Why High-End Builds Work Better for This Nashville Developer

Kristen Knapp (00:01.026)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen Knapp and I’m here with Brian Bandas, contractor and builder from Nashville. We’re going to get into his background and everything, you know, building, which we’re really excited about. So thank you for coming on today.Brian Bandas (00:13.4)
Thank you so much for having me.

Kristen Knapp (00:14.934)
Yes, so let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into this line of work?

Brian Bandas (00:20.318)
I would guess that it’s similar to a lot of real estate investors. I looked up at one point, I’m newly married. I’ve got our first kid and I’m like, I want to take care of this family. I don’t have a college degree. I don’t have any money. you know, no rich uncles and, that I discover real estate investing through a podcast. think it was through Sean Terry’s podcast about wholesaling, right? And at the time I’m sure I was just scrambling for like,

how can I make some money and take care of this family? And real estate investing in general just rewards hustle, which that’s what I had to offer. And so I started digging into that and there was this slow snowball effect of, okay, I’m gonna try to wholesale some deals. And then I did some flips and then grew up with some home builders in my family. And so…

It was a long time before I consciously thought, they build, I want to build. But eventually that was sort of the natural. For me, was like, that’s the peak of the real estate investing mountain that I want to climb. But ultimately, so I had a music career for years, which is not super relevant to this, but it’s kind of a fun fact. I did that for like 10 years. So at the end of that, I made a career change.

Kristen Knapp (01:40.108)
Yeah, it’s relevant.

Brian Bandas (01:46.668)
that didn’t go as planned. And so I ended up in that position where I’m like, holy crap, I don’t have a career and I got a wife and a kid and I don’t have a degree, we’re broke, what do I do? So that’s how I ended up doing this.

Kristen Knapp (02:01.225)
Yeah, and I think it’s important to mention that real estate investing requires a lot of hustle and lot of finacity because I think a lot of people probably get into it just being like expecting a lump sum of money in their account, but it takes a lot of work.

Brian Bandas (02:07.467)
yeah.

Brian Bandas (02:14.498)
Yeah, yeah. Takes a lot of work. For me, that’s what attracted me to it. There’s no gatekeepers. So if you just, I don’t have to get hired by anyone. Even when I was in music, I was in a band and we had a label deal and doing all that. But I still was at the mercy of, the people that run the radio stations decide to play our single? It isn’t just hustle. It’s hustle and then maybe you get lucky.

and there’s a response to your hustle. And with real estate investing, whether you’re, I do new construction development now, but whether you’re doing that or you’re wholesaling or trying to buy rentals, the hustle is all that’s required, right? That’s the ticket for entry. And there’s no one who can stop me from going down the street and knocking on a door and asking if somebody wants to sell their house. And if I can find a decent deal,

No one can stop me from doing that. that to me was the attraction, was like, can just walk out the front door and go try to make things happen. I don’t have to wait to get hired or for somebody to agree to give me a raise or whatever.

Kristen Knapp (03:26.23)
Yeah, it’s true independence, true career independence. Of course, you’re kind of battling the market and there’s always unforeseen things that hold you back, but you really are in control of your own destiny to a certain extent.

Brian Bandas (03:28.982)
yeah.

Brian Bandas (03:34.294)
yeah.

Brian Bandas (03:38.946)
Yep. Yeah, I think like most things, I think the cost can be really high. Nobody just hands stuff to you, it just doesn’t work that way. And the rewards can coincide with that and be very, very high. So it’s probably higher risk. I think definitely higher cost on the front end with just the level of effort that’s required to get some momentum.

But I also think that the potential earnings and the freedom are astronomical. And most people working at nine to five somewhere are probably not gonna experience that.

Kristen Knapp (04:17.024)
Absolutely. So you were in your music career and then you wanted to get into real estate. What did that first deal look like for you?

Brian Bandas (04:25.261)
The very, okay, so the very first deal was before I left music, I bought this house and then all of a sudden I have this career change and we can’t afford to stay there. We can’t pay the mortgage. So instead of selling it, I put a renter in and like the light bulb goes off. I’m like, I get to keep this money that this guy just paid me for this rent. And at the time I think this, you know, the cashflow was like a hundred bucks or something.

But it was positive cashflow, right? And that just sort of like the light bulb went off. I’m like, oh, all I had to do was sign papers and then I owned this and then I, you So from there, the next deal was Craigslist and I didn’t have any money. And so I was calling through Craigslist going, hey, would you sell your finance? when I say no money, that’s an exaggeration. I think I put down a thousand dollars. So I didn’t have none.

Kristen Knapp (04:57.464)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (05:24.311)
but pretty dang close to none. Especially like we have a baby, you know, I’m married, like my wife was in grad school, so she’s literally paying to work full time. So pretty close to no money. So the next deal was a triplex and I found this old guy named Don who for whatever reason was willing to sell or finance this thing with, if I remember correctly, $1,000 down. And I…

Kristen Knapp (05:25.523)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (05:52.31)
I totally blew it on this deal. made several mistakes, but I did it. And the house appreciated it it was profitable. And so that was the next one. was just like calling through Craigslist. I mean, talk about just a gross, gritty, non-glamorous way to do it.

Kristen Knapp (06:12.98)
Yeah, mean, that’s really getting in the mud there. Like how has your process kind of developed over the years as technology has improved?

Brian Bandas (06:16.831)
yeah.

Brian Bandas (06:23.693)
Oh, I wish that I was like the poster child for like, I use all these tools. I’m a little more old school, so I’m not calling Craigslist, but I just use my network. I know a lot of agents. I actually worked as an agent for about 10 years. I’m still licensed, but I don’t take clients really, but I just use my network to find deals that I will reach out to wholesalers and agents who I have relationships with.

I still make offers on the MLS now and then. So I wish that I was like, I use this tool and it’s automated and then I have a VA call. And I’ve done a lot of that over the years, but right now my model has shifted to a lower volume. I would just say I went to quality over quantity for a while. It was like, I’m gonna do 20 deals a year.

and maybe I’m 40 to 60 a unit, but I’m gonna do 20 of them. Now I’m trying to do four or five and make 500,000 each. I’m not really trying to pound the phones as much as I’m just trying to touch my network and find a handful of great deals. So I’m probably not the best…

Kristen Knapp (07:23.96)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (07:41.293)
For somebody who really wants to build an amazing technology-based system with VAs and dialers and all that, I’m not the best guy for that.

Kristen Knapp (07:51.052)
But I mean, building your network is the hardest part, actually having the network of people you can call on. So I mean, that’s way more challenging in itself. But I would love for you to kind of get into that mindset of value over quantity and kind of, cause you said you’ve done both sides of it where maybe you’ve done a lot of deals at lower value and fewer deals at higher value. What is the mindset shift from going from one to another?

Brian Bandas (07:54.295)
For sure.

Yeah.

Brian Bandas (08:07.832)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (08:15.438)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (08:21.198)
So I would be really careful to say that one’s better than the other because I don’t think that that’s true. I think one is better than the other for me. So I think a big part of it is understanding your own comfort zone, your own strengths and your personality and what do you enjoy doing. And as you and I kind of talked about earlier, a lot of the minutia that you really have to be a master of to do the high volume stuff did not play to my strengths.

Kristen Knapp (08:29.912)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (08:50.862)
In order for me to like really nail a higher volume model where the profit margin on each deal is let’s say $75,000, I’ve got to be very, very dialed in on my build schedule. By the way, for context, is on deals that I’m building, right? And so part of it is if I want to do a certain volume beyond

you know, I don’t know, five units or something. I’m gonna, number one, I’m gonna have to project managers pretty soon at that point. If I’m doing 20, I’m probably managing a handful of project managers, which again, there’s really nothing wrong with that. It’s just, is that the model that you wanna do? And for some people, clearly the answer is yes. Whoever started Dries Homes built that model, right? They’ve got a bunch of project managers. So it’s not a bad model at all.

For me, I kept increasing in price point and I noticed my enjoyment increasing with that. And it wasn’t just, well, of course I’m enjoying it, I’m gonna make more on this deal. It was like the things that make a $75,000 infill deal work really stress me out. And the things that make a $3 million luxury homework are really enjoyable to me. And so I built this house that

Kristen Knapp (10:10.402)
No.

Brian Bandas (10:19.906)
that we’re hopefully gonna sell for about four to four and a quarter. And I just loved everything about it. And I was at the same time, I was still doing some stuff that we were selling for six, $700,000. I’m in Nashville, by the way, so in some markets, those numbers sound crazy. Six or 700 in downtown Nashville is just like a infill, know, 1800 square foot starter home, I guess.

Kristen Knapp (10:46.712)
Uh-huh.

Brian Bandas (10:49.172)
And so I’m doing them at the same time and I’m like, I’m loving this one and I hate this one on the same day. I’m like happy for half the day and pissed off for half the day. And finally I just went, all right, why am I, I just need to acknowledge that and accept it and go, this is a better fit. And why would I not just do five of those that I really like instead of 20 of these that I hate? so for me,

Kristen Knapp (10:55.512)
Right.

Brian Bandas (11:18.638)
It was just a better fit to when I’m building the luxury home. All I really am trying to think about, it’s not that I don’t care about schedule and budget. I obviously definitely do. And when your carry is $20,000 a month, you really care about schedule. But what I found was like, it was a lot easier to stick to the schedule because I’m using my time to go, how do I make a beautiful, beautiful home? Instead of going, crap, that lighting fixtures $80.

Kristen Knapp (11:29.592)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (11:47.854)
could I maybe find one for $60? All right, now I’m gonna peruse Wayfair for the next 45 minutes to try to save $20. Like that, for me, did not work. So I just found like my stress level went down, my profit margins went up, I moved faster and more efficiently, and I was happier throughout the day. So that’s where I say I would not tell somebody, oh, doing infill.

Kristen Knapp (12:01.016)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (12:16.223)
at a higher volume is terrible. It’s probably great for the right person and for my personality, just, I learned that it wasn’t a fit and I wasn’t even sure about that. I thought maybe I’m just not good at this yet and I’m gonna get better. Suddenly I’m doing this other project at the same time and it wasn’t I’m not good at it yet. It was like, this is working right now. It’s already good. So then I was able to, and I think that was almost dumb luck, compare them side by side at the same time and it was just very clear.

Kristen Knapp (12:21.196)
in.

Kristen Knapp (12:37.25)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (12:46.283)
that one was a better fit than the other.

Kristen Knapp (12:48.224)
Right. And I think it’s good advice because there’s so many different facets in the real estate industry that you can lean on to support your skillset. Like you’ve been an investor, realtor, builder, contractor, you’ve done so much and you’ve like also updated your operations. You’ve, you know, made everything really customized to what works for you, which I think is really good inspiration for people.

Brian Bandas (12:54.815)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (13:00.597)
Yep. Yeah.

Brian Bandas (13:11.307)
Yeah. And I’m still in the process of that to, to, encourage people who are earlier in their investing journey. that first rental I had would have been, 14 years ago, right when my oldest son was born. then I did some flips and I didn’t love them and I did wholesaling and I didn’t love it. And, even the building thing. Well, I developed a bunch without building myself.

Then I started building them myself. And I again had discovered, building myself at this price point also doesn’t work. So I’m 14 years in, still refining. And I would say right now in particular, really in a pretty significant rebuild again, based on learning some things, hard way of going, that was not a good fit. Okay, I tried it, now I know. That’s not what I’m trying to do. And I would encourage anybody who’s…

who’s somewhere in that journey. There’s no shame in going, mm, I tried that, that wasn’t it. Why keep doing it? If it’s not the right fit, keep trying to find the thing that is.

Kristen Knapp (14:18.296)
Mm-hmm.

Kristen Knapp (14:23.83)
Totally, and you mentioned something before where, because I feel like with social media and all of that, you see people’s highlight reels and you might go through the thought process of like, well, maybe I’m just not cut out for this. Like maybe I’m just not good at this instead of taking the extra step to be like, okay, let me try something else. Let me try something else within the same umbrella. But yeah, I mean, think that’s, ooh, that’s great advice. So on your social media, which I love by the way, everyone should go to Brian’s social.

Brian Bandas (14:31.034)
yeah.

Brian Bandas (14:35.647)
yeah.

Brian Bandas (14:49.847)
Thank you.

Kristen Knapp (14:50.474)
Yeah, he’s always posting videos. You say you’re a professional problem solver. So can you just talk about that and how that’s really the core of your job?

Brian Bandas (14:55.916)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (15:01.739)
Yeah, think so. It’s certainly true as a developer. And then when I’m wearing the general contractor hat, it’s extremely true. I would say literally every day, maybe not seven days a week. I’m decent now at taking my weekends mostly off, but five days a week, there’s going to be a problem and, not all, not small ones. mean, significant problems with four or five figure implications.

like pretty regularly. part of me deciding I’m a professional problem solver is for my own sanity to stop being caught off guard. It’s been years of constant problems. yet, so why would I still be like, God, there’s a problem today? Like, what the hell is, but I react that way still sometimes like, what is this? Why can’t it just, you know, go smoothly? And then there’s this thing in my brain that’s like, dude, when has that happened?

Kristen Knapp (15:48.257)
Yes.

Kristen Knapp (15:59.2)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (15:59.286)
It’s not going to go smoothly. And the reason that I have the potential to make seven figures for my family is because I’m willing to put up with this. I don’t know if you guys cuss on this podcast. I’m willing to put up with this crap that most people are not. They’re either not willing to or maybe, and this is gonna sound arrogant, maybe they can’t handle it. Maybe they can’t deal with it. And so that’s the trade off. I want to have a ton of freedom.

Kristen Knapp (16:09.528)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (16:27.251)
and make an income that I really probably shouldn’t be able to make for my family. And the trade off is I have to deal with problems that most people don’t have to deal with. So it’s a mindset that when I remember and I’m in that mindset is really helpful because I get hit with these problems for real pretty much every single day. And I just have to go, hey, this is my job.

Kristen Knapp (16:37.069)
Right.

Brian Bandas (16:56.481)
The reason I’m gonna get freedom and financial freedom and all this time with my kids is because I am willing to put up with this crap. And most people aren’t.

Kristen Knapp (17:05.57)
That’s such a good mindset. I love that. Yeah. Can you think of, can you think of like a really major problem that happened and how you kind of got through it and learned from it?

Brian Bandas (17:08.205)
I wish I had it all the time. I to remind myself.

Brian Bandas (17:19.229)
gosh, there’s been a lot in the last three years. A really major problem.

Kristen Knapp (17:29.528)
Or maybe even just a recent problem, something you’re going through right now.

Brian Bandas (17:30.625)
Yeah, go ahead.

Brian Bandas (17:36.706)
Yeah. Okay, well one right now is that we’ve got a project that we’re really getting right to the razor’s edge of like, it’s not selling for what we hoped. We’ve been carrying it at an interest rate that we didn’t anticipate and we might sell for a loss. We might lose money on it. And that can get emotional, right? I have partners involved too. So I have to like go to them and be like, hey, guess what?

No, I don’t have a contract, but we are about to start losing money. And so I have to be able to step back from the emotion and just go, this is a problem to solve and gather the information. And I don’t even have a magic solution for that in terms of, I saved it. We’re probably going to lose money on it. But the solution is to gather the information and lay it out concisely and paint a clear picture of the problem.

and paint a clear picture of our options and then make the best decision. And so that’s what I did. Called my partner and said, here’s where we’re at. Here’s how much we’re in for. We’re not selling it for this amount. If we were, we would have an offer by now. Here’s where it might sell. We could rent it for this and just like try to approach it unemotionally and go, doesn’t matter if we like the situation. Here is the situation. Now let’s make some decisions. So.

Kristen Knapp (18:54.357)
Right.

Brian Bandas (19:00.833)
That’s a real recent one, like we were dealing with that this week. Gosh, I’ve had break-ins, I’ve had all the fun stuff that anybody in real estate development has dealt with. You put me on the spot and I know that there’s some good ones. I wish I could come up with a great one, but another one recently is like that luxury home that we’re was in a situation where we were working with an agent that it wasn’t a good fit.

Kristen Knapp (19:11.488)
Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (19:19.638)
Yeah, I thought-

Brian Bandas (19:31.169)
I don’t want to say too much. I don’t know that she would ever see this. It’s not personal, but it wasn’t a good fit. And that took some work to navigate that. think that there were some hurt feelings, you know, and I think…

I think maybe the main thing with these problems is that for a long time I was avoidant. I really, was like, I’m so uncomfortable. I’m upset. My own emotions are here and now I’m fearing this person’s emotions when I call and tell them about it. And I would procrastinate, which would only make the problem worse. And so now I think the biggest thing, I have this mantra right now that I’m leaning into hard every day. I read it every morning and that is every single obstacle is just the next step toward my goal.

Kristen Knapp (20:18.712)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (20:19.608)
So I have this big goal, this beautiful vision where I’m flying my family to our vacations in our own plane, right? And when I latch onto that, then when I have to call my partner and say, I think we’re gonna lose money on this and we gotta make some hard decisions, rather than avoiding that, I can go the next step to me flying my family in our plane to our vacation in Boston is I gotta call this guy. Well, okay then, I will do the next step.

Kristen Knapp (20:46.572)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (20:49.11)
And it doesn’t make those things fun. It doesn’t remove all stress or all pain, but it does give me a little extra energy to just go, all right, well, I want that goal, so I’m gonna do the next step. And I know what the next step is. I don’t have to like the next step, but I know what it is. And so here we go.

Kristen Knapp (21:06.968)
And it’s the reality of the business for sure. It’s not everything is always going to go correctly. Things very often aren’t going to go correctly. So I think your mindset is really good where the obstacles on your path is your path.

Brian Bandas (21:10.795)
Absolutely.

No.

Brian Bandas (21:18.52)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (21:23.544)
That, yeah, exactly. If I want to get to that plane, I have to make this call. So you make, and it does make it a little easier to make the call. Doesn’t make it fun, but yeah. Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (21:28.652)
Mm-hmm.

Kristen Knapp (21:34.474)
Absolutely, yeah, just having that zoom out and that bigger picture. I love that. So what’s next for you in your business?

Brian Bandas (21:42.217)
so I’m hoping to do, I just started two, bigger deals like within the last two months or so. I’m hoping to pick up one more to find one more really good deal before the end of the year. something ideally that I can make four to 500,000 on. that’s the short-term goal. And then I have a lot of, as I mentioned, I’m sort of in a rebuild. So just this week.

I laid out a new system that I want to use for some of the networking and fundraising that just has to do with like, okay, how frequently am I calling people? I’m going to start doing an event where I invite all these guys and we’ll do cigars and bourbon. So I’ve got a new system in that respect that I’m working on. I’ve got some new lender relationships that I’m trying to work on. That’s been sort of a bottleneck for me in the past is that it was like,

Kristen Knapp (22:24.546)
Nice.

Brian Bandas (22:38.12)
one relationship and as soon as that one, let’s say, took an interesting turn, I didn’t have a lineup of like, all right, fine that, then I’m just gonna call Bill and I’m gonna call, you know, Cheryl or whoever. So there’s a bunch of smaller details like that that I’m now really purposefully working on, because I’m trying to rebuild this in a healthier way than it was built over the last couple of years.

Kristen Knapp (22:51.704)
Yeah.

Brian Bandas (23:07.022)
But short term, it’s like, I really enjoy the content creation. And you mentioned that the highlight reel thing, I just went through three years that were really intense, really, really intense. And I’m trying to make videos about that and like basically go, here’s what I did wrong. Remember I said I was bad with details? Well, here’s where it cost me, you know, $40,000 or whatever. So I’m gonna keep doing that and try to find one more really good deal before the end of the year.

Kristen Knapp (23:29.656)
Thanks

Brian Bandas (23:36.623)
And then I think I was sort of looking at scaling. Like I’m doing three big deals this year. So next year it’s like, all right, how do I go to four or five? How do I get one every quarter? Ideally these are making 350 to 750 each on the high end, right? So that’s the goal is to rebuild in a much more scalable and much more strategic way.

Kristen Knapp (23:47.33)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bandas (24:04.598)
I sort of did the like bull in a China shop thing for a while and it half worked half didn’t, you know, I’m taking some of these things. I’m like, some of the deals, yeah, some of them worked great. And then some of them were very valuable lessons. We’ll just put them that way.

Kristen Knapp (24:07.832)
I’m to where you are now.

Kristen Knapp (24:17.994)
Yes, of course. Well, that’s wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing so much about mindset. And I think people got a lot out of that. Where can people find out social?

Brian Bandas (24:28.226)
Good. Yeah. I’m very active on Instagram. It’s at Brian Bandas, very creative. And then I have a YouTube channel that I’m fairly active. And it is, it’s about real estate development as well as a little more broadly, just about building a business. And it’s called Brian Bandas builds a business. I think if you do like YouTube slash Brian Bandas, I think that takes you there as well. So.

Kristen Knapp (24:48.972)
There you go.

Kristen Knapp (24:55.158)
Yeah. Awesome. And we’ll have, we’ll have all of your links in the caption of this podcast so people can check it out. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.

Brian Bandas (25:00.73)
awesome, yeah. Thank you.

Brian Bandas (25:05.71)
It’s my pleasure. Appreciate you guys having me on.

Kristen Knapp (25:07.744)
Yes, and I encourage everyone to check out Brian’s Instagram, YouTube, and you’ll learn a lot and you’ll get a lot of value from it. So I encourage everyone to do that. And we’ll see you next time. Thank you so much.

Brian Bandas (25:19.193)
Sounds great, thank you.