How to Overcome Real Estate Challenges: Tips from John Partridge

Dylan Silver (01:32)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel, the nation’s premier real estate mastermind. I’m your host, Dylan Silver, and today on the show we have John Partridge. John is a lifelong real estate investor, hard money lender, and wrestling and football coach in the Virginia area. John, welcome to the show.

John Partridge (01:58)
Thank you very much. Good to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:01)
Absolutely. Before we hopped on, I let you know, you know, I always love to hear folks background and how they got into real estate because it’s not always self explanatory or even obvious.

John Partridge (02:14)
Well, you know, I like to read and, you know, somebody that’s always been kind of a…

somebody I’ve listened to is when a lot of people do it, know, Warren Buffett. And he always says, you know, the thing I’ve always taken away from him, I can’t understand everything that he says, but he says, you know, invest in what you understand. And, you know, I combine that with, you know, I’m an active part. I like to be an active participant in what I do. And I find real estate understandable. You know, the the repair of it, the servicing, the management, the finance.

I find I can understand every nut and bolt of how that’s done. Whereas if you put me, I barely understand my own home services company, let alone Microsoft or Apple or something like that. the idea that to me, I’m not saying I stay away or anybody should stay away from the stock market, but I know where I gravitate to and that’s being active in what I do. Being a participant and also making

sure I do understand and not just fake it or you know out of you know embarrassment that I don’t fully understand everything say yeah I got it and everyone understands something you know I want to make sure I know what I’m talking about

Dylan Silver (03:34)
I hear you completely, John. That’s typically why I’ve been very passionate about real estate. And I even was talking with a guest yesterday who specifically does IRAs for real estate investing, which I had never heard of. And apparently it’s a field that’s becoming very, very popular. But I’m curious, what were your first deals like? And were they smooth? Was it the walk of the park? Did you have lots of assistance or was it trial by fire?

John Partridge (03:49)
Good. Yeah.

You know, I think the biggest thing was always, and it still is, finding the deals. You’re trying to find distressed real estate. And I grew up in Long Island, New York, and we did a lot of saltwater fishing.

And I always give the analogy that, you know, it’s like a fish on the rod. know, a fish on the rod when you’re out in the ocean, it doesn’t just make the rod bob up and down. It bends it over to the water. There’s no doubt when you have a fish on and you reel up the other lines and try and, you know, land that fish that’s pulling the rod. And that’s the same thing to me that I found with real estate deals very quickly. You know, you’re looking at things and you’re not sure

it’s a deal and you want to do a deal but you’re trying to make the numbers work and you know thank God I didn’t make a lot of those deals work you know you got to wait till you have to have your marketing you have to have your business development out there and and find that deal that’s gonna bend the rod to the water and that’s the one you take and you don’t move until you get that

Dylan Silver (05:11)
John, do you remember the first deal or maybe the first couple and how you found those deals? What was the process there? know, obstacles along the way.

John Partridge (05:21)
You know, I think I found them by just talking to people, networking, going to networking groups, different organizations, you know, getting the word out there that this is what I did. And then, you know, people are out there and they’re talking to people. And when somebody approaches them and says, gee, I’m in this situation, you know, there’s a higher probability that I’d be introduced. And I think that, you know, I know that’s how we got the first couple deals. And that’s how we got.

most of our deals people get introduced to us because they know we can possibly help and you know they were fixing flips for a long time at first and you know the biggest challenge was probably project management you know everybody can go watch HDGTV and you know you can get in any deal it’s a question of whether you can get out you know it’s like the Hotel California and

Dylan Silver (06:18)
That’s

right.

John Partridge (06:19)
Yeah, I mean it’s just you go and you get into it but then you know even if you grew up in the trades and you grew up you know in construction you still have to learn for the first time that everybody doesn’t always do what they’re saying they’re gonna do on time and sometimes for good reason but you have to project manage you have to back up you have to budget

know, responsibly and adequately. And all of that’s a lot of work. you know, I regularly see, you know, bright people, you know, couples, for instance, here in the Washington, D.C. area who will take on a project.

they just think it’s the TV shows and the books sometimes make it seem easier than it is. don’t account for the fact that it’s a one hour or more commute to get to that project at the end of the day.

Dylan Silver (07:15)
Yeah, no, people don’t want to spend 15 minutes to go to the gym, much less, you know, drive two hours to go to a site, you know, hard manual labor of team. It’s a lot. Speaking of which, when you were finding these deals, was your background at that point in the trades? Did you have a construction background?

John Partridge (07:37)
You know, I’ve always had more of a finance background, but yes, I’ve always I my thing has always been growing and selling businesses I I have different concepts and think things I think in the economy that nobody’s doing well and I grow them to a certain size and attempt to sell them and You know a lot of that’s been things like commercial flooring businesses and you know right now my company honeydew today, which is you know

America’s handyman. We want to grow that business. so that’s the way we operate. We’re trying to grow across the country. So it’s project management and logistics, which has been very helpful in real estate.

Dylan Silver (08:19)
So

wow, what an interesting idea. So honeydew handyman across the country. That sounds like a brilliant idea. And on the surface, it seems like you need a project around the house. Who are you going to call? Will you go on Google or you call honeydew? Is that accurate or not at all?

John Partridge (08:34)
It is, it is. We use a lot of AI technology and forms. We know that many of our clients, particularly the younger crowd, and really most people up to 40, they’d love to have their repairs done without ever talking to us. And we have technology that enables that. the other thing is people…

I respect some of the other platforms and things that have developed over the last 20 years, but we’re past the point where people just want to buy leads and play matchmaker online and things like that. They need somebody, particularly for handyman repairs, that’s going to stand behind it and be there and take charge of getting it actually done, not hiring somebody else to do it. And that’s what we do.

Dylan Silver (09:22)
You know, John, to that point, I’ve spoken with quite a number of construction people who are contractors. I’ve spoken with a couple of gentlemen who East Coast went actually from commercial to residential and they said, you know, we’re bringing kind of the processes and scale of commercial into residential and the track record and the reputation versus the kind of Chuck in a truck mentality.

you know, anybody who could potentially do the job, right? And so it seems like there’s a it’s ripe for that type of innovation where, you know, people Millennials Gen Z aren’t, you know, thrilled about the idea of having to go find an individual to, you know, remodel bathroom kitchen, right? And instead, if they could find a trusted resource, which they don’t have to interact with somebody for, that might be something which they just feel more comfortable with.

John Partridge (10:22)
Yeah, it’s really, it’s what I call, you with anything, whether it’s real estate investing or at Honeydew, you know, reducing the friction, you know, I mean, we’re, we’re all so busy these days and picking up the phone and dialing and getting somebody on the phone and trading back and forth with the calls and

We just try and reduce as many of those steps as possible. our online system and form, the way we do it, eliminates a lot of that. We want to eliminate as, and we’re still looking to eliminate more. We have a saying in our company, less is more. And it’s the same thing with real estate investment. You want to get the transaction done in as few steps as possible. And technology allows us for the first time to eliminate a lot of steps. It really does. It allows for things that you didn’t

need

to do or if you had to eliminate it would cost a lot of money to eliminate a lot of manpower but now again we have things in the marketplace off the shelf you know you don’t have to be a major fortune 500 company to have some of the technologies that you know you know are now available to everybody you know everybody who has a bandwidth I mean if you if you have Wi-Fi you can compete you know

Dylan Silver (11:38)
Yeah, it’s

true. It’s true. We’re actually doing this podcast off of ranch in Denton, Texas, which is like 35 minutes from Oklahoma, about an hour 50 minutes north of Dallas. And there’s no, you know, cable internet running out here. You know, Faiyos or anything like this. So we have Starlink. So right now, you know, we’re in the middle of in the middle of the country and we’re running off of off of a Starlink. So to your point, it’s

It’s do you have internet and and go from there? But I’m curious. This is such a an interesting undertaking and it seems obvious to me me upon hearing it. But I can’t think of any competitors that come to mind. I can’t think of anybody. I don’t even know where I would go to other than Google if I was looking for.

John Partridge (12:24)
Well,

and you’re correct, and that’s why, the reason why you know that, I’ll suggest, is that if you open up any social media platform, Facebook, next door, anywhere, every other question is gonna be what? Do you know a handyman?

And at Honeydew today, we like to say we exist for one purpose to answer the question, do you know a handyman? That’s what we’re here for. And then we put some value propositions around it. And then we know how we solve that. And we’re pretty succinct of our mission on that. We’re trying to. We’re trying to. We love to get down there. We’re working on it. And we’ve got to find some people.

Dylan Silver (13:02)
Are you in Texas?

Yeah, that’s exactly right. We’d love to have you out here. I can say that for sure. I’m actually originally from New Jersey. We didn’t talk about that before hopping on. I’m from the Caldwells. Do know the Caldwells?

John Partridge (13:21)
Give me something close by. mean, I know. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes.

I’m from Long Island originally, so it’s the same area, know. Good pizza and, know, deli. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (13:30)
⁓ man.

Yes, we’re Sympatico up here. Look at that. I miss it. I tell

people I miss Italian food and Italian people, which I’m neither, but I miss it dearly because here we’ve got Olive Garden and that’s like a delicacy in Texas. It’s funny. But I digress, but I digress. John, when you’re launching really a technology company, as much as it is a contracting company, I can only imagine that there was a lot of

John Partridge (13:48)
Yes.

Dylan Silver (14:03)
pieces that had to be tied together and strategic relationships that had to be made.

John Partridge (14:07)
You know, I like to tell my crew, you know, the definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who jumps off a building and builds an airplane on the way down.

And you know, it’s just, it’s the way, there is no other way to do it if you’re a real entrepreneur. You don’t have all the answers. don’t have, you have something figured out. You have a general direction. But then, you know, you do discard some things. You know, you have to pivot iteration or like I say, wrestle with it. And you know, do you have the energy to, with you and your team to keep iterating and pivoting to figure it out?

Because what you think, what does Mike Tyson say all the time, is he thinks everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And every entrepreneur gets punched in the mouth. And with home services, there are a lot of moving parts and you have to work hard to.

Dylan Silver (14:53)
You have a plan till you get hit in the face.

John Partridge (15:10)
perfect the process so that people get their repairs done properly. I we’re trying to eliminate the typical thing of everybody knows a guy and everybody knows two guys in a truck until they don’t know two guys in a truck or their guy is missing. Yeah. And we were in many ways engineered for the real estate investor or the flipper or the real estate agent.

Dylan Silver (15:27)
then you’re on Facebook looking for somebody.

John Partridge (15:39)
because let’s face it, there you have everything riding on that commission, that payout, that exit.

And oftentimes, you know, in a real estate transaction, it can come down to, is that window fixed? Is that soffit? Has it been replaced? And rightfully so, because the buyers of that property, they’re putting their life savings on the line, and they want it right. And they don’t want to have to spend extra money. there’s a lot of pressure and anxiety. And to leave that on a guy that somebody knows in the neighborhood.

is a bit ridiculous. So that’s where we step in, to kind of take away that anxiety and put some certainty around important transactions.

Dylan Silver (16:28)
You know, to your point, John, the mentor that I have, who’s effectively a contractor himself, but the only person that he contracts for is himself on his flips. And he’s not by background, he wasn’t a contractor. And he was, you know, working in finance, similar to you. And so I asked him, like, you’re so good at this, you know, doing flips all over DFW Metro. I’m like, why aren’t you doing this for other people? And, you know, the response is pretty much, know,

other people are going to be really really particular and it’s a big burden and I’d rather just do it for myself because you know these are my projects and he does a great job right so the burden even even for someone who is doing it everyone’s aware that the the standard of excellence that people are expecting is is only rising now that everyone has the information.

John Partridge (17:06)
Sure.

We’re aware and that expectation, as you said, is not going anywhere if not up for everybody, for every contractor, for every handyman out there. And the good news is there are ways to train and develop. We really like to say while we exist answer the question, do you know a handyman? We always say we are in the recruiting, onboarding, and training and development business.

seen the movie The Founder with Michael Keaton. It was about Ray Kroc and the founding of McDonald’s. And there is a great scene in the movie where Ray Kroc, again, played by Michael Keaton, gets asked, you know, you know what business you’re in? And Michael Keaton is sitting there saying, you know, I’m in the hamburger business. And no, he says, you’re in the real estate business. Well, that’s McDonald’s. But our thing is, you know, the key to our success is

Dylan Silver (17:56)
I need to see the movie now. have-

Real estate business, yeah.

John Partridge (18:21)
having a, especially in this day and age, of an enormous group of people who can repair things and are trained to do that. Not only that, they know how to, the soft skills, they know how to show up on time, they know how to prepare the job site for work, they know how to document the job, they know how to clean up. I mean, those things are just as much a part of success in a repair.

as being able to mount the television or repair the window.

Dylan Silver (18:53)
You know, if I’m in New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, you East Coast states, is it available in all those states and where can I go to if I need some?

John Partridge (19:02)
We are in

Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Michigan.

Dylan Silver (19:17)
Do I

go online? it an app? If I have iPhone?

John Partridge (19:20)
You can go to www.honeydutoday.com and order whatever you’d like. But we also, you can call, can email. And then a lot of times we have a form system that we can email or text or put on social media. We’re on all the major platforms that we’re easy to find.

Dylan Silver (19:41)
I have parents in New Jersey and I think they have relatives home that they may be trying to figure out what to do with. So they may be calling you. I may say, hey, you have to reach out to honeydew. But pivoting a bit here, John, I think when people hear all of this and they say running a company, technology, data, contractors, it seems like a lot. But on top of that, you’re a wrestling and a football coach and passionate mental health advocate. A lot going on.

John Partridge (19:52)
Sure.

Yeah, well, know, it’s all kind of the same stuff. We wrestle with investments and we wrestle with repairs. And I’m a father of four children.

here in north Alexandria, Virginia. My last wrestler graduated from high school last year, but for many years, you know, what’s a good way for a father to spend time with his kids? Sports. you know, so, you know, I wrestled when I was in high school and little and that type of thing. so I began coaching. But part of what came up was a young man

on one of our teams committed suicide.

about 15 years ago. And it was tragic, but the community came together to form an event called Melee Till Midnight. And we’re now in our 15th year. We turned lemons into lemonade. And not only did we create Melee Till Midnight, it’s a very large wrestling tournament in Fairfax, Virginia, at George Mason University. This year we have it on, every year, it’s the third weekend in June. We have it June 21st. But we attract thousands of

but the real thing we do is we’re a mental health organization and we turn everybody into ambassadors for mental health and By that I mean, you know as a coach and a father we have people all the time and an employer I have all kinds of people. Hey, you know, I hurt my finger. I might have sprained my wrist What do I do coach? What do I do boss? You know, what do do dad? And the answer for that is very cool. Let’s go to the hospital or let’s go see the trainer and let’s

get that taken care of and nobody thinks anything about that. But when somebody suffers from depression or they suffer from anxiety or mania or any of the cocktail of mental injuries that can be out there and there’s so many.

you there’s a stigma out there for not only the person who’s suffering from it but the parents, coaches, they don’t want to ask. Nothing’s wrong with my son, nothing’s wrong with my husband or wife, nothing’s wrong with my dad, and they don’t do things and people don’t get the help they need and I gotta tell you, there are a couple things you don’t want to do alone. You don’t want to do entrepreneurship alone. You gotta have…

You don’t want to do real estate investment alone. You got to have mentors. You really do. You got to have people to tell you do this or don’t do that or stay away from that deal. But with mental health, you really do need people around you who can help. And we work to take down the stigma so that people can get that help or at least ask for it. And that’s what we do.

Dylan Silver (23:08)
John, that’s tremendous.

I think specifically the combat contact sports, football, wrestling, which I mentioned before hopping on here. I do think that there’s still in America, probably throughout the world, a stigma and every inch that we can take for people’s wellbeing to be taken care of. Cause to your point,

Football game might be four quarters. I didn’t wrestle, but a wrestling match is only a limited period of time. But then you have the rest of the day, the week, the month, the year, where you could seem totally fine and you could be a star performer, as we’ve seen, headlines, how many times. But then outside, things are a totally different story. And my feedback, which has changed over time, is people really need to have these conversations.

with their teams, right on the football team on the wrestling team. You know, I played tennis growing up, which is funny because I was a jujitsu guy as well as the kind of the polar opposites. But, you know, on the tennis team on the track team and just talking about, you know, how is everyone doing really right and having kind of these honest conversations and it can be tough because, you know, people have different preconceived notions about it.

We all need community. We all need someone to eat a meal with, you know? And we might not have that person and it’s kind of, the danger lies when you’re alone and know, tragic things can happen. So my hat goes off to you, John, for everything that you’re doing in that light. I think it’s tremendous and we need more of it.

John Partridge (24:47)
Well, thank you. have a tremendous foundation at the Eric Monday Foundation, tremendous group of volunteers. I’m one of many voices with other organizations too, but I do like the direction that things are going in society. We’re getting better at it, but we still have work to do. We’re not done before people can go get the help they need without fear of stigma.

Dylan Silver (25:14)
tough.

It is tough. mean I remember specifically in my school I was completely unaware. So I’m 30 so I graduated in 2012. I was completely unaware of any type of any of this. I didn’t even couldn’t even tell you what depression or anxiety was. This was 2012 which wasn’t that long ago right? We had iPhones.

John Partridge (25:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dylan Silver (25:36)
But there was no, if someone said I’m dealing with anxiety, I wouldn’t have even been able to explain what that is. Is that like stress?

John Partridge (25:43)
And

that’s a good thing. I mean, I wish everybody didn’t have to be exposed to that, particularly in high school and things like that. But as you get older, and I often do this when I’m speaking, I mean, we know our president, Brian Monday at the Eric Monday Foundation, he was Eric’s young man who committed suicide, his father.

you he has an exercise when he talks and he talks to military groups and you know we talk to all kinds of people sports teams at college and high school and you he has half the room stand up and that’s how many people you know adolescents experience some type of mental health crisis and you know i’m not talking necessarily everybody’s suicide but they experience something and then as you get older i’m sure you know you said you’re 30 now you know as you go through you meet people and you realize

You know it touches everybody. It’s something that touches everybody and there’s not one family member There’s not one person who’s a family member friend colleague Close to them who hasn’t been affected by something and again. It doesn’t have to be as painful as it often is

Dylan Silver (26:56)
And I also think on the flip side of this, as Americans we like to be tough, know, how little sleep people are getting, how much coffee, how much work. There’s also an element of, there’s an in-between as well between super high functioning and know, tragedy, which people’s well-being can be improved. So if you’re wrestling, if you’re doing football, if you’re a real estate investor, you need to be at your peak. And if you’re feeling just a little bit off, that can have a big, big,

big impact on your performance and you know some of these strategies that you know people can people can learn about which you know I’ve I’ve learned about you know community you know just taking care of yourself well-being these things may seem obvious but when you’re going through it they’re not.

John Partridge (27:40)
you’re very correct, okay? And one of the things that we do is we’re very proud, again, at the foundation that for the last, I guess it’s been about six or seven years now, we have a mandatory webinar for every coach in the Fairfax County Virginia school system. In order to coach, you’ve gotta take this webinar. And not only do you learn about the elements of taking down the stigma, but we give instruction also on how to

the difficult question that people really have to know how to do and we call it laser which is listen and you know identify and refer but it’s asking the difficult question of do you know you know are you a danger to yourself or to others you know that’s the thing to ask and it’s a difficult question but you know as we tell people if you can’t ask it you got to find somebody who can

But we like to think that we’re addressing competitors at the foundation, that that’s our constituency.

And the people that can compete need to also be able to ask that question. need to ask their brother and their sister and say, listen, I see you’re down. just because you lost the match or the game, or is there something else we need to worry about? Are you thinking about hurting yourself? Are you, and let’s face it, in this day and age, are you thinking about hurting somebody else? But those questions need to be asked.

Dylan Silver (29:08)
Absolutely,

and it’s a super difficult conversation. And I think people need training on it, because it’s difficult. Conversations that are less difficult, people don’t have, let alone your adolescent years, which are already trying. But John, pivoting a bit here, you’ve done so much over your career, from your first deal to now a data company.

honeydew contractors and you’re also a coach. Where do you see as the future for the American real estate investor who is maybe has a couple of rentals and looking to expand? Do you see that for the typical American who is in that space that the future is bright and good and what does that look like? Is it filled with AI? What do you see?

John Partridge (30:04)
I am very bullish on America. mean, you know, there always will be storms that come through, but I really think we live in a golden age. mean, the power at our desktops now for getting information and being able to learn and gather, get the facts has never been better. And I’m excited by it, but it’s like always.

It’s going to be for the people that want to roll up their sleeves and get after it. What’s the quote by Winston Churchill? Where he says, definition of success is going from one disappointment to the next without losing enthusiasm. And that’s what’s necessary when you’re a real estate investor. You got to kiss a lot of frogs and be able to walk away.

Dylan Silver (30:42)
You had a good one.

Winston Churchill would have made a good coach. I gotta read more about Winston Churchill, but we are coming up on time here, John. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

John Partridge (31:07)
Sure, again, my name is John Partridge. You can find me on LinkedIn. That’s easiest, or even Facebook. the company is Honeydewtoday. And we’re at honeydewtoday.com. But John Partridge on LinkedIn, connect. Always happy to network with my fellow entrepreneurs and talk business and real estate investing. love it. It’s my favorite thing.

Dylan Silver (31:35)
Well

folks, that wraps up another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast. John, thank you for coming on and listen, if you’re East Coast and you’re looking for a contract, you’re not sure where to go to, reach out to Honeydew, reach out to John, and also, whatever you’re involved in, whether you’re a coach, whether you’re a teacher, whether you work for the government, you know.

John Partridge (31:42)
Thank you.

Dylan Silver (32:00)
or whether, know, like me, I started out at a Nissan dealership in San Antonio selling cars, there’s a spot for you in the real estate space. There’s so many different avenues, and John is an excellent testament to that. So John, thank you for coming on the show.

John Partridge (32:14)
Thank you.