Real Estate Lessons, Business Acquisitions & Deal Discipline with Josh Fisher

Josh Fisher (00:00)
I did a tandem jump out of a plane.

one of the guys there that was the organizer he he I latched on to him like It was really great. He was such a nice guy. Mr. Mark Brown. He was retired at 40

He owned a software company where he designed.

computer systems back in the 80s, early 80s. So very crude computer systems. And made a ton of money, bought a bunch of real estate, retired at 40 and lived off the income of the houses, the rental income from the houses.

I said, teach me how you do this. What do I gotta do? And Mark…

being a very simple direct person he goes well first thing you gotta do is you gotta start a business

Erika (02:08)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Josh Fisher, who’s been making serious moves in the flipping space. Josh, it’s so great to have you on our show today.

Josh Fisher (02:22)
Awesome, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Erika (02:23)
So let’s dive in. I know you have a very unique story when it comes to how you got into real estate. So tell us how, because I’m not sure too many other people have the same story as you.

Josh Fisher (02:36)
Certainly. Yeah, so it all started I was I was living in Southern California and I had a day where I went man I I want to go do something fun looked online and decided to go do a skydive

I did a tandem jump out of a plane. I landed and went this was so much fun. How do I do this every day? I went got my license and one of the groups from the drop zone there

They have this thing called load organizing program where you show up and you go they love to jump with the newer skydivers as soon as you get your license They’ll teach you how to be better how to be safer and one of the guys there that was the organizer he he I latched on to him like It was really great. He was such a nice guy. Mr. Mark Brown. He was ⁓ retired at 40

He owned a software company where he designed.

computer systems back in the 80s, early 80s. So very crude computer systems. And made a ton of money, bought a bunch of real estate, retired at 40 and lived off the income of the houses, the rental income from the houses. And I met this guy and I went, that’s cool, I didn’t even know you could do that. I didn’t know that was a thing. And I went to Mark and I said, teach me how you do this. What do I gotta do? And Mark…

being a very simple direct person he goes well first thing you gotta do is you gotta start a business

and I said what kind of business do I start? goes what do know how to do? I know how to fix stuff and he goes well do that. So I started an electronics repair shop where I would fix odds and ends electronics if you couldn’t find a place to fix it I’ll take a look at it.

That got going and he said, and I went back to Mark and I said, so great, what do I do now? And he goes, well, you gotta buy a house. And I went, okay, I’ll go talk to a real estate agent. And I was so surprised when I didn’t have a ton of money at the time and I talked to a real estate agent and I says, I really wanna buy a house. And she goes, great, how much money you put down? And I said, well, not really very much. She’s perfect, you’re the kind of person I wanna work with. And I went, okay.

We got I got into my first unit at in 2020 March right during the crazy kovat times and Ran the business the business went is went really well ran that for about five years That was in Southern, California. I had some family issues up in Oregon So I’ve actually moved to Oregon the business

had to go, I didn’t have quite the time to sell it or exit it, so I ended up shutting it down. yeah, Mark Brown is my, Mark Brown was the reason I got into investing and certainly gave me some purpose and some drive in life. So that’s how I got started.

Erika (06:08)
That’s awesome. And when it comes to your real estate investing, what drew you to the properties that you have now?

Josh Fisher (06:16)
So, what initially drew me to this particular property I have is I thought it’s in a good location, it’s inexpensive enough that I can get into it, it’s in a nice enough area that I won’t hate living here, and I was buying it really to kind live in it and do like a house hacking thing, and then I learned pretty early on that

I don’t really like living with renters. So that changed the game a little bit. yeah, what was on the market at the time, it was in my price range. And I honestly, didn’t do any deal analysis. I didn’t try to figure out what rents should cost. went, hey, this is a cool property. Let’s buy this one. I can just rent out a room. So certainly there was some luck involved.

There I’ll be honest the other part of it was it’s right across the street from a grocery store and that was Super convenience for me because I thought man. I just walked to the store Certainly not the greatest reasons to buy into a place, but at the time I didn’t really know any better, so It’s what you get

Erika (07:15)
So Josh, with the deals that you’ve done, can you share a quick story? Maybe there was one that taught you a big lesson or you felt like it was a major win.

Josh Fisher (07:25)
So I can tell you about the deals, I would say the most important ones are the deals that I haven’t done. After the first one, and then it was like, alright, I need to start getting into really learning what I’m doing. I took a ⁓ couple of free webinars to learn how to analyze deals because I realized that you don’t make the money just by getting lucky.

Right? It’s all whole math thing and you figure out, you know, what can you buy the place for? What is it going to cost to fix it up if you’re going to rehab it? Or if you’re going to wholesale it, like whatever your strategy is, you got to know what you’re going to make walking into the thing. Now that could change a little bit, but it’s not just, ⁓ hey, I’m going to buy this place and see if I can make it make money. You got to know ahead of time. And so…

Once I did that first deal, it was like, I got to figure this out. So I’ve passed up a lot of deals, and I’m really happy about that. Every time I say no to something, feel like that learning stuff is starting to pay off.

Erika (08:22)
Yeah, awesome. Now, you know, it’s it’s tricky managing all of those properties. Do you have any advice for people who are just getting started how to keep that machine running smoothly?

Josh Fisher (08:35)
Yeah, so I don’t have a ton of properties at the moment. I do have a couple of ideas. so thinking back to what Mark would tell me is initially is get going, right? Action, action, action, make it happen. And then, my thing is once you’re burdened with managing properties, find a solution that helps you, whether it be…

Do you want to hire a management company? Which is what he did. He hired a management company and says, I don’t want to deal with this. Take whatever it is, 10, 20 % of the income and just handle it. Now for me, I would never get a management company because I would rather, I’ll deal with the legwork so that I can keep all of the profits and whatnot. Or if there is profit. ⁓ I do all the repairs. At some point when I’m…

big enough and I can support having people do the work for me, then we’ll move into that. But my strategy has been do it all yourself and then figure out what you absolutely don’t want to do and then start hiring that out when you have that, when you have the income flowing. And then at some point when you have a lot of doors, I would say I want to get a management system or some sort of computerized thing that says these are all the properties, this is

I can put in the income and see what everything’s doing, but I’m just not there yet. So ⁓ I see no reason for me personally to get that level of detail yet.

Erika (09:53)
Yeah, yeah,

I want to go back to that mentor that you had talked about, which I’m still thinking that’s just such a crazy story. But when it comes to him, was there like one piece of advice that has really stuck with you on your journey?

Josh Fisher (10:32)
Really?

Yeah.

You know, I would say there’s not… The one piece of advice that I can give is… Was really how he presented himself. One… His thing was, it doesn’t matter… It doesn’t matter what kind of business you start, it doesn’t matter how you do it. The most important thing is just starting. Just do. ⁓ I would ask him, you know, I’m trying to grow my business. How do I…

How do I grow my business? And he would never say, OK, well, here, you need to go talk to these guys, and you go open this and do that. He goes, what you should do is try things. Just try stuff. Anything. If you can think of it, do it. And then he’ll say, did it work? And you go, well, yeah, it worked. And he goes, great, do more of that.

And you might say, no, I didn’t get anybody any leads. I walked around all day and I handed out business cards and no, not a single person called me. And he goes, okay, well do less of that. And so, well there’s kind of two things there. One, action. Two, if it works, do more. If it doesn’t work, do less. And he was great at boiling things down into this, this is all it is. And it really is. That’s basically business in a nutshell.

Erika (11:52)
Yeah, yeah, totally. Josh, I know you’ve been choosy about which deals you’ve decided to work with. How do you stay disciplined when you’re evaluating a deal to make sure that you’re not taking on a project that’s more trouble than it’s worth?

Josh Fisher (12:08)
Those are some great questions.

I would say, well, speaking of the last, I just went and looked at a house a couple days ago and in that particular situation, there was an exorbitant amount of work that needed to be done. The house was in relatively good condition, the property was not, and I thought there needs to be, you know, start putting some quick numbers down and I’m going, there’s a lot of money to be made on this deal.

but there’s also a lot to be spent to get it where it needs to be. And so…

You know, initially it was like, wow, I could make a lot of money on this deal. And so that emotion of being like, ooh, yeah, I’m getting excited, getting, let’s go, go, go. I had to bring the logical, Mr. Logic from my brain and say, okay, remember, run the numbers. We’re not buying on emotion here. We’re an investor. We’re buying on logic, paper, money. What is this gonna do for me in the long run?

not how is it gonna make me feel in the short term. So it’s a discipline practice, it certainly is. And I can’t say that I’m perfect with this, but I think for me it’s recognizing when I’m feeling the emotion of like excitement and…

combat that with let’s run the numbers. What are the numbers say? Let’s get excited about the numbers. Let’s get excited about what the bottom line is, not what does it look like initially.

Erika (13:26)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I’m sure as you already know with what you were saying with your having a mentor help you start your journey, relationships are everything in real estate and business. And I know you have done some networking before in real estate groups. Can you share another example of a key relationship that’s helped grow or shape your business?

Josh Fisher (13:47)
another key relationship. the first thing that comes to mind is I like to do a lot more learning. For instance, I really like Tony Robbins and what he does. I kind of went down a bit of a rabbit hole with him with his program some time ago and it’s great stuff but you can certainly get sucked into the vortex of

buy everything and I was like, I don’t need to do that. I think what was, it’s really great. It’s learning, you you can’t go, as far as I know, you can’t go to college and say, yeah, teach me, teach me how to invest in real estate. As far as I know, there’s no classes in college that do that. They don’t teach you in high school. They don’t teach any of that stuff. So where do you go to learn about it? There’s

Tons of free information, the bigger pocket stuff I’m excited about, the investor fuel, right? You guys have got tons and tons of podcasts and I listen to those. being a sponge and learning. That would say, I would say, really is where I learn the most from, how to do, where I’m going, how to analyze, things like that.

wouldn’t say that I have another mentor or anybody particular that I go to at the moment, but I would say find, for me it’s the forum. If I had a question that I just absolutely couldn’t figure out, it would either be, let’s go to a meetup. Ask two or three, four people and see what you get from that. Or the forums, find a real estate forum that you love and build some relationships there.

Erika (15:13)
Yeah, totally. Josh, what do you see next on the horizon? What is the next big goal that you’re going towards?

Josh Fisher (15:20)
Wonderful. Yeah, I’m glad you asked. I am pivoting my… I was looking into houses and flips and analyzed a lot of deals. I’m pivoting a little bit. So

have another experience while I was in Southern California with my business is the guy I was renting from owned an electronics part store and there was a potential deal of them

basically giving me a business because he wanted somebody to continue the legacy and continue to run it for and it would be like pennies on the dollar and at the time I thought this is really great right I can jump into this business business is profitable it’s quite profitable and to get it for such a great price this would be a wonderful thing and then the more I was in that mode and thinking and talking with him I was basically in the

process of this deal for like two years. I realized that there’s a ton of businesses out there, the baby boomer generation, everybody’s trying to retire. And a lot of the parents, the kids don’t want the business. And so they’ve got multiple hundred thousand, six, seven, eight figure businesses that they either have to try to sell to somebody.

or shut it down because their kids don’t want it. So when they retire, they go, I’m done. They throw in the towel. And so I’m looking at, instead of flipping houses into either buying and holding businesses or buying and building up businesses, because of my experience with, I had a shop for five years around, I was around this particular business for,

I was around them for about five years, but I was actually in the process of the deal for about two years and then I had my family thing that kind of threw a wrench into that. that’s my new strategy is I’m pivoting a little bit and we’re heading more towards acquiring businesses.

Erika (17:44)
That’s exciting. And as far as the business aspect goes, what are you looking for in a business? Because I’m sure that’s pretty different than the residential space.

Josh Fisher (17:54)
For sure, yeah. So, I find there’s a lot more wiggle room on businesses in terms of price, right? Because with real estate, what I was finding is the market gets, as the interest rates go up, the market gets a little drier. You almost need to pivot, start looking at like off-market deals. How do you get, you know, how do you drum up your own stuff? Do you have to start, you know, however that works?

It gets a little harder with businesses. find that…

You don’t have quite that much swing, especially when you’re looking for something that’s been established for 10 plus years. mean, some of these businesses I was looking at, the one that I was looking at had been running for 60 years. I mean, they had people that would show up there, they’d ⁓ I haven’t been here for 30 years. I mean, they’ve got a customer base. They’re not going anywhere. So there’s a ton of things that I look for. Has it been in business for over 10 years? Is it…

You know, what’s the difference between the cost of the acquisition versus the yearly cash flow? You know, what’s the spread on that? What’s the assets? How many employees are there? You know, are you buying a business that has one or two employees? Great, you’re buying a job. Are you buying a business that has 10 plus employees? You’re potentially walking into a business ownership type position versus business operator, business owner.

So those are the things that I’m looking for specifically. On my business, it was just me. I did have some employees from time to time, but I owned a job. I went, this wasn’t what I was quite looking for. We need to step into the business ownership and starting to learn how to do that. So yeah, those are a few things that I’m looking for when I’m analyzing deals for purchasing businesses.

Erika (19:33)
Those are some really solid insights, Josh. Before we wrap up, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to get in touch?

Josh Fisher (19:43)
⁓ probably Instagram or Facebook, any of the social media platforms, well Facebook, Instagram. Do I currently have a website? My website, my business website, I think we just took it down from my old business. So yeah, would say Instagram or Facebook would be just send me a message.

Erika (20:02)
Yeah, yeah, I’m not sure we’ll have them in the comments, so that might be a good time to do it.

Josh Fisher (20:05)
For sure, yeah so

my Instagram is josh.fisher42 It’s got a bunch of skydiving stuff on there so you know when you see jumps out of planes probably the right one and then I’m just joshfisher on on Facebook I think it’s facebook.com slash joshfisher42

Erika (20:21)
Excellent. Josh, I appreciate your time sharing your story and your perspective. We need more people in this space with a clear vision like you.

Josh Fisher (20:29)
Wonderful. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Erika (20:31)
And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations coming out with fantastic people building amazing real estate empires. We’ll see you on the next episode. Bye.