Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson speaks with Bobby Triplett, Senior Vice President of Renovations at Offerpad. Bobby shares insights from his extensive experience in the real estate industry, particularly in renovations and the fix-and-flip market. He discusses the transition Offerpad made from in-house renovations to providing renovation services for investors, highlighting the challenges faced in the fix-and-flip business and the importance of quality and speed in renovations. Bobby emphasizes the value of detailed scopes of work and the need for investors to partner with professionals to achieve consistent and predictable results in their real estate ventures.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Bobby Triplett (00:00)
yeah. And one of the saddest things that we’ll see, you know, I’m talking about, some of the masterminds that we’ve gotten to be a part of this year. And I met a guy who’s buying in San Antonio. It was his first house. He was super excited. You know, he’s beenfrom all, you know, all the investment classes and he’s like, all right, Bobby, I’d like you to get me a, a scope of work on this. And when we go, we don’t do lump sums. We’re like room by room unit price measurements. Like I believe in detail, right? That’s what keeps us really on budget.
Micah Johnson (01:59)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m speaking with Bobby Triplett who has 43,000 flips under his belt. I’m pumped for today. Bobby, welcome in, man, glad to have you.Bobby Triplett (02:08)
on yourself. Thank you. Micah, thanks for having me brother. Glad to be here.Micah Johnson (02:16)
I’m excited for our talk today. Our pre-recording call, man, a lot comes with that amount of experience and the way that y’all are leveraging that into serving the industry today.game changer, I’m pumped for it. So for folks who may not know you yet, what’s your main focus right now? What markets are you currently operating in?
Bobby Triplett (02:33)
Yeah. Well, Heyguys, it’s Sue. Glad to be here. ⁓ I’m Bobby Triplett. I I’m the senior vice president of renovations for offer pad. We’re a publicly trader publicly traded what they call an eye buyer. So we buy thousands of our own homes every year. My teams renovate those. And then we renovate homes on behalf of investors, just like your listeners, Micah, all over thousands of homes every year, ⁓ utilizing our, you know, W two teams, ⁓
for your investors. It’s been a wild ride. That’s kind of been a huge focus of ours in the last, this is going on year four of doing this as a service, which was wild. At one time we were doing about 1200 of our own flips a month for two or three years in a row. And that was just purely offer pad owned homes. And then end of 22, we started swinging hammers for folks like your listeners on here and we’re all over. So Southeast think like.
Micah Johnson (03:10)
Right?Bobby Triplett (03:27)
Florida’s with Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville. We’re in the greater Atlanta Metro Columbia, South Carolina, Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville. And then in the Midwest, we’ve got like Indy Cincinnati, Columbus, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas city. Out West. We’ve got Vegas Phoenix is our headquarters, Denver, Colorado Springs, and then basically almost all of Texas, you know, I’ll be in Dallas tomorrow, right? Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and.It’s great, man. We’ve got a huge team and we get a chance to swing hammers for some great folks and it’s a lot of fun.
Micah Johnson (04:05)
Well, tell me about that transition. was moving houses to hedge funds in Jacksonville, Florida when Offerpad showed up. I remember when y’all arrived in the market, I was like, okay, this is interesting. Look at these guys. And then now from that time to now, y’all actually do this for other people. What was that idea that sparked that to say, hey, hold on a second. We could be leaving something on the table here.Bobby Triplett (04:28)
Yeah. Well, what’s been, waswild. Like I said, we were doing 1200 of our own acquisitions and flips a month. And just like you said, we had a lot of wholesale partners and we were also buying for some of the biggest hedge funds, the biggest REITs that are in the space. Uh, our CEO came to me and he’s like, Hey, with the rate shifts, the way they’re at, like you’ve got this massive team at that time. Like I was a few hundred employees just on my team. Uh, we were in five or six more States than we are currently today. He’s like, Hey,
This beautiful machine that you built in order for it to survive. Like we’ve, we’ve got to shift our focus.
it’s funny. had just finished reading the book, the infinite game by Simon Sinek. And he was talking about like mindset shift when markets change. was like, all right, I guess I’m going to practice what I’ve been reading. so we shifted from purely operational. Like that’s all I did was put out our own fires, train up our own teams, leadership development. You know, I manage all of our national partnerships and everything and to like, okay.
I’ve got to go get clients. I’ve got to go figure out how to do this as a service. And the first, way it kind of started was our biggest competitor in the space came to us and asked us to re renovate about 300 of their homes that were sitting on the market. So part of me is like, that’s a little feather in my cap. This is our rent. This is our biggest competitor. Also was like, do I want to do that? That’s our competitor, but like in there, in there, like I, I, we learned some pretty incredible.
like partnership lessons, know, what not to do, how to do this, how to like get our team ready to do this. was wild. They had homes that were sitting on the market, 120 plus days, no movement whatsoever. Cause they were doing what I would call like an a la carte renovation. Like, Hey, fix this piece of trim, do that door knob, as opposed to what I would say, like a comprehensive, make it look like it was on purpose. so we started doing that. Every one of those homes that we had renovated within weeks of us putting it back on the market, we’re all sold. and this was like, okay, we can.
We can do this. And since then, it has been a game changer. We ⁓ renovate more homes per month right now for clients and third party partners and investors and both on the fix and flip and the single family side than what we acquire ourselves, which is wild.
Micah Johnson (07:31)
It’s really an incredible thing to me because it’s one of the pieces in the industry that when you’re an investor, it’s one of the hardest parts of that section of your business if you’re going to fix and flip, is to build a team like that, to keep it reliable. And what keeps most of those guys up at night is, okay, are the people going to show up? What’s the quality of work? Like, is my timeline going to be stuck too? Because all of that is money. Every day is costing you holding costs.Bobby Triplett (07:57)
Yeah, for sure.Micah Johnson (07:59)
So you even mentioned it, you can get a great deal on work, but if it takes them eight weeks to do it, you’re lost, you have lost. You’ve now spent more between multiple things than you were if you just would have went for the right person up front. So it’s, man, I get pumped finding out about things like this, just because I know so many guys in the business that that was their struggle. For someone to come along like you and do this is amazing. And it also lines up with the fact, I was talking to a data guy the other day, ⁓Bobby Triplett (08:04)
Yeah. Yeah.Sure.
Micah Johnson (08:29)
And it was right after the idea that they might not let institutional buyers by single family anymore. But he was showing institutional buyers are not, they’re not even the main buyer. They don’t buy that many all of Q3, 2025. It was like they bought 4,600 homes and sold 5,600 homes or something like that. It was an overall divesting of properties, not bring them in. Your number one real estate investor is a mom and pop shop. have three.Bobby Triplett (08:39)
or not.100%.
Micah Johnson (08:58)
10 houses, it’s not this big thing. And so to be able to take a service that did the top and then apply that same level of professionalism to the folks down the ladder, that’s game changing, man. I get chill bumps.Bobby Triplett (09:11)
Well, was, it was crazy.Yeah. Like I think about, so I came from invitation homes, which is probably the largest, uh, REIT out there. I think a hundred thousand doors managed, you know what I mean? And when I was in Tampa helping run Tampa, I think we had like 7,900 doors just in Tampa where I’m from. And, you know, I think about the millions of dollars in salaries we had on our teams just to manage reno turns and maintenance. think about the size of the salaries that we have on our W2 employees on my team.
the average mom and pop or private family shop investor, like that’s impossible to like, to be able to afford that. And for us, like it’s been wild cause, you know, getting like this institutional level service, like volume is 100 % the X factor. so like
Micah Johnson (09:47)
Hmm.Bobby Triplett (10:36)
for our private investors to get institutional level service without having to have that kind of overhead.is great and full disclosure for us, that allows me to keep my teams busy. It allows to keep my, you know, my manufacturing contracts that I have and my supplying contracts that I have and which we pass those savings on. And it’s a beautiful thing, honestly, like it’s very symbiotic, like they’re allowed. I’ve got to make a little money and you’ve got to save a lot of money and we meet in the middle and we’ll figure it out. And it allows my teams to, to still not just be relevant to be effective in the field.
Micah Johnson (11:07)
Right.And it keeps them going, man. Like good tradesmen are hard to find in the industry anyways. If somebody’s already spent a ton of time, energy and resources to create them. And this is where, honestly, man, I’d love how you said it’s symbiotic. Now you’re not a competitor, quote unquote, to the smaller ones, man. Y’all are going to get your houses. Large buyers are going to get their houses. Y’all buy completely differently than that mom and pop buyer. You’re not even playing in the same game as
Bobby Triplett (11:10)
Sure, yeah. ⁓ my God, yeah, appreciate it.Yeah, not at all.
Micah Johnson (11:37)
because I was selling house hedge funds to 18 to 2020. I sold mainly to one Progress Residential and it showed me, holy cow, this is a whole different formula you’re using. Y’all are buying on a way different level. And so to take that expertise and again, bring that down, releasing, what were you saying? You’re releasing pressure for people, right? That thing you’re taking home. One is the market expansion. How have you been able to help investors with one of the hardest parts, expanding that fix and flip business?Bobby Triplett (11:47)
Yeah, completely.Well, yeah, that’s one of the most frustrating thing like it like, so anytime we would go launch a new market, like it was months and months of prep to create relationships, vet trades, get contracts in place, hire project managers, get an off the whole nine yards, right? So that’s a big time commitment. It’s a big financial commitment and it’s still like gonna take time to really get those wrinkles ironed out. So if you’re thinking about a mom and pop investor, that’s daunting. And like they don’t have time to go travel and do that. They barely have time to manage the flips in their own backyard.
So what we’ve really been able to help folks do, like we’re in, think, 23 markets, 15 states. If you’re onboarded with us as a client, we can swing hammers for you in any of the places that we already exist. Like I was telling you earlier, one of my ⁓ client success stories, ⁓ he was a voucher based section eight rental fund in St. Louis. And he went and raised a bunch of money on Wall Street to do what they would call a scattered site or multi-state ⁓ voucher based rental.
portfolio. He didn’t have to hire a single other employee because of our partnership. And we swing hammers for him in 11 states. Like, I mean, he was texting me last night at 7pm. Hey, I know this, this city is a little bit outside of your MSA. Can you guys do me a favor and get there? I got a great deal. All right. Let me call my guys and see if we can get some people up. Yeah. Hey, we can be there on Thursday. Great. All right. I’m buying the house. Let’s go. And it’s one of those for him, like the partnership takes away the overhead pressure.
Micah Johnson (13:13)
Wow.Bobby Triplett (13:34)
you know, to make sure that every deal, you know, if, if you have to hit a certain rate because you’re trying to manage your overhead and, know, keep all your people employed, like that’s a lot of pressure. If you’re just renting those people from time to time and you can pencil them into the deal, as opposed to like feeling the need, you know, for insurances and taxes and all the other kinds of like that goes out the window and allows you to, you know, be a little bit more aggressive even on the homes that you want to buy.Micah Johnson (14:02)
Right? mean, cause rehab, that’s where you lose your most money, man. That’s where budgets get blown up all the time. Like the amount that come in at budget or under is very minimal compared to the ones that always end up going over. And that’s those things when you’re penciling deals upfront, it’s that’s where you’re making your money upfront is knowing, can you be, can you be confident in the work getting done on time? Can you be confident it’s going be done right? Can you, can you do all these things? Cause if that’s not factored in,Bobby Triplett (14:05)
Yeah. Yeah.Yeah. Right.
Micah Johnson (14:32)
you end up with a house sitting on the market that nobody wants. And in a market right now, it’s just…Bobby Triplett (14:35)
Or like, oryeah. And one of the saddest things that we’ll see, you know, I’m talking about, some of the masterminds that we’ve gotten to be a part of this year. And I met a guy who’s buying in San Antonio. It was his first house. He was super excited. You know, he’s been learning from all, you know, all the investment classes and he’s like, all right, Bobby, I’d like you to get me a, a scope of work on this. And when we go, we don’t do lump sums. We’re like room by room unit price measurements. Like
I believe in detail, right? That’s what keeps us really on budget.
So we go and get him one. And I think we were like 42 K he wanted to be like 36. And I’m like, Hey, you missed X, Y, and Z this, this is uninsurable, blah, blah, blah. He’s like, well, let me go see about somebody else. And so he goes and finds another contractor, seven lines on a napkin. And he told him 36 and within three weeks of doing work, he had a $20,000 change order. And it was one of those like, like you get, I’ve, I have personally learned this lesson the hard way. And I’m if I can
keep any of your investors from having to learn this lesson. Like you get what you pay for. And so you’ll find a lot of this reputable contractors will go, ⁓ when I say get you, get you pregnant on a cheap scope and then you got a shotgun wedding. weren’t expecting, you know what I mean? Like one of those, my gosh, now I got 20 grand and it ended up costing more. The guy ends up true stories. The guy ends up not showing up, stops returning his call after he got his deposit. We get hired to finish the job. We got it done in like three weeks and
but he had already been stringing them along for eight. And he would have been cheaper and better if he had just paid us what we originally scoped him and he would have saved what I say like 18 grand if he would have just done that the first time.
Micah Johnson (16:56)
Right.There was a, one of the jobs I had growing up, was delivering windows, but in the fact, in the warehouse, there’s this sign. said, if you want it fast and cheap, it won’t be good. If you want it good and fast, it won’t be cheap. And it just, it always stuck with me like, that’s fascinating. If you if you, if you really want it to be done, it’s it’s.
I always tell people, you know how much money you’re saving right now, but you have no idea how much money you’re losing. That’s the problem, right? So you say what? Six grand on the front end from 42 down to 38 or 36, and then end up costing them an extra 20 like that. You literally, it? You strained out a nap to swallow a camel friend. is what you did.
Bobby Triplett (17:28)
reach on.Yeah.
I had a good buddy of mine that used to say you’re stepping over dollars to pick up dimes. And like in our, in our space, we’d say like speed, quality and costs. And you only get two of the three speed, quality, you only get to, so you’ve to pick which ones are most important. And like, we believe like it’s part of our ethos. Like I preach this to my teams. Everybody’s all my renovation directors and project managers and foremen who’ve been with me forever. Like the one thing that I can control above all things is speed. If I planned.
Micah Johnson (17:48)
Right?Bobby Triplett (18:11)
If I made relationships, if I pre-negotiated rates, if I have detailed scopes of work, I can control the clock and that clock time is money. And if you put your emphasis on, if cost is the most expensive, most important thing to you, right? I it’s gotta be cheap. It’s gotta be below budget. Like the thing that’s gonna suffer every time is the project or is the home. Cause I’ll tell you this, man. If I incentivize my project managers and my directors,on being under budget or below budget, guess what’s going to happen every time. They’re going to be under budget or below budget. You know what mean? And it’s, but the quality is going to be out the freaking window. And so, but if I can, if I can emphasize and incentivize them on speed and quality, man, that, that will, that’s the way we’ve been able to win in the space from an institutional level. And that’s the way we’ve been able to help folks ⁓ really see like, ⁓ man.
Micah Johnson (18:46)
Right, right.I
Bobby Triplett (19:07)
I can go save 1 % with Jeff from the softball team or Hal who lives in my neighborhood. But man, it’s taken him forever to show up. Man, I can affect their bottom line in a pretty big way.Micah Johnson (19:20)
Well, you mentioned being a part of masterminds and some groups now. That’s what you learn in those groups is you’re going to be a professional at this. ain’t Ricky down the street that you rely on. It’s just not. If you’re going to have a business, you need to work with professionals. And that is there’s a mindset shift that you have to have there. Cause in the end, a real estate investment company is simply a machine that trades in real estate. Real estate is the widget.Bobby Triplett (19:25)
my gosh, yeah.Micah Johnson (19:47)
Those guys would have built a company in some other industry. They just happen to love real estate and they know I need this piece and this piece and this piece. Cause that’s what they teach you in mastermind too is coming up, you know, Hey, you’re going to need this tool and this tool and this tool. here you’re losing a ton of speed over here. What are you going to do there? Cause time is the number one killer in real estate. kills everything.Bobby Triplett (20:08)
Cause you think aboutthis, you think about like, um, like, can I go do a single flip using like, you know, the oops, paint and the scratch and dent clearance and all that stuff. Yes, you can. And you might get it cheaper, but can you do that scalable? No, that’s not scalable. Can you, is that reproduced? That’s not even scalable multiple times a month. You know what I mean? So then how can you inform an underwrite? How can you predict pricing? How can you know timelines if you’re just trying to like, if you’re not doing it, like you said, like a machine.
or like a business. So the big question mark that I feel most investors are asking is how can I do this consistently and predictably? And those things are going to take one, I mean, it’s taken me a decade to build that predictability. You know what I mean? It’s a wisdom of what not to do, of relationships, of negotiations. And so if you’re not willing to wait a decade to figure it out, you know, on the scratch and dent side, think
I think that the answer is how do you partner with somebody, whether it’s me or somebody like me in a different market that can help bring you that level of wisdom and ⁓ I don’t know, like level up gamesmanship to your business. Yeah.
Micah Johnson (21:21)
Right, it’s about raising that floor. Like if you could,if you’re falling off a curb, that doesn’t hurt too bad. But when you fall off a canyon, you die. Right, There is a big difference. Do it, man, do it. But it’s true. And that’s what every good business is mitigating risk. They’re mitigating downside. It’s not just hope ain’t their strategy, cause it’s not one. It’s not about, look what we could make.
Bobby Triplett (21:27)
I’m not gonnaI like that. I’m a steel alum. That’s a one.
Micah Johnson (21:48)
That is a secondary conversation to, okay, what is the deal? Does it fit the buy box? What’s actually possible? What do we have to do? One of my favorite thing about working with, when I was doing those institutional buyers, I loved the scope of work I got back. It taught me so much. That thing was a book. It was a freaking book of stuff that needed done. I got to where I could predict their…rehab budget within about a thousand dollars every time. Cause I read so many of them and learned, okay, this is what you got to do. It’s this piece, this piece, this piece. You have to add in. And it’s just like, wow, there is so much going on that if you’re, especially if you’re a beginner, you would never even see it. Like if someone wasn’t pointing it out to you, that’s fine. Oh, that’s okay. That won’t, you know, that window sill, that door knob, that this, that these things, all those little things that, oh, that’s okay. They add up to something big.
Bobby Triplett (22:39)
my gosh, yeah.Micah Johnson (22:39)
and it meansyour house is going to sell or not. Like it literally determines it.
Bobby Triplett (22:42)
Yeah,for sure. I would agree with that. Yeah. It’s one of the things like when we write scopes of work for our clients, like we will never do what I call like lump sum, like new kitchen, 10 grand. What the heck does that mean? I mean, something completely different to everybody. And of course the guy who’s writing it is trying to write it in such a way that he has to spend the least amount of money, you know, to do it. So like we’ve learned the hard way, like, no, we’ll go.
Micah Johnson (22:55)
Right.Bobby Triplett (23:05)
Here’s how many linear feet of cabinetry. Here’s the type of cabinetry. Here’s the price per linear feet. Here’s your total cost. Here’s how many square feet of countertops. Here’s the kind of countertop, you know, so that for two reasons, cause I feel like accountability is huge, right? You want to know what you’re, you’re paying for as a client, right? I want to know where my money’s going. And then two, if you’ve got to make a pivot because, I thought it was 36, but it’s 48. Okay. Maybe we can keep the cabinets and just replace the tops and paint them. How much will that save me instead of waiting?Micah Johnson (23:31)
⁓Bobby Triplett (23:34)
weeks to get new bids, like you can know real time where that money needs to be, you know, channeled to. I think that’s super important. And honestly, I would say last year, my, uh, cost variance, meaning like from approved budget to, to actual budget was like sub $900 a property. You know what I mean? And so that’s one of the things I’m proud of. Like if you take, if, if your listeners take anything, whether you work with me or it or not, like take the time to get itemized bids upfront.Micah Johnson (23:39)
Right.⁓
Bobby Triplett (24:04)
because that will save you on the back end. As opposed to getting a lump sum like, I don’t know, it’s 10 grand. know what mean? Like, well, that’s getting snowballed real fast.Micah Johnson (24:07)
Right?Right, because it’s all in the details. If you’re running a business doing this, you need the details. You just need them, right? If it’s your first flip and you want to do the work, fine, oops, pain, and do the other things. Like you’re saying, when you want to make it repeatable, now you’re talking something different. You’re talking, need a certain level of understanding and data is what provides it to us. ⁓ One of my other favorite quotes, without data, it’s just an opinion, right? Okay, cool, 10 grand, show it to me.
Bobby Triplett (24:20)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.Yes,
Micah Johnson (24:43)
show it to me, what’s 10 grand? wanna know, as again, I like seeing the little like the doorknobs or the handles on the cabinets, like each little thing lined item out. So you can be like, okay, like you said, when something does happen and first, the fact that you were only seven to 900 off in your variants, dude, that’s insane, way to go. Like that is really incredible. Like if you don’t know that and you’re listening, that is amazing to stay that close to those original numbers.Bobby Triplett (25:02)
Thanks man. We are great people. I get to people.Micah Johnson (25:11)
Cause you never know what you find when you open up a house. That’s one of the things about flipping is leads back to working with quality people. When you’re working with someone who has a lot of flips under their belt, guess how many times they’ve seen what’s behind that wall when you open it up, right? It’s not a guys, we got a delay for two weeks cause I don’t know what to do. It’s no, Hey, remember this other house that had that other little piece. What if we applied it here? We can keep going. Man, I get pumped again. Thanks for coming on today and sharing this cause.Bobby Triplett (25:14)
Sure, yeah.Yeah man, absolutely
brother.
Micah Johnson (25:39)
I didn’tknow y’all were doing this and the fact you are, I’m like, yeah, here we go. Cause I fully believe in the real estate market in America. And I love the statistic that it is the mom and pop still guys. So if you’re sitting on the sideline and you’re waiting, nobody is going to buy you out. You’re just not going to participate. There is a deal for you. It’s possible out there. And as we get further and further in our industry, more and more tools like Bobby, you’re showing up to solve these problems for you. And especially the fix and fit problem.
Bobby Triplett (25:50)
It is.Micah Johnson (26:09)
I’ve done one and I swear I’d never do one again. Right? You’re making me think, wait a second, hold on. Is there a chance that doing one? Cause you don’t have to do that part that just absolutely sucked the life out of you. Maybe not sure yet. So got scars, but.Bobby Triplett (26:23)
When you’re ready, you let me know, man. We’ll swing hand before you.Micah Johnson (26:25)
That’s right.That’s right, man. That’s so cool. Well, Bobby, man, thanks for being on with us today for sharing your story and what y’all are doing out there for folks that are listening that would like to learn more about if they possibly could work with you, just the program in general, what’s the best place for them to find you?
Bobby Triplett (26:40)
Yeah. If you guys want to go to offerpad.com/renovate offerpad.com/renovate, there’s a quick little form on there. It’ll get you a 30 minutes with me. We can sit down. I’d love to know about your business, where you’re operating, see if we can help you either be a pressure relief valve, maybe help you with market expansion or really bring that predictable, consistent pricing speed and ⁓ products to you. Let’s do it, man. I would be honored. ⁓ We’re all we’re, growing all over the place and we lovepartnering and here’s the thing, I’d even be open. Like Micah if you’ve got folks that, know, end up saying, Hey, we’d love to do a class on project management or Hey, we’d love to have a conversation. Like I’d be happy to hop back on sometime and do some Q and A man, if that helps too.
Micah Johnson (27:24)
Awesome, man, I appreciate that offer. We’ll keep it on the books. People get that invite back. All right, for those that are listening and watching out there, check our show notes. All Bobby’s information will be there. Reach out to him. Like I say on this show, when we got a real professional and someone that has the right heart and the right mind doing this business, those are the ones I recommend. Talk with them, learn. You’re not gonna meet many folks out there that have 43,000 flips on your belt. Just let me say that. So take advantage of that knowledge. Check again, check the show notes.We appreciate everybody listening in with us today. If you got value out of this episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else who could use a partner in rehabbing in their world too, get it out there. And as always, please don’t forget to subscribe. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with us here. We have more conversations coming up with operators just like Bobby out there building a real business and making a difference in the industry. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you all in the next episode.
