From Ministry to Turning Purpose Into Millions in Property Power with Jordan Smith

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Mattias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. This is Mattias Clymer, your lovely host of the REI Agent podcast and your neighborhood rock star. I don’t know.

I’m feeling fired up right now. I’ve had a lot of mornings of getting up and wanting to get up earlier than my alarm goes off because I’m excited to get to work. Like today, this morning I was building out an AI chat bot that would help with scheduling.

So look at my schedule. And it would say, when do you wanna see this house built into the website? And they’d say, how about four tomorrow?

And they’d be like, well, actually, there’s no availability there, but can you do two or whatever it is? You set all the parameters in your schedule, in your calendar, like Calendly. And then the AI bot can just read it and kind of talk back and forth with that person instead of just them filling out a link, which I think is kind of cool.

And it’s not something designed to be necessarily pretending to be a real person. It can be honest and transparent. I think I named mine Booker T to just be fun and like kind of a tech forward brand anyway.

That’s kind of like how I’ve always been. So hopefully other people find it amusing. I won’t push it on people, but it was a fun thing to play with.

I’m looking to see, I’m curious if I can get that thing set up with showing time as well. It’d be really interesting to have it, be able to read the properties availability on showing time and my availability, and then give options to the client of what to book. I think that would be a really cool, fun thing.

Not that I would force, again, people to do that only, but if somebody is on my website and wants to book something, they could just do that. And then on top of it all, I could probably have an if this, then that kind of a workflow where if they are already an existing client, they wouldn’t do this. But if it wasn’t an existing client in my CRM, I have a workflow where it would send them a buyer brokerage agreement to sign right away, which I think is another really possible cool thing.

There’s some kinks in that system, so it’s not quite ready. And I think it’s probably better to meet first with the client to have an introduction meeting. So a lot of things to work out, but it’s just fun to see where technology can take you.

But anyway, I wanted to get into our guest, Jordan Smith. Jordan Smith is an agent. He was an investor first and then became an agent and has focused his sales business on investors.

So he has a wealth of knowledge. He’s done a lot of different things, a lot of different type of deals. And his book of business is mainly investors on the sales side.

But there’s a lot of knowledge there. This is, he’s perfect for the show because he gets into, he’s a bridge between wholesale and resale, if you will. So we are all about learning how to be investor friendly, understanding investments, or building up your own portfolio.

And Jordan is a great example of that. So without further ado, let’s get right into it. Jordan Smith.

Welcome back to the REI Agent. I’m here with Jordan Smith. Jordan, thanks so much for joining us.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, man, thanks for having me.

[Mattias]
Yeah, Jordan, you tell us where you’re coming out of, first of all.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, so the metropolis of Rock Hill, South Carolina, which is Football City, USA, right outside of Charlotte. So I cover the Charlotte, North Carolina metro area.

[Mattias]
Cool. I mean, I feel like, you all probably have been booming for a while, but I feel like there’s a lot of hype around the Carolinas, especially.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, well, you know, it’s pretty crazy, man. Like we, you know, we get all four seasons. It’s freaking already hot as crap right now.

And, you know, lots of folks wanna come here. Taxes and quality of life and seasons and beach and mountains, and it’s all right here. So come on, we need some more folks.

I need more houses to sell. So bring it all down if you’re in the beautiful Northeast or West Coast or wherever.

[Mattias]
Yeah, like, no, I was in Denver last year and I was hanging out at a bar for a little bit while I had a friend had an appointment and he had to go to whatever I was visiting. And he had the, like the bartender was talking about how like, it just, like, you know, I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here.

Like, it was like, you know, Boulder, Colorado is gorgeous. Like, I need to get out. I’m thinking like the Carolinas or yeah.

And it just seemed like it was the vibe I got was that there was a bit of a movement happening that she wasn’t the only one. And it just struck me as interesting because you hear about Colorado, Denver, you hear about, you know, California. Well, I’ve heard there’s an exodus happening there, but yeah, have you experienced that?

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s, the market seems to be doing well here, right? I mean, we’re a little bit insulated, I think, from the tumultuousness of, you know, everything that’s going on. Still a good market here.

You know, Charlotte itself, Charlotte proper is so saturated that really folks are really kind of commuting in from secondary and even tertiary markets around. So we’re really hyper-focused on like an hour radius of center city Charlotte. And so you get down into South Carolina there a little bit, which is, I’m born and raised in Rock Hill and then loved it so much, moved back after college and a little bit of work.

And so, you know, there’s tax benefits to either or, right? Schools seem to be really well in some of these secondary markets. And so really, it’s a great place to raise a family.

You know, banking is a big industry here. And so folks are moving to here. You know, we got Charlotte Douglas International Airport, which is, you know, it’s not a massive airport, but you can get where you need to go from it.

And it seems to be a good place to set up shop and you’re three hours to the mountains and three hours to the beach. And, you know, it’s fun.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I mean, that’s not too different from Harrisonburg where I’m at. I mean, we are in the mountains. We’re in the Shenandoah Valley.

John Denver sang about that a little bit. Well, he said, people think it’s West Virginia, but some argue it’s Western Virginia because it talks about- Western Virginia, there you go. Which comes through us.

But yeah, we’re four hours from the beach and, you know, in the mountains. So it’s a good place. But I definitely feel like the Carolinas were getting a bit more focus and hype than Virginia for some reason.

I think you guys have bigger cities too. That’s probably part of it. But anyway, I guess let’s, yeah, let’s hear a little bit about how you got into real estate to begin with.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, so real estate’s a third career for me. So I was a pre-med biology student in college and didn’t get into med school. And so it’s like, well, great.

Now I went to school to go to school and now I can’t get into school. What do I do? And so I got a job right out of college selling medical devices, orthopedic implants.

So hip and knee replacements, plates and screws, that kind of stuff. So I was in sales, you know, full commissioned sales, bouncing around the operating room, had a ton of fun, learned a lot. Medical sales in general, and I think the industry’s changed a lot over the last, gosh, this would have been, you know, almost 20 years ago, but it was pretty cutthroat back then.

And so I loved adding value to my doctors. I didn’t love the sales process of like, you know, hey, I’m gonna knock on your door. I called on you last week.

Has anything changed? No, cool, like, you know, so I didn’t love like checking the boxes of the sales process in like a corporate setting. So I did that for a few years and then got into ministry.

I worked for a multi-site, pretty large church in South Carolina as a pastor. And really it was run like a Fortune 500 company. So really high emphasis on leadership, development, very strong org structure in place.

I learned a ton as a leader from my time there in ministry at that church. And then left that in 2019, right before the pandemic. And my wife basically said, hey dude, if you don’t shut up and flip a house, you’re not allowed to talk about it anymore.

Like, I’m so tired of you talking about flipping houses. I’m so tired of you like talking about how easy it would be. Like you either need to do it or I’m gonna forbid you to talk about it.

And I was like, okay, challenge accepted. So I just got a nine to five just to pay the bills while I was trying to figure out like real estate stuff. And was looking for my first investment property for first fix and flip.

And didn’t really know where to look. I was looking on MLS. I found out for the very first time what wholesaling is and was talking to some wholesalers trying to find a deal.

And was working and got furloughed with the pandemic. And so I was sitting at home and looking for deals. And I was like, you know what?

I should get my real estate license while I’m sitting at home furloughed. I’ve got some time. It’ll save us 3% when we list properties.

You know, this would probably be a good tool to have in the tool belt. And so I did all my real estate classes online. Got licensed in November of 2020 and put my first flip under contract of purchase in November of 2020.

And so, yeah, so that was kind of how I got started. And so, yeah, it was a great time to be in real estate, honestly. And the more I studied, like as I was going through the process, I had always thought like real estate seems like a cool career as an agent.

But I was married and had, let’s see, at that point we had two kids. We got four now, we had two kids. And I had never worked a full commission job since I had had other mouths to feed besides my own.

So I was a little bit intimidated by like the jumping full into the deep end. So, but I felt like I’d be really good at it. My biggest thing is, man, I’m a connector of people.

Like I just wanna be a conduit to connect people with the people that they need to know. And I think that’s a big part of real estate as an agent and an investor is just like having those relationships in place. And so in December of 2020, I told my wife, I said, hey, if I can sell a house a month as an agent, because this seemed like a totally reasonable goal starting as a new agent for whatever reason.

I sell a house a month at $250,000, which was not even our median price point. It was a little under our median price point. I can sell a house a month for $250,000.

Everybody’s getting 3% commission, because commission wasn’t, commission’s decreased in our market. I don’t know what it’s like there, but it was still at around 3%. I said, that’s 7,500 bucks a month.

If I can do that for six months in a row, I’d like to quit my job and go into real estate full time. And I was expecting my wife to be the safety net and say, no, we can’t do that. Like, I don’t know, that’s a good idea, whatever.

And she said, okay.

[Mattias]
It’s almost more scary.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, oh shit. So that was December, turns January one. And I’m like, okay, I’m gonna close the deal in January.

And then I realized I don’t have anything under contract. So how do you close a deal in January if you don’t have any houses under contract in January? So I’m kind of freaking out.

I ended up getting connected with a guy. I had followed this guy on Instagram. We had just kind of connected through social media.

He was up on the north side of Charlotte. I’m on the south side. And just a hustler, man.

Grinder, really good at social media marketing, and was getting into the wholesale space. So he was trying to be a real estate investor. He’d flipped one house with some partners, trying to get into wholesaling.

And he said, hey, I’m looking for a real estate agent. So I DM’d him. I’m like, hey, I just happen to be a real estate agent.

You know, what you got in mind? And he said, hey, I wanna list this wholesale property that I have under contract on the MLS. And I said, man, you can’t do that.

And he said, why not? And I said, well, I don’t know. It just seems like you shouldn’t be able to do that.

And he was like, well, watch this video and have a conversation with your BIC and call me back. So he sent me a video of an investor in North Carolina, excuse me, two hours away from us in Raleigh, Durham area who lists all his wholesale deals on MLS. And in our MLS, you’re allowed to list a property that you don’t yet own as long as you have vested interest in the property, as long as you have the contract.

So I had a conversation. I was like, okay, cool, let’s do it. So we list, this is January, so we listed a condo that Wes had under contract to wholesale, listed on the MLS, got it under contract, closed it January 28th.

That was my first deal. And man, it’s been a wild ride ever since. Wes is now my business partner.

He handles all the off-market side of things. I handle more of the design, project management, execution, and listing of things. And man, we’ve just become not only best friends, but really great business partners.

We’re very complimentarian of one another. And everywhere where he’s weak, I’m strong, and vice versa. And he was really the gasoline to the ember that I had of getting into real estate.

I’ve learned so much working alongside him, and it’s been a wild ride ever since, man.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. How do you feel, or how do you all dance the perceived line, at least, of wholesaling versus on the market?

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, so I… Question? Yes, yes.

No, I’ll talk about this all day. I mean, I love it. Yeah, so I call Wes my partner.

I literally had this conversation this morning with somebody else. I call Wes my partner. We’re partners in theory, not in entity, if that makes sense.

So we have separate entities. We joint venture a lot of stuff. So I’ve done that really for his protection and for mine of like, hey, as a licensed realtor, I’ve got all these obligations to meet, right?

I’m not in the room when you’re having these conversations. Yeah, I’m not in the room when you’re having these conversations with these sellers. And so if you do what you need to do, bring me something once you have it under contract.

Let’s talk about it. Figure out the best exit strategy, right? And we’ve done, man, we’ve done so much.

I mean, that’s one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is being well-rounded investors. So we’ve done wholesale deals, assignments, double closes. We’ve sold to institutional buyers.

We’ve taken down ourselves and just paid cash for it in the turnaround and put it back on the MLS. We’ve fixed and flipped. We’ve done short-term rentals, long-term rentals, seller finance stuff, lease options, sandwich.

I mean, we’ve done all kind of crazy stuff. And most of my agents in my office have no idea how to do any of this stuff, right? I mean, my BIC is calling me asking me questions about like, hey, how would you do X, you know?

And it’s really just because I’ve gotten immersed in that world and that’s the world I live in all day, every day. And so I really, I mean, I had a closing this morning of a normal seller, a normal retail residential seller. And I feel like a fish out of water when I’m doing that kind of business because probably 95% of my business is investment related.

[Mattias]
Sure. Yeah, no, it makes sense. And it is, it’s fun because you have this like big tool belt.

You have a big toolbox, if you will, and you can really apply the best thing that makes the most sense for everybody to that unique situation where most people have like one or two tools.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, well, and you know, and I think going back to your original question, like, you know, the reason everybody feels a certain type of way about wholesalers is because there’s some shady wholesalers out there, right? And, you know, There’s some bad agents out there. Absolutely, that’s what I was getting ready to say, right?

It’s like, you know, I don’t know where it is around you, but here it feels like, you know, investors feel like agents are like drastically overpaid to just open and unlock doors, right? And agents feel like investors are shady and like always like the cheapest SOBs ever and like trying to pull one over on everybody. And the reality is like 90% of both are neither of those things, right?

But there’s the 10% outliers who really have made a bad name for themselves and put a sour taste in the other’s mouth. And what I try to pride myself on, and Wes is the same way, is like, we’re ethical, we’re honest, right? I’ve sat in someone’s living room and had to explain to them like, hey, what do you think your house is worth?

Yeah, you’re probably right. If it was fixed up, it would be this. But if you back out your closing costs and your commissions, you’re going to net this.

And to get to that price point, you need to put $30,000 in a kitchen, you need to put $15,000 in the bathroom, like all that stuff. I’ll buy your house for that number. And he’s like, well, why would you do that?

Well, because my guys, my kitchen renovation costs $10,000, not 30, because I have the contractors and the supply chain. It’s really just education. It’s an education gap.

But man, I’m trying to add as much value as I can to investors to let them know like, hey, everybody can win, right? We can work shoulder to shoulder. I can be a tremendous asset to you, you can be a tremendous asset to me and my business, and everybody wins, and it’s not a competition.

And so that’s really kind of what I’ve built my business on.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that makes sense. You listed out a bunch of different strategies you’ve done. And I’m wondering, like you talked about, like your broker, people in your office coming to you, asking you what those things are.

Do you wanna go through some of those and explain what they are at a high level?

[Jordan Smith]
Sure, yeah, we can do that for sure.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I mean, so- That’s double-closing, people may not be familiar with that.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, so double-closing, I think it’s a relatively new, you know, five years, relatively new exit strategy. So especially, I don’t know what the laws are in Virginia, but South Carolina has a no wholesaling law in place. North Carolina’s talking about putting a no wholesaling law in place.

You know, and so when I say wholesale, what I mean is assigning a contract, right? So a wholesaler is going out, they’re finding the property owner, the seller, they’re getting the property under contract for X, and then they’re gonna market the property and essentially find a buyer at price Y, and they’re gonna marry the two together and take the money out of the middle, right? That’s an assignment of contract.

In North Carolina, our contract, by default, is non-assignable. So our North Carolina realtor form says this is not an assignable contract. So the way that people have been getting around that, you know, is what they’re doing, they’re doing what’s called double closing.

So they’re borrowing money, it’s called transactional funding, they’re borrowing money from a person or an entity or an institution, and they’re gonna buy the property and then turn around, they’re gonna actually take title record and then turn around and sell the property to the end buyer the same day, usually. And so that transactional money comes into the attorney’s account, it buys, the property’s turned around and resold, and that money comes back out of the account back to the lender, and then the investor gets to keep the overage there.

[Mattias]
Yeah, okay, that makes sense. And what are other ways can wholesalers typically close? And again, I understand it’s price-specific to your market, anybody listening to this does need to consult an attorney.

And trying to find a good real estate or creative real estate attorney is challenging. So I can definitely recommend somebody that might be able to assist, even in a different state, to just kind of help educate other attorneys, if you will. But yeah, talk about what you know for your area.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, same for here. If anybody’s listening from the Carolinas or down in this area, we’ve got some attorneys that are certainly able to help on calls and educate as well. Yeah, so in my mind, when you’re talking about real estate investing, it’s all about what the best exit strategy is for the property, right?

So there’s no bad deal. It’s just you gotta find the right exit strategy for the property. And so, like we said, wholesaling, marketing it up and finding an in-buyer, double-closing on it.

We have dabbled in the creative finance space, so that’s a whole can of worms. I don’t know how much you want to open that box, but we’ve done some seller financing stuff where the seller of the property title transfers, but the seller retains the mortgage or they become the bank, essentially. We’ve done some subject to the existing mortgage kind of stuff.

Sub two is a big thing. There’s all kinds of videos all over YouTube about it, where you buy the house, but the loan stays in the original seller’s name and you make payments on their behalf. We do a lot of fix and flip.

We do some, we call it wholetail, where we’re basically taking down the property with a hard money lender or private money lender and really just kind of cleaning it out and popping it right back on the MLS. I mean, the MLS is the biggest buyers list in America, right? It’s the number one aggregate of buyers for real estate in your market.

And with the IDX, it pushes across to Zillow and Realtor and all these other fun ones. And so if you can get your property there, you can get the most number of eyes on it. If you can get the most number of eyes on it, you can get the best price for it, in my opinion.

So we’re gonna always push to get things into the MLS so that we can then get it in front of as many eyes as possible. And then it’s just about educating the other agents, right? I mean, there’s a ton of agents who have been in the game for 30 years and they have no idea what an assignment of contract is or they don’t understand, we’re getting contracts written and they’re just pulling the name off tax records and putting that as a seller.

And I’m like, no, the seller is this entity. And they’re like, no, it’s not. I’m like, yes, it is.

And you’re having to explain and educate, right? So yeah, so there’s, I mean, there’s all kinds of exit strategies, right? You know, rentals are hard right now.

DSCR loans are tough with the interest rates where they’re at right now. But, you know, buying and holding is still a great strategy, I think. We’ve done some short-term rentals, some midterm rentals, which is kind of that 30 to 90 day rental, you know, for like insurance or travel nurses, stuff like that.

So in my mind, every property has an exit strategy. If you can get, if you can match the property and the exit strategy together, you can formulate a solution. It’s just, you know, I get sent bad deals all the time and it’s just, they’re sending them with the wrong exit strategy, right?

[Mattias]
Yeah. No, it makes a lot of sense. And yeah, I think you’re right with rentals being harder right now.

And a lot of people are having to get more creative with how they are going about it. So some people are exploring the subject to area. And I think you mentioned something about a wraparound.

That’s another way of doing that, I believe, where you basically add an extra layer of protection to a subject to deal for the seller, where they basically have a deed of trust written, I believe is how that works. But yeah, and then there’s, I mean, seller financing can help make that work better as well if you get better terms, so better entry rates.

[Jordan Smith]
Lease options for folks, you know, if they can’t qualify for a conventional mortgage, but they’ve got some money for a down payment, you know, there’s the lease option there where the seller can get a lease option where the seller retains the title and, you know, they have a vested interest in the, the buyer has vested interest in the property with the down payment, and then they take over, you know, they’re paying their monthly fee and they’re handling all the repairs and all that jazz. There’s, yeah, there’s a ton of options, right?

It’s just knowing your market, knowing what’s needed. I know you do a lot of listings. Are you getting a lot more creative finance or sub-two offers on your properties?

[Mattias]
No, not particularly. No, not in this area. Okay.

And we still have a pretty strong demand. I just had a very big bidding war on my most recent listing. And so far, yeah, we haven’t needed to go that route necessarily.

And you’re wondering, like, how is somebody willing to spend 20% over asking price at one of these interest rates but I mean, it’s, I think it’s just- Were you priced at market or did you price it competitively to try to drive it up? No, I mean, no, it was, no, I think it was right around market. The person who brought an offer would have argued that we were a little bit under, but, you know, it was based, it just depends on the comps you use.

We were basing comps on the, in the neighborhood comps and they might’ve found some other ones in different neighborhoods that would have supported a higher price point. But, but yeah, yeah, it’s just, you know, there’s definitely properties that you can, I’m finding that different pockets of the market, you can do different strategies with like, you know, being competitive in the price point usually is the best, you know, route where you’re trying to get multiple offers, trying to get it sold fast, pricing it right around where the comps say. But then I think there’s sometimes, especially right now in this market, it feels like there’s just this like pent up demand that’s just like, you know, as soon as something comes on, it’s getting sold.

But there are markets that are a little bit slower. And in that, in those markets, I’ve have actually pushed the price a little bit higher than I think should be, as opposed to hoping it gets bid up, thinking that we’re only gonna get one offer on it, maybe as opposed to, you know, five plus, that if we’re gonna get somebody in the first three days making an offer on it, right around asking price, as opposed to hoping it gets bid up, but it probably won’t. Same results as $10,000 loss or whatever. So it’s just, it’s a fun, you know, it’s kind of a strategy where you gotta get, you know, hyperlocal and really understand your market, like you said.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure.

[Mattias]
But we’re also setting up a midterm rental as we, as we speak, I hauled two mattresses over there today. They got delivered to our house instead of that house.

[Jordan Smith]
So my checker on box on Amazon, huh?

[Mattias]
Yeah, exactly. I won’t name names, but my co-host. Uh-huh, yep.

But yeah, what, have you, you mentioned insurance. Is that like people that are like, you know, out of their house because of damage or whatever? Have you, have you, a few of these?

Do you have a couple of these that you’re running now or?

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, so we don’t, I don’t have any currently, but we’ve got, I’ve got some clients who do. And man, it’s been, you know, again, it’s a relationship, it’s a relationship business, right? So, you know, this, this one girl in particular, she’s done a really great job at networking with, Charlotte has a pretty expansive hospital system.

And so they have a lot of travel nurses. And so what she’s done is really networked. And I mean, midterm was kind of her, midterm and short term was her strategy of choice for a very long time.

And she’s done a really good job of building out relationships with folks in the hospital system and with, you know, in the insurance space so that when they have a need, she’s their first call, right? And there’s obviously, you know, websites like Furnished Finder and all that jazz, but for her it was a lot of, yeah, Airbnb, exactly. But for her, it was a lot of, you know, hey, the HR manager at this, you know, hospital system knows that these three travel nurses are coming in for the next 90 days and they’re calling her going, hey, do you have housing for these three folks?

Which is, I mean, it’s exactly what you want, you know?

[Mattias]
Yeah, absolutely. It’s where we’re excited about getting this running and building those connections and seeing if it’s a viable strategy to replicate. Because obviously, you know, if you do have a steady stream potential, but you like are constantly booked, you know, like having availability too will keep people coming back as well.

But yeah.

[Jordan Smith]
Now, what made your midterm on that particular property?

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, it’s basically exactly what we were just talking about is it didn’t pencil out well. It would have been an outstanding flip, but it’s one of those things where we have held pretty much every flip we’ve done that we’ve liked the location of and liked the kind of size and everything about it, we’ve wanted to hold it.

We’ve done a burn strategy with it. And this one is the same. And it could have, you know, penciled out barely.

Like, you know, if you’re not being super critical with the vacancies and all those kind of extra things that you’re supposed to calculate in, if you were really strict about that, then it wouldn’t have been the best or it would, you know, broken even kind of thing. But, you know, it was also just kind of a fun idea to try this. And, you know, I figured worst case scenario, we end up having, we lose some money on the furniture.

Not really, because we’ll sell it and it will make, you know, we have a pretty good margin to profit on that. So that’s not- And then you can always pop a 12 month tenant in it, right? That too.

Yeah, we could do that too. And, but yeah, we really liked the property. We really liked the location.

We have a downtown area that’s revitalized and it’s brought a lot of vibrancy to that area and a lot of professionals want to be close to that area. So this is about a thousand square foot house, not huge, and it’s charming and it, you know, walkable to those bars and restaurants. And so I think it’s just a, it’s a great location long-term and we’d love to keep it.

And we’re excited about trying this kind of thing out. And if it works, we, you know, would look to maybe converting other ones that we have into a midterm or exploring some of the short-term possibilities as well. Our city itself doesn’t allow it, so we’d have to go outside the city limits.

[Jordan Smith]
Are you hyper-focused in your town, in your city?

[Mattias]
For investing? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so I’ve done stuff outside of, I think it’s for, yeah.

Yes, and why is I think that, A, I understand the market the best, B, the city itself has gonna have the most, I think the more you are under the median sales price, the more you are, you know, in the area that the most people wanna be in, the safer you are for renting, for selling, et cetera. So that’s our sweet spot. If we can get something underneath the median sales price and value, right?

There’s just so many exit strategies there, like you talked about, like there’s just, you know, having the best one is what we go after, but then having a BCD is also good. Yeah. Good to add to that.

[Jordan Smith]
And that’s one of the big things I try to teach new investors who are coming in, you know, they’re like, hey, I wanna flip a house. I’m just like, okay, cool. Like, number one, let’s talk about that.

You know, why, what does that mean to you? What’s your tolerance? Like, do you wanna have a full gut job?

Do you wanna cosmetic, you know? But then what I try to teach them is like, hey, we gotta have backup exit strategies, right? Like if we flip this and we list it and it doesn’t sell, then what are we gonna do?

Yeah. Right? Will it cash flow?

Will it at least cover your rent on a DSCR? Okay, cool. Then that’s our check down, right?

Like that’s our audible. Or, you know, can we short-term rental it? Can we, you know, all these things, right?

So we’re really big on like, man, if it’s got one exit strategy, not a great, not a great fit. Not a great fit. And you really are kind of like hamstrung, right?

And so always making sure like, yes, option A, like you said, is the ideal world, but have we got a B, C, and D? And if so, then let’s pull the trigger on it and go.

[Mattias]
Yeah, we, I had a couple pretty difficult flips that were in, you know, smaller markets and more rural. And just, I just, you know, they took a long time, they’re difficult, and it’s probably just something that, you know, it was, it’s not like it was 2021, 2022. So, you know, I think taking a different approach, be a little bit more conservative is gonna be good going forward.

And, you know, cooling my jets a little bit on it. And then, you know, there’s a whole other thing with this. We’re having fun with this midterm rental and we’re excited.

[Jordan Smith]
That’s important. Yeah. You can’t put dollars on that, but that’s like very important.

[Mattias]
It keeps you engaged. It keeps you, you know, not from getting burnt out. And my, you know, my wife’s loving spending money on all the different furniture and stuff.

We’re probably gonna be inquiring some of the nice pieces that, you know, we, hey, that would work well in our house. We’ll get one too. But it’s, you know, it’s a lot of fun.

They’re doing a great job. I have a, you know, a stager design person that’s getting her license, joining my team, but she’s doing a ton of work with getting like everything just to feel really good and have design elements throughout it. So it’s fun.

But at the same time, like even if we get a really good return on it, if we just sold it and put everything into a good syndication, we probably would be doing better. Now you have that mathematical stuff in the back of your head too, but, you know, that doesn’t really factor in the appreciation as much, so. That’s right, for sure.

But yeah, so you say about 70% of your business is investors, right? About 90% is investors. About 90%, sorry.

Yeah. Okay. So, and then the 10% are gonna be just, you know, connections, personal connections kind of thing?

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, I mean, we, yeah, personal connections, fear of influence, referrals. You know, we’ve got some lead, I’m with Realty One Group. We’ve got some lead programs, but not a ton of leads coming in that way through the brokerage.

And so most of mine, you know, I’m born and raised in Rock Hill. I’ve got a pretty strong network of folks I grew up with, folks who know my family. And so people know what I do.

I am the, you know, I’m the flip realtor guy, like that’s kind of what people know me as. And so, you know, so I’ve picked up some business of like, you know, hey, if you can’t find the house you’re looking for, like, why don’t we buy this ugly house and make it the house you wanna buy, you know? And so, but that’s a little more, it’s a little more complex because, you know, personally, the reason I like working with investors is because there’s not a lot of emotion attached, right?

So they’re not crying, but I mean, you know, this lady this morning was like crying when she saw this house and moving back to Ohio. And I’m like, you know, pat her on the back, like, it’s okay, you know, it’s just a house, like, you know, but there’s memories, right? And there’s, you know, personal value to the home and stuff like that.

And I’m empathetic for sure. Like I said, I mean, I got a background in ministry, like it equips me to handle people like this, you know? But with investors, it’s just like, okay, do the numbers make sense?

Cool, let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Yeah. No, totally, I get that. And it is appealing.

I think there’s also, the bad part about it is also just then it’s harder to find the right property in some ways. Like I think, like there’s like, it’s harder to pencil out these days, especially. For sure.

But, you know, there’s definitely been a huge advantage for me in, and that’s kind of one of the niches I’ve narrowed in on is kind of helping sellers get their house ready for the market with my contractor teams and my knowledge and like, you know, kind of being able to get some of those good prices from, you know, the volume I give my contractors.

[Jordan Smith]
And applying- Are you managing that process hands-on? Yes. Yes.

[Mattias]
And are you- I’m probably systemizing that a little bit.

[Jordan Smith]
Okay. And then are you, and if I’m getting too personal, tell me to shut up. Are you having your sellers pay for that as they go or are you fronting that and letting them pay it at closing?

[Mattias]
No, it’s on them. I help pay. That’s part of, I’ve got like a, you know, help pay you, the contractors.

But also I have a contract that mostly is okay with getting paid at closing. So- Yeah, just send an invoice in. If you can get that lined up and, you know, that’s gonna be, you know, it might be an extra month or so for them, but that’s a huge advantage to some sellers.

And maybe that’s something that, depending on your contractor, like say, hey, look, just for special occasions, like we’ll try to get you 75% of them. Like, you know, if you want 40% upfront or whatever, we can try to get that for most of them. But, you know, if we have the special circumstance where you’d be cool with it, I think, you know, that’s a huge advantage.

We get you more and more business this way. So it’s gotta be a win-win with them. And the higher volume, I think, is part of it for sure.

Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. Yeah, man.

I gotta ask if you have any golden nuggets you’d wanna impart on our listeners that could be for real estate agents or investors or, you know, agents that are looking to get into investing. Sure. Whatever you got.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think for me, like the drum that I bang over and over again to every agent that I talk to is like, find your niche, however you wanna say it, find your niche and like double down on that and really like build that out because that’s what, somebody said the riches are in the niches. And I think that’s like, not only is the money there, but like the fulfillment is there. Right.

So, you know, like I told you, my first deal was with Wes on this wholesale deal, but then I had a listing of a girl that I worked with at my nine to five before I quit to go into real estate full-time. Her and her husband are getting a divorce. They’re like selling this house.

And it was just like, I’m like, guys, like I would rather be anywhere than in this room talking through this. You know? Yeah.

You know, and then I had a buyer that wanted to go see 80 houses in a weekend and never pulled the trigger on anything. And so I’m going, like if I’m a new agent who’s not resilient and I don’t know that there’s, you know, real estate was a conduit for me to get to the investing side of things. If that’s not me, if I didn’t have like a bigger real estate purpose other than just being an agent and I got my license because, you know, it looks sexy on TV or it seems like you don’t have to wear that hard and you can set your own schedule.

Like I would have quit a long time ago because general brokerage, like if that’s not your thing, you’re going to pull your hair out. And I think you’ve got to really hone in on like what you want to do and what fills you up. Like I got a friend of mine, she loves working with first-time homebuyers.

Now I would rather get a lobotomy, but she, like, it’s her jam, man. And she’s got it dialed in, she’s got it systematized, like she’s great at it. And I refer for, like if I get a first-time homebuyer, I’m like, you need to talk to her.

You don’t need to talk to me, you need to talk to her. She’s an expert. But you really got to like hone in on like, yes, what can make you money, but also like what can get you fulfilled at the end of the day?

Like when you lay your head down at night, you know, you got to know you’re making a difference and you got to know that you’re doing something that fills your cup up. And for me, man, that’s like running around to flip. I mean, you know, probably TMI, but like my day-to-day, like I had a normal residential closing.

Then I went, picked up some materials for a flip we’ve got going on. Then I went going checking in on new construction stuff. I’m like, use the bathroom in a porta potty at a job site today, because I might have so much going on and I’m like running around, you know?

But like, I love that stuff. Every day is different for me. I’m like, you know, my shoes are dirty.

I’m not in a suit. And like, that’s like my jam. Now, other people, that would be miserable for them.

And it’s just because it’s not their niche, right? So you’ve got to figure that out and you’ve got to really like lean into that. And I think there’s a tremendous opportunity if you can identify it and you can really brand yourself and like put some oomph behind it, you know?

And it doesn’t have to be investing, right? Like everybody, anytime I lead a training on real estate investing, all the agents are like, hey, I want to learn how to do what you do. I’m like, no, you probably don’t.

Like, it’s a lot. It’s miserable some days, right? It’s really hard.

But like, maybe you really like dogs. Be like the dog parent agent, right? Like, you know, lean into that.

Lean into like hanging out at dog parks and like passing out business cards and giving dogs clothes and gifts. Like whatever you love to do in your spare time, like pour gasoline on that and incorporate that into your real estate business. For me, it’s flipping houses.

I would be doing it whether I was a licensed agent or not. And so if I can help other people, you know, not make their flip look like crap, then that’s like, I’m happy at the end of the day and I get to go home and, you know, not be grumpy and all that fun stuff. So that’s my golden nugget.

It’s just like, find out what fills you up and figure out where it overlaps with real estate and go all in on that.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, what’s the point if you’re miserable, right? Oh my gosh, I mean.

Money’s nice.

[Jordan Smith]
Congrats, you had a bunch of GCI last year and you hate your life, you know, like get real, dude.

[Mattias]
Yeah, okay, so do you have any books then that you think are fundamental for everybody that they should read or maybe ones that you’re currently enjoying?

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, so I got this question and dreaded it because I’m not a reader. I need to be a reader. I am massively ADHD.

And so like audio books just don’t even work for me. I’m that kind of guy. In fact, we just got back from Mexico on vacation and I checked out two books out of the library to take with me.

And my wife laughed at me on the plane. She was like, dude, you’re not gonna read. You’re not gonna read those.

But I was thinking about the question and I know you’ve had some Tim Ferriss fans on here before. The four hour shift for me was a game changer. So I got it.

I don’t know if you’ve read that. Have you read the four hour shift?

[Mattias]
Yeah, I don’t know if I did the, so my problem is I’ll start things. I don’t know if I read the whole thing.

[Jordan Smith]
No, don’t worry. So I like to cook and it was pitched as like learn how to hack these chef skills and all this stuff. So I got it.

And really, man, my biggest takeaway from it was like, he, you know, he’s crazy anyway, but like he, just the way he broke down, like learning how you learn and like breaking things down so that you can learn it to become an expert, even if you’ve never done it before was fascinating. And then the thing that has stuck with me, I read this book years ago. The thing that has stuck with me is just because nobody else does it or because it’s not how it’s historically done doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work, right?

So the example he uses in the book is he is trying to become a wine snob and he decants wine by taking an immersion blender and sticking it in the wine and immersion blending wine for like, it’s like a really expensive bottle of wine.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, I mean, you know, all these like, all these wine enthusiasts are like, oh my God. Yeah. You know, and he’s like, but it makes sense, right?

Like if the point of decanting wine is to get air into it, what’s the best way to get air into it? And so that has, I’m a bit of a rule follower growing up. And so that has really pushed me.

And Wes, my business partner is great of like, hey, Wes, we can’t do this. He’s like, well, why not? I’m like, well, I don’t know, Wes.

That’s just not how it’s done. He’s like, well, why not? And I’m like, well, shit, I don’t have a really good answer for that.

So let’s try it, you know? So it’s opened us up to like so many things that I don’t think we would have ever experienced if I would have just wet blanketed the conversation by going, ah, it’s not possible. It’s like, well, why not?

It’s like, well, that’s a good question. I don’t really know why not. Let’s try it.

And then we try it and it works. And so, yeah, four-hour chef. And there’s some practical cooking stuff in there too, but Tim Curry’s just a freak.

[Mattias]
I think I was talking about or thinking about, does he also have a four-hour body?

[Jordan Smith]
He has a four-hour body, yes. Yeah, he’s got four-hour work week was the first one I think. You read the four-hour body?

Yeah, I never read that one.

[Mattias]
Yeah, and because he has some stuff about food in there. Like it’s just like, you know, high protein kind of. But anyway, so, okay, that sounds interesting.

I’d have to check that out. I mean, and honestly, like the food stuff, I love cooking too. I love food.

I haven’t had near as much time to do as cooking. And also the kids are a lot more picky than they want. They don’t like to, you know, have my lamb sog that I want to cook, that’s spicy.

So anyway, eating that process up, which sounds like it probably would be part of the book, would be really, probably has some really good tips in there, I’ll have to check it out. So thanks for that.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, and it’s like cookbook size. So it looks like a cookbook.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, it’s pretty interesting. So it was a cool, and if you research it, there was a whole, it was a cool branding play too. Like that was the first book he published from Amazon Publishing.

And so it was like non-traditional book publishing. And all these like traditional publishers, like got all up in arms about it. And like Barnes and Noble, like blacklisted the book.

It wouldn’t care. I mean, it was like a whole thing, but you know, it just helped him further solidify, I think his position of, I mean, he’s just so creative. I think he’s really interesting to learn from just because he thinks way differently than I think.

And so anytime I think he can be around somebody like that, it’s worth taking notes for sure.

[Mattias]
Do you then, are you a big podcast listener? Like if you’ve interviewed.

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, yeah, I like some podcasts, man. Yeah, my interests are all over the place though. So I can’t listen to like just real estate or just leadership podcasts because I’ll get real burnt out.

So I’m like listening to like, yeah, I listen to some wild stuff. What about you?

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, I do. I mean, I don’t, I haven’t listened to it near as much as I have in the past. But honestly, I like to do a podcast and mow the lawn every week at least.

And that’s something that’s like, I have a zero turn mower, so I’m not out there getting exercise. But that is like the most peaceful, amazing thing. Like, I just feel so much better after I do that.

Just like interesting ideas, things that get my brain going and just, yeah, the peaceful moment of the lawn. So I feel like I’m Hank Hill right now. Yeah.

[Jordan Smith]
Damn it, Bobby. Yeah. Thank you.

Oh, incredible King of the Hill reference. Way to go, man. I hadn’t thought about King of the Hill in a minute and you just brought it all back.

[Mattias]
It is, I don’t know if underrated is the right word, but it is, it’s a, Mike Judd is a genius. But Jordan, if people were interested in investing in your area, wanna reach out to you or follow you for more, where can they find you?

[Jordan Smith]
Yeah, Instagram’s gonna be the best place. I am at JordanSmithSC, like South Carolina. And there you can find all kind of my escapades and some really pretty houses we’ve lived.

I’m a design guy, so like I, that’s my whole thing is, call it ballin’ on a budget. In fact, there’s a, there’s a shameless plug, I guess. Well, we’ll try to add value, right?

There’s a reel in there, I will, I don’t think it’s pinned right now, but I’ll pin it before this goes live. But there’s a reel in there that I talk about design stuff and I’m actually giving away a free design guide with links to materials and mood boards and stuff like that. So if your listeners are interested, they can go on there and there’s a keyword to comment and it’ll send them a link to download that for free.

So check me out on Instagram, @JordanSmithSC. It’s, yeah, it’s always an adventure over there. And my Instagram stories are usually, when I’m posting them, it’s like a flip house that’s in shambles and then the next story will be like a ridiculously funny meme and then the next story will be like, you know, my three-year-old singing Taylor Swift.

And so it’s a pretty well-rounded follow. I think I’m pretty fun to follow.

[Mattias]
You got the Swifties at home too? Oh my gosh, we are.

[Jordan Smith]
I, it’s crazy. So Collins turns four at the end of this month and she somehow latched onto the heirs tour on Disney+ and we watched it all day every day for not an exaggeration, two months straight. And I mean, like everybody in our family, I’ve got four kids, everybody in our family knows every word.

And then the darndest thing, man, I think the algorithm got her. So like, you know, like when you finish watching something, it’ll be like, oh, if you like this, you’ll probably like these three movies or shows. So she, her newest infatuation is 2025.

Her newest infatuation is Hannah Montana. Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana, four-year-old. And she is all, I mean, she’s so sassy and has a microphone and a mic stand and a guitar and will put on a dress and you cannot tell her she’s not a rock star.

[Mattias]
So that sounds like our house. We have not gotten that bug yet, but we are- Well, don’t delete Hannah Montana off of everything that you can. A Swiftie cover concert.

I took the girls, a little daddy-daughter date and it was a lot of fun.

[Jordan Smith]
So ironically enough, I’m actually taking her on to a Swiftie, to a Taylor Swift cover band tonight. For our daddy-daughter. Yeah, for our daddy-daughter date, legitimately, yeah.

How old are your girls? Eight and five.

[Mattias]
And then I got a two-year-old son.

[Jordan Smith]
Okay, fun ages, man. Yeah, ours are about to be 10, almost seven, about to be four, and then like one and a half. Okay.

It’s like her cats, man. Yeah. It’s always an adventure.

[Mattias]
For sure. Well, Jordan, thanks so much for being on here. It’s been a lot of fun.

I think we’re cut from the same cloth. We’ll have to stay in touch. Yes, sir.

We’d love that.