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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Bruce Jacobs, who is innovating the solar energy space with a subscription-based model that reduces electric costs for homeowners and creates revenue streams for landlords. Bruce discusses the challenges of traditional solar business models and how his company, Terra Energy, is revolutionizing the industry by taking on the financial risks and responsibilities associated with solar installations. The conversation explores the environmental and economic benefits of solar energy, the types of properties that are best suited for solar installations, and how landlords can leverage this model to enhance their property value and tenant retention.
Resources and Links from this show:
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- Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
- Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
- Mike on Facebook
- Mike on Instagram
- Mike on LinkedIn
- Terra Energy’s Website
- Bruce Jacobs on LinkedIn
- Bruce Jacobs’s Email: [email protected]
- Bruce Jacobs’s Phone Number: (305) 331-1333
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Bruce Jacobs (00:00)
We have a portfolio owner, just 25 properties, $250 a month average bill. You sign up with us, we’re going to knock that bill down by 40%. You’re down to paying $150 a month. Let’s say you want to, if you’re the one paying the electric bill, you’re going to add a 6 % cap rate, you’re going to increase your valuation by half a million dollars.If you are having the tenants pay, let’s say you’re generous and you decide just to split it with the tenants, right? So the tenant pays $50 less, they’re happy, they’re making a $200 a month payment instead of for $250 worth of electricity. And you’re now only paying us 150 and you’re collecting 200. At that you still just increased your valuation by $250,000 if you only have 25 properties
Micah Johnson (00:46)
Right.Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Bruce Jacobs, who’s been making some serious moves in the energy space. Bruce, welcome in, man. Glad to have you.
Bruce Jacobs (02:36)
Thank you, Micah. Glad to be here.Micah Johnson (02:39)
I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching the solar energy space. I think it’s fascinating, especially what we talked about in our pre-call recording. You’re looking at it in a whole new light. One of my favorite terms, blue ocean. So let’s dive in on that. So for people who may not know you yet, what’s your main focus right now and what markets are you operating in?Bruce Jacobs (03:03)
So ⁓ our main focus is on either cutting people’s electric costs or creating revenue streams for landlords from electricity that the tenants are paying. We operate in Florida, statewide. We are in Houston and Dallas, Texas. We’re on our way to California next. Then we’re going through the Sun Belt. Pretty soon we’re going to be everywhere where there’s sun.Micah Johnson (03:25)
Man, so this thing’s growing. So let’s expand on it some. How are y’all approaching this industry differently? Because for a while, you know, had people knocking on my door, telling me all kinds of stuff about how to put solar on my house. And honestly, man, I didn’t believe them. It was one of reasons I didn’t do it. It just seemed scammy and fishy to me. So how are y’all overcoming that? And then honestly, just create your own space in this world.Bruce Jacobs (03:52)
So ⁓ solar’s been around forever and the technology works great. Everyone knows that the technology is tried and tested. The problem is that the business model has not been great. And now they just passed the big beautiful bill, which killed the 30 % tax credit. So all those people that knock on your door are trying to convince you that in eight, 10, 15 years, whatever it is, you’re gonna own a solar system that you’ve paid off.And now your energy is going to be free. Well, those numbers just went up by 30%. And I don’t know how true those numbers were to begin with. And a lot of people have problems with just the whole idea of I’m going to make an investment now and try to break even in 10 years. I mean, I was a lawyer in my past life. I got quoted on solar. It made no sense to me. I’d rather just pay my regular electric bill. Right. So Terra energy started eight years ago.
Micah Johnson (04:26)
Wow.Right.
Right.
Bruce Jacobs (04:48)
in Mexico, it is the brainchild of our CEO who won an award from MIT for this business model that he developed getting a double master’s in Cornell on a free ride. The guy’s smart. basically the whole idea is why would the homeowners scale? Well, how would it scale if the homeowners have all the risk and all the responsibility to make all the payments? That doesn’t make any sense. It never did. Right. So we turn that whole thing on our end. We’re backed by private equity.Micah Johnson (05:01)
.Bruce Jacobs (06:04)
Everything has been vetted for now eight years. Like we have huge ⁓ investments from private equity because every system I put out, they’re going to be selling financial products to Wall Street. So they’re happy. And what are we doing with the individual property owners? Think of us like a solar electric company operating through a subscription model, right? We are going to pay. We own the equipment always. We’re going to pay to put the equipment on your house. We’ll make that investment. We’ll take care of everything. It’s turnkey.Micah Johnson (06:23)
I like that.Bruce Jacobs (06:34)
You might answer a door once or twice or pick up an email. That’s it. Once the system’s installed, you’re going to pay a monthly fee, a subscription fee, like you were paying for Netflix or DirecTV, whatever it is. after, besides that fee, that’s it. We’re going to then own the equipment. We’re going to maintain it. We’re going to pay to repair it. If it ever needs repairs, we’re going to ensure it. We’re going to adjust it if it needs to go up or down.We’ll even upgrade the panels when they get outdated. You’ll never have a 25 year old system on your roof with us because we’ll be upgrading the panels as we need to because we’re thinking like a solar electric company. Right? So the whole idea of rooftop solar is now entering a new paradigm. One that is just going to cut your electric costs. Most of our clients, it’s somewhere between a third and a half is what they’re going to start paying less for electricity every month.
Micah Johnson (07:09)
Mmm.Right.
Bruce Jacobs (07:29)
month one. Usually 40 % is pretty accurate. What we see depends on your roof and your trees and things like that. But imagine if you were paying electric bills on a portfolio of properties, and you could cut that by 40 % just by signing up. Right? Imagine if you had a tenants that were paying electric bills. And instead of just letting them pay FPL or Duke or whoever it is, whatever utility it is in Florida or Texas, youhad us come in, install our equipment, and then you charged a spread to the tenant. And now you have revenue that never existed before, most people don’t think of tenants electric bill as a revenue stream. But that’s what we’re bringing to the table.
Micah Johnson (08:14)
Right.That’s fascinating. So I love the idea of a solar electric company because you’re basically describing what we already do with electric. I pay FPL every month for whatever electricity that I use, but it’s a subscription. That’s what it is, except I’m trapped into it. There’s no one else I can switch to. And you’re y’all’s model. Really, you Charlie mongered this. Y’all inverted that old way of doing it. It’s now out the door. And now it’s literally like, OK, we have the equipment. We can put this on there and generate this for you.
Bruce Jacobs (08:34)
Right?Micah Johnson (08:47)
charge you less and now give even investors a chance to basically old electric costs that maybe they, I mean, honestly, maybe they weren’t paying already, but the program allows you to now bring it in house. Right, now they can pay you for it.Bruce Jacobs (09:03)
make money. Think about likethis, right?
We have a portfolio owner, just 25 properties, $250 a month average bill. You sign up with us, we’re going to knock that bill down by 40%. You’re down to paying $150 a month. Let’s say you want to, if you’re the one paying the electric bill, you’re going to add a 6 % cap rate, you’re going to increase your valuation by half a million dollars.
If you are having the tenants pay, let’s say you’re generous and you decide just to split it with the tenants, right? So the tenant pays $50 less, they’re happy, they’re making a $200 a month payment instead of for $250 worth of electricity. And you’re now only paying us 150 and you’re collecting 200. At that you still just increased your valuation by $250,000 if you only have 25 properties at $250 a month.
Micah Johnson (09:55)
Right.Bruce Jacobs (10:37)
When those bills go up, so does the valuation. When the number of properties goes up, that’s when the portfolio really starts to perform. So, you know, what I’m doing, right, is really taking a tried and true model, which is residential rooftop solar, that has now been, you know, we’re two years, we got over 1,500 clients across the state of Florida and into Texas. And this is the year now to have proof of concept. We’ve got…The private equity guys are super happy. They want us to grow. We’re looking to grow by a thousand properties a month, install. And I think the best way to do that is to reach out to the investor class and show them a new paradigm, right? It’s blue ocean. You can create revenue that didn’t exist before. You can create savings that didn’t exist before.
Micah Johnson (11:22)
Right?Yeah, I get it. It’s I’m gonna sit here, let my mind run on it. It really is. You hear the term, I hear the term blue ocean tossed around quite a bit. And sometimes it applies to what they’re talking about. And sometimes it doesn’t. But this is truly using the sun to open up a new electric company.
Literally.
Bruce Jacobs (11:48)
Yeah. I I’lltell you, and I’m on the inside watching the players involved, like the CEO, the president, the CFO. These are all like just amazing, brilliant, hardworking, committed visionaries that see a path forward. And when I, as soon as I got to the company day one, when I met them and I was like, wait, you’re going to pay for me to go solar and I’m going to save money every month. And that’s the deal.
I’m in, I want to sell this, I want to make a life out this. And two years later now, watching what we’re doing and seeing how it’s going, like I’m just excited. I think that we’re going to help a lot of people make a lot of money and doing it in way that’s going to help the earth and help the world and make people feel good about themselves. know, whether you like the, you some people care about the environment, some people don’t, some people think it’s real, some people don’t, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s all, know, if you want to be green, at least you’ll have more green in your pocket.
Micah Johnson (12:21)
Right?That’s right. Like green either way is pretty good at this point. And it’s, and I love the, I love missions that are connected to just something bigger than making money. Like we’re all trying to make money. get it. That is the, I call it the currency of survival. If you don’t have money, you’re not getting very far. However, when we only do things for it, we still only get very far, right? It sucks the life out of you. You don’t feel good.
Bruce Jacobs (12:50)
We’ll take it.Micah Johnson (13:09)
I’m very big on whatever I’m doing, also paying my emotional paycheck. And if it doesn’t pay that I’m not involved. just, can’t care enough anymore because I’ve done enough things now to know money’s just not worth that. So I love being, I like to be a part of things that are creating that impact too, that are actually making a difference. And this is one that I could see. I do think there’s some issues that we have with the way we participated in our environment for the last 50 to a hundred years. And I think that.doing simple things that can help is your best starting point, right? You’re not talking about reinventing the wheel here. Solar’s been around for a long time. What was messed up, like you said, was the business plan, which was very awkward and it was very clunky and it, you know, a 20 year old dude showing up in my door trying to explain to me.
why this is going to be beneficial. Like, you just don’t have enough life experience to tell me that yet, And so now y’all are starting to inventing that.
Bruce Jacobs (14:06)
I mean, I’ll tell you,like, we’re not like, you know, I’m not a door knocker. I’ve never been like a big fan of the door knocking experience to me. What we’re talking about is something that is going to revolutionize energy. And if you haven’t been following AIs here and these data centers are going to 10X demand, whether they’re in Florida or not, other states are going to have such a demand that, you know, there’s going to be pressure on the grid everywhere.
And when there’s pressure on the grid, that leads to two things, brownouts, meaning those that have less have no power, you know, or just rate hikes. And FPL just got the largest rate hike in US history. know, let me say that again. FPL just got the largest rate hike of any utility in the history of the United States. That’s crazy to me. And, know, TECO, which is in Tampa, just had
Micah Johnson (14:36)
Right.Bruce Jacobs (15:05)
a petition started, if you Google it, it’s out there, TECO went up 82 % in the last five years. So whatever is happening today, if you are paying electricity, you want to be ready for that. And if you’re a landlord, with our model, you want to root for the electricity costs to go up. That’s going to make you more money. Because you’re going to make more money the longer you’re with us.Micah Johnson (15:13)
Woo!Right.
Bruce Jacobs (16:13)
The way we work is we are a very, we’re gonna drop the rate. Usually it takes about 25 years to get back to paying whatever you’re paying today on that property. And in that whole time, your tenants are gonna be used to paying whatever electricity their neighbors were, they were paying in their last place. And you’ll have a solution that’s gonna put more money in your pocket the more those rates go up.Micah Johnson (16:33)
Right?Well, not only just more money in your pocket, now you’re building in a retention tool for your tenants. You’re building in all kinds of little factors that make good tenants stay longer, which is what a landlord’s ultimately after anyways. There’s a great tenant, gonna take care of their property and stay there a long time. And the more little pieces that you have that entice the audience, especially when we’re in a buyer’s market right now in a sense where…
Bruce Jacobs (16:45)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (17:03)
Rentals are sitting, things are taking longer, everything is having a little bit harder time. Anything that you can use at your disposal to attract tenants and retain them, man, that’s powerful.Bruce Jacobs (17:16)
I have clients, some of our landlords, their model is, hey, I’m gonna lower your electric cost by 40%. They don’t even want the revenue stream. They just want tenants to stay longer and tenants will stay just on something as simple as, I wanna go somewhere else where I’m gonna have to pay full price for electricity? No, a lot of tenants would stay for that. And for longer periods, some people say, as long as you stay with us, even with the spread.Micah Johnson (17:27)
Right?Bruce Jacobs (17:44)
This is going to be all you’re going to pay for the next two years of your lease or three years of your lease if you’re willing to sign more. That’s a huge hook for a of people because today everyone’s trying to, especially people who are renting, they need to save every dime they can.Micah Johnson (17:58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, as many fixed costs as you can create is what you’re trying to do. Like stabilize your bottom line. When you know what’s going out every month, it’s kind of easier to plan on what to get in. And shoot, all right, so 40 % my electric bills, 200 bucks a month. So what, now you’re down at about 110 a month-ish.Bruce Jacobs (18:03)
Absolutely.Micah Johnson (18:21)
That’s 90 bucks. I mean, you’re talking about almost $1,200 over a year of savings in a sense where holy cow, I mean that.Bruce Jacobs (18:28)
I mean, let me say this.Most of the bills that I see are four, five, six, $700 a month, right? There’s a lot of people out there that have big houses that are paying huge amounts of money every month. And it’s not really, you know, I always tell people when you look at this from, what did I save month one? You have a choice. can have Terra and save money. You know, if it’s 90, if it’s 100, if it’s 200, it’s $300 a month, whatever the number is.
Micah Johnson (18:39)
Mm-hmm.Bruce Jacobs (18:57)
Right. But it’s really about the long-term play. Because once this is on the roof, you know, like there’s no problems. You can always sell the house. That’s not going to be an issue. You can change the roof. It doesn’t cost anything. We’ll come store it, put it back, whatever we need to do. You can adjust it up and down if your usage changes. Like all of that is, is a no brainer for us. And at the end of the day, by year 10, by year 20, the amount of extra money you’ve had in your pocket from having terror on your roof.Micah Johnson (19:01)
Right.Bruce Jacobs (19:27)
is usually tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. And especially when you start talking, once you start that’s for one property, right? Once you start talking about scaling this to portfolios, that is where the real value of Terra is. And that’s my goal for 2026. That’s all I wanna do is talk to people and explain to them, this is how I can do this for you. I’m gonna save you money if you’re paying electric bill. I’m gonna make you money if the tenants are paying your.Micah Johnson (19:30)
Yeah, I can see.Right.
Man, that’s good. So for someone listening to this that’s thinking, okay, that might sound a little too good to be true. What’s that statement that you give those folks? What’s that, the proof that you have out there?
Bruce Jacobs (20:10)
I mean, it makes sense that people think that because they’ve not seen this model. But what I can tell you is this model has been around for eight years and I wouldn’t be putting rooftop solar on people’s homes without putting liens on their homes, without giving them all kinds of catches and this and that. This is a very simple two page contract for a standard homeowner. mean, obviously when we get to scale, it’s a different model than if we’re…Micah Johnson (20:16)
Mm.Bruce Jacobs (20:39)
just dealing with an individual or like a small time, you mom and pop kind of operation. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, if it’s like everything good at one point was too good to be true. And some people won’t ever start. They’re they’re not gonna try anything, right? They’re closed off until it’s already established and they know for sure that, and God bless them, that’s true. But those people, you know, miss out on opportunities.Micah Johnson (20:53)
Right?Right.
Bruce Jacobs (21:08)
What I can tell you is it’s definitely, when I got here two years ago, the first thing I said was, if you’re really doing that, I’m in. I’ll make a career out of this. They’re really doing it. Like, I’m not going to take anything from you. I’m going to give you solar equipment and then I’m going to start charging a monthly fee and your electric costs are going down. That’s a win for you. And how do I know, how do know it’s not too good to be true? Private equity is behind it. They’re not putting tens of millions of dollars into.Micah Johnson (21:17)
Right.Yeah.
Bruce Jacobs (21:38)
scaling solar across Florida and other states without having vetted it and making sure that everything is exactly where it needs to be. So, you know, I’d say send me your electric bills. All I need, all I’m going to ask from you is your last month electric bill, one for each property. And then once I have that, I draw up the system, I sit down with you, you say yes, you sign up. We do charge a dollar on the credit card for a normal residential homeowner.for portfolios, we’ll talk about what that looks like when we start to scale those. And that’s going to be based on the size and location and everything else like that. But ultimately, you’re going to see that you’re going to put very little at risk, and you’re going to have a lot of upside. Some people don’t want to play that game. Some people just want zero risk whatsoever, know what’s already tried and true and done, and they’ve watched 1,000 other people do it, fine. There’s plenty of people in the blue ocean. There’s plenty of fish in this ocean.
Micah Johnson (22:33)
Yeah.Bruce Jacobs (22:34)
You know, we’ll find the ones that want our help. Yeah, you don’t have to. Look, this is, butMicah Johnson (22:35)
Yeah. Well, then just wait, right? Yeah. And then just tell them, just wait. You’ll be back in a couple of years.Bruce Jacobs (22:42)
by that time you’ll have probably been swept up in whatever is going on in the world with electricity, right? Because I really think the AI and data centers, mean, electric vehicles were putting a tax on the grid, but when you 10X that demand, that’s a different world. And, you know, I think the smart money is people who are going to be getting ahead of this.and looking at this and saying, okay, you I’m willing to let this man live by his contract, right? Which is gonna, you’ll see the contract’s pretty straightforward. I’m gonna put solar in your house, I’m gonna pay for it and take care of it. You’re gonna pay less for electricity every month. That’s the choice you have, boom.
Micah Johnson (23:23)
that’s a good answer too. That’s a good answer. Because that’s the thing. Normally you run into the too good to be true and then there’s all these little catches and caveats and all the little pieces that seem to establish it and y’all are doing a great job by cleaning that up. Let me ask you this. What property types work best for solar? who is, so if I have a listener out there, they own a portfolio and they’re thinking, okay, I want to do this. What property types do they need to have where y’all are able to capitalize the best?Bruce Jacobs (23:43)
Sure, that’s a great question.So our bread and butter is single family home. We do those all day long. There’s no issues. The bigger the better, right? ⁓ One to four units, super easy. Bigger the better, all right? Once you start getting into townhouses work well too. Once you start getting over two stories, once you start getting into commercial and industrial and warehouses and offices and everything else.
It gets a little bit more involved. And I work with all of that. I’ve been doing all of that. That’s not my focus in the first quarter. I really want to focus on our single family homes, our one to four units, the town homes. Those are what is going to be easy for us to scale. But there is going to be room and time for all of the, we should be on every roof, right? There’s no limit to that.
You know, it’s really the more that I’ve learned about how solar works, right? The more dense the unit, the property is, the less efficient, I guess is the right way to say it, the more costly it is to get that property to work. you know, a fourplex is a lot easier than a unit, you know, a 20 unit building. But, you know, what I’ll tell you is, you know, there’s…
Micah Johnson (25:03)
Okay.Got you.
Bruce Jacobs (25:15)
There’s models for everything and there’s other ways like we talked before the show, Micah, like there’s other solutions that I bring because I, my whole goal is NOI. That’s what I think about all day long. How am going to increase someone’s revenue or decrease their expenses so I can increase the valuation of their property? And, you know, there’s a whole bunch of other solutions that we could talk about. ⁓ Water, waste, AC, ⁓ bulk internet. ⁓There’s just a bunch of different solutions that are going to help you create revenue or save money with little or no investment. That’s what I work on. So even if you don’t think I don’t have a portfolio of single family homes right now, all of myself is multifamily or it’s all industrial, whatever it is, talk to me. I’m happy to share the knowledge that I had, introduce partners that I know are also going to do what I do, help you increase your NOI with little or no money involved.
Micah Johnson (26:13)
Man, that’s excellent. So for my folks that are listening, your Blue Ocean, how you’re viewing solar electric company, if you don’t know what Blue Ocean means, there’s two terms, Blue Ocean and Red Ocean. Blue Ocean means you’re doing something completely different. It does not exist. It’s truly bringing something to life. And that’s one thing I enjoy about what y’all are doing. So if you’re listening to this and you have a portfolio of homes or multifamily or anything that could fit what he’s looking for, what’s the best way to get a hold of you, Bruce?Bruce Jacobs (26:43)
So you can always call my cell 305-331-1333. ⁓ You can always email me, bruce, B-R-U-C-E, at teraenergy.io. I don’t know why, but .io is what we got. I also gave Micah a link that is one that you can upload your bills directly and send me your stuff. That’s another easy way to get ahold of me.Micah Johnson (27:01)
Okay.Bruce Jacobs (27:11)
But anyone that is interested in being involved, certainly at scale. And look, this also works on your individual homes. If you have a home, a property, anything you’re paying an electric bill on, you should be printing up your electric bills, downloading them and sending them to me. The worst I’m gonna do is save you money. And it could be a lot.Micah Johnson (27:35)
I love that. love that. And when that’s the worst folks, you don’t get many deals like that. Well, Bruce, man, I really appreciate your time today, your story, your perspective, what’s going on. I love to talk with folks who are thinking outside the box, coming up with what our species is going to need next. We’re only getting bigger and we’re only getting older. So these ideas that are flowing with more and more technology coming out.Bruce Jacobs (27:40)
Right.Amen.
Micah Johnson (27:57)
I love that. I want to love your passion and your voice. Like I don’t meet many people that are as excited about solar as you. So I love that, man. I think that connects with everybody because there’s nothing like actually caring. That is the secret sauce to business in my opinion. If you can actually care about what it is you’re doing and the people you’re doing it for, sky’s the limit. You can truly make huge changes.So for the listeners out there, thanks for joining in. If you got value from today’s episode, please like this one, share this episode with someone you think would get some value out of it. Please make sure you subscribe to our podcast. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators, just like Bruce, who are out there building real businesses and making a difference in the industry. Bruce, again, thank you so much. We’ll see everybody on the next episode. Thank you.
Bruce Jacobs (28:40)
Appreciate you. Thank you so much, Micah. -
