Joe:   Hey, what's going on, guys? Joe McCall, Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast. Got a special guest today. His name is Bobby Triplett. And we are going to be talking about renovations. Now, you heard me say many times, I hate rehabbing. It's like adult daycare. Well, this is why I wanted to get Bobby on the podcast today. Now you might be flipping land. You might be doing houses, commercial, residential, multifamily. Stop what you're doing and pay attention to this podcast. Bobby's in a mastermind that I'm a part of called Family Mastermind. And I heard him on one of these coaching calls, not a coaching calls like a group call, and I reached out to him. I said, Bobby, I'd love to get you on my podcast, talk about what you're doing. He's working for a huge company called Offerpad. Many of you have heard of Offerpad, and he's got an amazing story. I can't wait for him to talk about it here. But he's doing something really unique where he is actually doing renovations for other investors. Even though you might belike, I don't want to hire somebody else to do it for me, he would get it done faster and than you could if you did it on your own. And we're going to be talking about his story here. And he gave me some crazy numbers. He's done over 40,000 flips, 40,00. All right. At one time, Offerpad was doing about 1200 deals a month, 1200 deals, a month. And he was involved with them when they first got started. Right now they're only at maybe 300 a month they're only doing maybe 300. Now this is crazy because I was, I was fascinated about this. And this is a really long introduction, Bobby, sorry. But I remember it's like, Oh, I've want to talk to somebody who is part of these big hedge funds and kind of what was their story. How did they get into the business and what are they doing now? Are they still buying houses today? Even though rates are going up, aren't they going to be? I've been hearing they want to slow. These hedge funds have been slowing down for years now. And guess what? They really haven't. They're still buying tons of deals and their appetite is still really, really There's a lot of money out there. All right. And so the other cool thing that Bobby's doing, he's doing 225 rehabs right now for investors outside of Offerpad's community whatever company so he's actually swinging hammers on 225 different houses that are not offer pad houses so anyway Bobby welcome to my show how are you man?

Bobby:   Joe, that was the best and maybe the longest introduction of my life, but I love it.

Joe:   Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

Bobby:   No, you're good. I'm glad to be here.

Joe:   All right, so let's talk about your story. How did you get into residential real estate? What were you doing?

Bobby:   So before that in what I tell people another life, I was a pastor. For 15 years. And I was in full-time ministry, went through a divorce. And when you do that, you kind of got a life-altering moment where, okay, I'm going in a different direction. And one of the guys that was in my church was the president of the Invitation Homes Florida at the time. And he's like, hey, man, I just need a leader. Can you come help us? And so that was a lifeline that felt like very on purpose. And little would I know, 10 years later, I've made a career in the single family rental and the by our industry of real estate. So, I went and worked at Invitation Homes Tampa, managing, we had about 7,000 houses at that time. And we had, I was in charge of rehab, turn, and maintenance. I was a number two for the guy who was running that whole market. And I learned a lot. I learned about a lot of what not to do. And a few years after being there, I would approach by Invitation Home, or excuse me, by Offerpad to help start the company. And so, I the first renovations hire outside of our headquarters, which was Phoenix, and I live here in Tampa, and the rest has been history. Eight and a half years later.

Joe:   Let's talk about how big these companies are. Maybe someone has not heard of invitation homes or Offerpad.

Bobby:   Yeah, over 100,000 doors that Invitation Homes owns nationwide and still owns. Still. Oh, still owns, yes, sir. After they're probably the largest of maybe the second largest single family rental institutionalized SFR that's out there.

Joe:   So Invitation Homes, were they ever purchased by one of these other Black Rock?

Bobby:   So Blackstone had owned us, the Treehouse Group. I mean, if you've ever seen The Big Short, there's a lot of people that were in that movie or in that story that were integral and, you know, propelling the whole SFR industry out into what it is today from this.

Joe:   That's so far single-family residences.

Bobby:   Single-Family Rental.

Joe:   So who owns Invitation Homes?

Bobby:   They're publicly traded now. It was a Blackstone-owned company at one time.

Joe:   It was yeah, and then offer pad comes along and that how long ago do you start with Offerpad?

Bobby:   Eight and a half years ago, and the company is just about nine years old.

Joe:   And then how big did they get at the biggest? What were they buying?

Bobby:   Well, we went public and I had the honor of standing at the podium at the New York Stock Exchange when we rang the bell together with our CEO and some of our other leaders. We were like almost like one point something billion dollar evaluation that was on it. We were doing, like I said, 1200 houses a month. This is right at COVID and for the next two years we did that like it was going out of style. 26 markets, 16 states, I mean, not full nationwide, but a really good chunk of the largest MSAs that are out there. It's been a wild ride. I mean, honestly, just getting to learn how I renovate a house in Tampa is not the same way that I would renovate it in Texas, not the way I would approach it in Missouri, not the the same I approach it in Minneapolis, you know what I mean? And just that whole education of what to do, what not to do has been pretty incredible.

Joe:   Now, I remember you guys, maybe I'm hoping getting this right, you were one of the first ones to kind of come out with a website that people could opt in and get an offer on their property from the website. Am I right about that?

Bobby:   Up until this year, 100% of the properties we bought, people go to Offerpad.com and we'd make them an instant offer on their house. That's where you get iBuy or Instant Buyer, right? So we would, that's how we acquire. And there was a website, you could put some information about your property, a few pictures, and it would spit out an offer.

Joe:   But you were one of the first ones, if not the first one to do that, am I right?

Bobby:   Yeah, correct. So us and then one of our largest competitors, Opendoor, at the time, Zillow was in it for a while. They and Redfin was also in it. For a while, those two companies are not doing the eye buying anymore. Yeah, us and Opendoor, we still actively are purchasing homes through our

Joe:   Yeah, that was amazing. I remember when that came out, I was thinking, this is the end of wholesaling as we know it. Right? Like the end of wholesalers as we know it. And I remember wholesalers at the time were like, oh my gosh, like these stupid hedge funds are coming in with all this money and paying more than anybody else. You know, they're going to run us out of business. And turned out the quite the exact opposite happened. You know, it's like all of a sudden now wholesalers have a new buyer to sell their deals to. And you know, there was a lot of us at the time that were selling a ton of deals to the big eye buyers, the big hedge funds like you guys. All right. So you get into the renovation game. Now this was what was Crazy to me when we were talking about this. By the way, at Chicken and Pickle, is that what the place was called? That's where we went, man. My first time, too. Bobby's in St. Louis. I'm like, Hey, well, let's go have a drink or something. So we were like, where do you want to meet? And his hotel. And I was at my daughter's volleyball practice and it's chicken and pickle, which is a place that you can have eat chicken and play pickle ball.

Bobby:   Well, I think so. No, it was snow on the ground and people were still out there playing. It was pretty cool.

Joe:   And playing ice hockey too. So like, it was fascinating. I was talking to you about this kind of what you do and how you're doing it now. And Offerpad has this division in their business and you guys are very, very big company and you're rehabbing your own houses but you had this crazy idea of like, hey, let's rehab other people's houses too. Is that right? Talk about how that whole thing happened. What's the evolution?

Bobby:   At the end of 2022, our largest competitor came to us and asked us to re-renovate a few hundred homes of theirs that were not performing well on the market. And we've got a reputation for what I would call like a comprehensive renovation. Like it's not, hey, one size fits all or not just, hey replace that one piece of trim because it was on an inspection board. No, let's make it look like the house is on purpose. And so they had asked us to renovate a hundred houses and we did in record time for them and those houses that were not performing, I mean, they were dormant on the market for 100 plus days had all moved within weeks of us being done with them, you know, on a disposition side.

Joe:   When you say moved, were they leased or were they sold?

Bobby:   Sold. So they were sitting dormant because the product was not market ready and they'd asked us to come in and make it market ready for them and it was a pretty cool partnership honestly, you know, doing that with your largest competitor. Our CEO, Brian Bayer came to me and he's just like, hey, with rates going the way they're going, we need to leverage your renovation teams to help one drive revenue for the company, but two, it's going to keep everybody busy. It's going increase your buying power as our volume goes down because we, I mean, you said earlier, a lot of the big funds that chose to get a little bit more conservative on their acquisition appetite, making sure that the buy boxes were exactly dialed in, you know, as there's not a lot a margin for error right now. And so to supplement the business, for the last two and a half years, I've been creating partnerships around the country with single-family rental companies, big REOs, some ofthe Big Hedge funds. But recently, honestly, in the last six months, it's been less about the institutions and more about the private fix and flippers or the private shops, the single family rental shops where they're doing, instead of doing a hundred deals a month with somebody, I'm doing like five to 10 deals a months, but I've got 10 to 20 of those clients right now. So it pencils out one way or the other. But what's incredible about it is, sometimes it happens when you are doing business for big machines of companies, it can be a little bit of what have you done for me lately, or it could be like, hey, that's great, next, you know what I mean? And when we in the last six, nine months been renovating for a number of private fix and flippers. I know I'm changing their company's future because my systems, my speed, my network, my whatever we have, they can't afford to go have multiple million dollars worth of salary and boots on the ground and now they're getting a tap into my team and it's awesome. I feel like I'm in the best way possible, I'm proud of what we're leaving with each one of these investors.

Joe:   All right, so the mom and pop investor here in St. Louis, Missouri, has got five properties they want to rehab. Or the wholesaler that's trying to get into rehabbing, you know, he could go out or she, buy the properties, go find the contractors, hire a manager maybe, or have a bunch of different contractors doing this work. You can come in though and get it done faster and cheaper and better than that guy could. How does that work?

Bobby:   Yeah, I mean, the biggest way it works, I've got an incredible team and I've got boots on the ground in every one of our markets, both like a renovation director, who's like that, that market expert, and then he or she's got multiple project managers that are geographically hired all the way around. So that way we're reducing windshield time, we're increasing efficiencies, and they're managing local subcontractors, local specialty trades, local laborers, local suppliers. So that's the first part of it, right? My team, I 100% am just a talking head without my team. And the second thing is volume transactions. So in renovation, we call it the golden triangle, speed, quality and cost, and you only get two out of the three. I kind of get two and a half, right? Because my purchasing power, I'm able to really put some standardized pricing that's out there. So the mom and pop where they're trying to get a bid on every single item or, hey, trying to find just what's on a sale rack, paint wise or flooring wise to put in there, because I'm only using PPG paints and I'm buying millions of gallons of PPG paint every year, I'm able to get that at an extreme volume discount because I only use Mohawk flooring and I buy the same two LVPs and millions of square feet. I'm be able to help give those savings to our clients that the mom and pops are not gonna be on their radar to get volume-based deals. For me, like my suppliers, they're just happy that I'm buyin' paint and movin' flooring so they don't care as long as it's comin' through the offer pad machine and then our clients are able to just take advantage of those savings and also making sure that the product is readily available instead of having a I really like this one the one time and it's out of stock here so I got to go hunt it no it's if I need it it's there so that's kind of a pretty exciting thing.

Joe:   I know somebody, we talked about this person before, but I'm very close to, works for a contractor in Nashville. And very frustrating because this is a rehabber who people will hire this person to either rehab or build new homes. And he's robbing Peter to pay Paul, right? And this is very common problem with a lot of contractors, and rehabbers, right, like they're taking on new work to get some money to pay off contractors and subcontractors and suppliers from old jobs. And it's a vicious downward cycle. It's almost like a pyramid scheme, kind of like where they're taking new money to pay off old debts that they have. You're able to, and one of the big problems with this guy as I've been talking to him about it, it's like we can't pay our suppliers or vendors or contractors on time because we're always trying to beg for money from somewhere else or trying to get new jobs. And so we aren't getting the good suppliers or the good contractors and subs because we're paying, you know, net 60, 90 days. And so one of the ways that you're able to hire the best subs, and you can talk more about this, is because you pay so quickly, and even though you may not pay as much because you pay quickly and you're so reliable, you get the best contractors who bring their best people to your jobs who get it done the fastest. Cause they know. The faster they get it done, the faster they'll get paid. And you pay what? Every two weeks or something like that.

Bobby:   Yeah, roughly net 14 to 17, depending if they've turned it in right. And so nine times out of 10, I'm paying all my subcontractors and suppliers before my client has even paid me. So that demands honestly, that vendor loyalty. So one of the things that we are Really, I think the biggest benefit is like what I would call front of line access. So when I bid out a job with my pricing or whatever, once it's approved by the client, we are dispatching within 24 hours and swinging hammers within 24-hours of dispatch. And they're excited. It's not like I'm having to fix that three weeks in, you know what I mean? It's go time. And it's beenreally exciting because a lot of people that are what I call private fix and flippers, they don't have that capacity. In what you said earlier, like adult babysitting, now that if they're doing it on their own, their ability to go source a deal or manage some financials or chase down whatever else they're trying to do is gone because they're tryin' to babysit a painting crew or they're tryin' to make sure the tree guy showed up or the septic guy was actually there to that, you know, type of thing. That's what my team does, you know? Cause we'll have boots on the ground project managers. When I, like I'm a huge proponent of this, like I don't hire any estimators. We don't have that role in my company for a reason because I feel like there's not a lot of accountability on the back end. Our project manager writes the scope of work. Once it gets approved by the client and reviewed by the director, he's the one or she's the one that's got to execute it. So now it's no longer, well, Jeff didn't put that on there. So I didn't know, you know, or I didn't understand what he meant. No, no, it was you. You wrote it. Let's own it all the way through, you know, soup to nuts all the. That's been a big game changer for me because it just requires accountability. And then I, you know, in that, I think it's been eye-opening to me with a lot of private fix-and-flippers, they're used to getting scopes of work that just say, new kitchen, seven grand, new bathroom, four grand. Well, I've been to marital counseling, I went through a divorce. We all know that we think in specifics and speak in generalities. And so seven grand kitchen to me might mean something completely different to you. And now what happens when the product doesn't match the expectation? Well, then drama ensues, right? And then frustration and tension. So we go through And I require line item price. Hey, how many linear feet of cabinetry? How many square feet of granite? How many plumbing hookups? How many light fixtures? What is the backsplash gonna be? What are the appliances actually? So that way, when we're giving a client a scope of work to review, they know where their money's going. And then for my guys in the field, they know what a win looks like, honestly.

Joe:   So is there like a minimum size rehab, you guys sweet spot for you? You hold that rehab or.

Bobby:   We can do it all. I mean, but my favorites are between that 40 and 60K, where there's a few major mechanicals and yet we're able to really update the house with paint and new floors and new bathrooms and new kitchens. We'll do the big gut ones. I've got a handful right there in your backyard that are six-figure plus jobs that are, hey, they're historical rewires and replums and foundation and major basement work. Those ones in certain cities just come with their own little hang ups because of, you know, municipalities and permitting. We'll do turns as well for single family rentals. So like, I just won't do anything typically sub $2,500. I don't really have the capacity to chase what I would just call work orders. So if it's over 2,500 bucks, then it's like, Hey, we're gonna do some touch up paint, put some new floored and need some new appliances in this. What? Like, great, we'll help you on your turn. The only thing we'd all do is additions. That's a whole different ballgame, Joe. Like having to do an addition. Now you're permitting is different, you know, depending on where you're at. We had one, I learned the hard way for a private fix-and-flipper in Atlanta, and they wanted to do in this up-and comingneighborhood an addition. It was maybe a two, one, 900 square feet house that they wanted into a four, two, and it now looks beautiful that we're done. But we were hung up in permitting because we had to remove a tree that an arborist refused to even walk and look at our property for four and a half months. And all the permitting was, I'm like, I will plant you a forest anywhere you want. I'll plant you two forests. Just like, please sign off on this permit so that we can finish this project or start the project. And that was, I've learned my lesson that there's other contractors who are much better at additions than me.

Joe:   So are most of your clients, the re the investors that are flipping these homes are what percentage of them are like fix and flippers or they're rehabbing to rent? I would say probably.

Bobby:   Like 65, 35. So the fix and flip is predominant. Well, maybe, maybe 60, 40, you know, and then I have a number of single family renters that some of them are like regional ones. Some of them or not quite national. Some of them were just local where, for instance, I've got a guy in Dallas, great client of mine, they build portfolios in five or six markets, but he doesn't have any renovation employees in markets. So he's basically renting my team and we're doing all of his turns and we are doing all his initial renovations. He's got access to each one of my project manager's phone number, and he gets to use them without having to necessarily pay for them. And what works for me is all of my team is hired to do offer pads work, and then we're just leveraging our capacity. Like if I'm staffed to do 100 flips a month in Atlanta, but I only bought 65, well man, now I've got 35 other flips I can partner with somebody else on, and it keeps everybody moving.

Joe:   So then how do you get paid? Is it a percentage of the total rehab budget or is it a time and material type? How do you typically work?

Bobby:   We would do what I call a fully-baked scope of work, where when we write it in together, its labor, material, taxes, margin is all completely in there. So when they approve the scope of the work, like that total number will come to us and we're paying all of our people, we're doing it paying for all the material, and then there's a slight margin on that for us to make money.

Joe:   And we, I know this is one of the things you told me before, but I just want to make sure I'm right. You're pretty confident you can actually get these rehabs done cheaper and faster. And the investor would go do it on their own.

Bobby:   Yeah, so I would say if you've got one guy who's doing a property at a time and he's buying the clearance aisle and the oaks paint and he is going to scratch and dent, he's going to be cheaper than me, right? But if that's not sustainable and that's scalable. So typically, and I'll just say this because I'm here in Tampa, the going rate for paint like on Angie's list for like residential painters for walls, ceiling, trim and doors, right, is roughly between three and five dollars a square foot. And some of them, you have to supply your own paint. Some of them they supply the paint. I am a third of that, less than a third of that just in Tampa. And mine includes labor and material. So you think about this $1.88 a square foot is what I charge here in Tampa, and I'm still cheaper than if you went and found on Angie's list. Now, if you're going to do the labor yourself, Joe, and it's your house, and you're trying to say, OK, that's great. But then you got to ask, how much is your time worth? And what else are you missing out on? Because you're slinging paint.

Joe:   Well, bottom line to the fact that you're going to get it done faster with better contractors because you pay fast, because you play on time.

Bobby:   And because we've got a network that have been doing business with me for eight plus years. So for some of my contractors around the country, I'm their main source of business. So they are picking up the phone every time I call, they're answering the email every time we fire it. And they're the first ones at the job site ready to go because we don't do a pay-to-play type of thing. It's all based on merit. Like, hey, the guy's winning, I am going to keep keeping them fed. Because time is money in my world for Offerpad, every day matters. And you think about it, if we had a mediocre deal right by this house and I crapped the bed on timelines, now all of a sudden that ROI goes out the window. But if we have a mediocre and I get it done 10 to 12 days early, and I got it done right the first time, now, all of the sudden, that ROI is going up and to the right. And if I can really help mitigate our ROI performance by how fast my team performs and how well they do it the first. Down. That same mentality, like none of my contractors know that it's Joe McCall's house. They just think it's Offerpad house. We take your house, put it in our machine. Now, the difference is, if you're wanting to do fully customizable, 20 different paint colors and shiplap on everything, and you want this one obscure tile and this one, obscure flooring, I'm not the guy for you. But if like, we've got a system of, hey, I've got a tan scheme, a white scheme and a gray scheme, everything matches the paint, the flooring, the cabinets, the countertops, the fixtures, and you wanna go with what we would call like an industry standard, boom, we're built for speed on that.

Joe:   Well, I love that. Because time is money on this too. The faster you can sell the deal, the faster you pay off your private investor or your hard money, the faster you get on the market, the fast you get your money back. It just makes perfect sense.

Bobby:   Well, I mean, you think your holding costs go down, too. What if it's in an HOA? What about your utilities? What, you know, all the above? Or what if you're in a rough neighborhood and, you know, the opportunity, the longer you drag out, the more opportunity for vandalism or for, you know, theft. So speed is a big deal.

Joe:   Are there certain areas, you know, St. Louis, you were here. You've been here several times. Like, are there certain areas in St. Louis you're just not going to touch?

Bobby:   Nope, I'm really in all of them. I've walked out of all of them too, you know, there's been some staring moments, I'm not going to lie where I was like, I don't know if I'm coming home today, you know, and chasing trespassers out of houses that are full of, you know, graffiti and boarded up windows. But when we were all said and done, we turned it into something. We could be proud of good for you. It's Idefinitely make sure that I'm not driving the nicest rental car when I'm in market, you. Know what I mean? So

Joe:   Yeah, I 100% know what you mean. I got some funny stories about that, but we gotta move on. What markets are you guys in?

Bobby:   I'll send you over a list and that way if you wanted to post it, but on the east side, start from Nashville and we make our way all the way down into Florida. So Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Columbia, South Carolina, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando. And then we go Midwest. We've got Columbus, Ohio, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, all the four major ones in Texas, you know, the Dallas, Austin, San Antonio in Houston, Denver, Vegas, and then our headquarters is Phoenix, and we have some smaller sub markets like Jackson, Mississippi, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Birmingham, Alabama. So we, we stay pretty, I'm on an airplane at least three times a month, and I don't know how you do that. Well, we get it. I also got to meet all my people in the field and make sure that, you know, we're all marching to beat the same drum.

Joe:   All right, so let's talk about the direction you see the market heading, you know, are interest rates going to come down, do you think, or does it matter?

Bobby:   So, in all the conferences that I've been in industry-wise from the institutional side, there's a lot of hope and a lot optimism around Q2 and the financials expecting some kind of rate reduction. Everything that I hear from our colleagues around is that Q2, you know, those who've been sitting on the sidelines not deploying capital are probably going to start deploying it at a more aggressive rate.

Joe:   So what does that mean for us every day, investors, wholesalers, rehabbers, more opportunities to, to buy properties or the more, are the hedge funds going to be coming back in?

Bobby:   I'm betting, man, I'm gonna tell you the hedge funds are gonna start to come back in, probably not as aggressive as they did in like 2000, 2001, beginning of 02 or 22, but they're gonna start coming in. They've been sitting on billions of dollars not deploying it. They've actually kind of offloading some of their non-performing assets and selling them to other investors around the country. So I think that the appetite is there for them to start buying. What I would say though is the opportunity now, the houses that the hedge fund were buying up, that private investors couldn't get their hands on, like I would take a good hard look at those deals because they might not be there the next time around, you know what I mean, here in a couple months, if that makes sense.

Joe:   If you're a wholesaler, and you know, I know wholesalers in houses and land that were making a killing selling deals to hedge funds and to home builders, the markets that were hot four or five years ago, are those going to be the same markets that are hot today, the same types of homes?

Bobby:   Potentially, where we are seeing a lot of growth, for whatever reason, Atlanta is always still one of the busiest markets in the single-family rental world and in the fix and flip world. It's huge. There's a lot people there. There is a lotopportunity in Atlanta. The Carolinas have been very exciting for us, you know, over the last couple months. And then we're seeing some really good growth in Midwest markets, opportunities in Indy, Ohio, Columbus and Cincinnati. There, I think, there's also a big push for these tertiary markets like your Birmingham's and Minneapolis's, where like they're not as sexy on, you know, like as like an Atlanta or a Charlotte or an Orlando, but man, there's value there and there's growth that's happening in those cities. I think that's exciting too.

Joe:   So are the offer pads companies, the big hedge funds, are they looking to buy properties to fix and flip? Are they looking hold them long term for rentals?

Bobby:   Well, us and ibuyers, we only buy and resell, I renovate, resell every time. So the ibuyers, none of the ibuyers buy and hold the single family rentals like your American Homes for Rent, your Progress Residentials and your Tricons and your Invitation and your First Key, the big five as they're called, they are buy and rent, so they'll buy, renovate and rent.

Joe:   So if a wholesaler out there is thinking like, how do I find where offer pads going or the other companies? How, what do you, what are some suggestions or recommendations you give to a wholesalers to find out what you guys want and where you're looking for it and things like that.

Bobby:   Yeah, so it's a pretty exciting thing. In the last probably six months, we've opened up like our Investor Direct channel. It used to be just for the big five, because we would supply the big 5 with so many homes because they're off-market homes through offerpad.com, so like it's just feeding the machine. We've opened that up, and now many levels of investors, one, can buy from us. We'll already have the house under contract and, you know, able to talk about either double closes, direct assignments, whatever's needed right there. But more than that, now, our acquisition appetite is pretty aggressive right now. So we're looking to even acquire outside of Offerpad.com. So for wholesalers that have homes in the markets where we buy, in the buy boxes that we're Looking for, there's opportunities for us to acquire from you. And how do they find out? So OfferPad.com and then you can go slash investor or Offer Pad.com slash renovate, if you're wanting us to renovate on behalf. And through any one of those, you know, you can contact us and we could point you in the right direction and do the warm handoff if needed.

Joe:   Reminded me of another question I had for you. Are you guys doing any manufactured homes, new builds on the manufactured homes?

Bobby:   We are not doing any new builds at all. And manufactured homes, I've done some renovations on manufactured homes, but not necessarily on like the single wide and the double wide stuff. It's more like the modular.

Joe:   Have you ever considered looking into that in terms of buying real cheap land, half acre, and if you have a dealer's license, if you get the discounts from the dealers, the DR Horton's, the big home builders that are also building manufactured spec homes or whatever, manufactured homes, putting a foundation, bringing in the utilities, moving these homes onto them. And then I know a guy that does this and he's building them to intentionally sell them to FHA buyers and selling them with, he's in and out in three to four months.

Bobby:   I mean, that's never been part of our business plan, but like, it definitely sounds like it's pretty interesting, pretty exciting.

Joe:   Well, I see an opportunity there because, you know, there's a lot of people in these small towns that the inventory is really low in those areas, right? And there's huge demand, low inventory, and when you can find some property that's private, buy five acres, 10 acres, and subdivide it up into little half acre lots and do some entitlements or parcel it up and put it in the road and bring utilities and then just build these little manufactured homes really quickly. You can sell them super fast and get easy financing for FHA buyers and make 50 to 60 grand profit on each of them. There's a huge opportunity there. I don't, I've never done it, but anyway, I think somebody out there listening to this is gonna be saying, oh, that's an opportunity there, especially for the land investor who's wholesaling vacant land. If you find those guys, sell them these deals. Okay. So what have you found, Bobby, to be some keys to success in real estate business, you know, for the guy out there who's just getting started in the business, they want to learn, you know, how do I do more deals? How do I find, bring deals to guys like you or what's some advice you'd give to a beginner who's listening to this and wants to start doing more.

Bobby:   Yeah, two things I would say. The first one is know what a win looks like before you step on the field, right? Because if you don't have a game plan, that property, that project, that deal is going to run you instead of you running it. So we will see all the time work. People would buy this deal and they think they're going to just put $25K into it and they're gonna immediately flip it, but then they start watching the HGTV and they start thinking about this and what if we did this and now it's taking long, they're spending money twice. But design is dictating the deal as opposed to the deal dictating a design and man, they're sideways fast. And it's not always like just be on budget or just be under budget. It's know what the win is for this particular, am I buying it to do a quick flip? Am I buying this to do a full gut? Am I buy this attorney? Because the way that you approach a rental versus a flip is completely different too on a renovation side. So I mean, you have different risks you take on either side and different, what we would call, governances that we would do as like, hey, I'm not going to replace that. Or I have to replace that if it's in a different side. And then the other one, I'll steal it from special forces. They say, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. So one of my least favorite things in the world is backtracking or spending money twice. And that happens a lot of times when our guys are getting out in front of their skis. You know, they're trying to just run too fast. I would rather you go slow so you're making the right decisions. It's going smooth. And because you didn't have to now make new decisions and back decisions and run back to home people or what, now all of a sudden that job's getting done faster. So we preach that all the time to our teams, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. As opposed to just trying to hurry up and cause chaos all the time.

Joe:   Love it. So how can people reach you or do you just send them to the Offerpad website?

Bobby:   Yeah, they can do one of two things. Offerpad.com slash renovate. And there's a quick form on there. Tell us a little bit about your project. We'll set up an introductory call. Or if you'd rather just contact directly, you can go renovate at OfferPad.com. And that'll go right to our client account managers who will set up a meeting with you and me. And we could talk about your projects. We might be the right fit for you. We might not be. Or you might say, Hey, I'm currently only operating Cleveland, but I really want to talk about Columbus, Ohio. Well, man, we can help you scale. That's one of the things that's been interesting, Joe, real quick. We're helping people with their pressure relief valve or their capacity, right? Hey, I don't want to take… If you got a couple of contractors you love working with, I do need to take their business away from them. But if you're only limited to two deals at a time because of that, and you're wanting to be at five deals, we can you scale, the other way is we're helping them expand. One of my first clients in St. Louis, I'm doing a lot of affordable housing there in St Louis. They were really, you know, they came into some funding and we helped them scale to Indianapolis. We helped them scale to Columbus, Ohio. We help them scale the Jacksonville, Florida. And so now they're building sites all over because we're already there. So their business model is we're gonna buy houses where our renovation partner is so we don't have to reinvent the wheel because we like the product and we trust the people. And then the third way we can help everybody out is, I mean, I've got a hero complex that works out great for me too. When renovations go sideways and somebody is robbing Peter to pay Paul and is sitting on your deal, but cast your check. And we unfortunately have had to bail people out a lot where homes are just sitting and sitting and setting or somebody ran off with a deposit. The good news is we're a publicly traded company. So I don't think the FTC would like me running off with anybody's deposit, but we will absolutely be able to come in and use our speed and our cost saving measures to try to save the day for you if possible.

Joe:   All right, man, Offerpad.com slash renovate or send an email to renovate@offerpad.com. This has been a cool conversation. I love this concept of what you're doing and how you are helping people renovate deals and you found a way to do it profitably. Like that's the crazy thing to me. And it's actually working for you. And it is you're winning by making money on these deals and the individual investors are winning by getting it done cheaper and faster and better quality. Contractors are winning, by providing good work, getting paid quickly on time for the work that they're doing. And the end buyer who's buying the property is buying a really nice new home. You know, a new rehabbed home. It's just such a win-win for everybody involved. And I'm, I'm glad you're bullish about the future market and where we're going. Sounds like it's a lot of opportunity coming down the line.

Bobby:   Believe so too, my friend. I believe so.

Joe:   Alright, good Bobby. Can people follow you on Instagram? Are you into that?

Bobby:   I am on LinkedIn. I'm the old fuddy-duddy that got, you know, during COVID I decided I was not going to be on all the social medias anymore, but I am on LinkedIn so they can find me on there, Bobby Triplett. But if not, shoot me an email and I'll give them my cell number. We can just, we can talk directly.

Joe:   Yeah. Okay, Bobby, thank you so much. Appreciate you guys. We'll see you all later.

Bobby:   Thanks, brother. Thanks Joe.