How This 30-Year-Old Investor Built a Real Estate Brokerage & Flip Business

Jake McVey (00:00)
He was ready to go. I I won’t lie to you. And it was pretty funny because that first deal, we were I don’t know if you remember your first deal. I was we were so stressed. We worked fifteen hour days, seven days a week trying to get it done. My eye was twitching, I was drinking too much caffeine, but we were hooked from that moment on.

Quentin Edmonds (01:48)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am here again today with another fantastic guest. This gentleman is an investor and a broker. He does fix and flip investing.

what I love about him because he wants to do what’s best for people. you know, I y’all know I love servitude. And he goes about under the moniker 1% List. So I know it’s more to that. I’m gonna let him expand on that. But I am super excited to introduce you all to Mr. Jake McVey. Mr. Jake, how you doing today, sir?

Jake McVey (02:27)
Hey, I’m great. Thanks for having me on. I’m really excited to be here.

Quentin Edmonds (02:30)
Absolutely, my friend. Well, listen, man, I’m glad you’re here. I thank you for giving us some of your time. You’ll hear me probably say at the end, time is our most precious commodity. And so I appreciate you giving giving us your time. I can’t do this by myself. We are co-collaborators here, my friend. I can’t I can’t do this podcast without you. This episode, I can’t do it without you, man. So I’m so glad you’re here, my friend. And so listen, I am the type. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people.

What’s your main focus these days? If you don’t mind, Jake, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in. And then also tell us what market you’re operating in. And so Jake, sir, you got the floor, my friend.

Jake McVey (03:11)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. so as you mentioned, I’m a investor and a broker. I own a local brokerage. It’s called 1% Lists Homegrown Realty. It is a franchise, it’s nationwide. but I own one of the local ones here in the Chicago suburbs. I’m in the the southwestern suburbs here in Chicago. but a a little bit more about, you know, my professional life, right?

I’m a little bit younger for an investor. I’ve been doing this since 2020. I’m 30 now, started at 24. Got my first sale as a real estate agent in 2020, and I also bought my first investment property, my first flip in 2020. so I’ve known I wanted to invest in real estate from a young age. I’m self-taught, right? Podcast, books, just absorbing as much as I can from anybody I meet.

Yeah, it’s gone a long way. And then of course, everything else you learn when you just jump in and start doing it. Right. So with investing in mind, I got license to sell real estate to help myself, you know, invest. What I learned as I started doing it is I can provide a great service to people in sales, and I’m good at sales too. and the reason I’m good at it is because I care, like you said, about what’s best for people, right? Somebody calls me, they’re looking for a cash offer or something, they’re looking to sell their home.

I can go in and give them an honest opinion of like, hey, listen, this is what I can buy it for, or this is what we can sell it for on the market, you know. And this is, you know, my fees are low too, right? One percent. Right. So I can really do what’s best for you know, that individual in that moment, which it’s a blessing and a curse, right? It it’s my probably biggest advantage and my biggest disadvantage. But I wouldn’t I wouldn’t have it any other way. So again, twenty twenty I started, I

work with my my dad on the investing side of things. I dragged him kicking and screaming into the first flip. Something he always wanted to do. He’s in the trades. but he didn’t have the the real estate, you know, expertise and the business side of things. So I dragged him into the first one and before we even sold it, he was getting on me about finding the next one. and we’ve been we’ve been going ever since.

small operation compared to a lot of your guests, but we we like to keep it that way. We don’t have aspirations to be doing 10, 20 flips a year. It’s you know, we like to stay hands-on still, hire more out more out as we go, but we’re still very hands-on. and yeah, and then on the brokerage side of things, that’s been really fun being to help people, you know, help help them get make as much money as possible.

Quentin Edmonds (05:39)
Yeah, yeah. I love it, man. Thank you so much for sharing. Love how you said you you bought dad into it, kicking and screaming, then dad was like, Okay, when the next day? Like when we don’t start? What’s what’s he on and he was like, Let’s go, what’s up? What’s that?

Jake McVey (05:49)
Yeah.

He was ready to go. I I won’t lie to you. And it was pretty funny because that first deal, we were I don’t know if you remember your first deal. I was we were so stressed. We worked fifteen hour days, seven days a week trying to get it done. My eye was twitching, I was drinking too much caffeine, but we were hooked from that moment on.

Quentin Edmonds (06:56)
So been in it 2020 when you started the business, right? So six years you’ve been in it. This listen, I often say this: destiny has no wasted moments, right? Like we are learning from each leg of the journey and we are developing to the people that we are today. So I would love to know, Jake, what has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience, tenacity? Talk to me, man. What has it taught you?

Jake McVey (07:20)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a that’s a good question. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned and it’s you know helped me in my whole life, right? Marriage, fatherhood, yeah, everything, right? but from investing, because everything’s out of your control once you have that property, right? Is just a problem solver mentality. You know, problems happen. You can’t you you can’t live life without problems showing up. But once they’re here, there’s no use in stressing them out. It’s just figure out

how to solve it and move on. I mean we’ve got a disaster you know property right now that it’s we keep thinking there’s no way there’s gonna be another surprise and boom, another surprise. Yeah. But it is what it is. It’s you know, we own the property, we’ve got to fix it up. We’ve got to do it right. So the next person doesn’t have issues. So we just got to solve it.

Quentin Edmonds (07:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Now man, I I appreciate that reflective answer. Cause I I asked that question because at the center of each business is the business owner, right? And so sometimes we gotta have that reflective mindset to say, Why did I get into this? And what have I overcame? And just to keep so you can pull it from the source of okay, I’m gonna keep going forward because six years in the business, I’ve been through some ups and downs, I’m gonna get past this as well. And so yeah, so yeah, yeah. So I I yeah.

Jake McVey (08:32)
a roller coaster, right? Entrepreneurship, it’s a roller coaster.

Quentin Edmonds (08:35)
Come on, man. You’re absolutely correct, man. So listen, I want to ask you about operations a little bit. And so what’s one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years, that’s really made the biggest difference on how you run deals?

Jake McVey (08:51)
Ooh, that’s interesting.

Honestly, I c I I I’ll be honest with you, we’re not big systems people. Yeah, we’re just not. I we our biggest benefit is probably we have we when we work hard at it. We we work hard at good relationships with contractors, right? So like for our example, our electrician, he’s been with us since our second property and he’s worked on every one. And you know, it it’s it’s so that’s the big thing for us is we want I guess that’s

Operationally, the bet the biggest thing is we want long term relationships with our contractors. We we’re never looking for the cheapest. We’re looking for somebody that’s going to do quality work and we want to pay them fair and we want to trust them to to do it right. and that when we bring them the next job and the next job, you know, that their prices aren’t gonna, you know, they’re gonna remember that you know we have more work for them and we have, you know, they come and go as they please, all that good stuff. So probably the long term relationships.

Quentin Edmonds (10:20)
Absolutely. And I and I’m glad that stuck. I’m glad you came back to you was like, We’re not big systems people and then you started talking about a system you put in place, like, well Yeah.

Jake McVey (10:27)
It’s

funny because I dunno I guess it is kind of a system, but I’m I’m such a people person. For me it’s just how I it’s how I do business in general. You know, that’s how I live my life is you know, I want those long term relationships. So I d you know, it took me a second to come.

Quentin Edmonds (10:44)
Yeah. No, I appreciate you, man. And we’re we’re gonna come back to relationships because I want to hear your philosophy on it, even e expand it a little bit more. But I do want to ask you before I get there, what’s next for you, man? Like what is the next real goal? What are you looking to solve or scale next, Jake?

Jake McVey (10:59)
Sure, yeah. so our our flipping side, we’re our investing side, you know, with my dad, we’re pretty happy. Again, we’re not looking to do a ton of deals. We like to, you know, get our hands dirty, do some work, and build beautiful houses for people. but what I’m most excited about is the brokerage that I’m I’m building right now. So my franchise, 1% Lists Homegrown Realty here in the Chicagoland suburbs. been in real estate since twenty twenty, but I opened the brokerage in March.

you know, we’ve already saved people, you know, sellers tens of thousands of dollars based you know compared to a three percent listing fee. So that’s my my big excitement for the next twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six months and and on, is building that brokerage, helping people save as much money as they can because it’s you know, it’s your equity, right? So I want to help people save that.

Quentin Edmonds (11:46)
Yeah, yeah. No, I love it, man. I love it. I’m I’m loving your outlook. I’m loving your lens. So I want to come back, circle back to relationships, man. I always ask people what is their philosophy on relationships, building good, healthy business relationships, and also like some of the people that’s in that corner that’s really been helping them do business. And so I know we talked a little bit about it, but I want I want to expand on it even more. Talk to me, Jake, because you you love helping people, you want long term relationships.

Relationships. So give me a little bit more on your philosophy when it comes to building healthy relationships within business.

Jake McVey (12:21)
Sure. for me it’s always about win win, right? So i i again, like our contractors, we’re not looking for the cheapest. We we know people gotta make a living. We want them to make their money and we want them to be happy with us long term. To everybody gets paid fairly, right? but that extends everywhere. I I’m I’m definitely a people person. I mean, I’m actually I’m a local elected official, so I I serve my constituents. you know, very fortunately I get to do that and that’s an honor.

but I mean really it just comes down to I like good people, right? So if if you’re a good person, we’re gonna mesh well. You know, if if once I start working with somebody and I can kinda tell they’re in it for themselves or they have, you know, ulterior motives, that’s when it doesn’t doesn’t really work out, you know. but definitely yeah, yeah, win wins, people supporting each other and you know that I guess I don’t know if you call that a ph philosophy, but that’s just kind of how I like to

Not just do business but live my life. and I’m very fortunate to have from when I, you know, started in real estate, my my go to attorney, my go to lender. they’ve taught me a lot through the years. and and really they’re great people and we’ve worked together on so many transactions. I couldn’t even tell you. but really fortunate to have built a a good team to support me in kind of a crazy industry, as you know. So

Quentin Edmonds (14:20)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now listen, I’m making sure I want to get this name right because I believe that there’s powers in names. I believe we name our businesses the name we do for a reason, right? And so one percent list home brokerage, correct? Homegrown reality. Talk to me about the name. Where does the name come from? Like Yeah, yeah. So talk to me, man, because I know it has a name, sir. Yeah.

Jake McVey (14:35)
1% Lists Homegrown Realty

So so one percent lists is a franchise. So that, you know, they’re they’re based out of Louisiana, but they’re you know growing, you know, all over the place. opened close to seventy offices now, I believe. So, you know, nationwide. We’re trying to save homeowners money and do things in a more transparent light way. homegrown is really important to me because here I’m I’m in Bolingbrook, Illinois. So I’m in you know, a suburb of about seventy thousand, you know

residents here and my family’s been in Bolingbrook since before Bolingbrook existed. I I’m now raising fourth generation. I’m probably never gonna leave. You know, I’m here for life and I learned a lot from my community, right? I’m I am homegrown and now I wanna help my community and the surrounding communities. So yeah that’s that’s where that name comes from.

Quentin Edmonds (15:32)
Love it, man. I absolutely love it, man. Absolutely love it. Hey, listen, Jake, is there anything that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Like you maybe like you came in with something on your mind, like I want to make sure the audience knows this about me, about my business, or just in general, right? I want to open the floor so that you can land that message, sir.

Jake McVey (15:53)
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. no, I mean you pretty much covered a lot, right? I’m I’m you know, just happy to to to meet you and get to talk to you. if anybody does want to connect, talk real estate and investing, or you know, you you want to sell a house, buy a house in the Chicago suburbs or anywhere really, I’m happy to connect you with our other offices. So feel free reach out. You can find me, you know, 1percentlistshomegrown.com. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook.

You know, whatever. I mean I’m easy to find, you know, Jake McVey, 1% Lists Homegrown yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (16:22)
Yeah, yeah. Well listen, my friend, I wanna just thank you for your time, man. Well, so let me let me say three things. wanted to say succinctly. Thank you for your time. Cause I definitely think time is almost a precious commodity. Thank you for your story, man. Thank you for s for sowing seeds. I think those seeds, we never know when they’re gonna get planted. We don’t know when it’s gonna take root and when it’s gonna grow. But the seeds are there, right? And so, man, thank you for coming on and sharing some seeds.

And man, thank you for your mindset, brother. Thank you for the way you think, man. Your servitude, the way you serve people and want to help people. Thank you for that mindset and bring it to this platform. I appreciate you coming on, man.

Jake McVey (16:57)
yeah, thank you so much for having me. and yeah, I don’t know, I’m just excited to be here. Thank you.

Quentin Edmonds (17:02)
Absolutely. Well listen, y’all, y’all heard my friend Jake. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Jake. So, sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.