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Show Summary
In this conversation, Anthony discusses his journey in real estate investing, focusing on Section 8 housing and the BRRRR strategy. He emphasizes the importance of building scalable systems for property management and the stability that comes with government-backed rent. Anthony also highlights the significance of personal branding and marketing in the real estate industry, sharing insights on how to effectively scale a property investment business.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Anthony (00:00)
with Section 8, you’re betting on the government, right? And what can the government do? And even if the worst times happen, we’ve seen it, they can just print more money. And Section 8 has been around for, you know, many, many years. And there’s over, don’t quote me on the number, but there’s over three or four million people on Section 8.And so I looked into that and realized, and then there’s such strong demand for it. Every city in this country, including Nashville, there’s waiting lists for Section 8 tenants for over two years.
Kristen (02:03)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Post Podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Anthony Redmond, who is a real estate investor and entrepreneur out of Tennessee, specializing in Section 8 and BRRRR strategies. Thanks for being here, Anthony.Anthony (02:14)
Yeah, Kristen, thanks for having me.Kristen (02:17)
Awesome. Well, I’m excited to get into this. You have a really impressive portfolio and you seem to be scaling into new builds and all that. Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into real estate?Anthony (02:25)
Yeah, so like anyone, I read a book, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Listen, I’m no different than anybody else. I didn’t have money growing up or necessarily anything like that, a silver spoon in my mouth, but I had the drive and hustle. So I was working a corporate job. I worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies. And I had moved down to South Florida, Miami in particular.It was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me because I’m from New York, but I grew up in a small town outside of Tampa and they say, you know, you can only grow as big as, you know, your bandwidth around you. And so I moved to Miami, got an opportunity down there and still with a corporate job. had a sales job down there. And then I just realized that, you know, I didn’t, this whole nine to five thing, it wasn’t for me. You know, I got a two year associate’s degree. I knew school wasn’t for me to four years and whatever.
But, so real estate, you know, I came across a wholesaling real estate like a lot of people do and I was like, what is this? And unfortunately that was like 2015 and I spent a bunch of money on a guru and I say a guru because there’s gurus and then there’s people that actually do it, my business partner and I call them do-ru’s. And I didn’t have any money for marketing, didn’t know, so I kind of failed. But then 2017 came and I kind of hit rock bottom and I said this real estate thing,
has to work for me. So I started driving Uber and Lyft at night after my sales job during the day. I covered the three counties down in South Florida for marketing dollars. And I would take that, put it into mailers. direct mail was the first thing I ever did. And I you know be on I-95 driving. I’d pull over to the side on the shoulder if I got a call and you know talk to the seller. And I got my first deal under contract.
Everything was by tech, so was pretty crazy. It was new to me. I’m like, I never even spoke to the guy. It was a $250,000 duplex, you know, whatever. So I ended up doing one and then one turned to, you know, a second one and the third. And then from there, just kind of through, you know, my network, you know, you meet other real estate professionals that are doing different things. And I knew wholesaling real estate, it’s a great way, like a lot of people say, to make money in the short term.
but you want to actually own that asset. So you build up some money from wholesale and then you figure out how and try and buy a rental or maybe a flip. And I really didn’t even go into flips. Actually, I take that back. I did one. My first flip was virtually. I started to wholesale in Houston, Texas when Miami got a little too saturated and I partnered with someone out there and I did my first flip and then COVID hit like a month later. So that was fun. We ended up breaking out even after the entire year.
of that. But from there, I met up with someone and connected with my business partner now, still to this day, his name is James Jones. He’s in Memphis, Tennessee. and um We had a deal locked up one time and we spoke for about 30 minutes, same deal. Then we ran into each other like six months later and we ended up partnering together. So from there, he had a big wholesale operation going on and I moved to Nashville. He had an office in Nashville.
After COVID hit, we closed up the one in Miami and I didn’t, know, I started to buy with him in Memphis and I knew I didn’t really like Memphis. So I lived in Nashville and it was a short drive over and we had a few rentals. then, you know, from there, I just kinda, I went back to Miami and I met up with an old mentor and we started chit chatting and he said something that changed my life. We started to talk about, oddly enough, there was
minimum wage of like a Taco Bell and a Wendy’s and they were paying $15 an hour and all I said to him was, it amazing they can’t get people to work for $15 an hour? And from there it opened up the floodgates. He told me, you know, why? And I said, no, you know, and he’s like, well, because the majority of people that work there, they’d be earning too much money.
and i said what do you mean and he’s like well and then he started telling about government assistance and things like that had a couple rentals and he said if you were to do it over again if you were able to go back in miami he’s like you would do section eight and said that’s funny because at the time we just closed on a sixteen package townhouse package and one of them were section eight and
so after that i said it’s funny i would just you have this one person section eight so i went back to memphis as a james i think i’m on the something and i’d go into section eight what it entails and all that good stuff and from there we just change everything the section eight we have that many rentals are i did it with him at the time and from there you know now we have hundreds and they’re all section eight so it just kind of progresses you know what i mean but also is a good way to start and it’s all about the the mindset on
mentor in a new wholesaler. met at a meetup over here the other night in Nashville and I had him over here yesterday and he’s got the drive to determination, the hustle and you know he will get his first deal and hopefully you know I’m able to buy it from him but he’s got that drive and determination and it starts there and then you progress.
Kristen (08:24)
Absolutely, I mean a theme kind of in what you were talking about is you’ve had really great partners along the way that’s really helped you scale up your career and now you’re you know doing the opposite for somebody else. You had that maybe negative experience with the guru. What is the difference between kind of finding good partners and maybe people that don’t fit? What have you learned from that?Anthony (08:39)
I did and I… Sorry, go ahead. I didn’t mean to cut you off.Yeah, so what I didn’t mention in there because I was trying to sum up the story in short, I failed with the big flashy guru. And ⁓ in order for me to get started again, I still knew that I needed to learn from someone that’s been there and done it. The best way to learn and do something is hands on for most people, especially for me. And the prior guru was not hands on. So that was a huge difference for me. So
While I saved up money driving Uber and Lyft, I failed to mention that I also saved up money to pay another mentor. And I don’t call him a guru because he wasn’t out there flashing anything. think I saw him online. He was at a real estate investing meetup just locally in Miami. He had a couple students, but nothing crazy about him. But I was able to meet and actually talk to him. And from there, I…
was able to pay him, think at the time it was like $3,500. And he was the one who was able to get me to my first deal and then help my second. And actually from there I sped up and actually ended up partnering with him. I was only one of his kind of students that he ever did that with. So yeah, that’s the biggest difference is there’s so much, and that’s what James and I hate about this space. There’s so much people out there that just sell information and they keep you in the information learning mode.
versus actually doing it because their business model is to make money off of you just continuously learning and so on this and so on that versus you actually executing and this is analysis paralysis right is what they say and those are key factors.
Kristen (10:26)
Yeah.Yeah, it’s a fine line because you do want education before you go do it, but there is that, you know, some people do stay in that learning place for too long. And you must have learned a lot on the job too.
Anthony (10:37)
Right, yeah.yeah i did so you know he he actually went to my first deal with me we walked through buyers through talking to buyers you know things like that nature so yet is having someone that’s more accessible and hands-on is i think ⁓ bigger key difference than than any other
Kristen (11:36)
Yeah, absolutely. And I’d love for you to get into more about section eight. You you figured out that was a good opportunity. Can you break down why exactly that’s such a great opportunity?Anthony (11:46)
Yeah, so again, know, section eight over the past couple of years became super popular. You know, there’s a lot of people out there pushing it now, but that’s not why I got into it. Like I said, my mentor in Miami, when I went down to visit, you know, he explained how people, you know, generations live off of the government, right? Nothing wrong with it. They’re in it. They’re able to do it. So, you know, food stamps and they get their power paid for it all of that. And I said to him, and we had just gone through COVID and I said to myself, well,you know what happens if something happens like this again you know people lose their jobs ultimately the biggest difference is that the government is going to pay you whereas every day with a regular retail tenant it can be someone like you or I it doesn’t matter the person you’re betting on them when you rent to them you’re betting on them right that’s why everyone has a credit score so you’re betting on them to get up and go to work
not getting a car accident, not drink the night before, not make bad life choices to be able to pay their rent each and every month. Well,
with Section 8, you’re betting on the government, right? And what can the government do? And even if the worst times happen, we’ve seen it, they can just print more money. And Section 8 has been around for, you know, many, many years. And there’s over, don’t quote me on the number, but there’s over three or four million people on Section 8.
And so I looked into that and realized, and then there’s such strong demand for it. Every city in this country, including Nashville, there’s waiting lists for Section 8 tenants for over two years.
So not only is there demand for it, you don’t have to worry about necessarily getting paid each month, which allows us to scale. I had lunch with someone the other day, ⁓ a potential client, and…
you he’s like wow you’re able to get hundreds of units in a short time frame is pretty impressive and the only reason why is because it built a system with you know we’ll get into that with the houses and stuff but not having to worry about your mortgages getting paid and knowing that you’re going to get paid each month allows you to be able to do that and really scale.
Kristen (13:53)
Absolutely, I mean that’s such a good point that I think probably a lot of people don’t talk about. And you mentioned your systems, which I think is very fascinating how you’ve been able to scale quickly. Can you kind of break some of those down? ⁓Anthony (14:04)
Yeah, so like, you know, to me, I’m more of a, I have a business partner, his name is James, like I mentioned, and I’m more of the systems in process and he’s more of the big thinker. And so, ⁓ yeah, originally when we got into it, we did a rehab here, put a tenant into it and did that. And then I realized, okay, as we started to buy more units, realized that, okay, we go through and how can we make this thing run like a conveyor?So then we realized, we do all the floors. We do everything exactly the same to a house. So we paint it the same, we do the floors the same, the backsplash. And a lot of people don’t realize too, we make the houses as maintenance-free as possible. So we don’t put in fans, we don’t put in sprayers for the kitchen sinks, we don’t put in garbage disposals, we don’t do a lot of things that you might have in a regular retail rental.
They’re not ultimately needed, Nobody necessarily needs a fan or a sprayer, but those things can cause maintenance items. So if you’re always having to go back and constantly fix things that are breaking, you can’t have that conveyor belt continue to run smoothly. So I kind of realized that, and that’s just kind of how my mind works. And so we built systems with the contractors to kind of do everything the same, ultimately, so we can scale on that end. And then in-house,
I realized too, property management, if we’re going to do this many units, you know, a property manager is good. If you have five, 10 units and maybe you don’t really have any time, you have a nine to five and that’s perfectly fine. But I realized, you know, if we’re going to build an entire business out of it be able to scale, we want to control everything. So then, you know, built an in-house property management team, you know, a bunch of virtual assistants and kind of the same thing on the back end. You know, we buy a property.
you know, a Google Drive folder gets created for it with a bunch of different folders in there, insurance, know, documents, contracts, all of that stuff, leases, and kind of the same thing across the board. And when you build out a system, so a lot of people want to go from like zero to ten real quick, but go to zero to one, figure it out, and then two, figure it out, three, four, and now you’re figuring out what process works for you, ultimately. There’s not one system that works for everyone.
And then from there you can really scale, but it’s important to do that in the beginning to kind of figure out your systems.
Kristen (17:12)
Yeah, scaling in a thoughtful way, kind of going deep rather than wide. I think a lot of people make that mistake where they just want more doors and more money.Anthony (17:21)
Yeah,and what happens is we see it because we have a bunch of students and some want to go, they have the means and stuff and they want to go zero to 20 units in like six months. While you can do it, you got to get to unit one first. And we see it sometimes and we tell them, hey, all right, stop buying, slow down, like, relax for a second.
because you have so much out on different hard money and you’re still figuring out like they don’t have a full system in process and they’re just figuring out as they go but they’re almost there they get in you know over over their head because they have 10 properties and you know they’re everywhere so it’s much better it might seem like a slower progression to get to 20 properties but you know figuring out your systems in the first five or so
And again, that’s whether it’s rentals or if you’re constantly going to do maybe a flip a month or every other month or kind of just anything. Figuring that out in the beginning is what allows you then to really scale.
Kristen (18:24)
And you’re kind of playing with different, I know you have some flips, long-term rentals, starting with new builds. I know that long-term rentals have been really your bread and butter. How did you decide on that?Anthony (18:37)
So again, just wholesale and I realize, and just networking and reading different books and podcasts and YouTubes, owning the actual asset is where all the money is made. where the net worth is created. So a flip is great. Let’s say you make $40,000 on a flip. We do the BRRRR model in Memphis in particular. You have to have the right market for it. And the BRRRR model basically just means you buy it,You rehab it, rent it, you refinance it, and then you repeat. That’s exactly what we do. So we do that and we might pull out the same amount of money, 20, 30, $40,000. The biggest difference is that it’s tax free. And now we own that asset long term. So guess what? Our net worth goes up, we’re able to borrow more. There’s a lot more in it when you actually own the asset. And at the end of the day, you know,
depending on the market and then you have a renter in there paying your mortgage down, you know, every five years or so people don’t realize those become like ATMs. You can then refinance it again and pull whatever, you know, maybe the market went up and your mortgage got paid down, you can refinance it, pull some equity out again. That comes back to you tax free. You know, five, seven years later, you do it again. So when you have 10, 20, 30, and you’re able to do this over the years,
those keep on paying you versus a flip that pays you just one time. You know, I watch Shark Tank all the time, probably like a lot of people that watch or listen to this, and Barbara Cochran, I’ll never forget, she has a couple sources of income, like most on there. She said her biggest source of income still to this day, out of anything that she does, is refinancing her rental properties. And she does it every year. You know, she’s bought obviously many, I don’t know how many over the years. She said still to this day, her biggest…
Kristen (20:26)
that.Anthony (20:32)
⁓ income producer is refinancing those rental properties she’s got buildings and whatever but that’s what people don’t realize that it’s a gift that keeps givingKristen (20:41)
Yeah, I mean that’s amazing. That’s a really good breakdown of it. And to kind of switch gears a little bit, I mean you said it in the beginning where you were really focused on marketing and getting yourself out there. It seems like you have a pretty good handle on that. Can you just talk about the importance of personal branding, marketing, social media, all of that?Anthony (20:59)
Yeah, for sure. So I was kind of the guy that was always just behind the scenes. I’m a systems and process guy as you hear now and never really out there on social media. I had it but I was never really out there. But then I realized, ⁓ you know, you can do a lot of good, especially if you are actually doing it, right? You have a lot of knowledge to give to people. And James and I, had three guys come to us in Memphis a few years back.and they came to us, they were local, James is born and raised in Memphis so a lot of people know him there and ⁓ they wanted us to help them with their rentals at scale and they had two rentals and they sat down with us in the office and within that hour we poured into them and they went from there, within that following year they went from two units to like 44 units within the next 12 months.
and now right now I think they have about a hundred units which is pretty amazing. So from there I was able to see the power of knowledge and helping people out because there’s really a need for it and ultimately I did get tired as well. I got taken by one seeing these gurus that sell this stuff and you don’t get anything from it. You just get a little bit and ⁓ so from there we realized okay you know
maybe we can do something because these guys are like you should really put yourself out there and help others out and coach because you guys actually really do it. And it kind of hit a light bulb and so from there James and I talked and we both started social media and putting ourselves out there more. And while I still don’t do it as much as I should, it’s super important and it’s really good. You’re building your brand, your personal brand. whether you have nothing to sell,
if you have some sort of knowledge, there’s someone out there that’s going to watch it and it’s going to help them ultimately. And that in itself is a pretty cool feeling because, you know, I just actually yesterday I did a podcast like this a few months back and they tagged me in it yesterday. of the people that just happened to be watching it, guess, just from my podcast there to now, he was able to get 10 units, right?
I wasn’t selling anything on the podcast. was just giving free knowledge. And so they tagged me in that and then he texts me, he’s like, that’s pretty incredible. That to me is so cool because you’re able to help people achieve what they didn’t realize is possible. So on my aspect of things, again, even if you’re not selling anything, just having a personal brand. If you have some sort of niche or knowledge about business, which most people do.
Kristen (23:20)
then.Anthony (23:47)
know, professionals overall building the brand, putting yourself out there on social media, just telling people about it ⁓ is pretty cool.Kristen (24:00)
It’s amazing. Yeah, I think it’s really important. And just as you said, just building a brand and getting your face out there, it really does make a difference. And you never know what can come of it and what leads will come.Anthony (24:10)
Yeah,it’s a huge difference. And let’s say you are selling something or maybe you’re just selling insurance. You’re not selling people on how to get insurance. You’re just actually selling insurance. Or you’re a real estate agent. I think everyone now needs a brand for the most part, unless you’re just stuck behind a desk at a corporate job. But even then, you never know where your life is going to be the next year to five years from now. So why not just starting putting yourself out there?
you know everybody finds anything interesting so you just even if you have nothing you i’m sure you have something but you know you just i’m going shopping you put that out there whatever but like you know if you’re a realtor things like that because then when you refer to someone the first thing people do is look you up on social media and kind of see if you’re actually doing it and yeah this person’s got you know it’s not even a story about the follower count ⁓ anymore just to prove this of the ⁓
Kristen (24:55)
Right.Anthony (25:02)
proof that’s out there. That’s where people are going to. Business cards are no longer a thing. You know what I mean? That’s the proof for anything now.Kristen (25:10)
Absolutely. Well, I mean, this has been, you’ve broken down a lot of great things for people starting out, scaling, tell everyone where to find you.Anthony (25:20)
Yeah, so you can find me on all platforms, realestateant, a nice green picture with my face on it. But yeah, I’m on all platforms, mainly on Instagram. But yeah, find me anywhere. I drop a lot of free knowledge all the time. I don’t just do Section 8. I do the BRRR, which is the rehabs and all of that. I’m going to be starting to do a new construction soon. So I’ll take everyone through that. I’ll have videos on that, and just kind of what I learned. But yeah, I mean.If you just go to my page or even my business partner’s page and you can pull up a video, a couple videos or YouTubes, I mean there’s a lot of free content that we give away because we truly love helping people. It’s pretty cool when, like I said, you get to text that this person got 10 units within six months just from watching something like this. So yeah, make sure to look me up and follow me.
Kristen (26:09)
Well, thank you so much, Anthony.Anthony (26:12)
Alright, well appreciate you having me on, Kristen.Kristen (26:15)
And thank you everybody for listening. I hope you got some good inspiration for your own business and got a lot of takeaways. Definitely check Anthony out. He’s got a lot of free knowledge to give away. And we’ll see you back next time. Bye.Anthony (26:26)
All right, thank you.
