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Show Summary
In this conversation, Will Johnson shares his journey from being a real estate flipper to founding a nonprofit focused on affordable housing. He discusses the importance of helping communities in need, the potential of Section 8 housing, and the need for financial literacy among youth. Will emphasizes the role of mindset in addressing housing issues and the opportunities available for young people in real estate.”
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
William Johnson (00:00)
Everybody wants to say there’s a housing shortage. Everybody wants to say there’s a mental health problem. There’s crime and violence in these communities. But we created it.When you give someone, when someone doesn’t have hope, when someone doesn’t have, they don’t even know how to, their lives are not secure, it’s the survival mode. And when you go into survival mode, all this other stuff happens. Whereas, and we fail to realize, we always say there’s a housing crisis. Let me tell you something. I go through five states, all the southern states plus Texas.
And I mean, I’ll just count them out. Birmingham has 22,000 empty lots or dilapidated houses. New Orleans has 25,000. Houston has 24,000. Dallas has 22,000. There’s plenty of houses for everybody. It’s just that nobody wants to go there or nobody wants to do it.
Dylan Silver (02:24)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, William Johnson, based out of New Orleans, has a background as a flipper, and now in the nonprofit space as well. Will, welcome.William Johnson (02:36)
Thank you, thank you very much, everyone.Dylan Silver (02:38)
It’s great to have you on here. were talking a little bit before hopping on here. I always like to start at the top of the show by asking guests how they got into the real estate space.William Johnson (02:48)
I got into the real estate space by learning from my father. He actually taught me how to build a house from bottom to the top.been flipping for about 15 years recently got into being flippers ourselves last five years he recently passed and ever since then I started the nonprofit because I wanted to help people instead of you know taking taking for people
Dylan Silver (03:19)
Yeah.William Johnson (03:21)
I figured I came to a point that ⁓ and that is actually a cool story. ⁓ I was going toLook at that house, see if I was gonna buy it or not. And it just hit me that.
I was actually profiting off the backs of someone’s misery, of something they couldn’t control. So in that moment is when I knew that I needed to go nonprofit to help instead of just.
Dylan Silver (03:49)
Yeah.William Johnson (03:50)
itDylan Silver (03:50)
Tell me about the nonprofit that you ⁓ have built. when we talk about, ⁓ I’m assuming it’s in the distressed real estate space and helping people with these types of situations.William Johnson (04:50)
Yeah, the nonprofit, ⁓ what it does is it maximizes investors ability tonot only maximize their return, sorry, not only maximize their return, but also maximize their ability to help a cause, to help affordable housing and to help section 80 and that. And then not only that, it gives us to maximize the ability to help those.
Dylan Silver (05:07)
So,William Johnson (05:24)
that need help. can instead of of helping one person or one family, I can help you know 10 at a time because I’m getting more I’m getting more funding in from investors who want to fund projects and fund housing. It’s just it’s a great way toto expand and to scale and to just reach more people that you can instead of doing it normally.
Dylan Silver (05:45)
Yeah.I want to ask you about the deals that you looked at in this nonprofit space. heard Section 8. also heard helping investors who may be newer learn the ropes. Is that fair to say?
William Johnson (06:06)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a little bit easier. There’s not as much risk doing it the way that we’re doing it because you’re not going to go get a distressed property and renovate it and then worry about if the renter is going to be there or if you’re have a renter, if you’re have someone that’s going to rent the property and not have to pay for it yourself.When we go through affordable housing, when we go through a Section 8, it’s two different ways, but when you go through them, the government pays for it. So no matter if there’s a renter there or not, your property’s being paid for. So the risk on a normal basis isn’t there.
Dylan Silver (06:47)
How did you get into Section 8?William Johnson (06:50)
⁓ I got in section eight realizing that as a, as a regular flipper, if I’m going to go buy this distressed property, renovate it, and then provide it for someone else to rent, for to rent or even sell it to another investor. I’m taking, I’m taking a property from whoever’s, whoever was there or whoever was able to get in that, in that community.Being in an affordable housing, instead of me taking something off the misery, off someone who couldn’t control their situation in the first place, they either had a chance, their choices was to feed their family or to pay their bills. So, you know, the only thing I can think of to remedy that and then they change is to keep it.
as a nonprofit and so now we get distressed properties, we renovate them and we hold them. So that now it can’t go nowhere but to a person in that community. So I’m not taking anymore, I’m giving and that’s my problem.
Dylan Silver (07:42)
Fine hold.Are you seeing that there’s a lot of opportunity and interest from ⁓ government agencies, municipalities in Section 8? Is there frothy investor interest as an investor, but also the funding necessary for Section 8?
William Johnson (08:08)
the funding, yes. I honestly haven’t seen a whole bunch of people as far as, you know, wanting to go into sectioning affordable housing. It’s just, it’s, it’s a mindset. You know, people, people don’t want to go into those neighborhoods because of the, of the crime, violence and, ⁓ know, mental instability. But this is my thing.Everybody wants to say there’s a housing shortage. Everybody wants to say there’s a mental health problem. There’s crime and violence in these communities. But we created it.
When you give someone, when someone doesn’t have hope, when someone doesn’t have, they don’t even know how to, their lives are not secure, it’s the survival mode. And when you go into survival mode, all this other stuff happens. Whereas, and we fail to realize, we always say there’s a housing crisis. Let me tell you something. I go through five states, all the southern states plus Texas.
And I mean, I’ll just count them out. Birmingham has 22,000 empty lots or dilapidated houses. New Orleans has 25,000. Houston has 24,000. Dallas has 22,000. There’s plenty of houses for everybody. It’s just that nobody wants to go there or nobody wants to do it.
Dylan Silver (09:55)
I have a question specific to the Section 8 space and maybe the misconception or maybe the stigma that may be attached to it. You alluded to it earlier. When people think of Section 8, they’re thinking of, you know, strictly some type of distressed or run-down areas. But do we also see Section 8 housing outside of those areas in what you would consider very much middle class areas?William Johnson (10:21)
Oh,absolutely. there’s a, you can, you don’t have to always get dilapidated houses. You can just go, you know, there’s a, into regular neighborhoods. The government pays up to 75 % of the rent and it’s a set number, but literally, and you know, it’s never gonna happen, but literally you can have a mansion.
And as long as the tenant can pay the other 25%, it could be section 8. It doesn’t have to be in a bad neighborhood. It doesn’t have to have a bad house. It could be a perfectly fine, it could be a new house.
Dylan Silver (10:51)
Okay.William Johnson (10:57)
It’s just how you want to do it. mean, you can literally, you know, all these developers that are building brand new subdivisions, can literally build it, apply for affordable housing, and set the whole neighborhood for Soil Ablaze. And it’s the same thing.Dylan Silver (10:58)
Hmm.Yeah.
That’s actually a great idea. Do you know if anyone is looking at that seriously?
William Johnson (11:17)
⁓ Me? I actually have a prototype. ⁓Dylan Silver (11:19)
There you go.William Johnson (11:24)
community and it’s not just houses. got the whole houses. I have ⁓ a grocery store. It’s not a mom pop but it’s midway, save a lot type of grocery store. And then I created a⁓ A financial intelligence program is called leverage. It’s for 11th 12th graders that they will be ⁓ financially sound, business credit, personal credit, and be able to run a business when they graduate high school. I feel like that’s the main thing as far as anybody in low income housing. It’s just they don’t know. I mean, you can’t,
raise up, can’t improve your life if you don’t know how to. So I mean, I feel like that’s been the crutch for years that we have. I look at, I can go so many things. mean, school these days doesn’t teach you anything as far as.
Dylan Silver (12:13)
ThanksMm-hmm.
You know, I echo what you’re saying. One of the things that I’ve noticed, I grew up in Northern New Jersey and I feel like people are doing as good as they could. But in a lot of ways, public school does feel like, and I hate to be negative, but in a lot of ways it feels like almost a daycare system because parents have to have someone watch the kids while they’re at work. And then so many times, people are not enthusiastic about their education.
And when you lack enthusiasm, when you lack motivation to do something, it’s infectious. And you compare that to like a private school experience where everyone effectively is competing to be as good as possible, to score as high as possible. It’s a totally different dynamic.
William Johnson (13:09)
Yeah, Ireally and to be just to put it in a different, in this way, I really believe public school teaches us how to be workers.
if you want to put it in a spot. know, public school, mean private school, private school and their parents, the people that can afford to go to private school are either our business people or entrepreneurs themselves. So they’re teaching their kids how to do that no matter what. Whereas when you go to public school, just like you said, it’s a daycare. So they’re teaching you how to be a worker and not how to be a business person. And that’s the difference in my opinion.
Dylan Silver (13:41)
Yeah.You know, I want to touch one more point on that. When you talk about young people, you 18 years old, you might go off to school. ⁓ So many different things. You might get a job, might go work for the government, know, whichever career path people are going to choose at that young age. How many of them are thinking I could go buy real estate? Probably not a ton. But I’ve been seeing this from guests on the show, especially in the lending space. People are telling me that
William Johnson (13:58)
All right.Dylan Silver (14:07)
young people potentially have an opportunity right now to buy a small multifamily property like duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes if the deal underwrites properly and if they have some income. Now granted, I haven’t done this myself personally, so I don’t know 100 % the validity of this, but I’ve heard this from multiple people and I think most young people aren’t aware that that’s even an option.William Johnson (14:28)
Oh,no, they’re not. mean, well, I’m not, most of them aren’t, it just depends on their dynamic of where they live and who they’re around because social media and the internet has provided us a ton of information that you could do a lot of things.
there’s kids doing a lot of things now that we didn’t do when we was kids. mean, when I was in high school, my job, I felt like my job was to get me a vehicle.
That was the first thing. You know what I’m saying? I was tired of walking. Well, mean, nowadays, mean, and that’s why, that’s really why I started the financial intelligence course, because it gives you, it gives you the ability, it gives you that knowledge. I mean, you don’t even have to do real estate, but when you graduate high school, you’re 18. I mean, the society says you’re an adult.
Dylan Silver (15:38)
Yeah.hahahahah
William Johnson (16:03)
And you have no clue what to do. You know what saying? So I fear at least I could give, you know how to handle your finances. You know how to handle finances. You could go start a business. Whatever business you want to go start, you could go start that. So I don’t know.Dylan Silver (16:07)
Okay.Yeah, tax strategy, all that stuff. think, you know, we have to learn it as real estate operators. We have to learn this along the way and it can be challenging. I know for me, certainly I was like, okay, I got to figure this out now. But it would have been great to learn it upfront, but I didn’t have the information at that point in time. Will, we are…
William Johnson (16:20)
Yeah.Right. ⁓ yeah. I still had to figure stuff out.
Alright.
Dylan Silver (16:43)
We are coming up on time here though. Where can folks go to reach out to you if they’re interested in learning more about the nonprofit? How can they get in contact?William Johnson (16:51)
⁓I do have a LinkedIn page, Facebook, TikTok. My website is starsnpo.org. You can reach out to me, you can call me, send me a message. I have no problem talking with people. I’m busy during the mornings. But yes, you can definitely get a hold of me anytime.
Dylan Silver (17:13)
Will, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.William Johnson (17:16)
Thank you sir,I appreciate it.
