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Show Summary
In this conversation, Joel Youngs shares his extensive experience in real estate, detailing his journey from a sales background to becoming a successful investor in Jacksonville, Florida. He discusses his strategies for flipping houses, managing properties, and adapting to market changes. Joel emphasizes the importance of mentorship and offers insights into financing and holding properties. His practical advice and personal anecdotes provide valuable lessons for aspiring real estate investors.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Joel Montana Youngs (00:00)
Well, when I found a rundown trailer, it could be just trashed. It didn’t matter. But it already had a power pole. It already had a power pole. It already had a septic tank and already had a well. That’s 30, 40 thousand dollars. Yeah, 30, 40 thousand dollars. And you can fix a mobile home 20 times cheaper than you can fix a house. So if you have less money, you can get into a mobile home deal for, say, 30 grand, which is and you can fix it up for like 10 grand. And then you can sell it on payments for like 90 grand on payments and hold the paper.Dylan Silver (00:04)
Yeah.You took it off, Right.
Joel Montana Youngs (00:28)
And that’s, I’ve done about a hundred of those now.Dylan Silver (02:03)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is based in the greater Jacksonville, Florida area with a strong sales background and has done over 700 flips. Please welcome Joel Youngs. Joel, welcome to the show.Joel Montana Youngs (02:18)
Thanks.Thanks for having me on Dylan. I’m looking forward to it.
Dylan Silver (02:21)
It’sgreat to have you on here, Joel. I always tell everybody in Florida that I’m a little jealous, although I did just move out of the country myself to the Caribbean, so now I’m in a warm climate, but I’ve always been in either scorched earth hot or very cold Northeast, right? How long have you been in Jacksonville?
Joel Montana Youngs (02:40)
35 years 35 yearsDylan Silver (02:42)
Tellme about it. I mean, I’ve had so many people tell me about ⁓ Miami, Fort Lauderdale. I’ve had people tell me about Tampa. If I was moving to Jacksonville, what’s the reason to move down there?
Joel Montana Youngs (02:52)
Well, you can still speak English in Jacksonville, unlike Miami and Tampa. And Jacksonville is like a big country town. So if you ever heard about the Jaguars and are always yelling out Duval, that’s the county where Jacksonville’s in. When you enter Duval County, you enter Jacksonville. When you leave Jacksonville, you leave Duval County. So Jacksonville is the largest city mile for mile in the United States. So it’s a big, big, it’s a big country hick town.Dylan Silver (03:16)
No kidding.Joel Montana Youngs (03:18)
Really.Dylan Silver (03:19)
That sounds good to me. I lived in Dallas for about a year. I lived in San Antonio for five years, so I definitely picked up some country habits. I want to ask you about getting into the real estate space and then also your background leading up to that. We had a good conversation yesterday where we talked about your sales background, but walk us through how you got into real estate.Joel Montana Youngs (03:41)
Well, I had another sales company and I just got burned out and I just retired for about a year, but I didn’t have really enough money to really retire because I had too big of a house and wife and kids. So I was talking to this guy that used to sell for me and he quit working for me after making 10,000 in a month. And I said, man, you’re going to make a hundred grand this year. He goes, yeah, I got to quit. I said, why? So I closed on eight deals this month.and I made $40,000 and I didn’t have to knock on doors. said, he said I sold eight houses and I was like, wow. And he says, I had partners and things like that. So I had to split my money, but I made $40,000. And then he went off and bought apartment complexes and became a multi multi-millionaire. So I went to see him for lunch and I said, Hey, you know, and he goes, look, I’ll give you one house to sell.
and it was one that none of his salespeople could sell and I didn’t know that I was too naive. So I got a contract on it the first weekend and he goes, you think it’s going to go through? I said, yeah, I think so. And it did. And he goes, man, we’ve been trying to sell the house for two and a half years. I said, no, thank God you didn’t tell me that.
So I got purely.
Dylan Silver (05:30)
That wasthe first deal
Joel Montana Youngs (05:32)
Yeah, very first deal. And then he gives me another house. He had like 40 houses. He gives me another house and he goes, if you can sell that one, you probably can sell this one. It was only 700 square feet and nobody could sell it. It was like $80,000 when it should have been about $50,000, but he had remodeled it. So it was nice. So I didn’t know it was overpriced and too small, but a guy that was going through a divorce just needed a one bedroom house. And he came in and gave me $10,000 down. I go to my boss, said, here’s $10,000 deposit. He said, how do you get such big deposits? I said, aren’t you supposed to?Because at that time, I thought you were supposed to put 20 % down on the house to buy it, you know? So I was asking for, you know, 16,000 down, but I didn’t know. But when he gave me 10, my boss was like, man, you’re crazy on these deposits. I was like, I thought I was supposed to, you know? Being naive.
Dylan Silver (06:16)
So what was the format of these deals? Were these assignable contracts? How were these deals being moved?Joel Montana Youngs (06:23)
Okay, well that was just, this was my buddy that was a big time investor and he was flipping probably 50, 100 houses a year. So he had a team of sales people. So he taught me. So here’s what I do. I have a pretty simple thing. What I do is I get them under contract. I try to find the right areas and I look for areas that if my sister was going through a divorce and had two kids, she’d be safe to live in. That’s how I judge my areas.So I get them under contract for, let’s say, just a number of $100,000. Then what I do is I try to sell that contract for 110,000. If it doesn’t sell within a period of time before my closing, which is usually 30 days, then I’ll close on it. I’ll use my money or hard money. It doesn’t matter. And then I’ll just clean it up, cut the front yard, gut the house, maybe paint the front of it.
and then I’ll put 10 more thousand on it and I’ll try to sell for say 120,000. Right? And now I have some money costs, so it’s not that profitable, but it’s a $10,000 flip. Right? And I don’t try to take anybody’s heads off because I get guys that buy 10 houses from me a year, you know, so, and get multiple guys like that, you can turn some houses. My best year was 47 by myself. Then if I don’t sell it, I call it semi-retail, then I’ll rehab it completely and then I’ll sell it for whatever market value is.
Dylan Silver (07:19)
No way.Joel Montana Youngs (07:36)
And I’ll try to keep it a little bit under, like if it’s worth 190, I’ll try to sell it for, like right now we have one that we bought for 65 or 70. We put about 65 in it and we have a little bit of money costs there, but it’s worth 230. Well, it just wasn’t selling. So we dropped it down to 220. It’s doing sell, dropped down on a 209 doing sell, dropped down to 199.still wouldn’t sell. I dropped it down to $189,000 two days ago and I’ve had 30 calls in a day. So we got three contracts yesterday on it. So, and we’re still at a really good margin. We’re not making as much as we were, but hey, you got it. Plus this, this right now time, the rates are yeah, but in about a month we would sell that house for $209,000 all day long. Cause it’s worth $230,000. I, you know, I know houses, so it’s worth $230,000 all day long.
Dylan Silver (08:14)
Sure.It’s not the easiest time,
Joel Montana Youngs (08:27)
But in a month it’ll sell because the rates are gonna come down over the next three or four months. And I think that it’s gonna open up the markets and it’s gonna start flooding again. And that’s what Trump’s good for, I think.Dylan Silver (08:37)
I want to ask you about scaling in the real estate space because there’s a lot of elements to it which are very much underwriting and looking at deals and then a lot of it is acquisition and knowing your investors and then also meeting other investors with your sales background, right? Probably an amazing fit for that. Walk me through getting into really a rhythm where you were doing so many of these. You mentioned 47 and then scaling your business.Joel Montana Youngs (09:06)
Well, see at that time I was super motivated to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So I was motivated. And now I’m a little bit different because I’m semi-retired. My wife says semi-retarded. I’m looking for long-term cash. I make way more money by holding them. So I try to get them to where I can keep them.rented or I hold the mortgages on them. That’s what I love doing, is holding the mortgages. So I’ve got like six or seven mortgages going. And I told my wife, as soon as I get to 20, you’re not working anymore. And she’s like, I like to work. I said, yeah, but you can do other stuff. You can go clean my houses out.
Dylan Silver (10:18)
Do you have any preference right now, it sounds like towards the long term, maybe annual leases, but did you ever have a preference towards another asset class, know, short term, mid term, multi family?Joel Montana Youngs (10:31)
I owned a mobile home park for seven years. That made me a man. I went in a super nice guy. came out a guy that carries a pistol. So it was an eye-opener. I learned how to be never a jerk as a landlord. I learned how to be firm, nice, but firm. So on the third day, if they don’t pay, you got to give them a three-day notice. can’t let them, especially on multifamily.because if one of them finds out you let them slide, then they all know you let them slide. So at one time, I had out of 30 units, I had 10 people that were a month and a half, two months behind. And it’s because I let one guy slide and he told everybody. So then I realized, And then I do something that my manager hated me for doing it. But ⁓ I would walk up to him on, say, a Tuesday, and I’ll say, look, if you don’t holes in the walls and you clean sweep it by Friday,
I’ll give you the $300 and I’m going to give the county to file the eviction. So if I give you the $300, you got to have your stuff clean swept and hand me the keys at Friday at noon. If not, at one o’clock, I’m giving the county $300 to file the eviction. And sometimes I’d even loan them my trailer, you know, to move their stuff. At least they could go get a hotel. My manager’s like, why would you do that? Why would you do that? paid in two months. I said, well, it’ll be another two months if I don’t, you know? So now I got it cleaned out and rented out in 10 days. And that was the thing.
Dylan Silver (11:44)
ring.Joel Montana Youngs (11:48)
The other thing I did is I kept a big 10 list. Every house needs 10 things, you know, like the roof, the floors, the windows, the kitchens, the plumbing, AC, electric. There’s a big 10 list. There’s 10 things that cost big on a house. And if you just write your big 10 list down, just think about any 10 things that it needs. It’s always gonna need carpet and flooring. It’s always gonna need paint, but does it need windows? It doesn’t need windows. If they’re newer windows, then you’re good. It doesn’t need bathrooms, okay?Like on a, say a 1500 square foot house, everything’s about $3,000. know, AC, windows, everything’s about 3000. So if you need 10 of the 3000, that’s going to be a pretty expensive, you know, rehab for a 1500 square foot house, you know, and it might be 4,000.
Dylan Silver (12:31)
I want to pivot a bit here and ask you about managing this because you talk about so many doors you talk about a mobile home park right? Doing it yourself it sounds like. Did you ever think about property management? Did you ever have experiences with property management and then why do you ultimately decide to self-manage?Joel Montana Youngs (12:47)
Well, I had a manager at my park, here’s, I’ll tell you about multifamily. This is I learned. You gotta have 60 doors. That’s the magical number. If you get to 60 doors, you can afford a decent manager and a decent maintenance guy. But if you have under 60 doors, you’re gonna have to do some of this stuff yourself. And that’s just, I just never got to that. I had 40 homes in a 30 unit trailer park. So I basically had 70 doors, but my homes were all for sale. I wasn’t renting my homes. I was selling all those. But the mobile home park,Dylan Silver (13:11)
Yeah.I got you.
Joel Montana Youngs (13:14)
During that 08 crash, I lost several million and it hurt and it was terrible. that mobile home park saved my house on the river, saved my wife’s life. Yeah, it saved me because it was a cash cow. So I’m looking to buy another home park right now.Dylan Silver (13:22)
Really?Yeah.
I want to ask you about pivoting in the real estate space. Anybody that I’ve had on this show who’s been active since 2005, 20 years, right? They’ve had to pivot. Whether it’s going to a different asset class, whether it’s a different strategy, maybe being more or less transactional, whether it’s going to the lending side, right? They’ve had to pivot. Mobile Home Park, that’s one pivot. What have been some other pivots that you’ve had to make over the years?
Joel Montana Youngs (13:53)
Well, lots, know, raw land, it’s way cheaper to buy them, but you’ve got to know the rules. Like the three counties south of me, Clay County and Marion County, which is Ocala, if you have an acre or less, you have to put an ATU system in. That’s an aerobatic treatment unit septic tank,it’s about 30 grand. And what it does, it kind of chops up the stuff so it doesn’t get out into the ground.
If you have an acre in one foot, you don’t have to have it, but you have to have an acre in one foot to not have to have it. So I learned like buying lots, you better make sure they’re, you know, 1.1 acre. You’re like, geez, that’s good. Well, it’s really way better than 0.9 acres. You know, if it’s, you know, under an acre, it’s a $30,000 swing with that septic tank. So I learned that the hard way and that taught me a little bit. I don’t need, I’m reluctant.
Dylan Silver (15:25)
septic is aninteresting beast, right?
Joel Montana Youngs (15:27)
Well, another thing I’ll tell you is when I ⁓ got divorced about seven, eight years ago, I had to give up a lot of my rentals and all my money in my house. know, so it’s all behind me. So I had to come back. How do you come back from, you know, all that alimony and all that stuff and try to make your thing work? So I started buying the cheapest properties I could. So I started driving out of town, 40, 50 miles and buying rundown trailers with land. And that’s how I learned the acre thing.Dylan Silver (15:37)
Yeah.Joel Montana Youngs (15:54)
Right?Well, when I found a rundown trailer, it could be just trashed. It didn’t matter. But it already had a power pole. It already had a power pole. It already had a septic tank and already had a well. That’s 30, 40 thousand dollars. Yeah, 30, 40 thousand dollars. And you can fix a mobile home 20 times cheaper than you can fix a house. So if you have less money, you can get into a mobile home deal for, say, 30 grand, which is and you can fix it up for like 10 grand. And then you can sell it on payments for like 90 grand on payments and hold the paper.
Dylan Silver (15:59)
Yeah.You took it off, Right.
Joel Montana Youngs (16:24)
And that’s, I’ve done about a hundred of those now.Dylan Silver (16:26)
Let me ask you about holding the paper. I actually had a deal that was very similar to this, didn’t end up going through. And I wanna ask you about this process specifically. So when you’re holding the note, right, you’re really, of course, depending on this person to make the payment. So you are kind of stretching out the return over a length of time, and then if they do default, it comes back to you. So you do have to kind of keep a longer term ⁓ perspective of theseof these deals. When you are in the process of the acquisition, do you already have that in mind? Like, hey, I’m going to have to hold the note on this? Or are you thinking during the acquisition of that deal, I’d ideally like to find a cash buyer for it.
Joel Montana Youngs (17:07)
Well, see, so that’s some learning things that I had to learn too. The banks, however they will take and finance a mobile home that’s an 88 or 90, but it’s gotta be in mint condition. They would much rather finance a home that’s built, you know, a mobile home built in say 2010 or 15, okay? So if you’re buying an older mobile home, you better know that you’re gonna be holding the paper on it. You’re not gonna, the banks won’t, they don’t wanna mess with it. They don’t wanna touch it, okay?Dylan Silver (17:35)
Yeah.Joel Montana Youngs (17:35)
Unlessthe person’s like stellar credit. Well, generally people buy that aren’t stellar credit either. know, so that’s that. So when I buy a single family home, if it’s a wooden structure, you know, I have to look at how, when I go to get appraised with the bank, they’re gonna bring an inspector in there and that guy’s gonna pick it apart. So if it’s a wooden house, I gotta make sure that, how’s the bottom of it? What’s the term?
Dylan Silver (17:41)
Right?Joel Montana Youngs (18:02)
I’m going to pay an inspector myself. I’ll expect it because I’ve done like seven or 800 deals, but those inspectors find everything, you know, and it just so when you’re doing right. So if you’re going to do a cash deal, like if it’s cash cash, it’s not a big deal. But if they’re going to finance it through a bank, especially FHA or VA, you better make sure it’s a solid, solid property and you better be prepared to fix everything because if it’s going to go FHA, it has toDylan Silver (18:11)
Yeah, absolutely. Tears the deal apart.Joel Montana Youngs (18:28)
can’t be one stick of rotten wood, everything’s gotta be fixed. The windows have to have screens and it’s a tougher deal.Dylan Silver (18:35)
Joel, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if maybe they’ve got a deal they’d like you to look at? Maybe they’re looking at a mobile home park deal or maybe they’re in the greater Jacksonville area and they’d like to reach out to you.Joel Montana Youngs (18:46)
Yeah, my email is youngs, young with an S and then production with an S at Gmail. So it’s youngsproductions @ gmail.com. And it’s, you can send me a deal or if they need help. I have a rule that I do, If somebody wants me to train them, it’s a five deal rule. Okay, so here’s how it works. I’ll help them find deals. I’ll teach them how to find them. Then they have to find them and then I’ll help them fund it. I’ll help them fix it and I’ll help them flip it. And they got to split five deals with me.Now why, and then they don’t have to ever pay me again. And it’s 50-50 split. So why I do that that way is after three deals, they aren’t going to need me anymore. Okay. They’re probably going to want me, but they don’t need me anymore. So the next two deals are like, Oh man, I got to give you, I did most of the stuff and I got to give you half. That was the deal. And we write up an agreement and that’s just what we do. And then I’ve, I’ve trained a bunch of people like that. Generally they’ll get a deal or two or three and sometimes it’s just too hard for some people. You know, it’s hard.
Finding them is the whole thing. You find them, the money will come.
Dylan Silver (19:41)
I completely agree. I actually said this on another podcast this week that if you’re worried about, how am I gonna get the mentorship? How am I gonna make sure that I can take this from the cradle to the grave? Once you find the deal, typically you get all the help that you need, because someone wants a part of that deal if it’s a good deal. Joel, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.Joel Montana Youngs (19:57)
Yeah. Especially if it’s a great deal. Awesome deal.Awesome. Thanks. Have a good day in Dominican Republic, right?
Dylan Silver (20:05)
That’s right, Santo Domingo. Thanks, Joel.Joel Montana Youngs (20:07)
Yeah,I’m jealous. Bye.
