Real Estate Investors: Stop Hiring Bad Contractors With This System
Show summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Micah Johnson speaks with Justin, a seasoned construction professional and entrepreneur. Justin shares insights from his journey in the construction industry, the importance of building trust with investors, and the innovative Our Review app designed to enhance accountability in customer reviews. The conversation emphasizes the significance of communication and collaboration in real estate, as well as Justin’s aspirations for the future of his business and app.
Key takeaways
- When hiring a contractor, confirm they are licensed and insured and that they'll take accountability for mistakes rather than chasing the cheapest price.
- A red flag when sourcing contractors is relying on informal labor like a 'brother-in-law' or 'cousin' instead of a vetted, professional crew.
- Perfectly Sound Renovations handles a broad range of structural work in Central PA, including egress windows, load-bearing wall removal with beam installation, and excavation.
- The Our Review app started as a tool for business owners to review customers (flagging non-payers or great clients) to reduce risk before taking on a job.
- Our Review has expanded into an all-in-one platform covering lead communication, estimating, invoicing, contract signing, payment processing, hiring, and GPS tracking, aimed at cutting the cost of using many separate business apps (cited at around $250 per tool).
- Justin also invented Easy Rail, a residential handrail designed to be easily removed for moving large objects or for rental properties where banisters get damaged.
- Strong contractor-investor relationships, like Justin's long-running partnership with his client Diana, develop through trust and clear communication, including walking properties together before a purchase to assess renovation costs upfront.
In this episode
- 02:11Intro: meet Justin Mellinger, Perfectly Sound Renovations
- 02:48Justin's background: construction, Our Review app, Easy Rail invention
- 04:11Perfectly Sound Renovations: service area and typical projects
- 05:45What investors should look for in a contractor
- 07:48Red flags and qualifying good investor partners
- 11:32Origin story of the Our Review app
- 12:01How Our Review works: all-in-one business platform
- 16:012026 plans, app rollout, and where to find Justin
About Justin Mellinger
Justin Mellinger is the owner of Perfectly Sound Renovations, a construction company serving Central PA (Harrisburg, Camp Hill, and surrounding areas) that he has run for six years, handling projects from egress windows to load-bearing wall removal and excavation. He grew up in the construction business and works regularly with real estate investors on renovations and flips. He is also the founder of the Our Review app and the inventor of Easy Rail, a removable residential handrail product.
Listen to the audio
“You pay to get it done right the first time, you know?”
Justin Mellinger
“If you can't pay Jimmy 20 bucks a year, lawn... If she can't pay 20, Jimmy 20 bucks, he ain't paying you 20,000.”
Justin Mellinger / Micah Johnson
“I mean, there's a lot of people I hear that get even bad Yelp reviews and they're not true, and you can't even erase that on Yelp. It's just not a fair system and I want to create something that's fair.”
Justin Mellinger
Questions answered in this episode
What should real estate investors look for when hiring a contractor?
Justin Mellinger says to make sure the contractor is licensed and insured, and that they take accountability for mistakes since everyone is human. He also stresses that the contractor should keep the investor's best interest in mind because the job is to raise the property's value at a fair price for fair work, not necessarily the cheapest price.
What are red flags when an investor is looking for someone to do renovation work?
Justin says a major red flag is when someone says 'my brother-in-law does this' or 'my cousin does this' as a way to get cheap or informal labor instead of vetting a real, qualified contractor.
What is the Our Review app and how does it help contractors and investors?
Our Review started as a database letting business owners review customers (for example, flagging customers who don't pay) to reduce risk before taking a job. It has grown into an all-in-one platform that includes lead communication, estimating, invoicing, contract signing, payment processing, hiring, and GPS tracking, aimed at replacing the many separate apps (and costs around $250 per tool) businesses currently juggle.
Why did Justin Mellinger create Our Review instead of relying on platforms like Yelp?
He felt reviews had always been one-sided with no accountability for business owners, and that bad or untrue reviews on sites like Yelp can't be disputed or removed. He wanted to build a fairer system that also gives businesses visibility into customer reliability, such as whether they pay on time.
How did Justin build trust with his long-term investor client Diana?
He says the relationship with Diana came together quickly and 'pretty instantaneous' once trust was established. She now uses him to maintain and renovate all her properties, including flips, and gives him the green light to proceed on jobs based on that trust.
What areas does Perfectly Sound Renovations service and what kind of work do they do?
The company works in Central PA, including Harrisburg and Camp Hill, and handles a wide range of projects such as egress window installation, removing load-bearing walls and installing beams, opening up living and dining room areas, and excavating.
Resources and links
- Easy Rail’s Website
- OurReview’s Website
- Perfectly Sound Renovations LLC’s Website
- OurReview on Instagram
Full transcript
Justin Mellinger (00:00)
Alright, so our review is a new It first started out as a database where business owners can review customers so you can reduce risk taking on a job. Let’s say the customer doesn’t pay or maybe they are amazing and you want the next guy behind you to know that. So turn into…
Review system for that for that reason
there was nothing backing us up. I mean, there’s a lot of people I hear that get even bad Yelp reviews and they’re not true, you know, and you can’t even fight, can’t erase that on Yelp. It’s just, not a fair system and I want to create something that’s fair.
Micah Johnson (02:11)
Hey everyone. Welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m speaking with Justin who literally grew up in the construction business and his own zone construction company now for the last six years. Justin, welcome in man. Glad to have you.
Justin Mellinger (02:25)
Hey brother, thank you for having me.
Micah Johnson (02:26)
Absolutely, man, absolutely. I’m pumped for our call today. think our listeners are going to get a lot of value out of one, just the amount of experience you have and what you do. And you know what? That’s also leading to for further possibilities in your business world, man, pumped to dig in. So first off for people who may not be familiar with your world, you know, give us a short version, what little give us a little more about yourself and what your main focus is these days.
Justin Mellinger (02:48)
I’m Justin, ⁓ husband, father, I’m the owner of Perfectly Sound Renovations, founder of Our Review, the app, ⁓ and then also an inventor of Easy Rail.
Micah Johnson (03:03)
Sounds fun, what’s easy rail?
Justin Mellinger (03:04)
So Easy Rail is a residential handrail that can easily be removed such as like a sub-level home, soon as you open the door, handrails in the way, it’s a pain in the butt to move big objects in and out of the house, you have renters that let’s you have a rental property, you’re always replacing all the banisters and everything, know, getting destroyed, so this is, you know, fix all those issues.
Micah Johnson (03:30)
Hey, that’s cool. So man, you grew up around the business. You’ve been around business owners your whole life. Now you got your own business working on apps. Did you always know this is what you wanted to do?
Justin Mellinger (03:40)
I would say not for the whole app market, I never thought I’d get into that. The tech side of things is definitely a big difference than working with your hands. ⁓ I’ve always, growing up, know, always tinkering around Legos, building things. Something breaks, you fix it. If you don’t know how to do it, you figure it out.
Micah Johnson (03:59)
Yeah, that definitely lends to the construction world for sure. So let’s talk a little bit about the construction business. Perfectly sound renovations. What areas do you service and what’s your day to day look like there? What kind of projects you work on?
Justin Mellinger (04:11)
So Central PA, so like all around Harrisburg, Camp Hill, all around those areas. ⁓ What do we do? A little bit of everything. Egress windows, removal, like I just did ⁓ this past week, removed a loaded wall. So put it, installed a beam, opened up living room, dining room, living room area. ⁓ Basically do it all, excavating, you name it.
Micah Johnson (04:39)
Top to bottom, you can get it done. Now, do you work with lot of investors in what you do?
Justin Mellinger (04:43)
Yes, most certainly.
Micah Johnson (04:45)
Tell us a little bit about, so we have a predominantly investor listenership. So for someone that’s either getting into it, what’s something they need to keep in mind when they’re looking for a company like yourself, folks to work with?
Justin Mellinger (05:45)
You pay to get it done right the first time, you know?
Micah Johnson (05:47)
Yeah, I heard that man.
Justin Mellinger (05:48)
So make sure you’re getting somebody that’s
⁓ licensed, insured, ⁓ someone who’s going to take accountability for any kind of mistakes really. We’re all human. They can happen. ⁓ And someone who’s going to take the ⁓ investors’ best interest in mind because obviously our job
Micah Johnson (06:04)
Right.
Justin Mellinger (06:16)
is to raise the value of that property. And obviously you don’t want to so much money to get it done, but it needs to be a fair price for fair work.
Micah Johnson (06:20)
Right.
Right. I heard that man. I ⁓ used to deliver windows man a long time ago in a past life. And one of the signs we had up in our shop was if you want it fast and cheap, if you won’t, it won’t be good. If you want it good and fast, it won’t be cheap. And it was something that just kind of stuck in my head the whole time because it really is true. You do get what you pay for.
Right. If you’re in this industry and there’s folks out there making it like it’s too good to be true. That’s because it is. I agree. You want to touch base, especially with folks like Justin here who have been in the game a long time, understand what’s going on so that you actually know what you’re getting. Cause you nailed it, man. As the investor, if I’m not swinging the hammer, I’m relying on another team.
Justin Mellinger (06:49)
Very true.
Micah Johnson (07:11)
to bring that property value up, to raise it to what I, you know, all the math work we did upfront before we bought the property to actually make that real life. You get that step wrong, which is happens plenty, especially upfront for people when they’re not really sure what to ask for, what to do. They’re kind of in that learning phase. It relies tons on your team for how good that property is going to turn out at the end.
Justin Mellinger (07:35)
I agree 110%.
Micah Johnson (07:37)
So when you’re partnering with a investor, know, what are some things that you look at in terms of qualifying that investor? What lets you know that there’s somebody worth working with?
Justin Mellinger (07:48)
⁓ it depends, right? I guess as the longer you get in into this business, there’s, ⁓ there’s red flags. ⁓ if, if, if you hear the, for an example, ⁓ well, my, my brother-in-law does this or my cousin does this that that already is a red flag. So go have them do it because, ⁓ yeah, I would do part of it.
Micah Johnson (07:58)
What are some?
Gotcha.
Justin Mellinger (08:11)
But like, I have one that’s a great client of mine, Diana. She’s used me for years and I do all their properties, maintain all their properties, all their new properties, we flip them. And she’s just great. We trust one another and she can give me the green light to go and we just make it happen.
Micah Johnson (08:33)
I love that man. Cause that’s where real estate’s a team sport. Nobody, there’s not one person out there that can do all the parts. Right? We all need a good group of people. And you know, this partner that you’re talking about working with this client, I can’t even imagine how much less stress she has by just having a partnership with you. Like for them to know that you’re going to go get the work done.
That frees them up to buy with confidence. It frees them up to run their business in a way where they can be effective and create the wealth, the properties, the strategy they’re trying to, because they know they have somebody in the background that’s on equal step with them. That you’re taking as seriously what you do as they’re taking what they do seriously. And I think that’s one of the most important things to look for with your partnerships is, know, how serious are they about what they do?
Justin Mellinger (09:10)
Yeah.
Micah Johnson (09:20)
You know, will they, will they let you come see their other jobs? Are they actually communicating? Right. I think that’s one of the biggest ones is communication because lack of that, man, your project can feel like it’s in a black hole either way. Right. I mean, I’m sure as the construction side, you want an investor that’s communicating with you, right?
Justin Mellinger (09:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. it’s, I mean, once you build that trust relationship, then they’re requesting you maybe on the weekend or during the weekday say, Hey, I think I’m to buy this property. Can you come and walk it with me? So we know what we’re getting into before wasting, you know, for wasting money.
Micah Johnson (10:29)
Right, exactly. Tapping into that expertise that you bring because in the end, man, that makes sure that you got lifeblood for your business. Them buying houses keeps you paid, keeps your crews working, keeps you going forward and helping on that front end where you can get in there and even walking beforehand. I know being in the business, man, that’s for the person buying the property, being able to know upfront from the guy that’s going to be doing the work. Hey, this is what I think it’s going to be.
Justin Mellinger (10:42)
Yep.
Micah Johnson (10:56)
That’s super handy. Especially if they got a lot of experience, because that’s math you can take to the bank for the most part. When you’re dealing with that, we always run into things we’re not sure that we can’t see all the time. But most of the time, you’re not going to be far off. You’re to be able to nail that. How long would you say it took you to develop that relationship?
Justin Mellinger (10:58)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course.
With Diana, it didn’t take too long. ⁓ It was pretty instantaneous with her. Started out small, started flipping not too long after that.
Micah Johnson (11:32)
Nice man. That’s excellent. Well, in your business too, kind of going back to that app idea, you’ve gone along the road where you’ve got this newer idea of an app coming out where you’re kind of leveling the playing field on reviews. Really was my limited understanding of it upfront, but especially in our space, construction space, landscaping space, just things to do with the home. Tell us a little more about what you’re working on there. So you’ve done construction for a long time and now that led you to this idea.
Tell us about it.
Justin Mellinger (12:01)
Alright, so our review is a new app. It is mobile app and desktop version. It first started out as a database where business owners can review customers so you can reduce risk taking on a job. Let’s say the customer doesn’t pay or maybe they are amazing and you want the next guy behind you to know that. So turn into…
Review system for that for that reason and then I started adding to it. So now it’s all in one platform at the lowest cost ever instead of spending 250 here and and and throwing money out the window for leads and using 20 other different apps operate your business. This says everything it’s Final lead ⁓ communication ⁓ estimating invoicing
Contract signing, payment sending, receiving, hiring, GPS tracking, it’s everything all in one.
Micah Johnson (13:03)
Man, and what led to that idea? When did it hit you to, I’m gonna make this.
Justin Mellinger (13:07)
I think the accountability part, it was always one sided for a long time and there was nothing backing us up. I mean, there’s a lot of people I hear that get even bad Yelp reviews and they’re not true, you know, and you can’t even fight, can’t erase that on Yelp. It’s just, not a fair system and I want to create something that’s fair.
Micah Johnson (13:26)
Gotcha. Gotcha. the idea to be able to review customers, especially in your line of work, man, y’all aren’t doing work for cheap. Those aren’t small ticket items that you’re showing up to do at somebody’s house. So being able to see ahead of time, hey, this person’s paid their bill on time and is great. That’s good news too. Just as much as they don’t pay their bills, don’t go here. Also good news, right? Like that’s saving you a headache later.
Justin Mellinger (13:33)
Yeah.
No.
Yep. Yeah.
Yep. If you can’t pay Jimmy 20 bucks a year, lawn.
Micah Johnson (13:55)
And when did that part for the
Right. Yeah. If she can’t pay 20, Jimmy 20 bucks, he ain’t paying you 20,000. That’s for sure. Man, we’ll have to rehab your house two years from now. Sorry. ⁓ I actually, I’ll let you talk to the person. My office specializes in people who don’t pay. He’ll call you back next week. ⁓ yeah, no, it is. It’s fascinating because it’s, there isn’t a lot of accountability in that section, right? It’s kind of all tilted towards.
Justin Mellinger (13:58)
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah
Yeah.
No, there’s not.
Micah Johnson (14:22)
consumers where we get to say everything about the business, where given the business a chance to come back, especially in trade industries, especially in the ones that were involved in, because that gets passed around. You know, you have a way better chance of seeing like that style of customer again in there. So what led to at making it the all in one, take us that next step further.
Justin Mellinger (14:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
I guess I figured it wasn’t good enough and everything in life you can always make it bigger and better. So that’s what I did. I mean, I still have more ideas, but I’m going to hold on for now. One thing at a time. But yeah, I want to be able to save people money too, you know? So it’s just what I see, how these apps run. And it’s just a ripoff.
Micah Johnson (15:35)
Okay.
Filling the gap, That’s how good ideas get born. You see where the need is and fill it.
Justin Mellinger (15:51)
Yep,
to find the niche.
Micah Johnson (15:55)
That’s it, man. That’s it. So what has you excited most for 2026? What’s going on this year that’s got you pumped?
Justin Mellinger (16:01)
2026. I’m hoping business picks up after winter’s starting to hopefully die down here. The groundhog screwed us over again this year. And hopefully the app is, like I said, it’s brand new. So hopefully we get some people downloading it, utilizing it, ⁓ and hopefully maybe even sell the patent pending or partner up with somebody.
Micah Johnson (16:26)
Hit that app real quick. Who are all the users you’re going after?
Justin Mellinger (16:29)
So also, I know I said business owners, but this app can be used for any sort of business. This isn’t just blue collar, it’s anybody. Maybe your wife wants to get her hair done, you know. She can go in there and find a hairstylist down the road or something. ⁓ And also customers too, right? So customers can use it, it’s free. It’s free to make a profile, make an account.
Micah Johnson (16:53)
And when do you think it’s going to be ready for the public? How close is it to being released?
Justin Mellinger (16:58)
It is released now. We’re in a slow start up phase on marketing. Yep. But it’s downloadable. Google, iOS, desktop version. It’s all there.
Micah Johnson (17:01)
Okay.
So it’s out. Is it going well so far? the users are enjoying it?
Justin Mellinger (17:13)
So far, yeah. Slow moving, but you know, once we get past the learning phase of marketing, we’re gonna, you know.
Micah Johnson (17:17)
Excellent.
Well, you’re in the same process that you’ve been in with the six year old businessman. Like you said, a business in the nuts and bolts part of businesses business and the niche part is where you got to start getting creative and understanding when you’ve like taken that business and said, okay, it’s this kind of business. Now we got to go find the specialty pieces that make that run. And you’ve got a track record and entrepreneurial spirit, buddy. I don’t think much is going to hold you back here.
Justin Mellinger (17:39)
Yep.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Micah Johnson (17:46)
Absolutely, All right. So for folks listening in that want to learn more about the app, find it in the store, follow along with you, see what you have going on, possibly check into your renovation company, see what’s out there. What’s the best way for them to find you and learn more about you?
Justin Mellinger (18:02)
You can find me on Instagram at ourreviewapp.
Micah Johnson (18:05)
And do you have website?
Justin Mellinger (18:06)
Yes, we have Perfectly Sound Renovations. have our dash review. We have easyrail.net.
Micah Johnson (18:14)
Excellent man. I want to make sure we get all that stuff out there. So if you’re listening and watching in, check our show notes. We’ll have all of Justin’s links there. See what’s going on in his business. What’s going on with the app. I love that project, man. I appreciate you sharing with us for coming on. I think we need more folks out there like yourself, man, doing it right, treating people right, building things for the space, actually making improvements, right? The whole point of adding value. So thanks for joining us today, man. I appreciate you being here.
Justin Mellinger (18:28)
Thank you.
I agree.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Micah Johnson (18:44)
For those listening
and watching in, if you man, absolutely. I enjoyed it for those listening and watching in. If you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else. You think get value out of it. And as always, please subscribe to our podcast. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with us out there. We have more conversations coming up with operators, just like Justin out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for being with us today. We’ll see you on the next episode.
