21. Live In Renovation: Jordan Warner's Journey Into Chicago Real Estate

Episode Transcript
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Jason Wagner (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Real Life
Investing with Jason and RachelWagner.
We've got a cool one tonight.
We've got Jordan Warner joiningus from Greystone Realty
another Greystone broker, andJordan, a guy that just bought a
house Congratulations.

Jordan Warner (00:17):
I did.

thank you you bought just a house.
Yeah, I mean he bought a fixerupper, that's right.
Yeah, so he bought a ranch andI mean you could tell us about
the house, sure.

It's a little single family ranch.
I got over West Humble Park,found it on an estate sale,
which is really what I've beenkind of looking at a lot of.
They have a little bit moreopportunity, I feel there and
there's not as much attachmentfrom the seller side, which
makes for a better deal.
So the single family ranchbuilt in the 1960s and good

(00:53):
bones but needing a lot ofupdating.
A lot of smoke happenings inthere from back when Marlboro
Reds, I think, were very popular.

We used to call those the cowboy killers Cowboy
killers.

Unfortunately, I think it did harm to the cowboy
that was living there.

Rachel Wagner (01:13):
So you got yellow walls.

Oh, they were making it at the estate sale.

Making it the estate sale.

For someone that doesn't know what an estate sale
is.
What is an estate sale so?

estate sale can happen multiple ways, but
basically someone has passedaway and the property is left to
either probate, or sometimes itcan just go directly to the
heirs and they can sell it.

from my understanding, yeah, and in
probate they're basically tryingto find the heirs of where the
property needs to go to right.
I think that's how that works.

Yeah, the state might be owed money, taxes or
something, and so they'lldetermine what needs to be done
with the property, whether itneeds to be sold off or whether
or not it can just pass down tothe heirs.
So I'd like to learn a littlebit more about estate sales
myself.

Yeah, so this one was on the market.

This one was on the market.
When I found it it was actuallyalready contingent, so it was
just within three or four blocksof where I was living and kind
of popped up on my radar.
I was actually looking at itfor a comp for another house
that I was going to put an offerin on and I wanted to walk
through it.
Gave the agent a call and hesaid the deal's falling apart.

(02:34):
Do you want to put an offer onit?
And I said well, let me walkthrough it first.
You know, like I haven't seenit yet.
Oh, so he's eager.
Oh, very, very eager.
He was going to be putting itback on that day.
So he was like I'd like toleave an incongent status if,
instead of putting it back onthrough MLS and going through
all of that, he didn't want tospark up showings necessarily

(02:58):
again.
So did you find out why that?

deal fell through.

From my understanding, finance I never
really trust.
You know, there's a millionthings that they can say.
I've seen literal analysting.
Earlier today I saw that theson wanted to move back in with
the parents and so that's whythe deal the house went back on
the market another property, youknow.
So it's who knows.

(03:24):
You know, I think there weresome things about this property
that might scare like an FHAbuyer or even just someone that
is not looking to do littlehandyman type projects without
diving too deep into it, justlike things like it's a

(03:45):
non-metered water house, whichcan be good or bad.

You know what does non-metered?

means.
So this one in particular doesnot have a meter on the inside
of the house.
Supposedly there's a shutoff inthe front.
I have yet to find that.
So all there is basically is aknob of my house and it does not
.
It's not counted by the city,it can only build an estimated
amount.
They take the square footage ofthe house the lot size is

(04:14):
actually what they use, which iskind of dumb and they figure
out your rate based on that andyou get a consistent bill every
single month.

Yeah, yeah, I actually worked with a client
one time and I always thoughtthat having a meter on your
property would be good.
And you know, you only getcharged for what you use.
And until it was actually oneof my contractors won, he comes
in and he's like, oh man, I hateproperties with meters on it.
I'm like why?
And then he said, well, whenthey leak, all of a sudden you

(04:46):
get charged a ton of money andyou don't know that you have a
leak, because in Chicago thebill comes out every two months.
So if you have a leak and youjust got notified of it, maybe
on your bill because it's spiked, well then you're trying to
investigate where is the leak?

What happened?

to us at Sunny Side, and so it took me over
four or five months to figureout the problem, and I couldn't
find the leak.
I ended up changing all thefloats and all the toilets in
every unit, because none of thetenants said that we had a leak
or running toilet, and Icouldn't find it either.
And so, anyways, I'm like, well, I'm getting charged a ton of

(05:26):
money.
It ended up being, over thefour months, a whole year's
worth of water being chargedthere, and that's not true.

The city doesn't care.

And because the bill doesn't come out every
month, you really don't have anyidea if you fixed it or
corrected it.
And so I remember calling andit took forever to get through
to somebody, and then I finallydid and they're like, yep, you
still have it listed as a leak,you'll have to wait for the next
bill to come out to see if youget it fixed.

(05:56):
And I was just like, wow.
So when you look at how muchmoney we spent on water that
year, it was literally a wholeyear's worth within that leaking
timeframe.

I've heard that horror story and you know they
were.
So you have.
You have a gem, my friend.

It's a gem.

It's good for budgeting.

It's great for budgeting, so my first bill came
already.

It's $120 for the month which For two months,
because it's a two month period.

Or was it?

$240 that you're talking about.

That's a great question.
Let me look at it again.
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure youjust started it just started my
service, so it's I've beenpretty sure it's just a one
month period, because theyswitched over my service
actually before I even owned theproperty, which is a whole
nother story.
But it's not really that big ofa deal.
I'm just going to pay it andmove on.
It's $110, I feel like as asingle person, I probably would

(06:58):
be using less water than whatthe estimates are, so like it
probably hurts me.
Yeah, if a family lived there,it's great.
You know, actually, in allhonesty, I'm going to start
watering my grass A lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, use as much as you want.

Right, yeah, I mean I have.
So this property on the outside, one of the things I really
liked about it is the outdoorspace in the front.
It has like beautiful, well,they need, they need some love,
but long stem roses in like theentire front, which I really
like, stuff like that.
I like being outside of, likegardening to a degree, I just

(07:38):
like being outside.
The backyard has a deck andthen a cement patio on the
backside of it.
There's no grass outside oflike a few patches in the front,
but really it's like theoutdoor spaces to me kind of
sold me.
On the property itself, there'sa couple of entrances to the

(08:01):
outdoor spaces, so this houseactually has four separate
entrances to it.
Both of the bedrooms in theback have their own doors that
lead out to the deck, which Ithink is kind of unique and cool
, like it's just, it'sconvenient one and it's just
it's nice.
They have screen doors on theback as well, so if I want to

(08:23):
open air, whatever I wanted todo back there, and then it has a
side entrance that opens upinto like a landing going down
into the basement, and so myintention there is eventually to
do like an in-law suite,downstairs and house it
basically the basement out,which is in the near future plan

(08:44):
.
I want to start capitalizing onthat, really honestly, before I
start doing the work.
Upstairs, like as far askitchen and bathroom, I'm going
to work on getting bathroom,which is already one downstairs.
I'm just going to redo it andthen put a little kitchenette in
and finish the basement out.

Wow, that's a great plan.

I thought it was that you were going to be doing
the in-law suite down in there.
So this is.
It's zoned as a single familyhome, right?
You bought it as a typicalranch raised ranch home, right?
And then you bought it singlefamily home.
Was there already like akitchen that was down there or
plumbing lines that were downthere?

So this house is a lot of really unique things it
has.
So it has a sub pump basinwhich handles the plumbing from
the basement stuff.
It does not handle the rest ofthe house.
The rest of the house has twomain lines that go out probably
about four foot above basementlevel or basement ground level,

(09:49):
and so there's one on one sideand one on the other, and so it
makes it really convenient to beable to.
I don't have to run plumbingunderneath the floors or
anything there.

So you have overhead plumbing right there
I've overhead plumbing, which isvery unique, so unique.

And they're on opposite side of the house, so I
don't have to trench stuffunder to get to the other side
or go up and over.
I can just literally just goout one side of the house or go
out the other, and so it's rightnext to where I'm going to put
the kitchenette.

That's awesome.

It's fantastic yeah.

So in this is a what year was?

it built About 1960.

Okay, it was a 1950, 1960 year.
Okay, gotcha, yeah.
So, and what's interesting, sofor those that don't really
understand, like, how plumbinglines work, in Chicago, a lot of
them they just go under theslab, under of your basement,
right.
So you've got, maybe you'll see, like the main stack that we
call.
That's where all the waste fromthe toilets and the showers and
the drains they all go on downthis main stack and that's

(10:48):
usually the thickest pipe thatyou'll see.
Usually it's like a cast iron,sometimes it's PVC, if it's been
updated, you know, orconstruction, but but yeah, and
then it goes under the, underthe slab and out to the street
and into the sewer which is onlywhere you have a lot of the
problems, typically when you dohave problems, yeah, and it's
hard to rod those out, and ifyou're on the Northwest side you

(11:11):
might have backups, becausethat's what happened over.
We've had two really heavy rainsand everything got flooded, and
actually on the West side itgot flooded too, Really bad.
So I bet you you had likeseepage, that kind of happened,
but I bet you didn't have likebig backup.
I had no backup Right.

Because, in fact, my sub pump was, my pit was
almost empty.

Yeah, yeah.
So, and it's because you havean overhead sewer system, which
is so his main sewer line isabove his head or eye level and
it goes out to the street thatway.
And so how, houses that have asewer system that's below the
stack or below the excuse mebelow the foundation, under the
slab, those are the ones wherethey'll back up first.

(11:54):
So, nice man, you picked out ajam.

It's an interesting one and so to kind
of touch on those, the seepageproblems that I did have, really
there's just bad sloping, badconcrete work in the gangway.
Over time there's just beenwater from both from the
neighbor's building and thenmine that have caused the
sidewalks in the gangway to kindof collapse, and it's only in

(12:21):
maybe a seven to 10 foot sectionthere.
Really, the rest of it's good.
Side note I'm thinking abouttrying the foam underneath to
try to push up.

Call it mudjacking , yeah.

As opposed to doing concrete work, because
it's just so expensive right nowto do concrete stuff.
Yeah.

I would also do that too, if the slab is still
in good condition and it's justkind of like sloped in the wrong
way.
Yeah, yeah, just do themudjacking.

Yeah, I think that's a little bit, but really
that's what's created theseepage issue.
In the basement there were twofoundation cracks that were
behind the.
So when I bought it it had woodpaneling 1960s nice wood
paneling all the way around.
We pulled a few of those offwhen water was coming in during

(13:14):
I think it was during the July4th storm, pulled those off and
kind of saw what was alreadybehind there and they actually
sent in someone to inject thecracks for me.
So there were two cracksvisible.
Now that I've lived there I'veactually pulled everything off

(13:35):
and inspected the wholefoundation.
There is still one crack on theother side of the house, not as
worried about it because thesloping is okay over there, like
not worried about seepage,worried about fixing it, but the
side of the house with themthey are repaired.
I want to ask you.

So usually cracks in the foundation are like a
whoa big flag, right?
Oh my gosh, like there'ssomething wrong.
The house is collapsing, thefoundation is cracking Like.
Is that like the way you shouldthink about foundation cracking
in your eyes, like when you sawthose cracks where you like?

no, I personally wasn't.
A lot of cracking is caused bywater and issues, and I could
see exactly what the problem was.
If I, if the sidewalk up therewasn't in the condition that it
was and sloped towards the house, then I would have been like,
okay, what's happening?
The house is settling, there'sanother issue going on, but this
is literally like years ofwater getting trapped under

(14:39):
there and looking for a way outand it's literally like a basin
drawing all the water to thatsection, so I'm sure it's went
down there.
Freeze thaw that we have here,you know, which a lot of places
don't have to deal with to thesame degree we do, but that
freeze thaw cycle will causethose cracks really, really

(15:00):
quickly.

Isn't there like a rule about foundation cracks
being vertical or horizontal?
Aren't vertical crackstypically okay, but horizontal
ones more concerned about?

Yeah, so like you'll see a lot of like the
vertical cracks.
You see that kind of in mosthomes.
Honestly, in most homes, evenones that are like recently
built, they might have like acrack that kind of comes through
and those can easily beinjected with like a
polyurethane and that's what youwere talking about.
Somebody had injected it whenyou pulled back the paneling and

(15:34):
so you kind of see it and youknow that it's been injected
correctly, because they stillhave like the drill holes and
the pins that are still stickingout and like you can't take
those out, and so that'llusually be kind of like coming
from the wall.
But those, like those Siebelcracks and they do a really good
job and like a lot of thecompanies that install them,

(15:57):
they give like lifetimewarranties.
So if you're given a lifetimewarranty on something like it
works.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I think too, just from like them,
actually cleaning up the cracksand filling them.
What also made me feel reallycomfortable is the cracks are
very, very like thin and closetogether.
So you know it's more waterversus settling, whereas like it
hasn't pulled apart, you know,or something.

(16:23):
There's where you have a.
In my opinion I'm not afoundation expert, but from my
thought processes when you startgetting gaps and you start
getting like actual movement,like this is literally just like
pressure, like a break, youknow, and that's all it is.
And so when they filled it,really you couldn't even see
that there's a crack thereoutside of, you know, literally

(16:44):
a hairline, but it's enough tolet water and moisture seep
through.
Now I run a dehumidifier downthere and the basement sits
around like 45% humidity, whichis pretty normal, and it, you
know, flicks on, flicks off,which is good to see.
It's not constantly running, soit's.

(17:04):
You know, I feel pretty good.
I'm going to reseal thebasement.
Probably they had done likeplastic, like old school, you
know, like plastic is what theyhad lined the basement with.
I took all that down when Itook all the wood paneling down,
but I'll probably just likereseal it and then drywall.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So because I've seen likepeople put like almost like a
house wrap type.
Yeah, it's high back, yeah, Ilike it high back and like you
can put that around the wallswhen you go to put up the studs
and kind of steal that.
It's like a vapor barrier typething, yeah, but yeah, no.
Back to your point on like thehorizontal stuff.

(17:42):
So yeah, like, if you do havelike a massive horizontal crack,
those are ones to be moreconcerned about and to get
another opinion on.
And in that case and I've hadto do this on a few deals before
you have to get a structuralengineer to come out and give
their evaluation of the movementof that crack and how and to

(18:05):
your point, the gap, and a lotof times, if that crack has been
there for a long time andthere's no movement, and
sometimes how they measure themovement is they'll put markings
on the wall and then withpieces of tape, they'll put a
piece of tape over there andthen they'll put a marking there
and then over time they'll saywe'll monitor to see if this

(18:26):
moves at all, and so it's kindof an interesting way Like that
will literally determine if youhave movement that's going on.
All those things can actuallybe fixed, which is crazy, but it
comes at a price right, so yeah.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I'm worried
about with this house inparticular is water flow and
water travel, and you can justsee this is like the house of
Eve spouts.
The Eve spouts do these weirdruns.
It's like down out to the front, around the corner.

(19:02):
They're trying to use it towater the garden or something.
It's like literally probablylike a 30-foot run from the
gutter to the front lawn typeLike they're kind of funny, so
that's my biggest thing in likefilling cracks in the patio in
the back, so there's not anywater seepage underneath of that

(19:22):
, but I think that's the biggestyeah.

so for the downspouts, yeah, that's
actually a big thing too thatyou can correct.
Typically, any water that goesinto the basement is probably
being dumped on by thedownspouts.
Downspouts collect all thewater that's on the roof and all
goes down this one little holeand all goes down this one
little pipe and, depending onwhere that pipe sits next to
your foundation, you typicallywant that away from the

(19:48):
foundation and going downhill.
And sometimes you've got theopposite.
Where you've got concrete,that's like it dumps onto the
concrete with a concrete slopetowards the foundation and then
ends up coming back.

That's one of my projects here over the next.
When I feel like workingoutside, I'm gonna put a hose up
see how water flows.
I kind of have an idea fromhaving a couple of rainstorms
and you kind of see like, okay,this corner has a little bit of
like green mossy growth orwhatever.
You know there's some waterdripage there that shouldn't be
or whatever.
But I think that's.

(20:19):
I'm starting to get to some ofthose like more fun quote
unquote projects where you canlike clean the gutters.
I don't know if people considerthat fun, but it's like it's a
simpler one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So yeah, no, I love this.
What do you think is yourtimeframe for the work that
you're doing to kind of get the,so getting the basement unit
kind of rented out and like orin shape so that you can rent it
out?
That kind of seems like thebiggest priority.

It is.
So to take a step back on justthe greater timeline.
Initially my timeline was so Iclosed on this in the middle of
July, here around the 18th, andmy goal was to move in August
first so I can stop paying rent.

(21:10):
It was an aggressive goal but Iwas like, hey, saving this much
money on rent is gonna go rightinto the house, and so I made
that happen.
I don't know how Spent.
I was probably doing like 12 to16 hours of painting and clean

(21:31):
up and just stuff to just get meinto the place.
Mind you, my first timelinethat I rolled out was like only
really about seven to 10 dayslong and that, like I had all of
my boxes checked.
Now we're three weeks, fourweeks later and I'm still

(21:52):
probably like quite a ways awayfrom there, mainly because of
painting.
The amount of work that wentinto the prep work for painting
in this house was not what Iexpected.
Going back to the smoking issueand doing my research on how to
properly like get rid of thesmell, how to do it most

(22:15):
effectively, how to paint mosteffectively, and I kind of went
through all those steps cleanedtook me probably a week of.
First I had to vacuum the wallsLike they were just full of
dust to the point where I couldvacuum the dust off the wall.
So vacuum the entire house dry,dry cleaned it all.

(22:37):
That's what they said was thebest first option for like smoke
and stuff is like, don't get itwet, like get everything off
the eukendis sooty or dry orwhatever went through that
process.
The walls were then incondition that I was just like,
okay, I'm gonna leave the walls,we're gonna start with primer

(22:58):
on them, but like woodwork andstuff.
So when I first saw the house,I kind of thought, oh, I can
probably keep some of thewoodwork.
As I got more time in the house,I was like this woodwork is not
something worth keeping.
Like spending, it wasmismatched.
The things that you don't it'skind of funny.

(23:19):
Okay, so when you're looking ata house, yeah, yeah, all the
trip.
When you're looking at a houseand when you walk through it,
the things that you pick up on,versus when you are spending
more time there.
Like you look at woodwork andyou're like, oh, it all looks
good, like it's in goodcondition, but you don't pick up

(23:41):
that it's all different.
Trip, like it doesn't all match.
Right, it might be good trim.
There's so much truth there,it's like little things like
that, I mean big things likethat.
So I was going kind of throughthe process of just figuring out
, like, what my projects reallyare going to be, and the trim
work became, instead of just aclean and salvage, it became a

(24:06):
clean prime paint, because it'snot like that's the only way
it's going to look the sameright now until I remodel, and
then I'll do all new trim when Irefinish the floors.
Just makes more sense to do itthen, sure.
So that process has taken me.

(24:26):
The cleaning process of thetrim and everything took
probably three days in and ofitself of like 12 hours
scrubbing, like hand cramp.

This is you doing, it right this is me doing this.

I have had one.
So my old roommate, his uncle,does plaster work, and so he
helped me do plaster stuff.
I am not good at mudding, I'msure I could figure it out, it's
just not something I reallywant to learn right now.
Kind of messy sanding, not mything.
So he helped me with that sideof things.

(25:01):
But other than that, this hasbeen me Like I thought I would
even have a little bit more helpthan I have had, which is fine.
I mean it's good learningexperiences for me.
But yeah, so went through thecleaning process, have been
painting, and now here we are,three weeks later.

(25:24):
I have a trim color that I'm notsuper enthused about, but I
have a few gallons of it that Ineed to use up, and so we're
working through that.
I just literally put my lastcoat of primer on the last door
yesterday.
So, like the primer is done, itis in the garage, the bucket is

(25:45):
in the garage, not going backto primer, because, like you
know, there's a common order ofthings too.
You have to, and you don'tthink that, okay, this trim is
touching this, and so I need topaint this first, because
otherwise I'm going to drip onthis or you know, like there's a
whole order of things and youcan't get to.

(26:05):
It's hard to finish out onething.
I guess, before you're kind offinishing it all out, Like you
have to do the whole house atonce, at least from what I'm
doing.
So that has been kind of adifferent learning experience
and that's why it dragged outthe timeline a little bit, cause
I was originally just planningon okay, let me knock out the

(26:26):
back two bedrooms which, forthose of you that don't know me,
I was living in about a I'd sayat eight by 10, maybe bedroom
for the past 18 months or so mywhole life has been in there.
I went from living in, you know, an 1800 square foot single

(26:51):
family house by myself full ofmy stuff to going down to a
bedroom, and that was all in thegreater effort to get into
another property up here inChicago.
It has given me opportunitiesto, you know, get my license and

(27:11):
like, start building a realestate career and not have to
worry about some of the financesas heavily because rent's been
cheaper.
So a lot of benefits thatthat's brought to me.
But I kind of said so in movinginto these back to bedrooms I
was like oh, I can definitely dothat.
I'm gonna have two roomsinstead of one, so I can like

(27:32):
have my office set up and I canhave bedroom, and essentially
that's what's happened.
So I hit my August 1st deadlineand was literally moving stuff.
You know, on the first got mybedroom set up.
I'm sleeping on the floor on amattress, but that's a okay with
me.
It's my own space right now,which is fantastic.

(27:54):
And then I have the office setup as well.
So I've kind of just started.
This is week four.
I'm just starting to get backinto the swing of like having
more time that I can dedicate toother things, because I was in
this crunch mode where,literally, it was like I wake up
and I'd be painting at seveno'clock in the morning and I'd

(28:17):
be painting until 930.
And it was probably the paintfumes that were like keeping me
going.
You know, it was like notventilating the house whatsoever
.
It was, I think, like thehottest days of the year, like
95 degrees.
So everything closed up astight as possible, air
conditioner running, you know,just trying to stay cool.

These are.
These are really good moments.
I'm really glad we're recordingthis so that, like, you're kind
of capturing like the end, themoment.
This is what it's like.
Yeah, and it was actually.
It was actually.
Alex from OZE came out with aquote the other day that said
one thing that I wish I wouldhave done was document and take

(28:57):
more pictures of the momentsthat were like really sucky and
like.
So you just described me inlike 95 degrees, not poorly
ventilating, you know, sleepingon the floor type.
Oh, I have, those are great.
Those are great stories andwhat you know, a year from now,
when you finish the project andwhatnot, you're going to look
back at that.
You're gonna be like, yeah,remember when I was doing that.

And it's true, like, like you said, like I'm
already just talking about thesethings, I'm like I never would
have if I don't talk about themor document them, like I'm
probably not going to rememberthem as heavily like or they're
not going to be as big of a partof the story you know as they
are.
It's really important, I think,to think, reflect back on just

(29:41):
what, what you're coming throughyou know, what you're learning
from it, the takeaways, because,like, when your head is down
and you're just working onthings, you're just kind of
moving on to the next, onto thenext thing, and it's it's
important to find the takeaways.
It's important to really findthe takeaways and learn from

(30:02):
them, you know, and be able toshare them, I guess, educate
others and so.

I really respect that because, well, especially
just like what you were talkingabout, where you're coming from,
this other single family homewhere you had so much space and
then you're like, hey, I'm, thewhole goal that I have is to get
into real estate and to startbuilding a career, and how am I
going to do that?
I can't do that with the currentsetup that I have, or like,

(30:26):
with the current things that Ihave here, because I was back in
Texas right, correct, we hadthat home.
So, moving back to Chicago andlike well, saying, hey, I'm just
going to buy a single familyhome, you know then, but like
you couldn't do that, right, soyou had to make a sacrifice
there.
And I just love how you're.
Just, you know, I'm going to gointo an eight by 10, I'm going
to live in 80 square feet andlike this is going to be my
thing, until I see the next stepof buying a property and doing

(30:51):
a fixture upper and getting itto a point where we can house
hack it like it's a beautifulplan and it just kind of shows
like here's the sacrifice thatneeded to be made in order to
accomplish a goal.
And now you've accomplished agoal.

And now there's more things to come.

But I just think it's cool.
Yeah, but I think it is.
It's like you have a lot ofpeople won't make those
sacrifices, you know, and that'swhat sets just a lot of people
apart from others.
It's like the goal gettersunderstand that it's not just
setting the goal, it's likeunderstanding what sacrifices
are needed to be made in orderto hit those goals.

(31:30):
And so often people are notjust aware of, like, what they
have, that they can give up, or,you know, we're all blessed in
so many different ways.
I think that there's justthere's so many things that I
could give up.

(31:50):
There's so many things I shouldgive up, probably, you know, to
better myself.

So I think it's really cool.
You were saying like it'simportant to look back on the
reflection and like see whatyou've accomplished and stuff,
but I also think it's cool tothen compare it to what your
vision was and your goal waswhen you first set it and see if
that's aligned or if itdeviated and why.
So I guess I want to take youback to when you set the goal or

(32:19):
had the vision for buying aninvestment or a property, and
and why, what?
What was your reason for whyyou wanted to do that, or reason
for coming back to Chicago,kind of the whole, the whole
picture.

Sure.
So I guess, take me back.
I've always been very, my goalsare very.
They're my goals, you know.
Like they're not.
I don't paint a picture ofsomething because it's like, oh,
that's that's what my parentshad or oh, that's what my

(32:53):
friends have.
Like I have always been very,here's my goal and it's
something that I am passionateabout.
Or like it's my drive, it's mywhy.
Right, you have to find I'll goback to that.
It's like have to find your why.
I think I struggle in findingmy why, but I don't struggle in

(33:15):
setting the goals there andsometimes, just for my like I am
my why, you know, like you haveto do things for yourself, I
think, sometimes.
And so one of the reasons Imoved down to Texas was I was
chasing a corporate career joband that was a self made goal,

(33:38):
you know, to just pick up andmove down there.
I literally made a decision tomove to Texas on December 1 of
2016.
I was working and hadtransferred down there by
January 1 of you know, literally30 days.
Like literally friends didn'tknow probably I was moving into

(33:59):
like the 15th and New Year's Day.
I was packing up my car and enroute to Texas, like with a car
load of stuff and all my otherstuff was in my at my parents'
house and I said next time youcome and visit me, bring me my
stuff.

It's an execution .

It was.
You know it was, honestly, Ihad a lot of really negative
situations in my life at thattime and I think had I not
picked up and done that, Iprobably wouldn't be here today,
and so that was a really goodmove for me.
In general, it was a new move Ireally I needed to make, like I

(34:39):
needed to start fresh.
I needed different peoplearound me.
I needed, like I've always hadthe same goals and the same
drive to do stuff, but I waslosing myself and so, like it
was like I can't do that, likeme, let me move to Texas.
So I went down there and stayedin Airbnb's and that's where I

(35:02):
really kind of got the realestate bug.
Honestly, because I was stayingin Airbnb's and this was so,
like I said this about 20, early2017, when kind of Airbnb, like
using Airbnb room by room, allthat stuff was relatively fresh,
especially from more from theinvestment side.

(35:23):
Like you saw people using it ontheir vacation homes and stuff
like that, but you didn't seepeople buying a house to use as
an Airbnb place.
But in the Dallas, fort Wortharea, what I was doing is
finding places that were monthlong stays and I did that for
three months.
So I stated three differenthouses in three different

(35:43):
neighborhoods in the Dallas FortWorth area to learn about, you
know kind of where I wanted tobuy a house I was looking.
At the same time I had pairedup with a realtor prior to
moving down there and she wasfantastic.
I used her actually for all ofmy Texas transactions, but In
doing so so I I guess when I'mgoing with that is in my Airbnb

(36:08):
stays I met a couple of theowners.
One of them he's like yeah, Ihave four other properties.
He was a young guy, likeyounger than me, you know I
think it was 20, 23.
I think I was 26 at the timeand he was making I was
calculating, you know, off ofthe rooms that he had and what I
was paying at a 30 day.

(36:30):
I'm like this guy is making akilling off of this and this
place is not, you know, thatgreat like it's nice, but it's
not that.
It's not like when I go get anAirbnb for vacation home and
you're expecting it to be, youknow, hotel right, like it's
completely different demographicthat you're trying to to reach.
You know they were going afterthe working class that are there

(36:52):
.
Dallas had a lot of liketraveling workers at that time.
So I got kind of went throughthat, got the real estate bug
from that, bought my first Housedown there.
It was a single family Really.
For me it was a place to live.
I still wasn't interested inreal estate as investment.

(37:12):
I was interested in it becauseI enjoyed housing, which is a
little bit different.
You know, I enjoyed the housingprovider aspect of things as
opposed to like the actualnumbers behind it.

(37:32):
In fact, I really didn't startunderstanding the numbers until
I started getting more pluggedin with people up here in
Chicago but down there had thatproperty, had a pool and
in-ground pool and Learned very,very quickly that the pool game

(37:53):
is not for the faint of heart.
Yeah, I was.

How many times is your pool turned green?

let me ask you that oh, so Well, okay, so the
Texas Sun is very different.
It's very, very, you know,intense, so literally I could
leave, leave For work in themorning, the pool would be clear
and it could be green and murkywhen you come home if the
chemical balance was not right.

(38:27):
I lived next to the side story.
I lived next to one of thelargest lakes down there in
Grand Prairie, like literallywithin Maybe a half a mile.
I had snakes in my pool all thetime, dude all the time.
I mean, it was easy for them tojust slide right in and they

(38:48):
couldn't get out.
They were not little likeIllinois snakes, these were like
Big snakes and they would get.
I'd I'd get the net out and I'dfling them over into my
neighbor's yard because I justDidn't want to be anywhere else.
Oh yeah, that was my andhopefully you won't.

that's above ground pools, that's the sea.

That's why you don't go Undergroud, yeah but
the chemicals that was where Iwas.
I was probably spending 150 to$200.
I Was probably spending ahundred bucks a week on pool
chemicals.
Wow, if not more.
Like I was going through about10 pounds of shock a month or 10

(39:39):
sorry, 10 gallons of shock amonth to five gallon pills and
it was just it was not sustainedlike from a cost perspective.
It got.
So I lived in that place forabout two years, almost a little
under two years.
The last year I ended upselling it specifically because
of really the pool and just likeI wasn't using it.

(40:00):
I was working way too much andI was.
You still had to pay to upkeepit.
I couldn't just season down inTexas is pretty all year long,
all year.
I mean literally.
I had like four months that Icouldn't use it, yeah, but I
still had to put chemicals in itand still had to run the filter
, but you couldn't summon itbecause it was too cool.

(40:20):
So, um, it was a weird kidneybean shape that I couldn't buy a
cover for Like a really goodcover.
So, anyway, pools, I justlearned that like I'm better off
, just I'll use someone else's,I'll come over to you guys.

Yeah, so we just bought a house with above ground
pool and it's like a.
It's a big one and, like thefirst couple days that we owned
it, we jumped it and we swam itin and we brought the whole
family.
We had a like a little party init and then so we're doing some
work on the house right now andI went to go meet a contractor
there is about a week later and,yeah, it was definitely great,

(41:03):
was like boy, I haven't watchedenough YouTube videos on how to
like get this thing up to speedand Pay someone to do your
chemicals.

That's literally that's what we just did.
That's like the seasons of usover.

Just I can't I can't learn this right now.
Yeah, maybe I'll learn it alittle bit later.
Maybe I'm learn it from the guywho's going to service it for
me, and then you know I'll beable to take it over, but for
now no way.

The big thing is a lot of people put in their
chemicals ahead of peopleswimming.
But the real big thing is likeyou gotta take care of it
afterwards because your body'sjust throw off the whole pool.
Like just even one personjumping in the pool, it throws
it all off.
So that's one of the biggerthings that I learned is like
it's more the aftercare thatwill, and then you maintain.

That's a great that's actually a great tip.
Yeah, I just learned.
Okay, so you're in Texas, yeah.

Texas pool sold.
That place Really was aFantastic location.
So I did it.
I did pretty well there, whichpropelled me into the next place
.
The reason that I was lookingto move I was getting tired of
the commute, in addition to thepool Thing, so I had switched

(42:18):
jobs after I moved down there.
Go back a little bit, I Ended upleaving the company that I
transferred down there with andFound another job in Fort Worth
for a smaller family ownedpackaging company, which was
kind of where I thought this ismy dream, you know, like.
This is.

(42:38):
This is it?
This is what I want to do, andit it really did fit a lot of,
you know, my passions and Tookall of the experience that I had
up to that point and I followedthat had a really great team,
worked on turning this companyaround and really got to spend,

(43:01):
you know, my next three, fouryears heavily involved with this
, this packaging company.
So in doing so, I wanted to becloser to there, to that
location, so that I could.
I was getting, you know, 10o'clock calls, 11 o'clock calls,
can you?
And I'd be like, oh, I'm toofar, you know.
But if I was closer, like yeah,I can stop in there, so found a

(43:23):
place in the city of Fort Worth,literally probably a minute
from downtown.
I was one exit out of downtownwhich was really unique there,
just how the city is built like.
The city is very much so likeChicago in that it's building
West and East is like no man'sland kind of, and literally it

(43:50):
was like right East of the citylike you could be.
I was literally looking atdowntown, I could walk there,
but it was deserted.
It was the types of houses thatwere there, like people were
still living, with dirt floors,which was.
I was like what, like you meanlike dirty floors, like they're

(44:11):
just like cement and like theyhave dirt over them, like no,
like no, no, slab, like dirtfloors like these are like very
poor area and and yeah, a littleshocking.
Yeah, yeah well, this is in theFort Worth side, but yeah, still

(44:32):
Anywhere like this is theUnited States and people have
dirt floors, you know these.
So found a house, though thatwas a new construction.
This is kind of when theinvestment mindset started
kicking in, because I saw, youknow, the little bit of work
that I did, like working in thebackyard of the previous place

(44:55):
and putting up a new fence anddoing landscaping around the
pool, you know, refinishing thefront of the house.
Those like little things andlike the crazy jump in value
that I had and I was like okaywe need to?

can we?
Can we talk about that, like,what was the jump in value?
Because I I'm always interestedin other markets, because it's
just so different where you havelike in the Texas market.
Appreciation rates have donevery well there compared to
where we are in Chicago, in theMidwest.
Midwest has always been kind oflike, you know, more modest
gains type thing, but this wasbefore COVID, so this was before

(45:32):
any type of big real estateboom.

Yes, so this is really like a normal market, to
say right.
Yeah, this was coming out ofrecovery.
So this was, you know, likerecovery around 2015 16.
So things were really juststarting to like gain some
serious momentum.
I got the place for a littleunder 190, want to say it ended

(45:56):
up around like 185 with creditsand then I ended up selling for
225 18 months later and I mean Ihardly I Really like the.
The work that was put into itwas just my own labor, really

(46:17):
like hardly anything.
You know like landscaping stuffis for the most part, your
money's in labor there.
I Didn't do anything on theinside the house.
I painted the cabinets.
Yeah, I mean it was about a 20%yeah roughly 20% 18 months,
yeah, $40,000 increase.
Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, so I was.

(46:40):
I was very like that was enoughto give me the bug.
You know, like to just itwasn't you a whole lot, but it
was enough to push me into thenext place.
It allowed me to say, okay,maybe I should look at
properties from an investingperspective in general, start

(47:01):
looking at the numbers a littlebit more and how to make a deal
work and all that.
So next learning experience wasstepping into this next
property, which was a new build,new construction house and new
construction next to the dirtfloor houses.
Literally, literally across thestreet.

(47:22):
Just clarifying Literally.

Yeah, literally like for real.
If I could show you.

If I could show you these streets and like it's
like it's cool and sad and weirdall at the same time.
Like you know, these are, thisis the south, you know.
Like this is Fort Worth.
These are people that this,these areas, probably like were

(47:53):
plantations and literallythere's, like still in Fort
Worth, the plantation mansionson the hills and like then at
the bottoms of the hills, likeour shacks, like little, like
one bedroom houses surroundingthese mansions and you can
literally see it and it's just,it's just so different from the

(48:16):
dynamic that we have up here andyou, you really see, like this
wasn't that long ago.
You know that it that peoplelived like this, or that it, you
know, was this environment.
So these, these new constructionhouses I was the first new
construction house in this areaand I wanted that because I was

(48:41):
like I'm setting the price forthe house and my thought was I'm
actually going to get a littlebit of discount.
That's because they wantsomeone to move into this area,
which, all in, I feel was to betrue.
The three houses that theybuilt right next to mine all

(49:03):
went for more and, in my opinion, mine was the largest.
Like, mine was meant to be ashow house, but I bought it
before they could use it as amodel house basically, and it
was a single family, threebedroom, 1800 or 1900 square

(49:26):
foot house.
And how much did you buy thatfor?
I bought that one for I want tosay it was right around 200,
which is construction for 200crazy.
That's insane, insane.
And it was like fair newconstruction.
I would say it was economic,like because of the area right,

(49:49):
they didn't want to overbuild,but I like in the year and a
half that I lived there, Ididn't have any problems with
the house.
Now, as a like, there's littlethings that you pick like, the
house was very, very airtight.
They did a lot of foaminsulation in it, which is good

(50:12):
and bad, and the thing that Idon't like the house I grew up
in was also which is a wholeanother story, but was concrete
block house or foam insulatedconcrete and that made
everything so airtight like youwould have trouble closing the
doors because the air in thehouse wouldn't have nowhere to

(50:36):
go.
It's just crazy that somethingcan be that airtight that it
does that, but literally closingthe door will make the whole
house kind of like shake becauseof the air inside of it.
And yeah, so we had, I had thatdown there.
I started to notice like as twoyears into the house and my

(50:56):
house is like a couple morerattles than I would like, and I
started to pick up on some ofthe economic building that was
used there.
But that was my property downthere that I lived in.
I lived in that one for twoyears, so I've been on this like
two year kind of thing Now.
I lived in Texas for five yearsso I sold that house at the end

(51:20):
of the pandemic because, in allhonesty, I think people I think
my parents probably like scaredme into like, oh, now's not a
good time to hold real estate,like what if you lose your job,
like we all kind of did when wehit pandemic.
Right, it was like what in theworld is going to happen?
And so I was in primarily themeal kit industry, which is, you

(51:45):
know, hello, fresh and BlueApron that world, and so we kind
of just like, oh man, I don'tknow, like what's going to
happen.
I wanted to sell so that I hadmore flexibility to move back
home or figure something elseout Sold the house To be very

(52:06):
honest, I don't really know howwell I did on that, I think I
just kind of broke even on that.
But I had all my livingexpenses oh, that was another
thing.
I rented out the rooms there.
So I was paying maybe five or$600 to live.

So you were like every and being in, or you had
like friends, okay that yourented out to yeah cool Because
I kind of had like it was how itwas laid out, was nice.

I had kind of my my own area, my wing, and then
there were two bedrooms in thefront and so like they had their
own bathroom I have my ownbathroom never really saw each
other.
One of them was a travelingnurse friend of mine, so it was
just like really, reallyconvenient.
So sold that and then lived inan apartment down there for a

(52:58):
year as I was kind of justfiguring out what I wanted to do
, and then relocated back uphere to Chicago and that's
really when I wanted to likedive into investing and really
get my feet wet.
I had the bug I had gotten thatwhen I was in the apartment,

(53:19):
like throughout Texas, but I waslike I'm going to make a
transition to be in real estatefull time.
When I was in Texas and I wentthrough the thought process of
really evaluating like how, whatwas going on for me in Texas.
I was getting burnt out in thecorporate world so I knew I

(53:40):
didn't want to stay with thatjob, regardless of whether or
not I was to go get another jobor do real estate full time.
So I knew that there was a timeof transition coming up,
basically, and I said do I wantto do it here in Texas?
Or like, do I want to move backhome to Chicago where I can
leverage my network or havepeople around me that will

(54:06):
support me in this, which Ithink was the bigger thing, is
it's not?
It isn't so much aboutleveraging the network, is it's
about the support system that'sthere throughout the process and
that's kind of what's led us upto where we are at today.
You know I've met Jason whichis a whole nother story through

(54:28):
YouTube, so I love this wholestory.
I am not a YouTube person,Never mind.
Like all my friends are like useYouTube as Google.
I'm a Googler.
Like I will put in the fullsentence question in Google,
they go to YouTube right away.

(54:48):
We find completely differentanswers.
You know, they learn itcompletely differently.
Like they are visual.
I'm like I read I'm a reader, bythe way so was looking just to
be honest, don't know what I was.
I wanted to like get a fix andflip.
I think is really where itstarted.

(55:09):
It was kind of like here's my,my entry point.
I'm back in the city.
I was searching forwalkthroughs.
That's exactly what it was.
I was searching throughwalkthroughs, or searching for
walkthroughs, because I couldn'tfind like how do I walk through
this building and evaluate it?

(55:31):
Like I wanted videos of likejust someone walking through
with a camera and like beinglike, oh, check this out.
Like here's what I'm looking atand looking for right here.
Like to explain to the commonperson Like here, when I'm
looking at a water heater, whatam I looking at?
You know?
Or furnace, or you know in thebasement.

(55:53):
Like I was looking for quirkyChicago, because Chicago
buildings are quirky Like.
So I was looking for thenuances, like the things I
needed to be aware of, andstumbled upon Jason's videos,
and I think you did have a videolike you were walking through
your finish, maybe it wasbeforehand, something like that

(56:13):
yeah, and I was like this isthis is what I wanted, you know.
And I was like, okay, so thenfrom there I want to want to
meet this guy and just pick hisbrain a little bit and reached
out to you and we set up lunchand ended up having lunch and
then kind of the rest hassnowballed since.

Dude, I, when I got it, so that video has
actually done decently well onYouTube and all my other stuff
is done Not so good.
And when I say like decentreally well, there's like maybe
2000 views or something, and butnobody has ever reached out
about it.
And like that was when I got amessage, and it was through

(56:58):
YouTube, and it was sayingJordan wants to talk to you, or
something, I was like what, andso it was really cool, man.
And so I'm like hell, yeah, Iwant to meet this guy.
Like who the hell reaches outto somebody on YouTube and sets
up a meeting?
In my opinion, that person has ashit ton of courage and just
like knows specifically, youknow, the person that he wants

(57:20):
to talk to.
So I'm like, yeah, I totallywant to meet this guy, I want to
know, like, I want to know moreabout him.
And so, anyways, yeah, we metup, we met up and yeah, I came
out of that meeting.
I was just like, dude, that wasreally cool, because that was
my first experience of somebodykind of reached out like that.
And, and again, me puttingmyself in your shoes, I would
have never done it.
I would never done it because Iwould have watched the video

(57:41):
and I've been like great, Ilearned enough.
But I'm going to go findsomebody else and, like you know
, maybe leverage that to dowhatever, but to actually go to
somebody you know through achannel like that, in my opinion
, I think was amazing, I thinkit was really cool.

Well, you're honestly the only person I've
ever on YouTube that I've everreached out to you know so
really unique, then Wow reallyfunny.
You know like and it's not aplatform.
But I was like, how am I, howam I?
It's not a platform I use.
I'm like how am I going to findthe information?
I just felt like YouTube wasthe best you know messenger

(58:19):
conduit for that type ofinformation.
Historically, I I do likemeeting people, though like that
is my thing.
I love networking, love all thenetworking events that we go to
.

Yeah, I mean you go to them weekly here in.
Chicago.

I mean, there are my goals.

Yeah, you've been doing really, really well with
that and you've been meeting alot of people through those and
you start to see the same facesand like, are they getting a lot
more comfortable?
I mean, you just came from anetworking event before you came
here, right.

Yeah, I love it because now it's starting to be
that some of them, you know theysearch you out.
You know I've picked up on that.
I enjoy that being that likeresource.
Again, you know, we just talkedabout an individual that is a
really good conduit, you know,between people and I think that

(59:13):
that with time I'd love to beable to have that skill to the
degree that they do as well.
You know, I think that'sinvaluable skill to have, is
like being able to connect otherpeople because, especially in
today's world, like people arebecoming more and more and more
disconnected, the same, the sametool that we were just talking

(59:36):
about, youtube that connected us, is also like our own worse
enemy, right, because it'staking us away from connecting
with all these other people.
You think, oh, I can just watchthe video and I'm good, but
it's that's just the beginning.
You know there's like so muchmore behind that.
That's important and so muchmore to learn that you can't

(59:56):
convey through a video.

Dude, that's awesome.
So I really love that point andspecifically what you're
talking about.
You're talking about so beforewe started we started the
recording, we were talking abouta guy who's always at these
networking events and he's ayoung guy, he's in his young 20s
and he seems to know everybody,which is impressive.

(01:00:18):
And then what he does is thathe will go.
If he recognizes that somebodymight be a good fit for another
person, he will stop theconversation that he's having
with that person and say, hey, Iwanna go introduce you to that
guy over there, and he just likebrings them over and it's an
amazing thing because I've neverseen that really done.

(01:00:41):
And then to have it done by ayoung 20 year old to me that is
an impressive skill, and I thinkthat's what you're talking
about Is like you're trying toget to the point where, hey, I
can know enough people and thenrecognize who could have nice
synergies by meeting each other.

Jordan Warner (01:00:56):
Yep, I think he does an excellent job too.
I was just thinking about this,like in the questions that he
asks when he's in thoseconversations that pull out like
what you need.
You know, I think it's so oftenwhen we're having conversations
with people around us, like wearen't telling people what we

(01:01:17):
need and I hear this a lot.
I mean it's just like just ask,because a lot of these people
around there like that's allthey want.
The satisfaction that a persongets of like being able to
connect someone with anotherperson is huge, and so if you
pick up on someone's need andyou can just help them move that

(01:01:40):
ball one step further, like youare ahead of everyone else.
That didn't do anything.
All you have to do is sometimesmake that connection to a
person, and so I think it's likethe most simple thing, yet it's
also like the most complex atthe same time.

Jason Wagner (01:01:57):
Yeah man, like let's go a little deeper on this
, because think about, like,what that could mean when you
connect one person to anotherand then they build a really
tight relationship and that likeexplodes their business or it
just takes them to another levelthat they never thought that
they would go.

You were the common thread in that.

Totally, yeah, and I've had that experience
specifically and I've gotten alittle salty about it but like
where I connected a contractorto another guy and he was an
investor and also another agentand he has basically taken the
contractor and like made hiswhole business around him.
And when I had initially kind ofconnected him, I was just like

(01:02:41):
you know, this is a guy who'sjust gonna like help out, you
know, with some of the jobs thathe has, but now he's like he's
ingrained him into the business,and I got a little salty about
it because I'm like, well, youknow, now I can't use him.
But I think that was likereally foolish of me to say that
, because as I think about thecontractor and his business and

(01:03:01):
like where he's gone because ofthat connection, it's actually
done amazing things for him andI'm so glad to have actually
made that initial connection.
I wish I would do that more andso I love that you're just like
saying like this is a goal ofmine because of the fulfillment
that I can get from that, andthen what it does is somebody

(01:03:22):
else.

Yeah which you know, to go a little bit deeper
there too.
That's one of the driving wisefor me in real estate in general
is, although I have an investormindset I will say that I don't
always wear the investor hat Iultimately, like I want to be a

(01:03:44):
good housing provider for peoplethat need a house.
You know, like I'm not looking.
I want the satisfaction ofbeing able to provide a service
to someone in particular, likean underserved demographic.
You know, that's where I get alot of my personal fulfillment

(01:04:09):
and that's what like, honestly,that's why I live in the
neighborhoods that I live in,you know, and you know, have the
situations probably, that Ihave.
But it's that's like one of thedriving forces that will wake
me up the next day to keep medoing what I'm doing.

(01:04:31):
And I think it's so importantto get that why again, everyone
says it but to get that whybehind what you're doing.
And it takes me, it's taken mea long time to understand how
and what that why is, and Ialways kind of want to tie it

(01:04:54):
back to money.
I think everyone in some wayshape or form a lot of their
why's tie back to money, andmine doesn't, you know, in it's
really it's hard because I wantto make a lot of money, right,

(01:05:15):
but I don't see that as like mywhy and so it's it says why do
you want to make money?
I have no like.
The only reason I would want tomake more money is so I can be
a better housing provider, youknow, and provide more.
But I feel like if you're onthe front end doing and

(01:05:39):
providing a good service, thenthe money will come.
It's always been something thatI've been told, whether or not
you know that's just a gimmickto keep you moving and keep
doing good.
You know the money will come.
No, but like, truly like that'sif it's about the money, like
that's not gonna get me up atevery single day.

(01:05:59):
You know I've had very plushyjobs where I've done very well
and that I'm not there right.
I took 50, 60% pay cut to moveback to Chicago in a city that
probably has 50% higher livingcost than it did for me to live

(01:06:20):
in Texas and I am A-OK with that, wouldn't take it back.
You know, for a second, it mademy goals and everything that
much more difficult to achieveup here in being able to save
spending more money on food.
You know, like all of thesethings, I had to make more

(01:06:40):
sacrifices, but that's, I think,what really then honed in on
the why a little bit more for meand really I've been able to
nail that down within the pastcouple of months.
I would say Like I still wouldalways try to search for the why
that was tied to, like thefinancial gain and what I, again

(01:07:03):
kind of going back to that likewhat I would do with the money.
But it's for me it wasn'tfocused on the money first,
because of then what I can dowith it.
It's focused on what I can dowith the resources that I have
and then hopefully I'm blessedwith more of those.

essentially, you just have a good heart, man.
You want to help a lot ofpeople and you want to help the
underserved and you want to dothat by providing.
What it sounds like is justproviding, being a housing
provider, right, which isanother word for kind of you're
being a landlord, but we call itthe housing provider because
it's got more of the softness toit and you know it's being in

(01:07:43):
those underserved communitiesthat are in Chicago and they're
all, and there's a ton of them.

Absolutely.
I take a lot of lessons fromLevi on that.
He does a fantastic job andit's fared him very well.
I feel like he has been blessedby what?

Rachel Wagner (01:07:58):
he does.

So I think, that's something I think we're in.
Yeah, it's a great pointbecause another another
Greystone broker, levi Kane.
He has built a portfolio in theunderserved communities and you
know he doesn't discriminate onanybody right and he doesn't do

(01:08:22):
as intensive background checksand things like that.
He knows he goes and meets thepeople and he gets to know them
personally.
They may not be able tocommunicate that well because
English may not be their firstlanguage, but he's able to
figure out through GoogleTranslate and talk to them.
These are good people and I'mgoing to rent you and it's an

(01:08:43):
amazing like softness to it andI think that's what you're yeah
what you're heading towards too,yeah absolutely, it's a big
goal of mine this year.

I've also just this past month, joined an
organization, ucan, so they arelike primarily in the North
Lawndale neighborhood that'scorrect, I need to let me fact
check that and they focus reallyon, like, high risk youth and

(01:09:20):
so like that I see and deal withas one of the largest issues
over, in particular, the Westside and underserved communities
in general, and so in this pastcouple of months I'm joining
the board, an auxiliary boardfor them.
I'm going to get really try toget more plugged in with just an
active community-basedorganization that's like

(01:09:44):
actively working to improve thecommunities that they're
involved in.
Because I think that, goingback to the being a good housing
provider thing, it's not justabout the housing.
There's so much that goes intothat and it takes a lot of
private public partnership andso I don't want to just be the

(01:10:06):
landlord or the housing I want.
I guess I feel like that housingprovider going to make the
softness thing ties in with likethe people that are more
involved.
Like the landlord is justcollecting your checks.
They're collecting rent everysingle month.
They show up on the first andthe second, third if you're a

(01:10:27):
little bit late and you see themnext month.
But I feel like true, like thepeople that call themselves,
housing, providers are generallymore active in the community.
They want to see that they areinvesting, not necessarily 100%
based on the numbers, but basedon location, and they pride

(01:10:52):
themselves on being able to putout a community-based you know,
a community effective product,which is really how I want to
steer myself.

Community effective product it's a good
way to describe it, and I justwant to give them to do your
thoughts a little bit on,because a big thing in some of
these kind of transitioningneighborhoods is, you know, I
look at Humble Park, for example.
Humble Park, as you move westof the park, still a little

(01:11:30):
rougher, but like even, and notthat long ago, even at the park
and kind of a little bit northof it, like all of a sudden that
area has really changed and wehave over a million dollar homes
that are selling there, whichis really interesting, and so it
kind of like just brings aquestion to you of like, okay,
this is a big gentrificationtype product, right?

(01:11:53):
And so, going off of the termthat you said, you know a
product that designed forproduct, for neighborhood, right
?
What's your thought on likegentrification and like what
that does to communities?
And is it something that youknow is, how do housing
providers kind of like assist inthat?

(01:12:14):
Front Floated question.

I know it is, you know, but it I probably don't
necessarily take the popularview on it and that I think that
gentrification albeit we'rejust going to use that word I
think that word has a lot ofnegative connotation for a lot
of different reasons that areunrelated to investors going in

(01:12:38):
and changing the housing.
I think a lot of gentrificationhas to do with the commercial
side of things as well and Idon't think that gets as much
attention.
You know it's the people thatare coming in and knocking down,
build multiple buildings andputting up a 40 unit building
that are really going to startlike changing a lot of those

(01:13:00):
areas to the point where it'sgoing to gentrify huge.
You know, like that's what youstart to see.
Or you did see in Humboldt,wicker, you know, 25 years ago,
logan, 15 years ago, you knowyou started to see buildings
disappear.
But so to that point, I thinkthe gentrification that's

(01:13:26):
occurring is necessarygentrification and that these
houses are going.
They're going to dilapidate,they're going to deteriorate if
you don't have people go in.
Unfortunately, on the West sidethe houses are.
There's some beautiful housesthere that have just been

(01:13:47):
trashed.
They're not salvageable.
There's a lot of property onthe West side that has
historically been just abused.
And so I think that there's alife cycle for real estate in
general, and I think that rehab,gentrification, you know

(01:14:09):
whatever you want to call it isa necessary component of that.
And that comes at a cost, right, like that's when the rents
increase, that's when the andthat's just business in theory,
the people that have lived thereor are living there should also

(01:14:29):
the wages should be going up.
They should be able to affordto pay more, you know.
So I think, without getting toyou know, talking about the
people that are ending up moving, you know, I think it does
become kind of a people problem,and I think that's probably the

(01:14:52):
unpopular perspective on that,and that it's things can't stay
the same forever, right, and sothere's always going to be
change.
And then there's people thatdon't want to change, and so
it's like you either keep upwith it and you're keeping up
with your buildings, and if youwere investing in your building

(01:15:15):
over time, then it's notnothing's going to change with
that building, nothing'sgentrifying.
People aren't moving out.
You know it's been regularturnover.
It's the disservice that thehousing provider is actually
doing by allowing the people tolive there at the same rate for
15 years and then they turnaround.

(01:15:37):
So it's kind of almost like acrutch the landlord has done in
there by saying I'm just notgoing to put any money into this
building and I'm going to letyou stay here at $700 a month
for 15 years.
And then when they look up andrents 1500 a month, you know 15
years later then what are theygoing to do?

(01:15:58):
They haven't adjusted, theyhaven't, it's not budgeted, it's
not you know.
There's the whole lifestylechange for them.
And so I think it's a lot, of,a lot of disservice that the
industry has done in Chicago, inparticular.
There, that kind of causes thegentrification or causes the

(01:16:23):
flight or the movement of peoplein that gentrification process,
because in theory you know thepeople that are living there.
Everything should have beenincreasing or appreciating or
adjusting with time.

Over and over.
There's a phenomenal reflectionand analysis on gentrification,
and I think the piece thatstood out to me the most was
like the reframing of it, ofit's a life cycle, right Like
everything can't stay the sameforever, and so you choose to
update it gradually over time,with the market and with typical
maintenance and upkeep, or youdon't, and as a result, later on

(01:17:05):
you're going to have a reallyhigh jump all at once.
I just think that was aphenomenal analysis.

I mean, I agree, man, that was really good.
I agree, and I agree with a lotof your points.
I think that it's hard to keepthings the same and to want to
keep things the same, especiallywhen you've got neighborhoods
that aren't performing well.

(01:17:32):
And yeah, man, I sorry Itotally unloaded that one here,
but you answered it beautifully.
You answered that beautifully.
So yeah, yeah, no.
So I love it.
Thanks for your insight, yourJordan.
All right, we're, we've got to,we've got to wrap up on this
one.
But so this was a greatconversation, dude, I want to
like I honestly I could go foranother hour because you

(01:17:55):
probably could.
You have you have so muchreally good insight and really
good story, and so as soon asyou kind of like probably get
the house done, we'll probablyreconvene and have you come back
, because there's there's somuch more to tell about what
you're doing.
Yeah.

Videos.
You got to provide walkthroughsfor that next person who wants
to move to Chicago.

Yeah man, the basement Walkthrough.

Well, something on YouTube.
Oh okay For that person who'slooking for.

I got you Yep.
So how we do wrap up ourepisodes is we ask, like, what's
the big, biggest takeaway fromour conversation tonight that
you want someone to kind of walkaway with another loaded
question?

I think the biggest thing is is don't be and
I don't want to pick an answerthat, like everyone always says,
but take the first step In thefirst step.
I think a lot of times, like inthe real estate world, for
example like they're saying, oh,just jump in, take the first
step.
And that first step, they'recalling, is like buy your first

(01:19:05):
property.
Well, there's a lot of otherthings before that that are
truly like baby steps, and maybeI don't want to dive into this
too much.
One of the big things that Ilearned excuse me, one of the
big things that I've worked onis I get really overwhelmed when

(01:19:27):
I set these big, lofty goals,and so I had to take a second
and say, okay, how can I breakthat big goal down into the
smaller ones?
And really, for me personally,the big one makes me overwhelmed
.
Sometimes.
For people, that's the carroton the stick, that's what they
need to keep them going.
For me, if I have that big,lofty goal, I'm going to anxiety

(01:19:50):
, sweating.
It's going to not happen.
I had to learn how to set mygoals and so, setting those
small ones, the first step mightbe having a conversation.
First step was probably justgetting on YouTube and literally
like what am I looking for?
And then finding something thatI, a way that I could learn,

(01:20:12):
and then making that connection.
So I think, to wrap that in anice little bow, biggest thing
for me is, like biggest takeaway, setting small goals and taking
the first step on those smallgoals.
Don't get blinded by the large,lofty goal.

Yeah, that's great.

Well, you're rich.

I think for me it's similar to that and that
don't be afraid to reach outfirst or to reach out to
somebody you don't know and makea connection, because it can
create an opportunity for youand snowball into something.
And, as you pointed out, today,people gain a lot of

(01:20:56):
satisfaction from helpingsomebody.
And I mean I think you reachingout to Jason on YouTube was
beneficial for you and getting aconnection here in Chicago and
getting some questions answeredthat you had over lunch, but it
was also really satisfying forJason to have somebody reach out
and want to ask him questions.
You know, and so I think youhad mentioned that earlier.

(01:21:19):
I just think don't be afraid tojust ask for help or reach out
to people, because it willsnowball into something a lot
more.

Yeah, and it's like, for me it's all about how
do you build momentum.
And real estate is, and it canbe very hard and it can be very
detrimental to people if theycontinue to focus on, like, the
losses that come from it becauseit's difficult right To get
your first transaction as a realestate agent is hard to get

(01:21:49):
somebody to trust you to want togo through the process right Is
the biggest decision thatthey're going to be making
financially and as an agentbreaking into the business, it's
extremely hard to get thatfirst one.
But it's all about how do youbuild the momentum and keep the
momentum going and it comes fromconsistency and it comes from

(01:22:10):
the small steps that you weretalking about and it comes from
just doing the work ofconnecting and going to
networking events, gettingoutside of your comfort zone and
as you do all of those thingsover a period of time in which
the money will come.

(01:22:32):
Going back to your comment, themoney will come Well, it totally
does when you understand thetime horizon that needs to be
put into the real estate spacewhere you don't get paid
immediately.
This is delayed gratificationfor a long period of time and
you have to know that going intoit, but if you can keep the

(01:22:52):
momentum going and understandingthat the money will come,
that's where, in my opinion,like it all starts with momentum
.
And how do you build momentumand how do you keep making it
bigger and bigger and bigger,that will eventually get you to
a place that makes a lot ofsense.
So, and to go after the why andlike establishing what the why

(01:23:13):
is, I think was a really bigthing too.

Yeah, I think a lot of people never established
their why they kind of fumblearound aimlessly, like using
like the carrot on the stickwhich is pulling you instead of
pushing you.
In my opinion, you know it's,and it's completely different
thought process, dude awesome.

This was great man .
So if somebody want to getahold of you real quick, best
way to do it YouTube.

I don't channel.
I don't think I have any videoson there.
Probably a text or call me773-451-5001.
Can shoot me an email as well.
Jordan atGreystoneRealtyChicagocom.

Sweet.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Appreciate the conversation,man.
This was awesome, absolutely,and if you found value in the
show, please share it.
This is a great story andthere's a lot more that can be
learned from Jordan, so we'regoing to have him on again as we
continue to go down his journey.
But thanks again and we'llcatch you on the next one.

Sounds good, thank you.

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21. Live In Renovation: Jordan Warner's Journey Into Chicago Real Estate

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