House Hacking: How To Become Financially Free By Age 27

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How does someone become financially free by age 27 using virtual assistants In this episode my guest Jonathan Farber discusses how he hires and uses VAs to outsource tasks that are not within the manager s skill set Jonathan explains how he underwrites deals and trains his employees He also talks about using quantitative methods to measure things like the number of colleges in an area new hotel construction and reviews of current hotels Jonathan Farber is a side hustle real estate investor He was able to achieve financial freedom at 27 and leave his corporate enterprise technology sales job to focus on traditional rentals short term rentals airbnb arbitrage and wholesaling podcasting and course creation 00 01 – 04 22 House Hack Your Way to Financial Freedom How Jonathan started house hacking and found success by speaking to realtors and getting deals Reaching his financial freedom goal of 30 000 in just 27 months Different levels of financial freedom depend on how much money and time you want to spend 04 22 – 14 48 Using VA s to Scale Your Business How to utilize VA s to help manage and easily find underwriting sources and property acquisitions Quantifying everything is important for efficient processes and training Creating a process that can analyze an area based on 10 criteria is essential for furnished rental companies How AirDNA provides furnished rental companies with accurate data so they can make good decisions 14 49 – 21 03 Monetizing Social Media How to turn down deals from brokers Always get back to a broker and provide feedback on deals Brokers respect estate investors who are serious about their work You don t need to do everything Stay in your area of expertise and buy skills and leverage in places you can grow The power of delegating tasks according to the strengths of others 21 02 – 22 38 Closing Segment Reach out to Jonathan Links Below Tweetable Quotes So one thing that I always try to do is just make everything quantifiable and measurable It s good for our processes it s good for training VAs and it s also good for teaching students – Jonathan Farber Get help What I have found is most real estate operators are great at real estate operating horrible at social media or marketing So stay in your area of expertise buy skills and buy leverage in places that you can just get better —————————————————————————– Visit Jonathan Farber s website https jonfarber co and connect with him on LinkedIn https www linkedin com in jonathanfarber1 you can also follow him on IG https www instagram com jonjfarb hl en Listen to his podcast Millennial Millionaire Real Estate Podcast https podcasts apple com us podcast millennial-millionaire-real-estate-podcast id1490528162 Connect with me I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns Facebook LinkedIn Like subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on Thank you for tuning in Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com Want to read the full show notes of the episode Check it out below Jonathan Farber 00 00 Just make everything quantifiable everything measurable it s good for our processes It s good for training vas And it s also good for teaching students because no one wants like a like a hazy like you know maybe so I kind of look at it like that old adage if someone can t explain it to you simply they don t know how to do it You know So if you ask someone Hey what are the five drivers of a market What websites do you go on What boxes do you need to check to see that this neighborhood is good for where you re looking Most operators have no idea how to do that They re just going off Oh a realtor told me this was a good area or you know I have another deal nearby and it s pretty good Intro 00 37 Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show Whether you are an active or passive investor we ll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big Sam Wilson 00 49 Jonathan Farber started investing when he was 22 And after a lot of experimenting and speaking with mentors and taking action he achieved financial freedom at age 27 through real estate specifically through Airbnb and wholesaling Jonathan welcome to the show Jonathan Farber 01 04 I appreciate you having me on excited to be here Sam Wilson 01 06 Hey man the pleasures mind same three questions I ask every guest to come on the show in 90 seconds or less Can you tell me where did you start Where are you now How d you get there Jonathan Farber 01 14 Okay I started in Raleigh North Carolina with a strategy that a lot of your listeners may know or maybe not house hacking I was hooked I was in a corporate job making pretty good money out of college But I did not like it There s a big layoff at the company And I felt like I needed security So started the house hacking year out when I lived for free that first month that was kind of like my lightbulb moment that this was possible How I tactically started with that it was just really speaking to realtors looking at houses I really didn t know what I was doing But yeah that was it I started with House hacking got my next deal then went after that and just started to kind of roll them together But yeah it was hooked And it was like how many of these do I need to become financially free my goal is 30 I was able to kind of get lucky and do it at 27 So that was the start house hacking multiple times in Raleigh North Carolina Sam Wilson 02 05 Interesting when you say your goal was 30 you meant by age 30 achieved financial freedom has that number not your age number but has the term financially free changed for you the more success you ve had Jonathan Farber 02 18 That s like one of the biggest things I think people make a mistake with is thinking that financial freedom is actually their salary when in fact it s just your cost to live So financial freedom is just based on whatever your cost of living is you could live on 1 000 a month or you could be a baller and live on 30 000 a month whatever it is you know I make more money now than I ve ever made And I live in Colombia my living expenses are like 2 000 a month So you know it all depends There s different levels of financial freedom where maybe like stage one that you just cover your living expenses basics and then you can improve that scale that do more things have a family I m a single person I don t have a family I don t have a dog you know whatever It s just me I m just married to the golf game right now So as long as I could join a country club wherever I live I m happy And as long as I could buy the best equipment and have the best coaches and all that like that s what I need I wear the same shirt every single day It s a shirt that I can golf in work in a workout in I m a minimalist so I just like anytime I like that I can buy simple I ll pay for it So for me if I can buy simple and time that s how I m achieving financial freedom I don t cook I get every meal delivered to get all my laundry done for me massage to the house Anything you could think of to buy time I do it personal assistants virtual assistants I just want to focus on what I like to do what I m good at Now at the beginning I couldn t do that But I had to buy more of that time and simplicity back And yeah same thing Even when we set up a property in the US I m not there I m not the one finding and I m not the one designing it Virtual Assistants are doing the analysis of it I give the direction I give the final review But for me that s financial freedom at my level you know I make more and more but I just live on the same amount If I needed more to live on to be happier I would just do it I don t want to think about money So it definitely changed My original financial freedom number was like 2500 When I was living in Raleigh and I was living like has it But you know I loved it It was what I wanted to do And I just I wanted to get to that number to leave it But now it s you know I want to go back to the US So it ll be more which is kind of why I was here over the winter But yeah so it changes for sure Sam Wilson 04 22 Yeah absolutely Well and you know there s always that the idea that the more you make the more you spend and you know there s that scope creep that always just tend to like go along with rising income rising expenditures rising lifestyle and I just wondered how you combat that And it sounds like you ve done that fairly well But yet at the same time protecting the things that it s most valuable thing to all of us which is our time So tell us about your use and scaling your company with the use of VA s I mean I know this is virtual assistants I think the new term is virtual professional whatever it is you know you ve done this and we ve talked about this on this show you know pre easily but I love hearing real world stories of hey this is how I ve done it Here s the mistakes I made This is what I ve done right Walk us through especially I mean as you re acquiring underwriting sourcing property I mean that s a pretty robust system Talk to us about that Jonathan Farber 05 14 If anyone has questions just feel free to hit me up all my socials I m sure I ll be linked in the show notes I probably hired trained and kept or fired probably about 100 Vas in seven years Could be more could be less But really what more than one a month Yeah I mean you know now we have like eight that are just like you know with us I would say that s the number consistently across everything between property management acquisitions social media personal assistants and then just filler tasks for our communities and things like that But you know for me it s like I would love to always try to you know at the beginning I was thinking I m not gonna have enough work to give a VA that s the complete wrong mindset If anyone is listening to this right now you re just you couldn t be more wrong One you can give a VA an hour work a day you could say I m gonna pay a va 6 an hour one hour a day to just analyze deals that get sent to me every single day you know I need to film loom videos and do step by steps of how to do it They can t just do that for you They need instructions But that s anyone you know you needed instructions to when you were figuring out how to buy a house you couldn t just wing it and a VA can t do that either So that s where most people go wrong But for most people going wrong as far as like the setup it has to do with just not thinking that they have enough work for one if there s anything that can be done on a computer or a phone or any editing anything just like digital it can be done So for me I started small it was just with small tasks things that I didn t like doing I wasn t good at doing and just scaled it from there It s easy Just starting with like for real estate for example podcasting You know like we got our podcast production down to about 12 An episode we did a daily podcast for 250 shows So I didn t know how to edit But all I wanted to do was do the video but we had VAs doing the guest outreach the editing the production of social media the only thing I wanted to touch was the actual conversation with the person to build relationships And I love that but I didn t like the other ship Same thing with real estate I don t like analyzing deals I just like relationships creating content you know building systems coming up with a better vision that sort of thing But you know the day to day I don t want to be on call That s just not what I want to do It s not a good use of my time So what I would say for anyone is start with one task that you understand how it works that you can just come up with a checklist of the steps film a loom video loom we use 20 times a day in the business we don t have meetings we just do loom videos it s the best thing ever And just walk through the steps And when you walk through the steps you can just send that to a VA as far as where to find them two places very simple where you can go with an agency So you can go with Upwork which is free and then just paid per job You can go with online jobs pH it s best 50 a month but the talent is awesome And there s tons of little bells and whistles that you can tweak to find candidates And then if you want to pay an agency which in a lot of cases it could be a great thing hit me up I have a whole freebie on it just of all the agencies that I recommend to we have guides for all this stuff But you know there s 24 7 us virtual assistants there s bolay and they can do the training and hiring and interviewing for you They ll bring them to you And they re still like maybe 10 an hour And some of those are US people or it s maybe 20 an hour for higher skilled work But these people are impressive And it just became a game for me of how to get more stuff that I don t like doing off my plate and how to use my time better But all that stuff can be outsourced I remember on BiggerPockets once I love Joe Fairless I mentored for him but someone on his team commented on one of my bigger pockets post once and I was like Hey has anyone heard of outsourced deal underwriting I really hate the process And I got crushed This was like four years ago I got crushed all these keyboard warriors coming out of the woodwork One of them was Joe s friend on Steam And they were like it s that s just stupid It s not possible I m like You re stupid You think Bill Gates skills that company doing everything himself He s got 400 000 employees Do you think Jeff Bezos is screwing bolts together in a factory You don t understand business you need to scale with people systems processes operations So like Yeah I mean hey I m a solopreneur But I love having just outsourced contracted labor I don t want employees either But you know there are people that are competent can do these jobs I mean it gets me fired up It s just funny but it s just like do it So that s what I would say start with one task a small simple task It can be creating a banner for your Facebook group or your Facebook profile or Instagram posts If you want to grow your social media We just hired a full time social media manager I started with one task on social media create banners for my Facebook groups And I was like that s kind of cool I don t know how they did that But it just scales and then it s like you figure it out So but hit me up and ask questions Again I m really into So I love it Sam Wilson 10 00 Yeah absolutely I think that s a great way to build like you said wanted to offload tasks that you don t need or should be doing or want to do I mean that s the thing is it s not even I think it goes beyond even one to do It s even what s the highest and best use of your time You need to focus on you know revenue creating value creating tasks inside your company not creating banners for Google or for your Facebook whatever group you were talking about there So that s really really important I love that How have you strategically I mean there s a lot of art in underwriting deals And I think that s maybe where you got the blowback right where it s like oh like there s as much local knowledge there s as much interfacing with the realtor figuring out especially if you re doing Airbnb properties what the demand generators are like how do you overcome some of those more subjective things in underwriting a deal and then teach someone else how to do that Jonathan Farber 10 55 So one thing that I always try to do is just make everything quantifiable everything measurable it s good for our processes It s good for training vas And it s also good for teaching students because no one wants to get like a hazy like you know maybe so I kind of look at it like that old adage If someone can t explain it to you simply they don t know how to do it You know So if you ask someone Hey what are the five drivers of a market What websites do you go on What boxes do you need to check to see that this neighborhood is good for where you re looking Most operators have no idea how to do that They re just going off Oh a realtor told me this was a good area or you know I have another deal nearby and it s pretty good That s bullshit So you know originally with this I was following Neil Bala He s awesome I would say more into Airbnb and furnished rentals just for the returns Neil is amazing He s I would aspire to be like Neil but in the short term space Neil Bala he has virtual systems run his multifamily business He s got a couple of US based managers and then a lot of his operations is run by vas But yeah as far as like how to underwrite a deal or analyze an area it s I mean it s really just coming up with that process So for me as far as like analyzing and this is furnished rentals and Airbnb ease we have a process to just scan areas off 10 different criteria So it s like how many drivers are there in an area as far as colleges natural attractions parks hospitals new development new hotels things like that So we have maybe like five to seven of those drivers that will form in an area And what we ideally like to see is you know new construction of hotels So we ll keep all that documented and kind of just like a step by step sheet if we re looking at a new area So how many new hotels are being developed How many reviews of the current hotels have called the hotels and see how booked they are in peak season speak to the person see if you can get a room for 30 days 60 days 90 days a lot of times you can t then we have a process to look at comps in the area we d like to find the top 10 comps in any area to see what they re charging per night And for how long If their calendars blocked off We ll reach out to the host and see is it blocked off Because you re staying there Do you have an off platform booking Or is it an extended stay guests And from there have a good enough And then we also have a deal with AirDNA where you know we have a country license and we can look at a lot of the revenue and you know that s just basically got a good data scraper It s probably equivalent to like what s that multifamily tool Sam Wilson 13 22 Coaster Jonathan Farber 13 23 It s equivalent to costar Yeah exactly So between those things and obviously there s some more detailed to it But we just want to have a process that s measurable Are there multiple hotels Are there attractions that have over let s say 100 reviews Are there other 10 other really good Airbnbs in the area that you can model and comp and look at their calendars And then from there what s their DNA say And then running the actual numbers on the deal They can all do that What I usually do the one thing that s not I would say as measurable and this is just a little thing is that usually you can t really measure like design elements So if I say this house is nice looking or you know it s designed well that s tough to quantify you know we couldn t go through it and say Do you think the finishes are within three years old Does it have quartz countertops Does it have laminate You know is it well kept in front To me that s not worth it I will still go through the pictures of any property that gets reviewed or submitted And I ll vrna those at the beginning And then those will go off If I favorite a property it ll go off to VA and then they ll look at it and they ll do the analysis But the analysis doesn t take that long It just again going through a checklist and then we ll talk to a broker then we ll talk to a property manager and we ll get a feel for the area And then usually if we need to if we want to get a property under contract we ll offer first and then someone will go see it And then you know that sort of thing It s not need to see it first before offering which I know is a little different than other people Sam Wilson 14 49 Right Yeah I wonder well there s a question that goes along with that Do you get blowback when you make an offer before you see it Jonathan Farber 14 56 No honestly the thing that I see no and this is just like a tip that I had to learn and I think a lot of beginners get wrong is the only blowback I see working with brokers is just ghosting them when they send you a deal You know like people think Oh I m gonna hurt the brokers feelings if I see a deal that s not good And I don t want to tell them that like tell them that like they need feedback I was like I don t want to hurt their feelings that s bullshit let them know the numbers don t work send them back the analysis if you send them back the analysis and tell them why they ll actually respect you more because now they know you ve healed criteria but just not responding though But brokers I found they it s the opposite They respect us so much more The second we start making offers they re like this person is serious not another tire kicker you know as estate investor So any deal we send them or pre approval or lending docs we send them a screenshot of our bank statement showing we have cash we re ready to go and then when we get a deal within 24 hours it s sending back why I like it why I don t like it And let s keep moving you know that sort of thing Tactical dynastic Sam Wilson 15 59 absolutely love that Talk to us One more thing I want to highlight here before we have to sign off which is monetizing social media That s something else that you re known for And a lot of people especially in the commercial real estate s bass really struggled just getting content out there But talk to us about what that means for you and how you do it Jonathan Farber 16 17 First thing and these aren t like strings attached asked if anyone is looking for a social media manager I just did like a round of hiring And I have like probably eight that were great but I just there was one that I had a better connection with So I can recommend and introduce you know your listeners are you I ll probably just make a social media post about the next week But yeah if you just DM me or say like social media manager again one of my assistants can tee that up again not me because it s just great to have that you know but we ll do it because it s good value but they were great people so get help Like what I have found is most real estate operators They re great at real estate operating horrible at social media horrible at marketing like it s just cringe So get help like stay in your area of expertise so stay in your area of expertise buy skills and buy leverage in places that you can just get better Jonathan Farber 17 11 So yeah first off social media is crazy I started it originally with like Joe Fairless when I was like alright syndication podcast I gotta raise money did the daily podcast for a long time started a Facebook group stayed super consistent Now it s just trying to do more on everything and just trying to cultivate where the attention is which two years ago was like Tik Tok and I know Tik Tok It s a weird thing It s a kid s place It s girls dancing It s all this weird crap But it s where attention is So I just started going hard on tick tock and again it was simple tips It was here s how you find a realtor Here s how you analyze a deal in 60 seconds It was you know here are the five areas I m looking at and why super simple stuff that like most operators with experience would roll their eyes at but the beginner or the person who s in their job that they hate is like I love this guy right And within three months that account hit 100 000 followers Okay so goes to 100 000 then all those people start going other places they start touching other parts of your brand Facebook Instagram YouTube other places that you can monetize And just by having now I think about 150 000 on Tik Tok maybe like and again I had 2000 followers on Instagram last year or a year and a half ago this time I had no tick tock a year and a half ago this time Now Instagram maybe like 28 000 just from brands and affiliates and sponsorships alone I make about eight to 10 000 a month just for making five videos just for a brand that says hey shout us out That s crazy Or we ll have an affiliate link for a product that I already use like AirDNA or a course that I took on notion or productivity I just put it in my bio every couple of days someone buys it when they buy it I get to 300 bucks That s just for having a brand I like money that comes in while I sleep Rivets through real estate if it s through affiliates if it s through content whatever if it s from cutting up clips of this podcast these are gonna be 50 tiktoks Like literally what this is So it s that sort of stuff repurposing but yeah I mean then it s sponsorships for Facebook group sponsorships for podcast AdSense from YouTube all these things like we have a high ticket program for teaching We have a low ticket program for teaching and then the sponsored stuff all because of social media And again I was adamantly against social media like two years ago I was like That is so weird Like this dude is trying to be an influencer Now I m like It s easy money like it s money that you could just make Jonathan Farber 19 41 So I m still scratching the surface I have friends that are making 2030 40 000 a month from like five posts And I m like What is going on here They have bigger followings than me but I m like why not just do that like take do that take that money invested in real estate like That sounds pretty Be good to me Like I know how the real estate works Like I m learning more about social media but why not And so my advice for that I don t know when this is gonna be out We re filming this March 15 2020 to make three tiktoks a day It should be prioritizing your business I have a calendar event on my calendar every day make three tiktoks It doesn t matter what I m doing That is one of the biggest drivers for me financially Anytime I don t make tech talk I don t think about it Like I m not making money I think about it I m losing money right Because even my video on Tiktok gets 800 views That s 800 new people that see my face 800 people that could give me money to teach them we re invest in a deal or to bring me a deal or partner in a deal You just you want attention attention is currency It s like you never know who can help you with what So social media I think he s a beast If anyone is against it get help hire somebody or just Buck up start creating tiktoks or YouTube YouTube is phenomenal We re doubling down on YouTube and Tiktok just for repurposing There s so many repurpose potentials in those And that s pretty much it Sam Wilson 21 02 I love it Jonathan thanks for taking the time to come on today and just share us kind of your behind the curtain secrets of what it is that you were doing you know scaling your business with the use of virtual assistants and monetizing social media There was so many things in there that yeah we re just absolutely awesome So thanks for taking the time today to come on If our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you What is the best way to do that Jonathan Farber 21 23 Probably Instagram on social media everything is just jonjfarb Shoot me an Instagram message we give away most of our templates had analyzed in Airbnb we have a wonder comparison we have a market comparison template we have a furniture checklist So we give all that stuff out just in return to hopefully get more followers on the stuff on the channels So hit me up on any of those if you just maybe even googled my name Jonathan Farber real estate we have a website you know probably the last place I check if everything in our like thing But yeah we just tried to create content and our whole brand is you know how to get someone their first Airbnb deal in 90 days totally doable But yeah all those platforms So hit me up I love interacting with people and seeing if we could help Awesome Thank you Sam Wilson 22 09 John and have a great day Alright Jonathan Farber 22 11 see you later Thank you again Sam Wilson 22 12 Hey thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast if you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple podcast Spotify Google podcasts whatever platform it is you use to listen if you can do that for us That would be a fantastic help to the show It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories So appreciate you listening and thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode Click here to visit this podcast episode