Dominique Gunderson: How she scaled a Flipping Business to Achieve Financial Freedom in her 20s

In this episode of "The Gould Mine," we meet Dominique, who went from real estate agent to wholesaler to powerhouse flipper in her early 20's. Dominique shares how building the right team and learning from every experience has catapulted her into massive success at such a young age. You'll hear firsthand about the infrastructure she built that has allowed her to scale her investments and manage projects from afar. Whether you're new to investing or looking to expand your portfolio, Dominique's story offers invaluable lessons on building a team, resilience, and strategic growth. Welcome Dominique, to "The Gould Mine"...

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•  What's up gold miners today. I'm super excited to welcome Dominique Gunderson to the show. Dominique's real estate investing Journey started right out of high school and over the last 7 years has gone from real estate agent to wholesaler to flipper to now long-term investor and has managed to grow an incredibly successful and robust flipping business in a completely different state than where she lives in as it stands today. Dominic's team currently has anywhere between 10 and 12 flips going at any given time and we cover a WI Gambit of things in this episode for anyone who's interested in growing or scaling a flipping business or just interested in how to grow or scale any business. Because this girl is the real deal. We start off the episode by talking about Dominic's early years in the business and her advice for young investors that are getting into it at the age that she got into it which is 18 years old. We talk about how she overcame some of the experience hurdles and how she used wholesaling to build up enough Capital reserves to enter the flipping game later on. In the episode we cover the importance of building the right team and Dominique goes in depth on some of the the great hires that she's made and some of the not so great hires that she's made and how she's been able to overcome that and then finally we talk about the current and future market conditions and how Dominique has developed strategies to now not only grow and expand her current flipping business but also add in long-term holds to the mix as well lots of great insights and so much wisdom from this 26-year-old. It's absolutely incredible how much she's been able to accomplish in such little time so without further Ado everyone. Let's welcome to the show Dominique Gunderson Dominique welcome to the goldm thanks so much for having me yeah you know honestly. Uh your story is pretty inspiring because I was shocked to hear that you like immediately out of high school. The first time that I like discovered you immediately out of high school got into real estate investing that it's not the typical path like what first of all how did you do it and second of all why like what Drew you what inspired you to do that yeah. I uh I got really interested in real estate when I was in high school um. I kind of just was at that stage when you're you know junior senior and thinking about college. Next steps what should I kind of do with my life and my mom was in the process during that time of buying her First Property. Just a single F or not a single family was a town home but a primary residence to live in and my parents aren't in real estate. They had never even owned real estate. I didn't know anything about real estate but it just so happened that the property she was buying was a short sale and so it it's kind of a fixer upper getting it at a you know a discount and so just that whole process kind of watching it and being involved in. It really piqued my interest as that this is something that people do for a living you know and that you could take something and quickly add so much equity and value and run your own business doing that so I got super interested in real estate and in the whole construction and renovation side of it and just kind of knew that that was you know I didn't want to take the traditional College route and I wanted to run my own business. So I kind of just ran with it from there and started taking steps after I graduated to ultimately get to where I am today would you say that you were because like different people like have different kind of like upbringings right and so. I'm wondering like were your parents disappointed in that decision or were they like yeah like Do Your Own Thing or I'm. I'm curious how like that conversation went yeah. My parents uh only one of them went to college so they weren't like super forcing me to go to college and get an education. They were kind of always. Just you know whatever you wanted to do that you know is a is clearly a good path. They didn't want me to just you know do nothing with my life um. But I think seeing that I had like a very specific interest and I was already taking steps in a very specific direction to make that happen there wasn't really any push back there um which was super nice. But I think a lot of my upbringing too is what caused me to take that path um just kind of seeing the opposite you now my parents kind of got divorced at an early age and they had always always struggled a lot with financials and holding steady jobs and stuff. Like that so I think just kind of seeing that and and knowing from a young age that I wanted to do the opposite and I didn't want to rely on a paycheck and you know. I wanted to build something myself and kind of rely on myself both my brother and I you know ultimately ended up doing that and kind of had that built into us from a young age. So we you know we were pretty motivated to start taking that path as soon as we could yeah that's great and and honestly that that makes a lot of sense because in that same light you know when I when I decided to kind of run. My own B I decided from a young age that I wanted to do my own thing too and kind of similar situation. It wasn't like my you know my D my dad had a a a steady job but he was always like unhappy you know with the state of his like existence. You know especially uh working with the company that he did. He was he was never like true really in control right. He always had to like is always had issues with his boss and all that stuff so that from a young age always kind of inspired me to like want to do my own thing. So it's it's interesting that you had a similar situation or similar experience where you also wanted to kind of Forge your own path because of like what you saw at a young age. That's interesting and you know cuz obviously. Now you're you're well into your uh like well into your journey. I'm wondering you know what message would you give to someone who is dealing with maybe the opposite so your parent sounds like they were super supportive what if what if some like what about the kids that are like hey the parents are telling them like you've got to go to college right and you've got like that's. The only path to success like obviously you didn't have to walk that walk necessarily but like knowing what you know now what kind of advice could you give to someone in that situation.
•  I think if you're really stuck in you know you don't almost have no other choice. I would still try to learn as much as you can and get as much experience as you can on the side even if you're going through college you know and you're you're having to take certain classes and graduate with certain degree. You know I know that's kind of a full-time job to some degree but you know instead of living the typical College lifestyle. If you're really passionate about you know business and starting something else. I would just spend that time learning and um maybe working with somebody informally but somebody who you can like even just work for free just to understand more of the business and provide whatever value you might be able to provide to somebody who is pretty much doing what you envision yourself doing and even like even though I was I wasn't going to college and I was working um right out of high school. In real estate. I definitely spent a lot of time doing some of those things like working under a other people in my first couple years just really learning the ins and outs of the industry um and I just think there's nothing there's nothing like firsthand experience. So what was the first thing that so like coming out of high school like day after graduation kind of like walk me through that right so like you graduate and what's the first step that you took towards kind of like making that dream a reality. So the first uh just under a year and a half I'd say out of high school. I started working at a real estate agents office. So um I grew up in the Los Angeles area. So I just reached out to a couple of the really big agents that do a lot of volume in the area before I graduated and one of them was like yeah. You know you can definitely come work with us and I graduated a little early. I was 17. So my plan. There was to study uh for my real estate license and then get the license once I turned 18 already be working in an office where I could then become an agent in that office and put the license to work. So. I literally just did that for a little while while I was getting my license I was just working in the office um helping all the agents like just learning the basics too of sales and contracts and what does it mean to buy and sell real estate um and doing it in a in. An office that was producing a lot of volume was super helpful because I got to just see so many deals happening um so that was the first little bit just doing that and then I got my license and I was working as an agent for just a little bit as well um and you know I I knew doing that too that that wasn't investing and that wasn't really what I wanted to do. But I felt like it was a good first educational step um and once I had done that for a little while is when I jumped into the investing side and and started wholesaling and then flipping gotcha okay so let's so let's talk about that transition then because at that point I'm assuming like you're probably 18 maybe 19 right so and you are still very young. You look very young right so you kind of face that same challenge that I did when I was starting out which is like you had to overcome that age or you know quote unquote like experience objection where like some people would look at you and be like what are you doing like kid right. So what how did you overcome that sort of like Challenge and and I'm I'm assuming that now your portfolio kind of speaks for itself. But you probably still run into that from time to time right so like how how do you how did you manage it at the beginning and even now like how do you manage it like today yeah. It was a huge challenge at the beginning for me um especially when I was working as an agent for that little time because I was working in you know the beach cities of like the Los Angeles area. So I mean the houses that you're working on are just multi-million dollars and it it's just like the top end of the market and I'm 18 with no experience. So I actually think that was one of the things that really pushed me out of that quickly um. It was you know educational and great experience but it was so hard just to start entering at like that high level and that's just where I lived you know. So I was just I just picked the market that I was present in and it was just really difficult. So um. It quickly showed me that I needed to do something that was a little bit more um with the age and experience that I had more attainable and so that was um a big driver for sure of getting into wholesaling you know a lot of people that are into wholesaling. That's almost like the first step that you get into when you want to get into investing. So it's more common that you know you're young you're hungry you're hustling. It was still you know not a problem but it was still a challenge that I faced being so young and so inexperienced um. But it was just more along the lines of something that was attainable as well as just working with you know fixer up or not.
•  Very expensive properties compared to you know a homeowner who's owned their property for 10 years and it's like their prize possession. So it was just it was a good transition for where I was at in life did you originally so you invest primarily in New Orleans and is that a spot that you picked out like right away or was it something that you you kind of explore different markets. How how did you go about identifying that market uh first of all and then we'll we'll kind of move on after that. But I really want to understand like how you picked that market sure so I was wholesaling when all the deals I did wholesaling were in Los Angeles and that's where I live that's where I was presently located um. I did a bunch of deals probably like 40 or 50 deals wholesaling in the Los Angeles area felt like I had uh saved up enough of the assignment fees to where I had a little bit of working capital to start buying my own projects as well as I had just done a lot of deals. I had a lot of volume under my belt. So I felt like I understood enough to where I was comfortable to buy my own property. So when I was 21. That's when I made the transition into owning my own company that was going to actually buy the real estate instead of just wholesaling it and that's also when I transition markets and it was honestly just out of a necessity. Yeah I was 21. I was young. I had saved up some money but not enough to buy a property in Los Angeles and it was also just much riskier. You know for my first deal being fully invested in something of such value. So I started thinking about another Market that I could you know Buy in that was more affordable and a little bit less risky for just getting started and it was just New Orleans was the one market that I knew someone on the ground that I really trusted cuz. My dad and his wife lived in New orans and so not that they're in real estate or have really any real estate connections there but literally just picking a market where I could easily go visit. I could have familiarity with just based on even them telling me um what neighborhoods to stay away from and right what spots of town you know are affordable. Versus is more expensive so that really just helped start my search and and start even just getting connected to other people on the ground yeah that makes a lot of sense and even though like they're not in real estate. They at least have some pulse on the market and you trust them which makes a lot of sense and you know. That's I think one of the advantages like for myself you know having been in real estate. For like 10 years. I have a lot of friends who are like big time agents in different markets and you can start to kind of have those conversations. So you have to some type of boots on the ground. You know pulse on the market and and I agree with you so that's interesting that that's how you went about um finding that market do you feel like you would have like. Let's say that you had enough or like you know. You' somehow figured out a way we I've had friends who started here same situation um. You know they found an investor and they kind of like cod did. It do you think if you did it all over you would you would would you have been as successful in California or do you think that you picked the right market for you at that time. Like I'm really curious to hear kind of your thoughts on whether that market had anything to do with like the success that you've had so far. I don't think so I think you can find a lot of success literally anywhere. I would say generally speaking if you're in like a a major Metro type of area where there's constant uh people moving in and out and there's just a lot of population that's always key but honestly. I know a ton of other investors who invest in like really small towns kind of in the middle of nowhere that also have success. So I really do think that you can be successful in any market and to not you know be hung up on and pay a ton of attention to like picking the market that might have the best growth statistics or you know jobs coming in like that can be important and helpful but there's opportunity everywhere um so I think Los Angeles would have been more difficult not just because of the price point but also because of the competitiveness you know I was super. Well connected there because of wholesaling. All my like I knew all the investors that had bought deals for me and stuff and right. There's so many there's so many different neighborhoods and there's like people that specialize everywhere and a lot of them so picking a market like New Orleans that is still a major Metro everybody kind of knows where New Orleans is and what it is. But there's not nearly as big of an investor Community out there. So I think that definitely helped me get started just given that there was a lot more deals available and a lot less people buying them yeah. That makes you know that makes a lot of sense and I mean the one thing I will say yeah. It's more competitive like that. It's harder to enter. But then I feel like LA and and you know I'm from the Bay Area. So like I feel like La in the Bay Area. It's harder to enter but it's easier to exit right. So the the flips tend to be a lot juicier but then it's that it's that entry but also a lot riskier and you hit on that earlier right where yeah you you know it might be a home run or it might be a total like strikeout and you're down like a 100 Grand or like 200 Grand and like right that hurts you know you have a couple of those and like you go like you could burn yourself. Dry really really fast right um so that's interesting you started in La so you started uh doing these longdistance flips from LA to New Orleans. Now you're obviously on the road and I'm sure we'll talk about that in a second but how was that Pro obviously like you had family in New Orleans.
•  So it was like family helping you at all with like the management of it did you kind of keep at arms length. Distance like no family involved in the projects you know how is how did that all come like how did all of that work yeah. So the first couple deals that I did um it. It kind of was good timing just out of chance but my dad was actually transitioning out of his previous career and was kind of in the middle of not really having anything and you know not having much going on. So um. He started getting pretty interested in what I was doing and kind of wanted to be involved so the first couple of deals um. He and I partnered on in the sense that I was like putting up the fund for the projects and kind of having General own oversight and ownership of everything. But he was like the boots on the ground. As far as checking in on stuff um. He was actually doing some of the work some of the more cosmetic stuff in the beginning um and it it just got the ball rolling it got a few projects you know done um but it was pretty clear like right away that wasn't for sure not a long-term strategy um yeah. You know we just we weren't ever planning to be like long-term business partners. I don't think in this like he didn't want to grow in scale like I did and I just had a vision to take this to a much different level so it was just for the first couple to kind of get some numbers like on paper as far as how the assets were performing and what the market was doing. And once I had those um those deals and those you know Roi percentages and everything that was when I started like hiring and building out my own own team started raising. Capital um just everything needed to like really scale and actually start buying at fall that's awesome so obviously when you're managing and growing a portfolio like you did. There are certain systems certain processes that you have to put in place in order to kind of get to that level. So. I'm wondering of all of the different systems of all of the different processes which one do you think was the most important or there's two or three right but like what were the top couple of systems or processes that you put in place that allowed you to grow your portfolio New Orleans from a distance. I don't know if this would necessarily be considered a system. But I think it's almost a replacement of one for me. One of the uh. The biggest things that I did to almost replace needing a lot of systems is hiring the right team so that was one of the first things I started focusing. On is I need a solid contractor or two I need a solid real estate agent Title Company project manager like all these pieces that need to be put in place so that I could delegate almost all tasks to certain individuals who would be responsible so as far as like you know you think about things like how do you manage like a construction schedule and keeping people on timeline and on budget and stuff. Like that I'm sure there's probably some great systems and apps and softwares that you could Implement to to do that. But for me what it's been a lot of is just finding the right people that are going to stay on timeline and are going to manage themselves and have a good you know hold over their their workers. If they're a j a GC or on the real estate agent side. Like they they are on top of their paperwork and their tasks so it. It's been a process like I have pulled people in and out of the team plenty over the years but again the more you work with like different people. You find out what you need and what you like and who fits that and who doesn't and you can kind of weed it out to almost land on like your dream team. Yeah I love that and and having the right team absolutely is is essential to growing a business. I'm wondering you know you you have two hurdles there. Right number one you're geographically speaking just completely removed from them. So there's uh bit of like you know having that proximity to someone. I think is really important. Obviously. We're we live in the zoom age. Now and people are doing hybrid or like fully remote kind of working situations. So I don't know how you adapted or adjusted your like strategy to be able to manage people from you know 2,000 miles away because you said said self-manage yeah. But there's still a degree of oversight that needs to be you know done and so I'm wondering what challenges or hurdles you you kind of faced in in growing and scaling the team from a distance yeah. So I think it's super important to note um that although I'm at a distance I'm definitely not removed from the area like I make a point to go there pretty much every other month and be super present and like I think it does take time to kind of build that in people and to make sure that they know that you're serious and you know they're not going to get another job. If they don't do it this way that takes some time but there's a good Rhythm and routine. Once you start doing that like I've never had a project that I haven't walked multiple times like through different stages of the of the Renault. Once it's done the resale part like I'm I'm very present and I do make a very big effort every time like that's pretty much what I do. When I go into town is I I um make time for people the people that are important to the business the people that are important for me to do future business with and to make those in-person connections so like the contractors like they know like if I come into town and things aren in a certain way like you're not going to get paid and you're going to have to redo it so might as well do it right the first time you know and especially once you're doing multiple projects over and over again. House. Slipping is pretty like similar for each house. There's like different things but it's it's one checklist process that you do over and over again. So it also gets easier as you do more with the same people now did I hear you correctly. I don't know if I misheard you but you obviously you have contractors. You have the whole like renovation team. It is a part of that team like a project manager or is that some okay so you have a full-time or like assumingly like assuming like a full-time project manager that kind of like manages all the different projects for you yeah. So my project manager. Essentially what his role is is. Uh pretty much a task person any sort of task that comes up on the ground that needs a person to go do and I can't do it. Because I'm not there. It could be anything from delivering materials um sending me updates on the the jobs like the progress that's been made um turning on utilities putting up lock boxes like anyone who needs to be met and led into the property like anything like that not necessarily high level oversite management. Like that he knows the details of construction and how everything should be and he's going to call out a mistake that's being made. But it's more just daily tasks that have to get done and someone has to be there to do yeah. That's awesome and I'm wondering because to me that feels like in my head that feels like the most important position other than like maybe your GC yep right um because they're kind of like the glue that holds everything together yes.
•  So I'm wondering how many times it took to get that higher right you know it's uh it maybe. For other people's stores would take a whole bunch but for me it was just one um that's actually my one person who's been with me. Since day. One nobody else has really but um he has and it was super random the way we met is. He was trying to get into real estate uh he was actually wholesaling a property. It was his first deal and I ended up buying it but you know it was overpriced and he had to renegotiate and some things just had to be redone with the contract that he didn't know how to do so. You know I kind of held a sand and walked him through that first deal um and he was just a great communicator. We got along super well and so I just kind of presented the opportunity like hey would you like to be. You know do this kind of on the side as you're starting up wholesaling and just be on job sites learn more about the process of flipping houses um and kind of just do this you know daily tasks that come up type of job and he was all about it and has been ever sense so that's awesome yeah that's that's great so wow that's that's a very like happen chance meeting. But that's awesome that it worked out for you and um cuz. I could I could see that hire being incredibly diff difficult especially in a market that you don't you haven't rubbed a lot of elbows within right so like in a market like La you you have a lot of context. You know a lot of people. I could see that being like potentially easier but in a market that you just got into to have that kind of um to have that kind of success that quickly is that's awesome so now you said that's the only person that's been with you the whole time so let's talk about maybe a hire. That didn't go the right way because I'd love to hear like one and you can leave out names or whatever right like you don't want to. Hur it you know like uh dragon went through the mud. But I'm wondering like who uh maybe didn't perform the task and and what were the things that you saw in them right like what were the some of the things you like oh. I think that they could be really good but then they didn't end up working out and like for whatever reason I think it's been. It's never been somebody that was just not great upfront. Like there's been. Some of those where you know I maybe call a contractor or a handyman to go fix something and like had to try several times just to get them on the phone like red flags up front to where okay this person's probably not going to work out like like there's been a few of those but that's never been someone that I've actually like committed to or really worked closely with I just kind of weed those out quickly so the ones that I've faded out from like over time. It's never been just one thing up front like that just went so wrong or so poorly. It's more so just been that you know you do deals and projects with people and you kind of learn as you go and then you meet more people and you do projects with them. There's like comparing and contrasting between the two and just figuring out um what could be actually better out there so um. That's that's a big lesson that I've learned is like to never be just set on your team and set on your people and like doors are closed and that you're never hiring that you should always be open to meeting people finding out like hey tell me about what you do show me. Some examples of projects that you've done what are you looking for um like I have like a backup list. Now all the time and I'm always keeping an ongoing list of of all positions like if somebody because you just never know if somebody gets gets another gig that's better and they back out on you or they just kind of stop performing super well and you got to move on and find somebody else so right. It's just been a lot of that like you know. Finding areas where hey I think we could really improve and maybe the better option isn't necessarily to try to force improvement with this particular person. Let's try somebody else and hey it went way better over here so let's just let's just start trading more jobs over here to this other person and you know just slowly fading people in and out yeah. That's interesting and I mean I think part of the the beauty right of of the the team that you've built right is that for the most part maybe outside of the project manager or maybe even the project manager. But I'm assuming that most of these guys are just like contractors right so there's no like any sort of like employee employer relationship with the majority of these individuals so you have the ability to kind of like you know place them in one project and then you can test someone else on another project and then test someone else on another project and that exactly yeah that is that is the beautiful thing about like that sort of situation where um you can always be triing so what I'm hearing is that basically like you you no matter how good someone's doing like you're always going to like want to test someone else just to see how they're doing. I'm assuming that you have an A team right now like people that like hey I'm super set on these people but like if you've got 10 projects going on or five projects or however many like I'm sure the bandwidth is only so great right and so you gotta have like like a B team and so like okay that's cool that that's that's interesting to hear and I'm Cur so now now that we've kind of gone over that. I'm really like curious about. We've talked about a lot of the successes that you've had so far but no Journeys without its failures. So what's one failure.
•  What's one you know failure quote unquote that you had to overcome and and what what were the lessons that you that you learned from that probably the biggest struggle or challenge so far was the market last year for me um. You know just I started investing in New Orleans in 2019 and all the way through mid 202. Three the market was awesome like just skyrocketing and we were dealing with multiple offers on all the resales and I was building a name for myself and doing a lot of volume so people knew me and it wasn't that difficult to buy either you know I was getting sent good deals and um just working wholesale and agent relationships so like things were really good and in starting like mid 2023 on it's starting to get a little bit better. But I'd say even up until now. The Market's just been hard um and I run you know usually 10 to 12 flips at a time and so when you know when the market just stops all of the sudden and you're starting to list things for sale and they're not selling and your inventory is just building up but you're also trying to not like just shut off the funnel and stop buying because then you're not going to have inventory six months down the line online um. It's just tough you know you got holding costs that are just racking up and you've got to pay back private lenders and um just all the things. So that was definitely the biggest struggle. I'd say was probably like the last six months of the market six to nine months um and the the biggest like lesson I took away from it or um you know piece of advice. I guess would be to always have uh Capital reserves for stuff. Like that like don't overextend yourself. The market will not always be good and I think that was one of the things that really saved me um you know I had some solid flips from the first half of the year that made some solid profits and so um you know not just absolutely like overex saying myself and reinvesting every penny of that. Uh really helped me just be able to take some of those properties that weren't selling and turn them into rentals and be able to reinvest that Capital back into those assets and even have the option to hold on to them um and still be able to pay back the private lenders and everything so you know I I can only imagine if I had like nothing in the bank you know or $10,000 or whatever and like six properties that I had to do something with that weren't selling you know what I would have done so. That was you know luckily a good. Uh advantage that I had last year even though it was really challenging year that's interesting so now when you are analyzing or underwriting. Your your flips are you always underwriting or analyzing them to see if like Burr or like long-term. Hold is even like a like a backup option for you because I'm assuming like you had like I'm assuming you had that like in like that Ace in your pocket sort of thing or was that something that you just kind of figured out after you spent a couple months on the market and there are no bites yeah um yeah. The the price point that I work in a lot in New Orleans um is kind of that entry level um price point where you could easily slap a mortgage on it and still rent it out for probably more than that mortgage. It's more so just a matter of the cash out part you know how much of your cash are you going to get back out and so you usually like if it works as a flip. You may not get all of your cash out. But you still have some Equity there that would have been your profit for the flip so if you had to hold it like you might have to put some money back you know in to to to cover whatever cash out. They're not going to give you but right. That was kind of the situation last year for me with those projects like they all worked cash flow wise. They all worked as far as putting a mortgage on it putting a renter in it and at least but all of them more than at least covered the mortgage um sure so the the cash that I had reserves for was more so just hey they're only going to give me 75% cash out and we're all into the deal for 85%. You know so I got to cover that extra 10% Gap and put in $10,000 or 20,000 or whatever it was to to keep the property gotcha okay. So there were some Capital infusions that had happened so basically like there were there were the there were the the cost of the renovation and you all in on that plus the The Upfront equity and then you had to do additional Equity infusions just to get the bank to put a mortgage on it. Yeah I mean that's tough and and if you have like if you have like one of those then like yeah. But if you have like six of those right so it sounds like. This happened to a few of them and you're like hey. This is yeah that makes a lot of sense and I think a lot of people learned a lot of lessons. So last year Dominic I mean last year was tough for like pretty much every no no one like crushed. It last year right so um at least not very many people's so yeah. But it's cool to know that you were able to kind of overcome those hurdles and overcome those challenges because you didn't overextend yourself.
•  And I think that that's an important kind of takeaway for anyone who's listening to this that is looking to do something similar to what you're to what you're currently doing any plans to expand outside in New Orleans like have you kind of picked that market and you're like hey. This is where I'm going to be forever like I'm I'm curious kind of like what you envision for your future. I really like the market there um. They're such a great investor Community as well. I kind of mentioned earlier like it isn't one of those hot button. Uh markets that everybody's talking about investing in right. So it's it's a smaller Community um. But I actually love that because I know so many people there um and it's it's easy to get involved. It's easy to kind of get your name out there and you know the the big players are kind of know each other. All know each other and know the bigger wholesalers and agents and stuff like that. So I really like that about the market um. I'm very bullish on it as far as flips have no plan to leave or expand. Really flips anywhere else just because I have such a great team and and the deal flow is good um. But as far as the long-term rental side goes um I am pretty bullish as well on buying single family. Uh rent long-term rentals there and I am doing that and and trying to build that portfolio more actively but um as far as buying like what you consider probably like more stable long-term assets like apartment buildings um or small multifamilies. Even I'm not super bullish on that in that area. Um it's just the areas where there are a lot of large multif family and apart. Department buildings aren't the greatest areas and then you're also dealing with like small units so not great area vers and only like a one-bedroom apartment you're just not getting a great rent and you're not getting a very high quality tenant. So those aren't really the type of assets I want to hold and manage long term um so I I don't have a specific other. Market picked out where I'm you know looking for those types of buildings. But I think if you know in 10 years or whatever sold a bunch of singles rentals that we had and and try to put it all into one building. Somewhere else. It probably wouldn't be in New Orleans listen that makes a lot of sense and and I'm curious because you touched on this earlier right and I want to flip gears a little bit some of the listeners especially the younger ones or maybe the people that don't have like a ton of cash. Right now are think are listening to this and they're like hey. This sounds great but like I don't have a lot of money or whatever to get started. So presumably you've run into issues at some point with you know having capital and you talked about raising Capital as part of your strategy. Now so what strategies and and how have you kind of like gone about raising capital for the projects that you have in New Orleans. So I pretty much uh entirely use private money just yeah with individuals who have another job. You know are successful lawyers or a doctor or whatever they might be and they just have money that they're looking to invest in something safe um and passive. So my private lenders aren't Partners. They're not Equity Partners um. It's just a straight up debt raise where I raise all the pro. The the um funds needed for the purchase and the Rena of the project and it's it's a straight up interest rate um transaction to where you know. If I hold a loan for 12 months. They typically get 12% so 1% per month uh that the money is held and it's either just distributed in monthly interest payments or one lump sum at the end and um and then those lenders have obviously like the the pool of them has has grown over time as I've done more projects and just gotten referrals and people who also want to keep rolling their money over and reinvesting but to be honest. Most of them have from some form of like social media or hearing me on podcast interviews or something that triggers them to reach out to me. So. I I don't it's not like I had this like circle of high net worth individuals around me that I started pitching this to um. It's it's grown slowly over time but that's how it's grown. It's just like me talking about what I do being pretty open on social media about like the wins and losses and doing a lot of like podcast interviews and stuff and people just reaching out and asking how they can get involved how they can invest um how they can put their funds to work so. I'm curious how like that first conversation came about though like there had to be a first one right so was that more of a reach out to you or did you do okay interesting interesting yeah. The very first one um which was an awesome first one to land on was a guy who owned a lot of multif family properties in the Los Angeles area and so we had connected um on some of his his you know properties and he was looking to ultimately diversify out of California and just get involved in stuff in other markets that you know have less uh red. Tape I guess and you know could see results quicker and so that really intrigued him about what I was doing in Louisiana um and just that it was a passive opportunity um. So he was the reason he was a great first investor is because he had a lot to invest and once we did like one or two deals together. He was really Allin um on the area and on what we were doing together and he just wanted to keep funding more and more deals uh but the reason he wasn't. A great first investor is because he was an equity investor so sometimes that's what it takes to get started. You know you got to give up more in order to build that track record. But it was a great opportunity for me because even though he was taking Equity out of the profits of the flip um I got to do a ton of deals and not really even have to think about where the capital was going to come from and that just allowed me to build a really solid track record like we were already running probably five or six projects at a time that he was funding um and you know you start getting to a scale like that and and people kind of start to recognize what you're doing and so that was that was a great transition for me to be like all right I think I have enough um kind of proof and evidence and of what I'm doing and that it is successful that I can go out and start to raise just debt equity and kind of scale. This guy out of the projects and and just get into solely debt yeah and and just as a comment on that because when you're getting started Equity investors yeah they take more of the pie but there's less you know kind of risk with that too um from on your end right. So um having Equity. Partners at the beginning is um is definitely a great way to start. I know a lot of investors who have started um and still you know to this day. You know have Equity Partners. I think that you know kind of mitigating that risk but it sounds like you've gotten to the point where there is your projects are so systematic. They're so like dial your process is so dialed in that when you buy something it's like you know it's going to the Finish Line right. So like the the the PE. Like at that point you're very confident and that makes and that makes a lot of sense and even with the Burrs I'm assuming that like when you refi um with those are you're you're cashing out the people that are in debt positions there. Like you're you're you're cashing out your investors at that point too correct yep yeah okay makes sense that's super interesting Dominique um. It's really really interesting the way that you've structured it and and it's great that you've been able to build this track record over time because like you've essentially like grown you've you've grown it so organically and and you made a lot of Right Moves which is like awesome for someone your age like what are you 25. Now you said 25 uh 26 26 26. I know you're not supposed to girls are it like yeah. That's all good. But it's like all right hey that's uh yeah. That's awesome you've you've you've done really really well like that's. It's really impressive to hear like all the things that you've done.
•  Obviously. We're running up close to time and I want to be respectful here of your time. But I'm curious you know a couple last questions that I have for you. Obviously we touched on kind of where the market was at a few you know for like the last year year and a half or so. I'm. I'm curious what you see or what you foresee with the state of the market over like the next year or two and how your approach might be changing. It sounds like you're gearing up to do a little bit more bur and or long-term holds like if if I heard correctly that was one of the things and then but I'm curious of just anything else that you're doing uh strategy wise to kind of like prepare for um any sort of like upcoming changes or continued kind of like market conditions or if these market conditions you think that they're going to continue yeah. I think it's you know obviously Market dependent um. But I can speak to New Orleans in the sense that it was honestly just like transactionally pretty dead uh up until like about March. So this spring um you know it wasn't even necessarily a problem of that people weren't looking or interested but it was really hard to get people to the closing table. Something would cause the contract to fall through um so now we are starting to see a bit of a shift to where some of those properties that even I had kind of just sitting on the market from you know December January where things were really slow all of the sudden the spring hit and all of them had multiple offers again. Um people were like coming out of the Woodworks and starting to buy again and so just a that little bit of pressure helps a lot with getting people to the closing table because they know there's competition and they know they're going to you know lose the property and probably not have a ton of other options whereas before there was so little pressure like the buyers were were everything like the sellers needed them um because there were so few and so if they found one little thing that they didn't like they could just back out and go pick something else. Maybe something better you know so um just seeing that shifting a little bit back more to a better balance between buyers and sellers to where there is more buyer activity um. But I have trained strategy a little bit um probably in the last like not just this year. But the last year overall um I've started not flipping so much in that entry level price. Point I started just buying those with the intention to bur and rent them long term and that in New Orleans is like the 200k and under Market um. I'm I'm flipping pretty much only in the like next tier up market right. Now about 250 to 500k exits um you're just dealing with a little bit more serious buyers and they're less affected by the interest rates and insurance and just economic things that pop up so that's that's been better um but overall just generally speaking. There's been way better activity in the last two months than I've seen in like six or eight months yeah. That's that's awesome and that's good to hear and it's cool to hear how you flipped. Nope I intended your strategy. There a little bit um and now you're you're kind of. Shifting your your market up your price point up so now you've got your what you were originally doing on the flips right like the price points that you originally flipping in you've now converted that to burth strategy and now moved your price point up on the flips which is an interesting strategy and I think it makes a lot of sense right because now you're now you're building. The capital serves to kind of start burring in the next price point right and so you're kind of like growing it that way. Which is it's a it's a smart way to do it well. Dominique this has been awesome I'm I'm super glad that we stopped by like lots of great nuggets here but in typical gold mind fashion want you to leave the audience with one final gold. Nugget I touched on it a little bit earlier but I'll say it more prominently um. I think the biggest thing to know if you're going to start and go into this business is it is a people business not a property business um like I said when I go to the ground in New Orleans and spend some time like I really don't need to be on site on the properties like it's cool. I like to see my projects and what we're working on. But me being there really doesn't help anything or change anything um. You know the property gets renovated. It gets listed for sale. It goes through escrow whether I'm there or not you know that's kind of the point of of doing this long distance. But it only does that because it's a people business and you've got to focus on building those relationships with the right people who are going to be put in place so that you can delegate and step away and so like that is all I focus on anymore when I go to the ground. It's like who can I meet with how much can I fill my schedule with just taking people to dinner like um showing people that I appreciate what they do and and I want to be long-term. Partners with and networking like I try to plan my um. My visits around meetups that are happening and like where can I get in the room with other people that you know. I can either just be friends with and bounce ideas and hear what's going on in their business and share what's going on in mine but also potentially do future deals with so um focus on that like. It's hard at the beginning when it just seems like. It's all about this one project and it has to go perfectly you have to design it just right. But it's the people and it's those relationships that's going to get you through a hundred deals. Not just one that is great advice and I could not agree more. Dominique thanks so much for stopping by yeah thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun.