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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Michelle Kesil interviews Jonathan Martinez, a real estate investor and co-founder of DOMA, a software company focused on lead generation tools for investors. Jonathan shares his journey from being a band director to a successful real estate investor, detailing his strategies for flipping houses and building a rental portfolio. He discusses the development of his software tools that streamline the investment process and the importance of building systems for success in real estate. The conversation also covers lessons learned, investment strategies, and future goals for both his real estate ventures and software development.
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Jonathan Martinez (00:00)
building systems and trying to find people who take responsibility ⁓ and just getting buy-in from folks. When we first started, didn’t have, it was like, here comes another couple of people who say they’re going to be investors and whatnot, but we hadn’t done a deal yet. And then now two years later, people are like, man, these people are serious. They’ll go out, they’ll do the thing, they’ll do all the legwork that needs to be done.And like I said, building systems, like having the systems in place, having a lead generation system. So we always have leads coming in fresh and the funnel is always full of leads. Having a title company that’s ready to do whatever we need to do at whatever time, know, ⁓ having a workflow that we use for like when we get leads and then how we process them and when we process them, when we walk, when we, you know, what we do.
Like we’ve early on, should do a home inspection and a pest inspection on every property. So we do that now. And there’s been several times where like, I’m really glad that we do that because, you know, if not, it would have bit us. So, so yeah, I would say systems that’s allowed us to scale again, like I said, from one to six to 13 deals in a year.
Michelle Kesil (02:49)
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil Today I’m joined by someone that I’m looking forward to chatting with, Jonathan Martinez, who is an investor in residential properties in the Louisiana area, as well as a co-founder of DOMA, a software company developing skip tracing and lead generation tools to support investors. So.Excited to have you here today, Jonathan.
Jonathan Martinez (03:19)
Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show.Michelle Kesil (03:21)
I think the listeners are going to take something away from how you’re approaching your investment expertise as well as your technology background and Simplifying the investment process so we can dive inJonathan Martinez (03:33)
All right.Michelle Kesil (03:33)
Yeah, so first off, for those not familiar with you and your world, can you share what your main focus is?Jonathan Martinez (03:40)
Yeah, okay. our main focus, are ⁓ Locator. We mainly invest in Shreveport, Bossier, Louisiana. And our ⁓ main focus for the past few years has been flips. We’ve recently started ⁓ aggressively building out a portfolio of rentals, getting them rented out and refinanced. ⁓ Primarily, we look for fixer uppers and get our money back out. So we’re doing BERS essentially.And I think we’re going to be shifting our focus that way over the next year.
Michelle Kesil (04:13)
Awesome. And can you share how you got started in real estate as an investor, what your process has been like?Jonathan Martinez (04:20)
Yeah. So I was, ⁓ I’ve always kind of been interested in the whole idea of taking something and then like renovating it and, you know, reselling it or, ⁓ you know, just the whole, the whole process of like the transformation is really exciting to me. So, ⁓ like most people I would have met, I like the HGTV shows, HGTV. Yeah. Is that right? ⁓ soI was always interested in that, I just never had an option to do that. I was actually a band director for nine years and I was working like 70 hours a week. I was really busy. switched. did a career change into software engineering, which took me a year. I taught myself and switched over. And after a couple of years in that field, working a normal schedule, I was able to free up some time so that I could get into real estate investing. And so that’s kind of how I got started. ⁓
I found some funds and I found a business partner who was really interested in flipping but didn’t have the funds and I had the funds. And so we ended up teaming up 50 50 to do a flip and see where it led us. And that first flip led us to another flip. And then it led us to, I think like five more projects the next year. And then this, this year, 2025, I think we’ve done 12 or 13. So.
And then as far as our process goes, we have several different channels of lead generation that we’re looking at at any given time.
And so we have a specific workflow that we use, is, we’re always looking at leads. We put them on a Trello board and then we can track our leads there. We go through and analyze each one. Actually, I have a tool called, a tool that’s like a number crunch essentially that I use, an app that I built as a software engineer.
to check the numbers on deals and see if it’s worth pursuing. If it is, then we will go through and do underwriting, do diligence, find comps, walk the property, put an offer on it, and then we’ll go from there.
Michelle Kesil (07:09)
Awesome. So as far as the software and this platform, is that something that you personally created or was this with the team and how did that creation come into fruition?Jonathan Martinez (07:23)
Yeah, so I, with my business partner, he has a lot of experience. He’s also a real estate agent. And then I came obviously from the software side, but it was still learning a lot about the real estate part of things. So we kind of came in in conjunction. Like he helped me with product design a lot as far as like specific formulas we would use and like how much, ⁓ I don’t know how much wiggle room we would need in things. ⁓ And, but I, I, there was a gap.for us, there was, I saw a need for these tools and so I was like, well, let’s build this, this will save us a lot of time. And that’s really as a ⁓ side hustle, that’s what you really want is that anything you can save time on allows you to free up time to make, you know, to do things that make money. And if we’re not having to analyze every single property we see, that saves us a ton of time. ⁓ So, yeah, so we came together, we talked through it, we, you know, designed it.
essentially and then I built it and we’ve been using it for a year I would say pretty heavily.
Michelle Kesil (08:27)
Awesome. What are the exact features and applications of it?Jonathan Martinez (08:32)
Yeah, so we have three apps. One is ⁓ basically a number cruncher. And what it does is it takes in how much ⁓ money per square foot, how many dollars per square foot rehab is. It takes in a Zillow listing link, and it’ll take an asking price if it’s an off-market property. It’ll go through and it’ll find your comparables within a quarter mile for the past 180 days.It will generate an ARV range, it’ll generate a rehab range, and it’ll generate your ⁓ lowest allowable offer and your max allowable offer. And it’ll give you like a deal grade essentially. So if it comes back green, you should pursue it. It’s probably a really good deal. Not always, but probably. If it comes back yellow, it probably deserves your time. And if it comes back red, which most of them do by design, ⁓ you probably shouldn’t spend your time on it. It’s not very likely. So it might be like,
your max allowable offer ends up being 60,000 less than they’re asking or something like that. Which doesn’t always mean that you don’t get the deal. But we also have two other apps that we use. One is a skip tracer that basically will take a list of people and it’ll find their phone numbers and their relatives. It’ll spin through that. That saves a ton of time where it usually takes five minutes to skip trace somebody. It’ll take about 30 minutes to do 200 people.
And then the other app we use ⁓ pulls all of our listings according to a Zillow by-box, so Zillow filter on Zillow. It’ll take that entire list of listings and then it’ll check each one against exclusionary zip codes and keywords. So if it says recently renovated, then it’s just going to take it out of the list because we are not interested in that. We are looking for fixer-uppers.
If it says, bring a toolbox, then it will get put on ⁓ like a top priority list kind of thing. So it will filter out accordingly. ⁓ So those are the three apps that we have and the features and how they’re used.
Michelle Kesil (10:40)
Awesome. Is this something that you’re giving to other investors to use? How does it work for like in that realm?Jonathan Martinez (11:24)
Yeah, so we are, ⁓ we’re currently building it out to be more customer friendly. When we originally built it out, we built it all out for ourselves, obviously, and we’ve used them heavily. ⁓ But we are trying to make this more friendly to any investor who wants to use it. We have a few people that are using it now outside of us and they’re testing it. butYeah, if somebody is interested in the software now, mean, can definitely sign up and get access to it pretty quick.
Michelle Kesil (11:59)
Awesome. And what are the main ways that it’s supported you that you feel like it’s helped you and changed things since you’ve had it?Jonathan Martinez (12:10)
We have, I know with this system, we have bought five properties. And so on average we make, I don’t know, like I would, we’ve bought five properties and we’ve found a ton of properties that we’ve been able to look at. But like I said, we’ve bought five of them that we wouldn’t have found otherwise. And actually now that think about it, it’s probably more than five.So yeah, I would say maybe six or seven properties that we found that we wouldn’t have found if we were only looking on the market or from what realtors sent us.
Michelle Kesil (12:42)
Awesome. What do you feel have been some of the main keys that have made the biggest difference in allowing your business to be able to grow and run successfully?Jonathan Martinez (12:53)
building systems and trying to find people who take responsibility ⁓ and just getting buy-in from folks. When we first started, didn’t have, it was like, here comes another couple of people who say they’re going to be investors and whatnot, but we hadn’t done a deal yet. And then now two years later, people are like, man, these people are serious. They’ll go out, they’ll do the thing, they’ll do all the legwork that needs to be done.And like I said, building systems, like having the systems in place, having a lead generation system. So we always have leads coming in fresh and the funnel is always full of leads. Having a title company that’s ready to do whatever we need to do at whatever time, know, ⁓ having a workflow that we use for like when we get leads and then how we process them and when we process them, when we walk, when we, you know, what we do.
Like we’ve early on, should do a home inspection and a pest inspection on every property. So we do that now. And there’s been several times where like, I’m really glad that we do that because, you know, if not, it would have bit us. So, so yeah, I would say systems that’s allowed us to scale again, like I said, from one to six to 13 deals in a year.
Yeah, I think just Maybe we under analyzed a lot of our deals a lot of things We kind of we were so especially the beginning we were just so gung-ho about getting into it that the first deal we jumped into I think we made like $2,000 we just Undershot a bunch of things and to be honest on our third and fourth deal. We did the same thing. We still kind of undershot ⁓
the rehab numbers, how much we could sell it for. ⁓ I go between two things. On one side, I know a lot of people get paralysis analysis, or analysis paralysis, and you kind of get frozen. I don’t know if I want to jump into this because there’s not a perfect deal. But at the same time, make sure you do really deep due diligence and you know what you’re getting into so you don’t get caught.
You don’t have a surprise. Because if you just didn’t check the roof one time, if you didn’t look at the air conditioner one time, those two things alone will cost you $20,000. And now you’ve lost your you your $20,000 on top of what you already put in for rehab. ⁓ So I would say that we’ve learned a lot about that. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, that’s huge, I think.
Most investors I’ve talked to that are flippers will tell you like, you know, we always go over budget and it always takes longer than we expect. yeah, I would say just make sure you really do some deep due diligence.
Michelle Kesil (16:28)
Yeah, absolutely. And what are the main investment strategies that you use like flipping short term rentals a mix of everything?Jonathan Martinez (16:35)
Yeah, so we mainly have done flipping in the past, but like I said, we’re kind of transitioning to more of the burr style. We do mainly long-term rentals, but we are open to short-term. The reason we haven’t jumped into short-term so much is because we just buying the furniture and all the other stuff hasn’t calculated in a deal for us yet, hasn’t worked out. Whereas the long-term, we don’t have to worry about that.we’re just kind of accruing or accruing. We’re just hoarding, not hoarding either, getting more and more properties as we, as we do, we’re just doing long-term, like I said, fixer upper.
Michelle Kesil (17:12)
Yeah, amazing. And that’s only in the Louisiana market or your another market.Jonathan Martinez (17:18)
Yeah.So we started in Louisiana and we’re mainly, I would say our main branch is there, but we’ve also started a little, ⁓ a couple of branches, one in Pueblo, Colorado, and one in Bentonville, Arkansas. And so we’ve just started in those places. So we haven’t done any deals there yet, but we have a team in both places. So boots on the ground and, ⁓ in those markets, it’ll be different. ⁓ Bentonville from what I understand is very,
There’s a lot of Airbnb’s and a lot of short-term rentals. And Pueblo, I don’t think that’s the case so much. ⁓ So we’re looking mainly for flips there. And that market is actually really similar to Shreveport-Bossier from what I have gathered. So, but yeah, so we’re investing in those areas too. And yeah, that’s the plan for now.
Michelle Kesil (18:04)
Yeah, awesome. What are some goals you have for where you want your business to start heading to?Jonathan Martinez (18:09)
⁓ I want to just get a whole bunch of rentals. Honestly, we had big goals like 25, 50 rentals and at some point I would like to get into ⁓ buying some multifamilies like 45, 50 unit multifamilies. I would love to have two or three of those if we could and that’s kind of honestly those are are really I would say like the end goals. I don’t know where we would go beyond that.But yeah, that’s kind of the plan.
Michelle Kesil (18:39)
Amazing. And as far as the software, where do you see that heading?Jonathan Martinez (18:42)
The software right now, like I said, it’s three different apps that kind of do different things and they could be broken up. And I think we’ll always have that in some sort of capacity, but I would really like to have as a full lead generation system that, ⁓ you know, crunches the numbers for you, gets your, your like, does your skip tracing at a really high level, does it quickly, ⁓ maybe even has a dialer in there, has some of the leads that some of our, you know, bigger competitors don’t like, for example,In Streetport Bozier, we do probates and we do divorces and we liens and stuff like that. And it would be really nice to have those kinds of available through a lead generation system like this. So that’s kind of the end goal there too, is building out a full lead gen system that can handle all of those different pieces.
Michelle Kesil (19:35)
Yeah. And are you looking to make this a subscription for other investors or what does that look like?Jonathan Martinez (19:41)
Yeah, that’s the plan. And right now it is, it’s a subscription for those three apps. ⁓ But eventually, yeah, it would be a subscription still for the entire thing.Michelle Kesil (19:51)
Awesome, that’s exciting.Cool. Well, before we wrap up here, if somebody wants to reach out, connect, learn more about what you’re doing, where can people find you and connect with you?
Jonathan Martinez (20:01)
I have a website amhomes.us.com. You make sure I am saying that right. Yep. amhomes.us.com. can find us on Facebook. It’s amhomes. There’s also my software company is a DOMA D O M A R E I. So DOMA. We just said DOMA REI is domarei.com ⁓ And that’s where you can go for thethe software side of things. But either way, if you go to any of those sources, you’ll be able to find me and ⁓ you can just email me or I think my number is on both of those places too. So you could also just call or text.
Michelle Kesil (20:41)
Perfect. Appreciate your time, your story, your perspective. Thank you for being here.Jonathan Martinez (20:45)
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.Michelle Kesil (20:46)
And for the listeners that are tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators who are building real businesses and we’ll see you on the next episode.
