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Show Summary
Jesse Wright shares his 14-year journey in real estate investing, focusing on buy-and-hold, turnkey rentals, and creative financing strategies. Learn how he navigates market nuances, leverages owner financing, and builds a scalable real estate business.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jesse Wright (00:00)
You can make money.a lot of money in the depressed and poor areas. And you can do a lot for the community, but you can’t make money or it’s very hard to make money in the truly bad neighborhoods. So that, that, was a good little foundation piece that I had. And then the other thing that really helped me was, ⁓ being a male carrier, I had all this time to learn. And so I was listening to audio book after audio book after audio book, you know,
Rich dad, poor dad, but it was one of the ones that pushed me towards real estate,
Micah Johnson (02:07)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m speaking with Jesse, who’s been making some serious moves in real estate investing now for the last 14 years. Jesse, welcome in, man. Glad to have you.Jesse Wright (02:20)
Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.Micah Johnson (02:22)
Absolutely, absolutely, man. I’m pumped for our call today. You’ve done some, you’ve got quite a stack of businesses that all feed each other. And I love seeing that and getting to work through people’s stories, understand what you built and really showcase people that are professionals in this business. That is the noise I love to cut through. There’s a lot out there, but you have built something real and I’m excited to show it to people and talk about it. So let’s dig in, man. For those who aren’t familiar with you yet, tell us a little more about yourself and what your main focus is right now.Jesse Wright (02:51)
Yeah. So, um, like I said, Jesse, right. I’m from Jackson, Mississippi, or at least that’s where I focus on as far as the, the REI market that I’m in. Uh, I’m a buy and hold investor. So, uh, I hold a lot of property out here and then I also sell turnkey rental properties. Um, those are my two main businesses. Uh, and then of course I also do some coaching where I teach people to do what I do. So those are the three main things that I focus on right now.Micah Johnson (03:19)
Love that man will take us back. That’s that’s quite a few things. It’s a it’s a trend I hear that people get on right. I love that I want to dig in definitely on the turnkey rental part. Haven’t really dug in with that on the show with some folks yet. So take us to that journey man. What got you started and how’d you get to where you are today?Jesse Wright (03:36)
Yeah. So, ⁓ I started back in, ⁓ I bought my first rental in 2013 and that was on the tail end of all those foreclosures after, you know, the bubble. And, so it was a great time to get started. And at that time I was on a Dave Ramsey kick. So it was like all cash only, you know, I was one of those people that was, ⁓ yeah. Yeah. All cash out, you know, cash only everything and,Uh, I just paid off a bunch of debt. And so for the first time in my life, I had like 10 grand in the bank and I was just a blue collar guy. I, uh, worked as a rural Mary mail carrier on the weekends. Uh, and then I also worked for construction company. was one of those guys that went knocked on your door and said, Hey, there’s been a hail storm. You want to, you want to let me, replace your roof for free here? $500 or whatever it is, you know? Um, and actually that gave me a huge base.
Micah Johnson (04:31)
Right?Jesse Wright (04:35)
It really helped me. It helped me get to know people, get to know what, you wouldn’t be, you’d be surprised at how hard it is to sell a free roof. Right. It’s too good to be true. Right. You know? And so, say what now? It’s door to door. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So you really learn about, you know, human psychology and what makes people tick. And also it was a huge blessing because Jackson doesn’t have a good neighborhood.Micah Johnson (04:46)
huh. don’t doubt it. Right. And it’s door to ⁓ And it’s door to door. You’re at their house, right? You’re on their turf. That’s tough.Jesse Wright (05:53)
or sorry, not a good neighborhood. Jackson’s not a good neighborhood. Jackson’s not a, it’s not, it doesn’t have a good reputation for having a lot of good neighborhoods. ⁓ I haven’t had enough coffee yet today, man. So yeah, yeah. And so, but for me, walking the streets of Jackson, knocking on these doors, I got a sense for what’s a bad neighborhood versus what’s a depressed or poor neighborhood. And they’re two very different things.Micah Johnson (06:04)
No, you’re good, man. We’re warming you up.Jesse Wright (06:20)
You can make money.a lot of money in the depressed and poor areas. And you can do a lot for the community, but you can’t make money or it’s very hard to make money in the truly bad neighborhoods. So that, that, was a good little foundation piece that I had. And then the other thing that really helped me was, ⁓ being a male carrier, I had all this time to learn. And so I was listening to audio book after audio book after audio book, you know,
Rich dad, poor dad, but it was one of the ones that pushed me towards real estate,
know? And then, then after that, kind of say what now? Yeah, exactly. The one that everybody read, you know? Yeah. And then after that, I kind of shifted towards marketing and learning about marketing. And that probably helped me more than any book I’ve read on real estate because it doesn’t matter.
Micah Johnson (06:56)
Okay, little purple Bible. I said the little purple Bible.Jesse Wright (07:16)
If you, if you know all the mechanics of a good deal, but you don’t know how to get in front of the right people and convert them into a seller, then you know, you don’t really have anything except for a good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So all that kind of came together and, I bought that first house. I did all the work myself because I was on that Dave Ramsey kick. And that was great for me too, because I learned what it actually took to get a house ready.Micah Johnson (07:28)
Cool. Sweet knowledge, bro.Jesse Wright (07:45)
And it wasn’t nearly as much as what I would have thought. I think all in, we had another $5,500 in that house. So like 15 grand total for this house and rented it out for I think 650 a month. And from then we just bought a house every single year. And then I moved to Florida, that construction company I was working for. They, they put me up and they made me the national sales manager.And so now I’ve got a W two really good six figure income, but I’m burning both ends, you know? Um, and I mean, I’m leaving at like seven in the morning. Sometimes I’m not coming home till like one or two at night. And you know, I got my, yeah, it just wasn’t worth it, man. I remember one time I came home and my, uh, my son, he would have been, well, he’s 15 now. So
Micah Johnson (08:29)
Whew, those long days.Jesse Wright (08:41)
That was in 2017. Yeah. So he would have been like six, you know, ⁓ and, ⁓ he would wait up for me and he’d be like, man, can we hang out? You know, and I’d be exhausted. And so he would go grab a bag of candy and he would grab me a beer. He would crack open my beer for me. sit and watch cartoons, man. And that was what I was like, man. Yeah. man. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Yeah.Micah Johnson (08:49)
⁓That’s a good kid. Let’s go. Like, you know that keep that awake.
Jesse Wright (09:09)
But I was like, I can’t keep doing this. So I decided I moved back to Mississippi and I quit that. and then I was I had a couple rentals and I saw how well they were cash flowing and it was just cash flowing so much better than elsewhere in the country. And I could sell them for a price that was just a great deal and I could still make money. So at first I was just trying to survive as I figured things out. And eventually we got it down into a nice little system whereI realized that I could sell property as long as I had a cash buyer, then I could sell property for about 75 to 80 % of what it was going to appraise for. And I could still make money. And then that allowed them, could go in, they could buy something and then they could turn around and pull all or most of their money back out and just reinvest. So, you know, 50 grand could build a million or $2 million portfolio as long as they had the time to do
Micah Johnson (09:48)
Okay. Yeah.Right?
Right?
Jesse Wright (10:39)
So yeah.Micah Johnson (10:40)
Man, that’s killer.That’s killer. Cause it’s really about finding like nuance of your own markets and finding those things. But there’s one thing I want to jump back on before we dig in there. I think I’ve realized that my own life and you said it out loud that it wasn’t what you thought it was when it came to how much it was going to take and what you’re really going to have to do. And I want to, I want to point that out for
for listeners and viewers, especially if you’re early in your journey. Okay. Most of the time, it’s not what you think it’s going to be. If would you agree with that? It’s not this, this story that you make up in your head. It’s way simpler. It’s really that story that’s holding you up. Now, I don’t want to say that you’re not going to run into some nightmares because you will, as long as you play the game, no matter what you’re in, it doesn’t matter what game you play, you’re going to run into stuff. That’s like, my God, this is big. So
Jesse Wright (11:23)
Exactly.Micah Johnson (11:33)
If you’re getting that out of the gate as a beginner, I’m sorry about that. Just like terrible timing for you, but don’t most of the time, that’s not the case. And don’t let that story you tell yourself before you ever experienced it, keep you out of the game.Jesse Wright (11:47)
Absolutely. I think the way that the greats do it is ⁓ they just embrace those limitations. They hover around those limitations. And that’s what makes anybody great. Whether it’s like a musician that’s only got three fingers on his left hand or in the gym, right? You don’t make big gains by hovering way far away from your max.Instead, you go right to your limitation where you can’t do any more and you go to failure and that’s how you get growth. And what you find out is, you you’re like, man, I didn’t think I could pick this amount of weight up, you know, but then you go ahead and try it you’re like, I did it, you know, and then the next time it’s easier and then you just find your next limitation and you hover there until you figure out how to get around it. And it’s always easier than you thought it was going to be because you really thought it was impossible.
Micah Johnson (12:28)
Yep. Right.Right. Exactly. I wrote the other day, failure is the process of perfection. If you think about it, that’s what it is. I noticed it in my kids when they were learning to walk. They never got upset. They couldn’t walk. They just kept getting up, getting up, getting up. One day they just took off walking and they never thought about walking again. And I was just like, huh, literally, you just failed your way into, into doing it perfectly for the rest of your life. Hold on. Let me think about this. Like where else does this apply? And to me, it’s everywhere. I can’t help, but see it everywhere.
where that’s exactly what you’re talking about. Failing is kind of the point. We’re not trying to do it and you want to fail in a smart way. You can fail in stupid ways, been there, done that. You can fail in smarter ways where you’re actually trying something. It’s like the scientific method in real life. You have a hypothesis, you think it’s going to do something and you try it and neither does or it doesn’t. It wasn’t just like wind up slinging at the wall. That’s the failure that isn’t helpful, but the kind that is, it’s measurable.
Jesse Wright (13:14)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (13:39)
You can sit back and be like, I see where it went wrong. All right, reset, try it again, reset, try it again. And it’s like, Whoa, hold on. That’s it. That’s the process. So don’t get so upset when you fail. That’s what I’m trying to teach my kids early. And when I tried to accept each time failures, not doesn’t feel good. It never feels good. And the moment you discover what works, you always feel stupid.Jesse Wright (13:54)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (14:03)
How could I not have known that? Cause you freaking didn’t know and you didn’t know until you knew. And once you knew, you knew and realized, ⁓ stop. Like it’s always obvious after you know that never stops. That’s what I noticed in life. It’s like, just embrace that when you’re really starting to feel stupid, you’re getting somewhere, right? Like we’re, we’re on track here.Jesse Wright (14:21)
out.That’s it, man. That’s it. And the cool thing too, like about your kids, they don’t think about walking now, right? It’s not like you just learn not to fail. You’re you literally become a master. It becomes effortless. It becomes something you don’t even think about anymore. It’s just you have to fail that many times in order to get to that point. Like you said, that’s awesome. It’s a great analogy. We use that I’m gonna steal that.
Micah Johnson (14:39)
Right? Well then I appreciate it, man.Do it, please do it. Well, it lines up. I want to take it into something that pre-recording you said is really working well for you right now that you’re excited about, but you’ve been having to do it for a few years and really got serious about it last year. So let’s apply what we just talked about to how you’re leveraging creative financing into your business and what it’s doing for you this year.
Jesse Wright (15:46)
Yeah. ⁓ the same thing hovering around your limitations, right? we’ve got to the point where we’re scaling, ⁓ that Dave Ramsey model just does not work for me anymore. You know, ⁓ thankfully God’s blessed us to the point where we’re buying 10 to 20 houses a month, ⁓ pretty regularly, not, every month, but I mean, we’ll have some slow months, but, and so what’s really cool. One of the things I’ve found hovering around those limitations again is I don’t have to negotiate.Micah Johnson (16:03)
I loveJesse Wright (16:15)
based off of the value of the property, you know, which is great because like you mentioned before the show, people are a lot of people that are selling their suffering. And so when someone’s suffering, you don’t really want to make your go to to go in and just beat them up saying your house is really a piece of crap. come on, what do you really expect me to give you this for your gift for this? You know? SoMicah Johnson (16:37)
Right?Jesse Wright (16:43)
What’s cool is just to be able to say, well, you know, you take the I can’t and you turn it into a no, you take the weakness, you turn it into strength. And for me, it just it looks like ⁓ me saying, well, ⁓ you’ve got a great house here in order for me to make money on this. I still have to get it for this price. But unfortunately, I’ve got 15 other projects that I’m working on right now. And so all of my capital, I’m saving that I’m using that for these rehabs.So the only way that I can make this work is if you will own or finance it to me, I can still get your money pretty quick. I’m not trying to drag this out five, 10 or 15 years. ⁓ so you can get paid within a year and probably within three or four months, but I do need you to give me that short term owner financing. And, that gives me enough time to get in, do what I want to do, and then go to the bank and do a cash out refinance and, ⁓ make my money on it or sell it one of the two.
Micah Johnson (17:41)
Right. Right. what led, so what led you to owner financing originally? Like, was it that story? You’re like, okay, I got no money to put out here. Or is it, you know, what made you trend that direction over time?Jesse Wright (17:53)
You know, if I go back, I can’t remember if it was more that or if it was more kind of simultaneously at the same time, we were really starting to grow. And then also I was running into a lot of deals that were tax deeds. And here in Hines County, the the way that these tax deeds become tax deeds, you know,the process isn’t followed perfectly in order to, in order to lose your property, you have to be notified three different ways. got to be notified in the paper. You got to be notified by certified mail and you have to be notified in person. Somebody actually has to hand you something. And so a Heinz County is not going to do that. They’re not going to go track somebody down. And so if anybody really, really, really wants to get back their property that they lost to taxes and it hasn’t been
gone through the title confirmation process, they can do it. It might cost them five or $10,000, but it can be done. And so, um, but I realized that, okay, this is just another way for me to get cheap property. And I know how to go through that title confirmation process. So I’ll just owner finance the property with zero down, and then we’ll make really minimal payments while we go through that confirmation process. And I let them know, you know, the seller know ahead of time, like if this, you know, turns out,
that, you know, these people come back and they want this property, then, you know, this deal is off. Obviously you’re not giving me a clear title. And our contract is based on a clear title, but if you’ll own or finance it to me, I’ll go through those, that process. I’ll pay all the court fees and all the attorney fees and everything. And we’ll get it sorted out. And I should be able to get your money to you in six months. And yeah, it just worked great. Cause I’m solving their problem. Cause they haven’t been able to sell this house to anybody else.
Micah Johnson (19:46)
Right.Jesse Wright (19:48)
and then I’m getting a house at a good discount, you know.Micah Johnson (19:52)
Yeah.So you’re basically undercutting that tax deed, right? So someone else says that tax deed and you’re finding the seller first saying, okay, we can solve this. You know how to solve the problem in the middle that they don’t know how to solve. Is that how you’re saying that?
Jesse Wright (20:03)
Well, I’m,actually going to the person that has the tax deed. So the sellers already lost the prop or sorry, the owners already lost the property and they’ve, they’ve probably not been in possession of it for three to three plus years. Oftentimes it’s like five, six years. So there’s very, very little risk. They’ve already let it go. ⁓ they don’t know that they can get it back. or they might, mean, truthfully, sometimes, I mean, it’s like somebody died or, know,
Micah Johnson (20:10)
Gotcha. Okay.Gotcha.
Jesse Wright (20:30)
And so really it’s just a bunch of heirs that don’t even know about the property. so, you know, you could end up in hot water and if you spent 50 grand on a property, you could easily just that money could just be gone. But that’s like a one out of a 200 chance, you know, but it’s still enough of a chance that the title insurance company is not going to. Yeah. Yeah. So I just go to the person that has the deed at this point.Micah Johnson (20:42)
Mmm.Gotcha.
You gotta pay attention. ⁓
Okay.
Jesse Wright (20:56)
But it’s not a clear deed. can’t get title insurance on it. He can’t give us a warranty deed, you know, and then I buy it from him and in the process of me buying it, I also clean the title.Micah Johnson (21:07)
Got you. So then you’d use that owner financing period to clean that title. So you’re basically protecting yourself until you know, you can get the property. Boom. You got the price lock and you’re moving. And again, it’s something I love about real estate investing where if you’re willing to think about what’s happening, especially in your local market, real estate is so nuanced to where you are and what things actually work. Like the game is in front of you.You don’t have to make it up. Like it’s been played and it’s being played. Learn the rules of it. Learn how each little part works. Cause that’s what unlocks deals. Like if you aren’t buying at a discount at the kind of investor that you are, you’re not the one buying turnkey. You’re the one selling turnkey. And that’s a different, it’s a great option if that’s what you want to do. However, you can’t buy a turnkey prices and sell it for anything. Like you’ve got to be able to get it at that discount.
And we’ve been in a market for the past couple of years where it’s forced the best of the top, right? The, kind of squeeze, if you don’t know how to go get a deep deal, you’re not getting them from wholesalers much right now. You’re not getting them on the MLS very much. Like those, ways that used to work aren’t there. And I love how you’re finding that local fishing pole. Like where is it where you can go and find that spot and then just, Ooh, eat it up, man. Eat it up.
event at like all things, it may dry up one day, maybe not, but it’s finding what it’s doing right now. And I think that’s one of the fun parts of real estate is you have ADHD. It’s fantastic. It keeps moving for you. It keeps, it’s always moving, man. You got all this stuff to learn and like it’s bouncing along. So it’s really handy. And there’s so many, so many ways to plug it in. Cause it’s one thing I like to point out on this show is when I look at your journey,
Jesse Wright (22:37)
God.Micah Johnson (22:52)
It’s not abnormal to end up in a different kind of thing than you started with. Real estate grows with you. You may not like what you do at first, but it doesn’t mean you stop. What’s another area? Keep digging deeper. It’s a huge umbrella that we live under where you find these little niches where, okay, maybe your market’s something like Jesse’s where you can literally go find these tax deeds, learn this process, live in the middle and just print money.Right? Like it’s all about solving that problem. That’s literally what every business does. And whether it’s with a distressed seller, with a tax deed person, somebody with a property that they’ll sell at a discount has a problem. What is it? Solve it, get the property.
Jesse Wright (23:35)
Exactly. Help me help you and then help me again.Micah Johnson (23:38)
Right. Right.Exactly. But when it’s done well, they are thankful for it. That’s one thing that’s really like, feel good about that style of transaction. And I’ve done retail where you’re selling the first time home buyers and stuff, and that’s super happy and joyous and all this stuff. The other ones aren’t the, it’s not the same kind of happy. It’s more like relief. Like, it’s not like everybody’s laughing, joking on everything. It’s not that it’s always terrible, but you know, you’re talking to someone that
Somebody passed away. Somebody got a divorce. Somebody lost their house. Like their job’s gone. Like the worst, have four or five things went wrong at one time. That’s like who we’re talking to. And when you do that, well, they will actually say thank you on the other side. They will be glad how much they don’t care how much money you made. They do not take it offensively because what you save them from had a innumerable value to it. The number they could not care less. And that’s where it’s like,
When you realize this is just a human sport, right? Really, there’s a math problem and a human problem. If you can solve that human problem, you will go very far.
Jesse Wright (24:47)
Preach. That’s true. No truer words,Micah Johnson (24:52)
Well, takes us into, you know, one last thing I want to touch on is you do some coaching now, right? You teach on what you do. So take us through that. What’s it look like to work with you?Jesse Wright (25:00)
Yeah, right now it’s just a one-on-one program. ⁓ and I like to take people like brand new, you know, if you don’t know what a quit claim deed is or a warranty deed, great. ⁓ I’ll, I’ll walk you through it. And, ⁓ I like to just take people from wherever they are and bring them up to where I am. and so, you know, I get a lot of people that are, especially now I just started coaching. So just tobe clear, but that are reaching out to me and they just don’t have the money to invest. And so I will walk them through how to buy property without using your own money, whether that’s doing the owner financing like I’m doing, or using hard money, as long as you can negotiate a good deal. And that’s really what we hone in on is just finding those good deals so that if you do have to go to a lender, then he’s going to realize that he can’t lose. Yeah, take them through that.
walk them through building up a small portfolio and then if they want to start selling turnkey or flipping or just ⁓ buying and holding and strictly sticking to the burn method, I’ll kind of work with them on their journey, whatever that might be.
Micah Johnson (26:09)
Love that, man, I appreciate you sharing that. So if they wanted to be able to book that call with you and or find out more about you, what is the best way for someone listening or viewing to do that?Jesse Wright (26:19)
Yeah, I would just say go to my website, dominatethedeal.com. It’s like right now the most basic website you’ve ever been to. All it is is a contact form, you know, but you can book like a one-on-one call with me and we’ll just talk and see if it’s a good fit for you and me.Micah Johnson (26:38)
Love that, man. I appreciate you sharing. For those listening and viewing in out there, check the show notes. We’re gonna have all of Jesse’s links there for you to reach out to him. Like you hear me constantly say here, we bring professionals on for a reason. When you’re gonna work with somebody that’s doing real estate, work with somebody that’s doing real estate, right? If they’re gonna teach you how to do it, make sure they’re teaching you what they actually know how to do, what they actually do. Real estate’s too…active of a game to learn what somebody used to do. So if Jesse is struck something in you, if you feel like this is a path you want to go, take advantage of those links, book calls with the folks because that’s how you get successful. No one does this business alone. This is a team sport. So Jesse, I appreciate you being here, man. Thanks for your time today. These are the kinds of stories I could just not stop talking and then it’d be a, you know, I’d run out of stuff today, but, ⁓ I could keep going, man, but.
Jesse Wright (27:31)
Thanks for having me. I’m super.Micah Johnson (27:34)
Thank you. think we more folks out there like yourself that are doing it. You’re building something real. You’ve gone from, you’ve pulled off a dream and going from 2012 to where you are today. Like great job. Congratulations on that. I love seeing it for folks. If you’re listening or viewing in, if you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else you think you get value out of it as well. And if you’re not a subscriber yet, don’t forget to click that button. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along out there with us.We got more conversations coming up with operators just like Jesse, folks out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for being with us today. We’ll see you on the next episode.
