Lost $100K on His First Flip—Now He Closes 30 Deals a Month and Owns a $20M Portfolio | Tommy Harr

Summary

The Science of Flipping: Episode Summary

Title: Lost $100K on His First Flip—Now He Closes 30 Deals a Month and Owns a $20M Portfolio | Tommy Har
Host: Justin Colby, Bleav
Guest: Tommy Har
Release Date: April 11, 2025

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1. Introduction to Tommy Har

Justin Colby welcomes listeners to a compelling episode featuring Tommy Har, a seasoned real estate investor who transformed a significant early loss into a thriving $20 million portfolio. Justin highlights Tommy's impressive journey from starting as a property appraiser at 23 to building a multi-seven-figure transactional real estate business by age 30.

Notable Quote:

• Justin Colby [01:19]: "This man was able to start in the business at 23 years old. He was a property appraiser and now has built a multiple, multiple seven figure a year transactional real estate business and owns over $20 million in assets."

2. Early Struggles and the First Major Loss

Tommy recounts his initial foray into real estate investing, which culminated in a $100,000 loss on his first fix and flip project. The failure stemmed from poor contractor management, emphasizing the importance of clear scope and swift decision-making.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [00:00]: "If I could go back seven years ago and start telling people about my first house hack, I lived in my damn living room and rented all my bedrooms out."
• Tommy Har [04:16]: "The reason we lost so much money was because the contractor I hired, I should have fired him within a couple weeks."

3. Learning from Failures

Tommy discusses the lessons learned from his first flip failure, including the importance of hiring diligently, setting clear expectations, and being prepared to make tough decisions quickly. He stresses that failures are part of the journey and essential for growth.

Notable Quote:

• Tommy Har [00:00]: "Fail, fail often, fail fast and get to the next level."

4. Building a Diversified Business Model

Currently, Tommy's business is evenly split between wholesaling and flipping, focusing on direct-to-seller strategies. He emphasizes volume and efficiency, managing multiple deals simultaneously to maintain a steady cash flow and asset accumulation.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [05:21]: "We're primarily, I would say like 50 to 50, wholesale to flip."
• Tommy Har [06:24]: "We do anywhere from 10 to 15, sometimes a month on the wholesaling side, and then we're doing another 15 to 20, 25 flips at any given time."

5. Marketing Strategies and Lead Generation

Tommy outlines his robust marketing approach, which includes cold calling, TV leads, and direct mail. He highlights the effectiveness of niche targeting and maintaining a strong local presence to dominate his market.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [07:50]: "We're heavy on the cold call and we just implemented TV leads. They've been crushing."
• Justin Colby [07:36]: "Talk about how you built your legion. What does that look like incrementally, like percentage bases."

6. Building and Managing a Sales Team

Tommy details the structure of his sales team, which includes full-time acquisitions, disposition agents, transaction coordinators, and virtual assistants. He emphasizes the importance of training, process documentation, and hiring young, motivated individuals to handle cold calling.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [08:53]: "We've got two full-time sales, direct to seller acquisitions, a full-time dispo, a full-time TC, and a bunch of VAs on the back end."
• Tommy Har [11:25]: "We're using four-line dialers and we're calling those around the clock..."

7. Advice for Solopreneurs and Scaling Businesses

Tommy advises solopreneurs to focus on mastering cold calling and lead generation initially. Once they achieve consistency, they should outsource these tasks to virtual assistants to scale effectively. He underscores the importance of building Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure smooth operations as the team expands.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [13:04]: "Pull a high equity list or an absentee list and get on a four-line dialer. Learn to get over your fear of being on the phones."
• Tommy Har [21:14]: "Outsource everything internally except sales right away. Virtual assistants can handle list pulling and data management."

8. The Importance of Coaching and Mentorship

Both hosts emphasize the value of coaching and mentorship in accelerating success. They discuss how having a mentor or coach can provide tactical guidance, reduce the learning curve, and prevent costly mistakes.

Notable Quotes:

• Justin Colby [26:01]: "Everyone should be recognizing that there's always the people that say you can get all the information for free on YouTube but no one's there to hold you accountable."
• Tommy Har [27:23]: "It's usually an ego thing, like your situation is not unique to everybody else in the world."

9. Accumulating Equity vs. Passive Income

Tommy explains the strategy behind accumulating rental properties as a long-term passive income stream. He highlights the significance of understanding debt restructuring and the benefits of building equity over time to achieve financial freedom.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [25:15]: "You can get good debt and people pay you rent, you pay that down and you make cash flow on it."
• Justin Colby [31:13]: "Just stacking them up is a slower game but it's definitely not sexy."

10. Understanding Construction and Deal Underwriting

Both Tommy and Justin stress the crucial role of understanding construction in evaluating and underwriting deals. They provide insights into budgeting for different levels of property renovations, which can significantly impact the profitability of a flip or rental.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [35:12]: "If you're buying from a wholesaler, most wholesalers know nothing about a house."
• Justin Colby [35:39]: "Understanding construction can make or break a deal."

11. Branding and Advertising Techniques

Tommy shares his approach to branding through TV commercials, portraying his business as family-owned to build trust with sellers. He discusses the effectiveness of personalized direct mail and leveraging social media to enhance brand presence and lead generation.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [39:37]: "We say, 'We're a family-owned company here in Columbus and we buy any type of house, cash offer.'"
• Justin Colby [40:02]: "I love the branding, dude."

12. Final Advice and Encouragement

In closing, Tommy encourages aspiring investors to persist through failures, seek mentorship, and continuously educate themselves. He highlights the importance of documenting one's journey and staying authentic in business practices.

Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Har [41:30]: "Be yourself. Don't create a business that you hate."
• Tommy Har [43:51]: "You gotta figure that out and you can only do it for yourself. Nobody's going to come save you."

Conclusion

Tommy Har's journey from a significant early loss to a successful real estate portfolio underscores the resilience, strategic planning, and continuous learning required in real estate investing. His insights into marketing, team building, and the importance of mentorship provide invaluable guidance for both novice and seasoned investors aiming to scale their businesses effectively.

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Key Takeaways:

• Embrace Failures: Treat setbacks as learning opportunities to refine strategies.
• Diversify Strategies: Balance wholesaling with flipping to maintain steady cash flow.
• Invest in Marketing and Sales: Robust lead generation and a skilled sales team are critical for scaling.
• Seek Mentorship: Learn from experienced investors to accelerate growth and avoid common pitfalls.
• Understand Construction: Accurate deal underwriting based on construction knowledge enhances profitability.
• Build a Strong Brand: Authentic branding and consistent marketing efforts build trust and attract leads.
• Long-Term Planning: Accumulating equity through rentals requires patience and strategic debt management.

Follow Tommy Har:

• Instagram: @TommyHar05

Final Quote:

• Tommy Har [44:15]: "Appreciate your time and go out there and crush it."

Transcript

[Tommy Har]

If I could go back seven years ago and start telling people about my first house hack, I lived in my damn living room and rented all my bedrooms out. If people knew that more and like, just document your journey and understand that this stuff doesn't happen overnight. It's a. You stumble around. If you're like me and you didn't get help in the beginning, you stumble around for a year, two years, three years, and then you figure it out. Find somebody in your market or around the country that does what they say they do, vet them out, give them your energy and they will take you to the next level. So it's not as hard as you do it by yourself, but it's still going to be hard. Fail, fail often, fail fast and get to the next level.

[Justin Colby]

What is up? The Science Flipping Family welcome back to another incredible episode. I have a really good friend of mine. He is an absolute stud in the real estate space. If you are under 30 years old, you are going to want to listen to this. And by the way, if you are over 30 years old and aren't quite where you want to be, you're going to want to listen to this. This man was able to start in the business at 23 years old. He was a property appraiser and now has built a multiple, multiple seven figure a year transactional real estate business and owns over $20 million in assets. Tommy Har is here. What is up, dude?

[Tommy Har]

What's up brother? It's been an honor to get to know you and been in the mastermind with you for a while but actually connected a few months ago and it's been, it's been a, it's been a great time.

[Justin Colby]

You quickly became one of my favorite people and so I was very excited to do this and part of it is just, you know, I'm firmly believing in the, the, your network, you know the saying of network and net worth. But like really I make more money by creating real true friendships by real connections, not by spending money on ads. And so immediately we connected in Orlando. We just basically hung out the whole time we were in a, you know, suite, the basketball game, just talking about real estate. And I was just so impressed. I'm 43, so I have a lot of years on you. But to be able to be where you're at at 30 was so impressive that we just talked about this episode. We said we got to have you on and teach, by the way, this is absolutely for people over 30, but I would also say if you are under 30, I want this to Inspire you to know what is real. And then if you're over 30, I want this to be like one of those, okay, if this guy can do this, you know, it's about time to kick my ass in gear. So you quit your job, you went all in. You did your first fix and flip and lost six figures. Let's start there, because I think most people are terrified to even get going. I don't think I know most people are terrified to even get going. In the space for the exact example that you're about to give, you got into the business, you said, hey, uncle, let's go flip a home together. Let's do this. It'll be our first. We're going to win, get rich. And you lost six figures. Right. That is why people don't do it. And then what I want to leave here with, everybody is understanding. Tommy's still in the game. Tommy's making multiple seven figures a year. He has 20 million in assets after that loss. So let's start with that loss.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah. My uncle approached me right before I graduated College, which was 2017, and he was like, hey, do you want to invest in real estate? And I said, no, I'm going to work for my pop. So that's where the home inspection background came from. I've always been working with him. And then I started doing inspections for investors, doing draws. So I went back to him and I was like, hey, we should think about flipping houses. I'm seeing all these people win. So, long story short, we ended up buying this house in Columbus. Columbus is not an expensive market, but we bought this five bed, six bath house for $420,000. It took us 18 months to fix it up and resell it, and we ended up losing $100,000 on that. So the reason we lost so much money was because the contractor I hired, I should have fired him within a couple weeks. The scope of work was super gray and vague. So there were change orders everywhere. We didn't even, like, say who did labor, who did material. So it was just like the classic the blind leading the blind. And now I know that you just. You hire fast or you hire slow. You fire fast. You got to really learn to set expectations properly, not just for contractors, but anybody you go into business with, even new, like, business relationships and friendships, and then stick by it. Like if. If it says to fire the person, fire them. You have to stick to the things you lay out. So. Learned a lot of really good lessons during that first flip.

[Justin Colby]

For sure, contractors forever will be the vein of My existence. It doesn't matter how many years I do this, there's always something that pops up. You're like, I cannot believe this is happening. Right? Yeah. And that's why I really encourage people. I'm not like a wholesaling coach. That's not who I am per se. But I do believe to minimize your risk, wholesaling is the best way to get some money flowing. Would you agree? Absolutely. You know, listen, I'm. I've done thousands and thousand transactions. I've done thousands of wholesales, fix and flips and I've done a lot of buy and holds. You know, given the place that you're at right now, what is most of your business made up of? And then why? Because I know. Like me again, dude, I'm so impressed with you. This is why you're one of my favorite people so fast, is because you are essentially me 13 years ago. But you've done it at 30 instead of being 43.

[Tommy Har]

Right.

[Justin Colby]

You're wholesaling or fix and flipping or buying and holding. Talk about that. Talk about what you're currently doing. Like what does it look like right now? And then why, why do you wholesale? Why do you fix and flip? Why do you buy and hold? Why do you make those decisions?

[Tommy Har]

Yeah, we, we're primarily, I would say like 75. Actually it's probably 50. 50, 50, 50 wholesale to flip and then maybe like a 5% if you can go to 105 holding rentals, mostly for tax purposes, just because the market I'm in, Columbus Flow just isn't there in the market rate environment when we're shooting this high sixes mid sevens, even into the eighth, sometimes on a DSCR standpoint. So we just decided that we were going to go, continuing to go all in on wholesaling and just being really good at finding really good deals. So we're doing anywhere from 10 to 15, sometimes a month on the wholesaling side, direct to seller. And then we're doing another 15 to 20, 25 flips at any given time. So we've split it in half. We kind of divided the businesses and we run them like that because before we would wholesale and then we would buy our own wholesale deals from the company. We wouldn't pay a wholesale fee. But I've got sales guys over there. So we were starving that business of cash over and over again. And we realized we, we were making less on flips than we projected that we were going to make. I mean, that sounds pretty normal, but that's a good lesson. For people be super conservative.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah.

[Tommy Har]

And you're never going to make as much as you think. So we just look back and we're like, we know we should have made more money. Where was it at? So it was dividing out the wholesaling first. First thing on direct to seller is wholesale. And then if we think we can get more or it's just a weird deal, we'll take it down. But that's kind of the mix of the business right now.

[Justin Colby]

I love it. And so what are the marketing strategies that you're doing that. Because at volume, Right. To do anything in multiple seven figures you have to have a volume of leads. You have to have a dialed in sales team. Talk to me about where you're getting the leads. You know, I was one of the proponents to go national when Covet hit. I was like, go national, go virtual. You don't need to be local, you don't need to do this in your own market. Stuck to your market, which is a great market by the way, and just hunkered down. I was one of the proponents to say go nationwide ppc. Right. Go wide with your cold calling all these things. I think people are slowly starting to come back to like, hey, stick to one market. Probably your market. Right. People are coming back there. So talk about how you built your legion. What does that look like incrementally, like percentage bases. And then talk about like the sales team and how you're converting the leads that you are getting.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah. So like, like you said, I, I love the idea of going deeper, not wider. I want to dominate my backyard. And then if I feel like there's no more opportunity to go out, people just scram out too fast and they're like oh, it's not working. And they make an excuse. It's usually excuse based. It's not really data driven.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah.

[Tommy Har]

So the, the way that we are going direct to seller. For the last six years we've been primarily cold calling and texting. So now texting is a little bit the wayside. So we're heavy on the cold call and we just implemented TV leads. So I started TV leads three, four months ago. They've been crushing. So we're, we're doubling down on that and then we're doing some back end direct mail on the niche things that come in, leads that don't convert quickly on that side. So to really create that strong brand like hey, make sure you watch us on the news if we're talking to the cold call. So everything's kind of now being Symbiotic. Yeah. But we've got two full time sales, direct to seller acquisitions. We've got a full time dispo, we've got a full time TC, we've got a bunch of VAs on the back end doing our data management, our lead management. And then recently we've changed our outbound cold calling to mostly hired VAs, mostly in Egypt to we're hiring young guys because of social media. They want to come work for us. So we're doing a lot of like boiler room type cold calling on really, really niche lists that we had for years and years and stacked in REI sift. So we're really, really good results on that just because we realize if you want to go deeper, you got to get better. So just not doing things that other people aren't doing and committing to it. It's been a, it's been a really good challenge. It's been fun. And then we also have a JV acquisition. So anything business to business relationship, he's doing anything that comes to me through Instagram, I'm, I'm handing it off. Anything from wholesalers, realtors, building relationships to where we, we're not actually spending the marketing dollars, but we've got the human capital going after those.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah. So talk about your internal boiler room. I love that model because you're able to, you know, I created a REI live specifically for like the newer people where it's essentially that we do it over zoom and I'm making the calls or watching you do it. It's a boy the room feel. Talk about like, what lists are you using for that? Like, what are those niche lists you're really focusing on? And then, yeah, you know, what are you seeing as, as a result of that boiler room in office feel? As many of you know, I'm constantly on the move, juggling multiple businesses, traveling, and ensuring I get my morning workouts in. Staying fresh isn't just a preference, it's a necessity. But let's face it, after back to back meetings, juggling two kids at home, and the hustle and bustle of everyday life, body odor can become an issue. But here's the deal. Mando has revolutionized how I stay fresh. This isn't just another deodorant. It's clinically proven to control odor better than a shower alone with soap. My favorite scent, Bourbon Leather. It's fresh, is subtle and doesn't clash with my clone. And I was surprised by how well the solid stick works. Even after an intense morning workout. Mando's starter Pack is perfect for the new customer. It comes with a solid stick deodorant cream tube deodorant. Two free products of your choice like a mini body wash or a deodorant wipe. And free shipping as a special offer for listeners and new customers. You get $5 off a starter pack with our exclusive code that equates to over 40% of your starter pack. Use code [e-mail] that is S E H O P M A N O.com Please support our show and tell them we sent you smell fresher, stay drier and boost your confidence from the head to the toe with Mando.

[Tommy Har]

So number one is we're calling probates and we're pulling those directly from the county the days that they're dropping public record. So we have VAs going in scrubbing. I mean this is gold stuff. If you guys are trying to actually get niched data, pulling those hand skip tracing them and then pushing them into a cold caller. And we're using smartphone, we use four line dialers and we're calling those around the clock and then those guys are in the office. So our acquisition guys can help train them. They can help with word tracks and then if there's a hot transfer, we just hot transfer them over which cold calling, it doesn't matter that much speed to lead, but it definitely helps hearing the conversation and pushing it over right away. We've had I, I think like 10 deals in the last two or three months directly just from those live transfers from our cold callers. We're paying those cold callers $300 a week. So $300 a week. If they close a deal, they get a bonus. But it's more about the being in the office. They're younger guys usually and they want to just feel and see what it's like to run a real estate company. So you can even do it for free if you've got. But, but you have to build a brand to do that. People are reaching out now, hey, how can I work for you? And that's one of the ways that we're doing it is putting interns into every single one of our businesses. And we're about to do that on, on the, on the dispo side, the junior disposition and kind of do that same model.

[Justin Colby]

So what would you tell the solopreneur, like if you said right now here, dude, here is your game plan. Every day you do this, you pull this list, you make these calls, you drive these neighborhood. What are, what would you suggest for the Solopreneur, even if they've done a handful of deals but they haven't been able to get consistent at it. Like what would you tell that person? Someone who's never done a deal and. Or they've done a couple but they don't really have consistency on it.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah, never done a deal. I mean pull a list from, let's call it prop stream, get a 99amonth account. Pull a, pull a high equity list, free and clear list or a absentee and get on a four line dialer. So you just got to learn how to just get the nose. You got to learn how to just get over your fear of being on the phones. Really that's all it is is training yourself mentally and then continue to work through that. But if you're a solopreneur and you're actually making money, you've actually done deals, you shouldn't be spending your time cold calling. You should hire that cold calling out. You should be using some sort of virtual assistant to drive that lead flow on the front, front side. So you're actually talking to warm leads instead of. And they kind of backtrack a little bit. You should be doing 500 to 900 ish dials a day on the solo side and that should drive one to two leads a day if you get good. So are you, do you want to spend 3, 4 hours on a dialer and get told all the time or get hang ups or do you want to be on the side where you're actually picking up warm leads? The, the difference between those two is going to be money. Do you have the money to spend on that marketing?

[Justin Colby]

That's right. And most people knew they don't. And maybe they have some money but I'm not a big advocate of telling them to go spend it. Right. I would rather sweat equity in make the dials, get the four line dialer. You're using smartphone, right?

[Tommy Har]

Yep.

[Justin Colby]

Okay. And there's other dialers out there. There's mojo sells and there's whole tools, whatever. So I'm, I'm totally indifferent on who and what you use.

[Tommy Har]

They're all the same.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah. But at the end of the day, I believe what you believe. Which I, I believe in going wide. We have a mutual friend Gene, right. At ISP to lead. He has different plans and I think it's brilliant. I tell him this all the time. I was actually teaching to his community. He has the more expensive exclusive lead. Then he has like coupon codes that they're not exclusive leads but they're way less money. Right. I believe in spending less money and having more lead options. I don't care if it's exclusive. Me.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

Right. There's some people that love the exclusivity. No one else is working it. My. My true opinion, I don't know if I can totally prove it, but like that same person that they found, that same person went to other websites, have been around somewhere else. Maybe not by them, but on other. They may have gone to your personal website, opted in. Now I feel like this is exclusive because of the. I'm the only person in their world. But they also are talking to you because they found you organically. So I say that to say I believe in everyone. Going wide. I want you guys to talk to as many people as possible. Right. Our boy Brandon Daniels talks about it. Right. Like more conversations, the better off you're going to be. Because then and where I want to take this conversation for you, then you have a sales cycle. Then you have a. Are you a good salesperson or not? Right. There's two levers that really matter. Marketing and lead generating and then sales.

[Tommy Har]

Yep.

[Justin Colby]

One is usually broken. Most people in. At our level, you're in my level. Most people actually feel like it's I need more leads.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

I actually will tell those same people that have been around and still are like, you actually probably should be focusing on your conversion cycle more than driving in more leads.

[Tommy Har]

Yep. I agree. I agree.

[Justin Colby]

And so talk to us about your sales cycle. Talk to us about what you do, how many leads you're getting to a deal, how much are you spending cost per deal right now? Like give us some of the KPIs of what you run your team meetings. Like, hey guys, you know we have this many leads coming in. We're expecting this much conversion. We're expecting this dollar cost. We're expecting. What are you, what are you looking at when you're running those meetings?

[Tommy Har]

Yeah. So I will caveat and say my business partner Andy, he runs most of the sales stuff, but I do know the numbers. So we're about 30 leads to contract right now and then 27 leads to closed on the, on the cold calling side, we're 1 to 8 or 10 on the TV lead side. So those are quicker. They're ready to close faster, but they're more expensive. I think we're about $4,000 cost on the TV and we're about $1,200 for the cold call. But the sales cycle, like you said, is way longer. So we're touching these people 20, 30 times, maybe more. And it's about four to six months on. On those to get them closed.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah.

[Tommy Har]

So it's been way quicker.

[Justin Colby]

That is. That is the challenge that most people don't understand is the reason why people like myself, for you, like I do tv, direct mail, ppl. I stopped doing the PPC because partly I'm slowing down the whole national thing. I'm choosing the markets I want to be in. But people always want the fast button. That fast button, a lot of times means cutting a check, right? I mean, what do you do? What do you know the number you're spending every month? What do you spend every month on? We're spending.

[Tommy Har]

We're spending $15,000 alone on TV, plus probably a 2500 agency. So any between 15 and 20 grand, and then we're spending another 10 to $12,000 on cold calling, CRM, skip tracing, all that stuff. So we're super lean. We're really good with our data. We're not pulling a lot of lists all the time because we've been in one market for a long time. So nothing's really that new. It's just recirculating the data.

[Justin Colby]

Well, you're spending 30 grand a month roughly, right? 25. 30 grand a month. That is the fast button. That's what I tell people. Oh, you want it right now? Then just pay your way there like that. So it's the same equivalent of like Disney World, right? I go to Disney World a ton of my kids. I buy the fast Pass every time. It is ridiculously expensive. It is $200 a day, plus you have your normal ticket, which is like $100. So essentially it's $400 for the day. Right? Just the tickets. That's not the foods, it's not everything else. Then there's another level in Disney World where you can have an actual escort, like a VIP escort that takes you behind the scenes. You're not in the crowds. So last time we went, I paid six grand for that person. Right? Because I'm like, dude, I don't. I want convenience. I want speed. I want. Now I bring up the analogy to say the same thing you're saying is people need to understand if you want that level of speed of getting your first deal and or getting consistent deal flow, you have to be ready to cut the ch. Jack. Agreed.

[Tommy Har]

Agreed. And that that also doesn't include commissions too. So, I mean, we're stroking huge checks on the commission side. I mean, our guys are making at least 10 to $15,000 a month. So you got to be ready to spend the money. But also if you're listening to this and you're like, I'm not to that point yet. Don't spend the money unless you're ready to. If you got to get good on the phones, you have to make every single lead count, especially if you're doing out or inbound. So those are just truly expensive. You can quote, unquote, waste cold call leads because they're really cheap. We're like 35 to 45 a lead right now, dollars wise. So, like, if you say the wrong things on the phone, you're not throwing away a $5,000 PPC lead. That's really important.

[Justin Colby]

That's right. And, and so that's the challenge that I find most people is they start spending some money. Like I have one of my coaching students that he's made a couple bucks, so he's like, all right, Justin, what do I start spending money on? I'm like, bro, you just got to be ready to spend money over like a six month run. Like, do not get scared on month two or month three that you haven't made money back because you need a sales cycle. You need to bring in the leads, nurture the leads, and then convert. And so I tell people all the time that like, if you aren't there to run for six months, don't do it. Put in the sweat equity. Right? I mean, even, even something like a high speeds their, their program, like relatively cheap leads for 30 bucks or whatever they are like, yeah, fine, do that. Don't go. Spend 15 grand on, on TV for one month and freak out and then go, I'm screwed. Right?

[Tommy Har]

And then blame, and then blame tv.

[Justin Colby]

And then, and then blame tv. Oh my market GB ads. Exactly. Sorry, that's, that's not the game. So speak to the person that might be growing a little bit. You know, the, the transition between getting your first handful of deals and then growth. Right. So you and I are part of masterminds together. You know, I'll go and speak on scaling and growing and scaling, but scaling is on the other side of this, right? You're at the point of scale. Tommy's at the point of scale. Most people, most are either just getting going or potentially growing. Right. They've done 5, 10, 15 deals. They've made a couple bucks. They have some confidence now. We need them to grow. Their business needs to grow. Talk to that guy or girl who's trying to grow their business.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah, I mean, I would say the first thing you need to do is specifically like a wholesaling company. You need to outsource everything. Outsource internally the everything that's not sales right away. So virtual assistant is typically going to be your best option. So somebody that's going to be able to pull your list for you, do your back end data, do all the busy kind of BS work that you have to do in a wholesaling business to where you're only on the phone. So you're on the phones and then once you're closing a bunch of deals a month, let's call it three to five deals a month, maybe less, then you hire an acquisition. But know when you bring somebody on, then you're taking a couple steps back to buy your time in the future. So you're not going to be closing the deals. You might even some of those deals might not close that you are going to be on the phones with. So you got to just be okay with taking a couple steps back, knowing that in the future it's going to be worth it. And then also as you're right now doing it by yourself, building SOPs for everything. So as you're on the computer in the morning, loom lom your, your screen and just talk into it like a third grader. And those are going to be the way you train your employees. Because most people, once again, they bring on a VA or a team member and they get so busy that doing other things that they're the VA ends up sucking quote unquote. This isn't going to be on camera, but they, they suck. But it's really because you didn't have enough time to train them and you're not giving them the time and to nurture. And we've learned that just so many times we've helped people hire VAs and it's more into. You have to, you have to be ready for those people. So build those SOPs, build those training docs and do it slowly. Everybody wants to scale and scale fast, but it's it, it's all about people and processes and it takes time.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah. You know, listen, I've done this business for almost two decades. This business. Right. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of people that don't give enough. I don't want to say respect to it, but like credence is a word that comes like you can't measure the stick. To me, it's right. I've done it for two decades.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

It's a long time. And so like even you who've done this now for eight years. Nine years, right?

[Tommy Har]

Eight, nine years.

[Justin Colby]

I have a decade on you. Yeah. I've built it so I don't have to even be in my meetings. Right. Like now I enjoy what I do. But, like, imagine what you've done in eight years. Imagine putting another eight on it.

[Tommy Har]

Oh, yeah, it's going to be great.

[Justin Colby]

Where are you going to be? Right? But people don't look at it that the way they look at it, like, oh, what happened this month or last month? Or how have I done so far this year? We're in April. Like, guys, stop. Like, what I would hope to encourage people listening and watching this right now is like, give yourself the Runway to actually win, to be the next Tommy Hart, to be the next Justin Cole. Because if you start to follow Tommy Har. And by the way, go follow Tommy right now, like, literally one of my favorite humans. Go to his Instagram. Probably is the easiest place. What, Tommy Har 5 or 05?

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

Yep. Tommy Har 05. Go to his Instagram. He will help you in all ways possible. But you have to understand he's eight years into it. So if you're less than eight years and you're in eight days, eight minutes, eight months, give yourself the eight year Runway to measure. Tommy, don't give yourself eight days, eight weeks, eight months. Give the Runway. He gave himself. Right. Like we talked about when we started his first deal, he lost six figures on, but he didn't give up on that. He didn't get knocked out, he got knocked down. No one likes that. But he kept going.

[Tommy Har]

It took me 24 months to make a. A real dollar in the investing space. Now I was making money with my dad doing home inspections. I was learning. So, like, another thing that people don't talk about and it's the same type of concept is career capital. So how long are you going to actually stick to something and are you taking something out of it? So if you're in a job right now, what can you take out of that to go into real estate investing and crush. For me, it was home inspections. So I was learning a real trade that nobody can be taken from me. And the. The common theme is houses. And the thing that wholesalers and sometimes even flippers miss is the fucking house. Like, how is that? And that's kind of the light bulb in my head was like, these people don't know anything about houses.

[Justin Colby]

That's right.

[Tommy Har]

This is crazy. So it was kind of just this light bulb that everybody was coming to. Their GC or their inspector or their realtor to help them talk about the house. But they learned the marketing, the sales, but the house was the big piece that they were missing. So I was like, oh, this is the angle I'm going to take. I'm going to run with this and this is going to be my differentiator. But it has to, it takes time to build that. Like, I was a terrible real estate investor for three years. I was just fumbling around. I didn't, I didn't have a mentor at the time. I just was thought I could do it on my own and had I had a mentor when I first started, I would be way ahead of where I'm at now and I wouldn't have lost a hundred grand in my first flip because they would look me in my eyes and said, tommy, you're an absolute idiot if you buy that deal. So it's just the more, you know, believing in things, believing in yourself and also having somebody get you over that.

[Justin Colby]

Humphrey. Yeah. Listen, there's, you know, this isn't meant to sell coaching, but you guys all need coaching. I don't care who is right. If it's Tommy, great. If it's me, if it's anyone else, if it's like. But if you are going to go try to do this alone, then you're just mistaken. I mean there's. Everyone should be recognizing that. There's always the people that say you can get all the information for free on YouTube but no one's there to hold you accountable. No one's there to tactically tell you what lists and when and how and conversion site like no one is there. There's difference between, you know, picking up a book and have several books right here, I just can't reach them and reading it and then that same author walking you through exactly how to do those things. Right? That is the difference is information versus tactical education. And then you can go implement, right? And so everyone here should be doing that. Otherwise you will make big mistakes. The same reason why I invest in coaching each and every year is yeah, I've scaled my businesses now where I'm at a level I've never been at, right? I. I've never been here. So how the fuck do I expect to be able to keep growing and keep going up this mountain when I'm already at the highest place I've ever been? I have no line of sight how to keep climbing the mountain I'm climbing because I've. This is the highest, right? So just understand the perspective of it.

[Tommy Har]

It's usually an Ego thing, like you're, your situation is not unique to everybody else in the world. Like somebody's been where me and you have both been.

[Justin Colby]

That's right.

[Tommy Har]

Because in the same position as you. And I'm like, okay, can we go fumble around and figure this out ourselves? Sure, but why not just lessen the learning curve and go pay somebody for their time that can say, do this, this, this, this, and it'll get you to the next level. Right. But you actually, like, there's two different people. They, they pay for it and they don't implement it. And there's like, oh, okay. But then there's people actually take heed to the advice and they run with it. And those are the people that continue to grow. Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

And, and it's funny because I just got off the phone this guy, his name's Philip, he's in my REI Live co community. So he's a newer side. He just kept hanging in there, right? Like REI Live. I've only had REI Live for like four months, right. And he wasn't seeing the traction he wanted. He wasn't getting the results he wanted. And then I would kind of call him out on the call and like, hey bro, did you make the calls? And. Oh yeah, man, he hits me up today. He's like, bro, I've. I've actually got two deals in escrow with buyers, a non refundable earnest money. And I called him personally, right? He's not a one on one coach. I don't usually do that. Like if you came in, said, tom, you know, if we had a one on one, I'd call you personally. I call because I just wanted him to understand the value that he created for himself was the proof that he could do it if he just kept going, right? If he just kept doing the thing. Right. And so it's just, it's really impactful for people to realize you gotta hire a coach and then keep doing what they're advising. And listen, there's plenty of bad coaches out there. So I, I don't know what to say about that. But if the coach is reputable and has been there before and you can look at their resume and say, okay, this guy or girl has done what I'm do, then listen to them and act on it. Because like, I hired a coach this year because same thing I told you. Like in businesses I have four different verticals I'm running right now. I'm at the peak of all of them. I'm like, I need someone to help me operationally. And understand how to build a business higher. I heard the rock say, when you reach to the top of the mountain, build more mountain. Right. Like, and I thought that was brilliant. Right?

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

Is. Yeah. Well, now this new mountain I have to continue to climb. I don't know it. So it's. It's an easy investment to say, hey, dude, I need to bring you on to help me get there.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah. And in the beginning of somebody's journey, if somebody's brand new here, listening, like, it does work. That was the thing that got. Kind of got me through the first failure. And one. I'm not afraid of failure still. Like, I still fail all the time. I still have deals that lose money. I mean, we. We talked about that when we were together last.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah.

[Tommy Har]

But if I'm listening to, let's say, a podcast like this, how many episodes have you had?

[Justin Colby]

800.

[Tommy Har]

So if it is 800 episodes and everybody on there is a successful real estate investor that you. You just suck at what you're doing now or you've not been in it long enough. So reassess what you have going on and do it better, but don't quit, because this. This. This vehicle does work. And that was my mindset after that. I was like, okay, I know real estate works. I've seen it. I know people loud locally. I've been exposed to the fact that it does work. I just suck. I need to figure out a different angle for this. So I went back home, moved in with my parents again at age 24, and I just reassessed. I spent my last couple of dollars on postcards, started wholesaling that deal, didn't I? Got three calls from $800 worth of postcards. One of them ended up being a deal that I couldn't sell. So I raised private money from a family friend, flipped that house, made 50 grand, split it 50, 50 with her, and then moved on. But if you quit after that first one, it's done. You're over. And you wouldn't then now have in my shoes, $20 million worth of real estate or flipped over 300 houses and wholesale over 300 houses. Just impossible. You got to keep going.

[Justin Colby]

Do people need to be buying rentals now or first? Or should they be focusing on just the transactional side?

[Tommy Har]

Oh, transaction. And I'm always speaking from the set, from the eyes of somebody that has no money in the beginning, because that's how I started.

[Justin Colby]

That's right.

[Tommy Har]

You have. You have to start with your active income streams. Wholesaling or flipping. Those are gonna be the ways to, to, to buy rentals. But I think in the beginning it's also good to learn all of the exit strategies because I, I have a finance degree from the University of Dayton in Ohio. They never taught me about debt, they never taught me about good debt, they never taught me about cash flow on assets. So as I was learning about this stuff, my mind was just open to this. Oh my God, this is crazy. You mean you can get deb is and people pay you rent, you pay that down and you make cash flow on it and they appreciate in value. So when I learned that, I was like, this is the greatest fucking thing in the entire world. That's what I want long term. That's the way I'm setting up my family. But you will go broke fast. In an interest rate environment like today, especially trying to just stuff rental properties into a portfolio. You have to have an accumulation phase and you have to have active income stream to get you to that point. But in five, probably 10 years, you look back, you're like, that was cool. I now can restructure debt and I don't really have to work as hard if I don't want to. That's what the like 10. You have to have a 10 year time horizon.

[Justin Colby]

Yeah, you're exactly right. I think. You know my biggest mistake I've ever made, and I say this all the time from stage, is it wasn't the seven figures I lost on a development, it wasn't the seven figures I lost on apartments and things of that nature. My biggest mistake wasn't buying rentals or portfolio properties sooner. I'm not talking about at scale, I'm not talking about the apartments, I'm not talking about one a month. I'm talking about like one a year. Right? Like just something because then you can start to build equity. And you talked about repositioning debt. If I were to buy one a year 18 years ago and never sped that up, one a year, I would have 18 homes. A handful of those homes probably would be owned free and clear because I would have gotten like 15 year mortgages on them. Sure, many of them would have 75, 60, 50% equity. Then I can go reposition debt on some homes that are free and clear, put more debt back on them because they're performing assets, take that money potentially put in my pocket tax free, but then just go double down. And now all of a sudden I'll have 36 rentals instead of 18. And it happened overnight because for the last 18 years I've been stacking them up right is is it's really a slower game and it's definitely not sexy. And I tell you, as someone that has a lot of rentals, it is not by any chance passive even when you have property management groups at all. Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy Har]

That's the stuff I fell in love with man. Just the idea of reposition. I never understood repositioning the money too, like the tax free money you can get. And I truthfully, I've been buying rentals for seven years now. It started with a house hack, then another house hack and just started accumulating. I'm not even to the repositioning phase yet. Like I've just been accumulating these rentals knowing that in the future. Now I'm stuck, I air quote stuck on some debt that I bought. Like some Property is about 19 to 21 that have amazing debt on them and I struggle between do I pull that out tax free. But the stuff I have for the last four or five years, I'm going to restructure at some point. But you have to accumulate that equity to be able to do it and you don't have to do it with down payments. If you like we talked about active income, you can go and be an amazing wholesaler. But in the back of your mind knowing that every now and again the really good deals, buy them with private money or hard money, fix them up. Like everybody talks about refinance out. Like that game is really real. I know people kind of gamify it on Instagram and online, but it is life changing. It does work. But you have to learn how to find good deals and you have to learn construction that no, no if, ands or buts about it.

[Justin Colby]

Yep. And that's the what I've seen after almost, you know, 12 years of coaching individuals, the construction component.

[Tommy Har]

Yep.

[Justin Colby]

That's where a lot of people drop the ball. And I mean listen, even today, 18 years in, I get contractors that like do some nasty to me and totally lie and you know, whatever. So some of it out of your control to some extent. But understanding construction really can make or break a deal. I did a training last night to, I don't know, a couple hundred investors and basically I said there's three ways to actually get more deals. And one of the three is understanding how to underwrite the construction component.

[Tommy Har]

Absolutely.

[Justin Colby]

Because for someone who's going to be doing a rental, that construction component might be way less than someone who's going to be doing a fix and flip or even a brrrr. Right. So if they're going to be doing a burr. You're going to probably want to put in a good amount of money. It's going to be the same thing as kind of a fix and flip because you got to force the appreciation so the bank can take you out. Absolutely. But if they're just buying a rental like a normal rental, not necessarily burring it, then your construction budget might be like 10 grand that they're just going to put in to paint some stuff, rip out some carpet, replace the carpet. Like you won't have a big construction budget. It's not a burr. But if you underwrite the construction. Right. You'll convert more deals. Because even as a wholesaler, there are so many landlord type buyers out there. That's why I love Columbus. That's why I love price points. You know, Cleveland right now, we've done a lot of deals in Cleveland. Not my favorite city. But the price points are just good flips and good rentals.

[Tommy Har]

Yes, they are.

[Justin Colby]

Right. And so I would tell people, understanding construction is really valuable. I will tell you now my what I call bubba math. If you are going to be doing what I call like a repair, remodel, paint and carpet, simple nothing like you're not moving wall, like repair. $30 square foot, you can bank on. That's pretty close to where you're going to end up if you're doing a rehab. New kitchen, new bathrooms. Right. New paint. 50 square foot. If you're doing what I call a redo. This is where you probably got to redo the electrical, probably got to replace the windows, probably got to move some walls, probably got to do like just you're redoing the home. Right. That's 70 square foot in most markets. That is not going to be true in San Francisco or you know, Miami. Like it's going to be more expensive. But if you're in Columbus, if you're in Charlotte, if you're in Oklahoma City, like these are the markets at 30, 50, 70 is in. Good baseline understanding.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

Of where you're going to underwrite that to. And then depending upon like Cleveland's a great rental market, you're probably not doing a lot of 70s. You're probably really a lot closer to 30s depending upon the condition. Some of these houses are terrible. But you got to understand that. And you'll do more deals.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've gotten so many deals just because I pointed things out to sellers that they had never even heard of. Because you, you get in this mindset that this, they own the House, so they know everything about it. Right. And that's just not true. So if you can be a Swiss army knife and you can educate them on actually what's going on and not be sharky like you can actually educate them in find good deals or if you're buying from a wholesaler, most wholesalers know nothing about a house. They stumbled into a deal, especially new ones, they stumbled into this deal, they might be off. Instead of telling them that they're an idiot and that they're off on their numbers, typically it's overvaluing the arv, over undervaluing the rehab. So there's no margin. Educate them on the house and tell them why. This is it. This is because in a market like I'm at in Columbus, I've got houses built in the 1800s where they literally went down to the quarry, grabbed rocks and built a house out of them.

[Justin Colby]

Yep.

[Tommy Har]

All the way to 20, 25. So you, you have to be able to look at that and be like, okay, I've got knob and tube, I've got galvanized plumbing, I've got cast iron, I've got plaster versus a 70s. House doesn't have any of that. So you got to be able to gauge buyer's risk. You gotta understand that there's different margins with those deals and you gotta be able to evaluate the deals better. But it all starts with age of house and the construction of the homes.

[Justin Colby]

Amen. I see you're wearing our boy Tony. Are you 10x TV too?

[Tommy Har]

Yes, sir.

[Justin Colby]

I love our guy Tony. He runs my TV. He runs your TV. Anyone who's got some budget 10x TV, that's, that's the name of the game. Tony. Javier, they're phenomenal. Look them up. They're great. Say Tommy and Justin sent you.

[Tommy Har]

And then crushing on the TV side. It's been fun. I, I didn't put my ugly bug on there. Just me. I've got a nine month old and a beautiful blonde wife. So I put them two in the commercial with me and it's been absolutely crushing. But that's. That. That was my differentiator. I had a two other people that were better.

[Justin Colby]

What, what does your commercial say? I mean, is it like we're a family trying to buy, like, do you. Is it a different script?

[Tommy Har]

Yeah, it's fam. We're a family owned company here in Columbus and we buy any, any type of house, cash offer, kind of, kind of the basics. But that hits though. Oh yeah.

[Justin Colby]

Gosh. See, again, I'm doing it in a market that I don't live in. So I still do that well, but I don't, I can't say I'm a family owned company here.

[Tommy Har]

And honestly, I don't go to the, I don't go to the actual appointments. My acquisition manager does. Yeah, obviously. But I mean, yeah, we, we try to say, I mean that's in our cold call pitch local, like once again, dominate backyard. That's kind of the. Been the bread and butter.

[Justin Colby]

I love that. And, and I think more people are getting back to that. And I'll tell you another thing that even I'm considering diving in deeper again is direct mail. I pulled back from direct mail when Covid hit and. And now I'm like, God, I think there's a lot of people like me that pulled back.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

And they still haven't really jumped back in. I'm gonna go pretty hard in again on the direct mail.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah, I mean I. We use resimply as our CRM and he did a presentation at Family and the mastermind that me and Justin together and he said that year over year, direct mail is the best deal. Generating lead source there is. Whether or not that gets cost efficient is one different thing. But they have the data that, that closes the most deals. So it definitely works. So we're trying to get really, really niche with that and say like anybody that we get a cold call lead in our va, then preps a, like a personalized letter from me, it's like, hey, my thanks for. This is us. This is our commercial. Our office is in this area. Would love to work with you. So really diving deeper into that, that.

[Justin Colby]

Branding, dude, I love it. Tommy Har05 Is your Instagram?

[Tommy Har]

Yes, sir.

[Justin Colby]

What do you, what do you want to leave the people? Everyone needs to go follow you. What do you want to, you know, is there anything we didn't cover here? What do you want to leave the people with on what they can do? Whether they're just getting started, they're growing their business, they want to start following Tommy. They want to be the next Tommy. What would you want to mention to them?

[Tommy Har]

Be yourself. Don't create a business that you hate. So social media has been a huge driver over the last two or three years. I, I sucked at it for two years. I figured it out after the second year and it's been growing for the last two, maybe three. And it's helped my deal flow. It's helped me maybe raise private money. I raised millions of dollars from social media posts. So what I mean, by this is document your journey. If I could go back seven years ago and start, start telling people about my first house hack, I lived in my damn living room and rented all my bedrooms out. If, if people knew that more and like, just document your journey and understand that this stuff doesn't happen overnight. It's a. You, you, you stumble around. If you're like me and you didn't get help in the beginning, you stumble around for a year, two years, three years, and then you figure it out. Find somebody in your market or around the country that does what they say they do, vet them out, give them your energy, and they will take you to the next level. So it, it's not as hard as you do it by yourself, but it's still going to be hard. Fail, fail often, fail fast, and get to the next level.

[Justin Colby]

And I'll even highlight what you just said. You lived in the living room of your duplex multi unit and rented out the bedrooms. That level of sacrifice is rare.

[Tommy Har]

Yeah.

[Justin Colby]

So I want to highlight that for you because I think everyone out there needs to understand what is the thing you're willing to sacrifice. So I have my five success principles. First, you have to decide what you want and who you need to be to get it. So that first principle, the who you need to be, that's where the sacrifice comes in. Do you need to be Tommy Har living in his own living room, sleeping his own living room, renting out the rest of the bedrooms, not having his own bedroom so that he can financially house hack this? Are you that? Is that who you need to be? Is that the sacrifice you need to make to get what you want? You have heard my story time and time again about sleeping on couches, etc. Like, what is the thing that you need to sacrifice to be to get what you've decided you want? Make a decision what you want and then decide who you need to be to get it. Tom, you've done a brilliant job with that. I appreciate it.

[Tommy Har]

You gotta sacrifice, whether it's time away from your family, time away from your kids, sleeping on a couch. Like you said, you got to figure that out and you can only do it for yourself. Nobody's going to come save you.

[Justin Colby]

That's right. That's right, guys, go follow Tommy. Go make sure you're in and around his world. If he ever makes any offer to work with you, do it. I'll tell you now, this guy is the real deal. If there's any way that you could get coached by him, do it. He's amazing great human. Go follow him on Instagram. Brother, I appreciate you sharing some wisdom here on the science of Flipping.

[Tommy Har]

Appreciate you guys. Appreciate your time and go out there.

[Justin Colby]

And crush it if this has helped you guys. If there's one or two nuggets that you think other people need, share this with least or your friends. I'd greatly appreciate it. See you on the next episode.

[Tommy Har]

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[Justin Colby]

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[Tommy Har]

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[Justin Colby]

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[Tommy Har]

Restrictions. Appreciate.