the gamut. I don’t know if I would ever do a investor type home over $6 million, but they’re out there. I know people that do them. I’ve been approached several times to do that. I like to keep it under that $5 million mark usually because those tend to move faster.

    And it’s amazing to me how many people out there have money. Like there’s just a lot of money floating around. And if you build the right house in the right spot, you’re going to hit a home run.

    Micah Johnson (13:26)
    Okay.

    There is.

    Well, you mentioned this pre-recording call too, and it’s something I learned throughout my career. That high-end luxury market, that thing has some padding. It does not react the same way that other markets do when you’re in your mid-level starter level homes where they’re way more based on rates and what they can do. The folks that are buying the high-end home, money is not their problem. That’s not their issue. Finding what they want is typically their issue. They can buy in any market.

    And they’re, typically more savvy of buyers. They know what they want. They’re not just going to settle. So making sure that you, if you build the product that they want, and I have a friend in, ⁓ Denver where he does high end flips. Where there’s a very intentional move that he’s putting in there targeting a very particular client where he knows that’s going to sell. It’s not going to sit it’s positioned very specifically.

    so that that buyer’s gonna pull the trigger right when they want them to. And it is not your cheap buyer. It is an expensive house. And that’s where I like how you’re doing that because again, it’s super intentional. And it’s not, you’re not just spraying and praying. You’re doing something very specific. And that’s what’s unique about real estate is there are a lot of strategies in this business.

    And you kind of run into one of two things. If you’re going to stay in your backyard, you got to learn a lot of strategies to deal with the market cycle. If you’re willing to leave your backyard, now you can use that strategy that you’re an expert at and find it in different markets where I can, okay, this will go work here. Let’s do it here. This will go work here and that’ll do it there so that you’re not reinventing the wheel over and over again.

    Scott Sorensen (16:07)
    Absolutely. And that’s what we’ve, kind of taken that model to heart. ⁓ I, there was times when I would pull off the market in certain areas, like when we lived in park city, which we did for a long time, I would just sit and I, my investors will be wearing me out. Hey Scott, we got something coming. I’m like, you know, it’s not a good time. We’re going to wait. We’re going to sit and we would, we’d sit for a year or two and I’d go fishing. It was great. I loved it. I should have done that more often, but at the end of the day, you know, I don’t want to put my own.

    my own money, their money at risk. And so we’re very conscientious about trying to find the right deal at the right time. And we share all that information with you so you can make that educated decision with us.

    Because again, we’re going to partner. We’re going to do this mano a mano and go through this process together. And there’s a level of trust. And it got to the point, I can tell you, I had so many investors that it got to the point where all I would have to do is call them up and say, hey, I found a really great lot.

    I’m going to send you a house plan and a cost to build. Let me know if you’re in.” And I would send it to him. And before I hardly even hit send or send it, they were responding back, let’s go. Cause they had a level of trust with me over the years. You know, I’d made that guy $9 million on, you know, 15 homes. Well, he’s pretty apt to want to do it again. And he knows I’m very careful. And I’ve told him there’s times when I had to talk him off the ledge. Like now’s not the time. Let’s wait. Let’s sit. Let’s sit and wait.

    Micah Johnson (17:19)
    Yeah.

    Scott Sorensen (17:35)
    I’m not in a position or in a need to, have to build 26 homes or 50 homes or 63 homes, which is the most I ever built in a year. I’m much more calculated in what we do and how we approach it because I feel like I’m dealing with people’s nest eggs, the money that they worked their whole life for. And I’m mindful of that. And I want nothing more than for us to have a great outcome. You know, Hey, we’re splitting 600 grand on the back. What a great process. What a great thing.

    My first time I did this was the kind of the most interesting deal ever. My best friend that I’ve known my whole life calls me up and he’s like, what are you doing? And I said, I’m just building, man. I’m just trying to scrape out a living. And he’s like, why don’t I go get a construction loan and you build a house and we’ll sell it and we’ll make the money together. And I was like, all right, are you sure? I mean, I I’m not trying to talk you in it. He’s like, no, I think we should do this. think you’ll, he says, I’ve seen what you build. It’s really good. Let’s, let’s go do one.

    Micah Johnson (18:33)
    Yeah.

    Scott Sorensen (18:34)
    He got a construction loan, 600K and we sold a house in Hebrew. I built it in six months. We sold it in less than a month and we each put, well, we put 120 grand each in our pocket off the first one. And instantly he was like, ⁓ I want to do this again. And my brother wants to do it. And my friend’s buddy wants to do it. And so he brought like six other people.

    Micah Johnson (18:49)
    Wow.

    Hahaha!

    Scott Sorensen (18:59)
    That’s how it started. was a very, I was not initially setting out to go do this, but what I found is it’s a much better process for me as a builder. I don’t have to deal with change orders and all these different selections that are having to happen. I can drive the bus at a much faster tick allows us to do it and save money in the process. Instead of overspan through the process. And I can control the costs much better. I don’t have the headache of trying to make a billionaire.

    Micah Johnson (19:15)
    Right.

    Scott Sorensen (19:30)
    a client happy when I build in those homes in Park City, which I’ve done and it’s not fun. so ultimately it’s a better situation. And you know what? We’ve had one house that sat a year or two months. That was the longest we ever held a home. We actually at six months decided to turn it into a short-term rental. was in a great area in Park City. We made 130 grand while it sat in six months, and then we sold it.

    Micah Johnson (19:32)
    Right.

    Scott Sorensen (19:57)
    We decided, you know what, we’re going to take it off the STR market and we’re just going to sell it. And we did, and we sold it right as soon as the market turned, we went right back and sold it and did great. So we always kind of have a plan. You know, there’s always what if this happens? What if this happens? What if this happens? And again, we don’t see every problem that comes, you know, World War three happens. I think we’re probably all in trouble. I think I’m going to drive to the nearest, you know, probably Air Force base and just pull out my lawn chair and my sunglasses because it’s coming and might as well enjoy it.

    Micah Johnson (20:26)
    right?

    Scott Sorensen (20:27)
    So

    Micah Johnson (20:27)
    I get a good view. Well, it’s man, it lines up with another thing I love about real estate is there’s a lot of ways to play this game. Figure out your way to play it that creates the life you want. Like exactly what you were talking about. You’re sitting here building, doing all this stuff, going all through all these parts that you did not like.

    And then out of nowhere, this opportunity arise where it’s like, wait a second, I get all my autonomy back. Actually, like you’re saying, drive the bus. I get to actually do the part I’m good at. It’s your, I’ve heard it called your zone of genius. It’s that area where you’re completely aligned. And now you can a term I like the economy of scale. Now you can actually make moves because your systems are there. Your processes are there. The money’s there.

    The cohesion is there, right? Especially when you’re doing partnerships. I really appreciate the way that you approach your investors, right? That it is this mono-e-mono, it’s us together. We are doing this process together because even just viewing it that way, your chances of a positive outcome are way higher. And like we know, like you’re talking about a 92 % retention rate on your investors, that talk about peace of mind.

    Talk about being on offense to play your game well, where you can literally just say, Hey, I found a lot. Here’s the house to put on it. What do you think? Let’s go. That is that’s as much of an easy button as you get in business. And you didn’t get there by accident. Y’all built a process. You had to get good at building first. Right. And that’s where you earned your stripes there. You have a great product. Now all these opportunities can pour in.

    that allow your life to become what you were hoping for anyways. And then the ability to where I really appreciate working with someone that will tell me no, if the answer is no, right? That is a powerful move in real estate. Cause we all get antsy, especially if we haven’t bought in a while, we just like the rush and we want to sign the documents and we want to drive by seeing people shoveling stuff. There’s that rush to it, but the ability to say no and wait,

    One of my, one of my favorite coaches I ever worked with was Dr. Jeff Spencer. He coached some really high level athletes and entrepreneurs. And one of the things he talks about, he was a former Olympian. He says a champion, the greatest word in a champion’s vocabulary is restraint is don’t take the field. A champion doesn’t take the field until they’re absolutely ready. And you will know when that’s time. It is not a mystery to you.

    And it was really helpful in my life and career of like, okay, hold on a second. You know, I was taught, learned to say, yes, learn how to go, learn how to go in motion. And then now the teaching is, okay, once you learn how to do that, now learn how to say no. Now learn how to wait. Now learn how to be patient. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So I really appreciate the way you view that. So for our listeners out there that have.

    Scott Sorensen (23:18)
    Yeah, but when is the time to break?

    Micah Johnson (23:29)
    are possibly interested in learning more and even working with you, what’s the best way to reach out to you and possibly book a call?

    Scott Sorensen (23:36)
    Yeah, so being relatively new to this area, we’re kind of getting everything set up here, but yeah, they can send an email to me at Scott Sorensen, S-O-R-E-N-S-E-N 11 at Gmail. That’s the easiest. ⁓ I’m pretty responsive to that. And then, you know, they can reach out as well through that. We’ll, kind of find out where they’re at, what kind of level they want to participate at. Everyone’s at different levels. We understand that we have like stuff, like I said, all the way from five grand ⁓ to 50 million. So we run the gamut.

    We try to cater each thing to that person individually and set them up for success as well as ourselves. I mean, we participate right there with you. You’re not in it alone. We’re, you know, it’s, it’s our blood and money and everything else in there with you. And we want to participate. And we really are trying to build something that is a great opportunity for you to continue to do. I don’t want to have a one-time customer. I want to have a customer that I do 50 homes with over the next 20 years.

    And that allows us to do this at a much higher level. But with that, like you said, we have to kind of be mindful of what areas are hot, what areas are not, and learn the markets in some of these areas. And we did a lot of research before I decided to move to Nashville. It was great for me because it was right between my two kids. You know, I got one in Charlotte and one in St. Louis. So we’re right in between, but Nashville is a great market and it’s solid and it’s moving and I don’t see it slowing down anytime soon. So that’s why we’ve kind of

    Micah Johnson (24:34)
    Right.

    Nice.

    Scott Sorensen (25:03)
    Planted here and I have opportunities on the Tennessee River for second home stuff. That’s really cool. STR is if someone’s interested in doing a bunch of those, you can buy five acres. can put 10 mini homes on there and have a great STR mark. And so we have all kinds of opportunities for people from small to big. And matter of fact, we have an opportunity on that Tennessee property. have 800 acres, just under 776 acres down on the Tennessee River. It’s kind of halfway between.

    Micah Johnson (25:16)
    nice.

    Scott Sorensen (25:33)
    Memphis and Nashville, second home kind of stuff. There’s going to be a wedding venue there, which would drive a lot of traffic and so forth and give people opportunities to, know, Hey, look, we’ll go build you four or five tiny homes. And these tiny homes are off the charts. Like the stuff you see in a, in a storybook, like they’re unbelievable from classical to a regular type of a barn or farm dominium type of stuff to

    Micah Johnson (25:41)
    Yeah.

    Yeah.

    Scott Sorensen (26:02)
    the modern Ruston look from Park City that’s really kind of catching on right now. So there’s a lot of that that we do. And so we kind of put you in the best situation for you, whatever you want to do.

    Micah Johnson (26:13)
    Man, I love that. I love that. What a way to approach it. For those of you listening, we’ll make sure that Scott’s email is in our show notes. So be sure to check below, reach out to him if that’s something that you’re, if you want over three decades of experience behind you, helping you make sure and partnering together to put good deals together and move good products to the world. That’s another great part of it too. It’s not just the money part. You’re actually putting something out there. People are living in it it’s a powerful experience. So make sure you reach out to Scott.

    Scott, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate your time, your story, your perspective. I think we need more folks out there in the industry doing it like you’re doing it. The way you approach it, education, actually care, serve people, grow together. That is the recipe for tremendous success. So thanks for that. If you got value out of today’s episode, don’t forget, like this episode, share it with friends if you think someone else could get value out of it as well. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast.

    We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Scott, who are out there building real businesses, creating that real generational wealth for people. Scott, again, thanks for being with us today and we’ll see everybody on the next episode.

    Scott Sorensen (27:23)
    Thank you, Micah

    Thanks, man.

     

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