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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, Jackie Farris shares her inspiring journey from a challenging upbringing to becoming a successful real estate investor. She discusses her early life struggles, the pivotal moments that led her to invest in real estate, and the lessons learned from her first deals. Jackie emphasizes the importance of trusting one’s intuition, the value of real estate over the stock market, and her commitment to creating quality living spaces for her renters. Her story is a testament to resilience, empowerment, and the potential for anyone to succeed in real estate.
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Jackie Farris (00:00)
This one’s my primary home, you can’t really see it. And then this was our second one. This was the one that had the flood and the fire. It should be done in like two weeks. And then we completely flipped this one. We got this one for 50 grand and then we put 85,000 into it. We just rented it for 2,200 a month. And then I got this one that we just did started demo on it.Kristen (00:02)
me.That’s so cool.
Jackie Farris (00:26)
And we signeda contract for $88,000. It’s crazy. Like I never thought I’d be doing this, you know, like to live from paycheck to paycheck to now like signing contracts for that much money. Like I’m just like, who am I? And if I can do it, like you can do it. She can do it. He can do it. You know, like anyone can do
Kristen (02:21)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Jackie Farris, who’s an investor out of Illinois. We’re gonna talk about the realities of starting your investing portfolio and kind of what that looks like. Thank you so much for being here, Jackie.Jackie Farris (02:33)
Of course, thank you for having me.Kristen (02:34)
I know I’m excited to get into everything. So how about you give us a little background on yourself and how you got into this industry.Jackie Farris (02:41)
Sure. So I come from a pretty rough upbringing. I didn’t have anybody in my family who had money. Everybody was pretty much paycheck to paycheck. I lived in government housing and my mom was on food stamps. Like I remember when it was paper food stamps even. Then I left home pretty quick. I just left at 15 and I started working at a dog food factory and then I went to Job Corps.It was a place where you go and get your schooling. It kind of seemed like the military, but it wasn’t. I got my GED and I graduated at 17 from there. And then I fell into addiction. I went through many years of just partying, addiction, doing things my way, thinking that I had known how to do it, thought I was grown. But the thing that I was missing though was God.
I ended up going to prison and I did three years in prison. And while I was there, I was sexually assaulted by an officer, a CO. And I did three years over that. Like I was only supposed to do four months in prison, which I felt like I was ready for that. know, like I needed a change. I needed to just really grow up and get out of addiction.
And when I had to do three years, it was such a blow. Like I had two kids and I was desperate to get home to my kids and I was fighting a custody case with my older son’s father. He was a cop. So that didn’t help, but I was really making a lot of mistakes. I don’t believe I deserved to lose my child, but I did. That’s what happened. And I ended up having a lawsuit over the situation with the guard and
They settled with me. thought it was a not really like just I didn’t want to, I wanted to speak, you know, like I wanted to talk about my situation and I wanted them to be held accountable. But I also didn’t want to make bad decisions for my family. So when they offered $3.3 million, I was like, yeah, let’s do this. I can still speak about it like on my own terms. So I grew a platform on TikTok, which
So grateful to TikTok for giving me that platform to speak on everything because it helps, you know, like it helps to get your story out there and just feel like powerful, like not in a bad way, but just so you can speak out for the other people who are going through the same things. Because I always felt powerless, like with my son’s father being a cop and just everybody trying to lead my life and tell me what to do. So.
Kristen (05:06)
right?Jackie Farris (06:04)
The platform really gave me just like that power of my own so I could speak for myself.Kristen (06:10)
Right, kind of take your narrative back. Ugh, I mean, you’ve gone through so much. I’m so sorry.Jackie Farris (06:12)
Yeah.So the first thing that I wanted to do was invest. I’m like, how can I take my family and do something else? I don’t want to keep going through the same things that I’ve been going through. And people can get money and still bomb that shit. know, like, hear about lottery winners and stuff, they get way more, like, $100 million, and they’re broke so fast. And I’m like,
Kristen (06:32)
or is a lot of people too.Jackie Farris (06:42)
Man, I don’t want that to be me. So here goes my whole family, like storage units, stock market, like just giving me all the ideas, but nothing that was involving real estate. But I wanted to do real estate. Even my dad was like, no, that’s too hard, too much work. You’ll never make it. And I’m like, gosh, like there’s literally nobody that supported me. But everybody had their hand out, you know, like everybody wantedKristen (07:04)
not.Jackie Farris (07:07)
something like my mom was always needing groceries and just so much stuff. Like it was getting old to where the I had to just be like, no, like I’m done. I’ve given you guys enough and like I’m starting my own business now. So that’s what I did. I started TNF estates with my husband and it was really important for me to be like the owner, you know, like I wanted to run my life, my business. I wanted to have a women owned business.So I own 81 % so I can sign up as a women-owned business, like get certified.
Kristen (07:39)
Amazing. I mean, that’s such an inspirational story. mean, even just from the beginning where you took the money and invested it, I feel like that just shows how much growth that you’ve had and how determined you are for your future.and picking the real estate market, it is a tough industry. So I mean, I think that speaks a lot to your work ethic as well. Can you walk us through that first deal that you did and what it looked like? Because I think a lot of people really struggle with that first deal.
Jackie Farris (08:08)
Girl, yes. So itwas like, everybody was always telling me that it was like the best deal. Like every house that I saw, like, this is a good one. And I’m like, no, like, I don’t like this one. But the very first one that we got, it was just like a Facebook. I saw somebody on Facebook that was selling their house that they already had and it was, it was already rented.
Kristen (08:20)
Heagain.
Jackie Farris (08:32)
I’m like, oh, this is perfect. Like it’s already an investment property and I can just take over. So the very first one we got was just a two bedroom, huge garage, and it was for $110,000. I can show it to you. me see. It’s pretty small. I’m going to put siding on it.Kristen (08:48)
Thanks.That’s so cool. I love that you framed that.
Jackie Farris (08:53)
And we had a renter in it. We have a new renter in it now, but that was my very first one. But right away I wanted to get two that were already done. You I wanted something that was already rent ready. Big mistake. I’ll never do that again. I’ll never buy a house that’s like rent ready. It’s like you just lose money. I feel likeKristen (09:11)
Walk us through allthat’s the case.
Jackie Farris (09:49)
I feel like the burn method is the best way, you know, buy and then renovate it yourself. That way you know exactly what’s in it. You know what’s in the bones of the house. You know, know, if the in Illinois, you can’t have the pipes running through like the attic. It has to be running through the walls. Something I never knew, but the second house that we got, I hired a realtor, first of all. Like I wanted someone to just like mentor me and kind of give me the ins and the outs.Kristen (09:54)
youJackie Farris (10:16)
you know, how does this work? Where should I start? And like, what do I do? You know, I had no idea. But now looking back, like I definitely should have taken my time, learned things on my own because that second house that we got, I didn’t want it. I was like, no, it’s like, I just had this feeling like, know how your intuition is just like screaming at you like, no, but it was like the way I said it. I was like, well, God’s telling me to walk away from this.Kristen (10:37)
Yeah.Jackie Farris (10:43)
And like that’s what your intuition is. It’s like you inside your intuition. Like that’s God telling you like, no. So we ended up getting the home anyway. It was supposed to be a brand new renovated home. Like everything was 2025, you know, all the like girl, like the air conditioner, the furnace, everything was brand new. So I’m like, what could go wrong? You know, this is okay. Fine. Let’s do it.Kristen (10:49)
Yeah.Jackie Farris (11:08)
And we ended up getting like a little bit of a deal on it, but my realtor told me to take it as is, which that’s fine. But as is doesn’t mean anything goes. Like you still should get a home inspection, but they told us not to. They advised us not to get a home inspection. It’s good. It’s brand new. I’m like, okay. So we did. And we put our renter in. We did get a rental inspection, butKristen (11:19)
Right.you
Jackie Farris (11:34)
there’s not much that they go over. Like they didn’t even want to go in the attic, which if you would have went in the attic, you would have seen all the cords hanging, which we had an electrical fire and a flood within the same month. It was, it was a lot. Like we lost like $55,000 on that home. Plus a lot of rent payments. Like we’re still working on it.Kristen (11:54)
Yeah, I mean, I think you bring up a lot of good points that I think are relatable for most people starting out where you have a gut feeling, but you don’t trust it because you don’t see yourself as knowledgeable enough and you see yourself like, well, these people know better than me. My gut feeling doesn’t mean anything. Cause I don’t know. But I mean, you just proved twice that, your gut really does. I mean, you have a business sense where even if you’re not super knowledgeable about the industry or you’re just getting started, you doknow enough and you know your body knows enough and you should definitely follow your gut. Can you talk about maybe now how that influences your decisions now like maybe an example of how you’ve done the opposite of that?
Jackie Farris (12:36)
Yeah, I just take my own advice now, even when it comes to my husband. Like, I love my husband and I know he’s not gonna make the wrong decision. It’ll be an accident if he does, but I truly, at that time he was working full-time, which he’s not anymore, but at that time he was working full-time. He just didn’t have the space to put the time and effort into what we were doing at that time.And I think it was just like a push off, like, yeah, just go ahead and do it. Just, you know, just to get it out of the way type thing. But I really needed to just listen to myself and learn and just start getting into the books and studying and learning things on my own. Because when you’re hearing things from your realtor and this person and that person, like it’s so much and just like, who do I listen to? Like I really need to just learn.
So that’s what I did. started learning. started taking the Realtor class, which in Illinois, they still call it a broker. It’s like, I don’t know why I always thought it was just Realtor, but in Illinois, they still call it a broker. And I started learning. And that’s how I learned that like you always get a home inspection. Even the most experienced real estate investors spend the money on the home inspection. Like it’s like what $500 to
know everything that’s going on with your home. Had we have known, we could have just reran the pipes and fixed the electrical and then we would have never had those problems. Because the house was a good home if we could have just fixed it, you know. But we didn’t. We put our renter right in after the rent inspection. And then to go through all that, you know, like I felt so bad. I knew we weren’t responsible for like her items and
Kristen (14:06)
Thank ⁓Jackie Farris (15:01)
where she was going, but it was just like my heart, you know, like I put her in a hotel and all these things because I’m just like, I can’t do that. She just rented a home from us. It’s only been, she’s paid rent one time and we had a flood. So I’m like, okay, we put her in a hotel, we fixed all that with the flood and then we got her right back in. But then we had the fire and I’m like, my gosh, like we can’t.Kristen (15:22)
Yeah.another.
Jackie Farris (15:27)
can’t put you in a hotel for six months. Like you’re gonna have to go somewhere. I’m so sorry, but it was just like I just felt so bad.Kristen (15:29)
Yeah.Yeah, I mean, it really is though. It’s the price of learning. mean, it’s the tuition to kind of understand the business because a lot of it you don’t know until you do it. And I think a lot of people, there’s two ways to go about it. mean, there’s the other end of the spectrum where people just learn and learn and learn and never do. So I mean, getting out there and doing it, I think in itself is commendable. So talk about kind of where you’re at now and what your portfolio looks like and what you’re looking to build.
Jackie Farris (15:59)
Thanks.Kristen (16:04)
with it.Jackie Farris (16:04)
So I like to think that God gave me extra money to make these mistakes. I had always said before, I fought my case for six years and I was like, well, if I can just get enough to buy a home, like my primary home, that’s it. And even if it’s just the down payment, that’s all truly I feel like I need. But that’s not what happened. God made sure that I walked away with more. I walked away with 1.7 million.Kristen (16:10)
Great.Jackie Farris (16:31)
I didn’t get the whole 3.3. But now my business, we have four properties. My primary home is not in the business, but it is a big portion of my, like what I own with properties. Like my home is worth 650,000 and then the rest is all in my investment properties. And we have 1.3 million in properties.We started doing the Burr Method. So you buy the home for less, usually an off-market deal. Like if it’s on the market, it’s usually not going to be something that you can flip. I mean, that’s just my opinion. Maybe, maybe there are some out there, but I feel like it should be off-market. I’ve been looking on the auction a lot and I found a good one on the auction that we’re flipping right now. And let me show you. So we have this one.
Kristen (17:24)
Yeah.Yeah.
Jackie Farris (17:26)
This one’s my primary home, you can’t really see it. And then this was our second one. This was the one that had the flood and the fire. It should be done in like two weeks. And then we completely flipped this one. We got this one for 50 grand and then we put 85,000 into it. We just rented it for 2,200 a month. And then I got this one that we just did started demo on it.Kristen (17:29)
me.That’s so cool.
Jackie Farris (17:53)
And we signeda contract for $88,000. It’s crazy. Like I never thought I’d be doing this, you know, like to live from paycheck to paycheck to now like signing contracts for that much money. Like I’m just like, who am I? And if I can do it, like you can do it. She can do it. He can do it. You know, like anyone can do
Kristen (17:57)
Good night.Well, I’m sure you’ll
Jackie Farris (18:15)
I mean, obviously not anyone has the money, but if you ever find yourself.in the position where you did receive a large chunk of money, like don’t throw it in the stock market. There’s so many homes out there that need to be nice, you know, we could be doing good for the world.
Kristen (18:32)
Yeah, talk about kind of what makes real estate the better option for you rather than the stock market.Jackie Farris (18:40)
Stock market’s boring, right? It’s just sitting there. Like I found, I did put money in there at first. Like I was just listening to my dad and like, just felt so, I don’t know, I was such a people pleaser. Like any, everything I did was people pleasing, but I really learned to just go after what I want to do. And I was worried about my husband quitting his job. Like, no, I need him. Like we have kids and so much going on. Like it’s, my life is so much better now that he’s home.and the stock market, I pulled all that out. I had like $700,000 in there just sitting there and I would look at it all the time. Like big drops would happen and I’d be calling the advisor like what the heck? He’s like you gotta relax. Just don’t even look at it. And I’m like there’s no way like I need to be involved with my investments. So that was one of the biggest reason I just wanted to be involved. So
Kristen (19:30)
So.Right.
Jackie Farris (19:35)
Real estate gives you the chance to keep your wealth, you know, like, who’s gonna do anything to a property, you know, it’d be so hard, like, I don’t know, it just sits there, you know, you just have to maintain it, which is not easy, but you you maintain it over the course of 20 years and then it’s gonna grow in equity all by itself, even if you do nothing to it. But you know, you fix it up a little bit and make it looking good and.Kristen (19:47)
ThankYeah.
Jackie Farris (19:59)
Keep up with it over the years and boom, you know, you’re gonna turn your million into two million.Kristen (20:04)
course, yeah. think it’s nice. It makes you feel good to be able to tangibly change something, to build something. And I’m sure that gave you a lot of confidence, kind of with everything you’ve gone through. Like, talk about… Yeah. Oh, I was just gonna…Jackie Farris (20:13)
Yes.Yes, as a renter, ⁓ go ahead, sorry. As a renter
myself, for all my adult life, I was a renter and I wanted to rent nice places because I was a content creator and you just want to give your kids a good life. So I thought about that for my renters. I did double ovens on my last property. That’s something that I’ve always just liked, the double oven thing. You want to have Thanksgiving and…
do like hosting for people or whatever and it really helps. So I don’t treat my renters like, this is a rental property. Like that’s how everybody is. They’re like, are you renting it or selling it? Because if you’re renting it, there’s like a totally different plan. Like everything’s low grade and you know, like the bottom of the bottom. And I’m like, no, that’s not what we’re doing. Like I want to do everything nice, not everything nice. Like I’m starting to learn that not
everything needs to be perfect because I’m losing money but yeah we did like real hardwood floors and the whole nine yards but my my deposit’s pretty high I’m not doing just first month’s rent
Kristen (21:16)
HahahaI’m me.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you’re taking a lot of pride in it, which is awesome. Well, I think that, you know, we’re coming up towards the end of our time, but I think you’ve given such amazing inspiration to people to just get started and to not feel bad if things don’t work out right away because it’s learning. I think that there’s a lot of value in that, the fact that you kept going rather than giving up, which I think you easily.
Jackie Farris (21:48)
Yeah, it’slike when you’re going up to bat like a baseball, you know, you’re getting up to bat and you just start running in circles, you know, because you don’t know what to do. But it’s like just get up there and swing and just go because eventually you’re just going to start learning. You’re not going to make the same mistake twice.
Kristen (22:05)
Well, tell people where to find you, especially on TikTok. I know you’re active there.Jackie Farris (22:09)
Yeah, I’m on TikTok. It’s just my name, Jacqueline Farris. Instagram, same thing, Jacqueline Farris. There’s an underscore after it. Appreciate it. I talk a lot about my recovery and things that are going on in my life. It’s all about lifestyle recovery and real estate now.Kristen (22:16)
Amazing.Yeah, well everyone I really encourage everyone to check that out because I feel like you have a lot of inspiration to share. So I mean I’m so excited to see where it all goes for you because I think you’re going to build a really impressive portfolio. You already have an impressive portfolio. You’re going to even build more from it.
Jackie Farris (22:31)
Thank you.Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it.
Kristen (22:43)
Awesome. Will everybody please check her out on TikTok and Instagram and we hope you learned a lot on this episode, got some inspiration. So we’ll see you back next time. Bye.
