Brant Phillips – Navigating The Realities of Residential Real Estate Investing

Meaning, if they turned in poor quality or if they mis-managed a job or if they picked the wrong colors, things like that. And what I saw was that a lot of real estate investors were relying on contractors for a good portion of the profitability on their job, and a lot of the aesthetics on the job, the paint colors, floor colors, all that type of thing.

So I always viewed myself, whenever I got into the construction business, that I was a real estate investor first and that was how I was making the majority of my income and what my real business passion was, if you will.

And so that’s what I kind of took a lot of enjoyment from, and still do, is helping, especially newbie real estate investors, people who are just busy with their job and they’re not up-to-date on market trends and things like that.

Providing that expertise, and at the same time, providing construction services with a higher level of trust and systemized process to get through the rehab work. Some of our competitors may take 60, 90 days and we’ll turn out that same finished product in about 30 days. And just those types of things are what we provide.

I routinely meet with designers now and decorators and things like that just so we stay up to date on the changing trends. They’re always changing in terms of selection. So that’s the kind of insight that we provide, as well as, we can help investors to game-plan financing decisions and strategies and market analysis on when to rent, when to sell. All those types of decisions that other contractors just can’t provide because that’s not what they do.

Jack:          Well, one of the things, you made an important point. Is that you seemed to imply that some of the infomercials and real estate seminars make it sound easier than it really is. Is that true?

Brant:         (laughter)

Jack:          Of course, I’m being facetious, but we’ve all seen that. You’ve seen the guy on TV that look how stupid I am and I’m successful, you know?

Brant:         Yeah, yeah.

Jack:          It is more difficult, all right. Can we just establish that?

Brant:         Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I love the shows. I’m not going to lie. I love the shows and I’ve shot some, they call them sizzles on the, to be basically considered for some of those shows. I love the shows, once again, but I won’t mention any names.

But speaking to some of these directors and these filmers, the gurus don’t always paint the picture of the most realistic flip or the most realistic rehab that you can find.

Jack:          You don’t say!

Brant:         Yeah. No, believe it or not. But yeah, there is a vision of truth to some of the shows, but it’s not the whole truth.

Jack:          Well, and I think that’s the important point is that it’s not as easy as they make it sound. That obviously, real estate is an aggravation. A profitable aggravation, but aggravation nonetheless.

But what I think, and here’s kind of the role I think about, when I think about what you do. When you’re looking at financial advisors, you’re looking at people that help you with your money management and things like that, there’s generally two categories.

There’s the people that work for the financial institutions that say, we’re going to help you with your financial planning and then they make their money by selling their stocks and mutual funds, which to me, there’s a conflict there, right?

Brant:         Uh-hmm.

Jack:          And then there’s the financial planners that say I have no affiliations with any of these people. I’m going to, for a fee, help you make the best decision for your circumstances. And to me, that’s a far more valuable financial planner to have.

And so I think one of the things that’s really attractive about what you do is that you don’t sell houses, necessarily.

You’re not, and even in construction, I think one of the unique values to have, even though you do remodeling, I’ve seen, not just on one occasions, but a number of occasions, that when people come to you for remodeling or estimates on houses that they’re considering to buy for investments, where some construction folks might take every opportunity they have to get the job, you’ve actually convinced people that, you know what? You should keep your money and not buy this house. Because based on my analysis, it’s not going to be a good deal for you.

Or people that have even purchased houses and say I want to completely redo this and I want it done this way, you’ve come back and said, you know what, you’re going to be much better off and get a much better return on your investment by not doing this, even though it cuts into your bottom line and you’re telling them don’t buy this much carpet from me. Don’t buy this much paint from me.

But ultimately, what you’re doing is you’re giving them a much higher expectation to be successful with that real estate investment.

And I think that’s probably been one of the reasons for your growth and the referrals and the reason that people do business with you is because you’re not out there trying to make the sale at all cost.