How “Vibe” Investing Made Me $57,000 in Real Estate

When Obi Johns was a teenager, he saw his parents do something remarkable: they sold their home and made $150,000 from market appreciation alone. But then, months later, the investor who bought his childhood home sold it AGAIN for nearly $400,000 profit. Obi looked at his family and thought, “That should have been us.” So, after graduating college with a degree he had little interest in, he quickly decided to get into the real estate game—but as an agent. As he grew, he saw his clients flipping houses and knew he wanted to do it, too, not just to make money, but to understand the buyer and seller in the transaction. Obi had zero experience, but he documented his first house flip on Instagram, which went viral overnight and led to 26 showings in a single day. The best part? Obi didn’t use the copy-and-paste flipper finishes most buyers are tired of; he let his audience decide the design—and it worked. Obi walked away from that flip with a $40,000+ profit, and the next one was even bigger. Obi details his entire “vibe flipping” model to get over-asking offers in a matter of days, and how you can test as you invest in your first deals, too. In This Episode We Cover How “vibe” investing is making Obi much more money than stale, systematized flips Going viral on your first real estate investment and when making content makes you money Arguably the best first investment for a new (and young) real estate investor (5% down) Is it worth getting your real estate license as an investor? A $400,000 missed opportunity that changed Obi’s investing path forever And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1351. Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Henry Washington?

  When Obie Johns was a teenager, he saw his parents do something remarkable. They sold their home and made $150,000 just from appreciation. But then the same investor who bought his childhood home, sold it again for nearly $400,000 more. Obie looked at his family and thought, that should have been us. As soon as he graduated college, he knew what he wanted to do. Real estate. And at just 21 years old, Obie became an agent. He bought his first duplex with 5% down and he house hacked it. But after that, he went in a very different direction. Obie saw his clients flipping and thought, I can do that too.

• 0:41Henry Washington?

  So he bought his first flip for $153,000 with zero experience. And he documented every step of the journey on his Instagram. And from that, he went viral and got 26 showings in a single day. And the best part, he let his followers decide the finishes and the design for the house. He calls it vibe flipping. He made over $40,000 on his first vibe flip and even more on more recent ones. So how did someone starting at 21 with zero experience beat out all the experienced investors in the market? Today, Obie is showing you how.

• 1:25Henry Washington?

  What's going on everybody? I'm Henry Washington. I am the co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast and my co-host, Dave Meyer is here as well. And we've got an investor story today with Obie Johns from Columbus, Ohio. So let's bring on Obie. Mr. Obie Johns, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I hear congratulations are in order, man.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:46Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, expecting father.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  We are excited. Yeah, we, um, we're about 12 weeks in.

• 1:52Dave Meyer?

  That's awesome.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  So we should be finding out if it's a boy or girl pretty soon. We're pumped either way. I'm feeling like it's a boy, so we'll have to, we'll have to come back and see.

• 2:01Henry Washington?

  You got a couple of girl dads here though, so you know.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Okay, all right. I'll be reaching out for some real estate advice and maybe some fathering advice.

• 2:08Henry Washington?

  Awesome. Well, now we can get started. Why don't you tell us about how you got into real estate and give us a little bit of your background?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, my name's Obie Johns. I am a Realtor of five, going on six years now. Um, I went to Ohio State. I was majoring in political science. Um, and it took me about four years and a college degree to realize that I, I didn't love politics. Um, and, and a little bit of money as well that I gave them to, to figure that out. And so I graduated into COVID. Real estate was booming, 3% rates. Everyone's talking about investment properties and I was looking at a career pivot. And so I figured, you know what? Now's the time to figure out if this real estate thing works for me. I hear stuff about passive income, financial freedom from pages like BiggerPockets.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  So I started getting my real estate license. While I was getting licensed, I dabbled in a little bit of wholesaling, got licensed, bought my first rental property, did a house hack, dabbled in flipping. I tried everything that I learned from like podcasts and books. I wanted to make sure that I knew what the full extent of real, real estate investing looked like.

• 3:24Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Um, and so I've, I've basically tried every way to real estate invest. I'm actually sitting in what is going to be our first short-term rental. I think that was maybe the last box that I needed to check. And it's, it's been a good five years.

• 3:35Henry Washington?

  And I've heard you say a few times that you knew you wanted to be investor. I knew I wanted to be investor. Like where did that seed get planted? Cause that sounds like more than just, you know, I watched a podcast.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, right before I went to college, my parents sold our childhood home. They bought it for $80,000 in the late nineties. And we ended up selling it as a fixer-upper about 20 years later for, I want to say like $230,000. And to me, I just thought that was crazy that we got to live in that house.

• 4:10Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  For 20 years and my dad got paid to, to live there. We didn't really do like a whole lot of improvements to it. It was just a good location that appreciated. Um, but what surprised me even more and what got me really intrigued in real estate is when the investor who bought it from us, put it back on the market three months later for $600,000. And he got it. He sold it pretty quickly.

• 4:36Dave Meyer?

  Wow.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  And I just couldn't help but think, why couldn't that have been us? Why couldn't we have taken it to $80,000 purchase, $600,000 sale? Him doing it so quickly just made me think, this is something I, I need to figure out.

• 4:51Dave Meyer?

  So you were an agent before you did your first deal?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  That's correct. My first deal was helping someone sell their first house, actually. I did retail and investor business for about a year or two, until I bought my first property, which is a duplex. You know, everyone's saying house hacking, great way to get into real estate. I was able to buy a house and spend, you know, half what other people are spending to live in a home. And I got to ride, you know, appreciation on a property that someone else is paying half the payment for.

• 5:28Dave Meyer?

  You're an agent, so did you just find this deal on the MLS? Did you have a, you know, what was your buy box like when you went out to buy this house hack?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  So I actually found it, I want to say somewhat off-market. I was going to real estate meetups in my city and I met an investor who flips 50, 60 houses a year. He keeps a lot of his rentals. So we met, I, I followed him on social media and I see on his story one day that he is taking a, a video of a duplex that he's almost done renovating and he was going to rent it out. And it was at a very small buy box when I was looking for our first house. I was actually looking in my childhood neighborhood that we sold our first home. Um, and so there's not a lot of inventory.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  There's probably 100 duplexes in the entire area that I was looking. I mean, you know, most are rented out. They've been rented for 15 years and they don't hit the market very often. So I saw his story. I asked him where that duplex was. He gave me the address. It was three blocks from my childhood home.

• 6:40Henry Washington?

  That's crazy.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  And I said, can I please come see it? I will be there in 20 minutes. And so I went over, I looked at it. It was 90% done. He was just doing the finishing touches. I loved it right away. My wife and I, we had been renting a one-bedroom apartment and we had been thinking about.

• 6:57Henry Washington?

  You would have loved anything you saw then is what I'm saying.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we, we just needed space. We needed out of the bedroom slash office that we were working out of.

• 7:08Dave Meyer?

  This is exactly how you convince people to house hack. Henry and I talk about this all the time. Everyone's like, oh, house hacking, it's so inconvenient. But if you're coming from a studio apartment that you're sharing.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  You're in a one bedroom. Anything is more convenient.

• 7:21Henry Washington?

  It's a Taj Mahal.

• 7:24Dave Meyer?

  Everything's better.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  So we, we toured the house. I needed to get my wife on board. She lived in like newer homes mostly growing up. And in Columbus, our zoning code is, is a bit strict. So most of the duplexes are going to be a hundred years old because they like in the 50s, 60s, they kind of stopped zoning for multifamily. So a hundred-year-old duplex was our only option. And this one was fully renovated. It had kind of like an open layout kitchen, like everything that my wife was expecting in her first home. And so we ended up, you know, making our compromises. I don't think that she thought our first home would also inherit renters or we would.

• 8:03Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Rent out half of it. And I didn't necessarily need to have like, you know, the flashy, open layout and everything. So it just, it just really worked out for us.

• 8:13Dave Meyer?

  That's perfect. And how'd you finance this deal?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  We went conventional. I want to say it was like a, a low down payment, maybe 5% down, just with a lender that I've worked with a lot on.

• 8:23Dave Meyer?

  Oh, great.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Referring to my clients as a Realtor. So it was pretty smooth.

• 8:27Dave Meyer?

  Were you able to cash flow right away?

• 8:31Speaker 01

  So I want to say that we were probably about breaking even, um, when we first moved in. It was a lot cheaper than other rentals would be. I think we were looking at like 2,200 for a two-bedroom apartment at the time.

• 8:45Dave Meyer?

  Oh, Columbus got expensive, right?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Columbus got pretty pricey and like, uh, post-COVID. Um, and we're not far from Oshu campus. There's just a lot of, you know, people moving here for, for college. And so there's a lot of demand. I'd say like between 2,000 and 2,200 would get you a, an updated two-bedroom apartment. Our mortgage on the duplex was about 3,400 and we rented one side out for 18. So that left us with maybe 1,600 that we were paying ourselves. So we looked at it as a win that we were, you know, getting an extra bedroom for $600 less than the market would have allowed us.

• 9:21Dave Meyer?

  Huge win.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  And once we move out of here, um, and get both sides rented, we should cash flow. I want to say about $500.

• 9:29Henry Washington?

  We've got to take a pause, but we'll be right back with more from agent and investor Obie Johns right after the break.

• 9:34Dave Meyer?

  Before we go to break, if you're someone who's bought a couple of deals and you're looking to scale up your portfolio into something bigger, I have a really exciting announcement for you. BiggerPockets is hosting its first ever conference focused just on scaling up. It's this December, it's coming up soon, this December 5th through 7th in Phoenix, Arizona. We're going to have a full day of programming with speakers like myself, James Daynard, Kathy Fecky, and Devon Kennard, talking about how to scale up and build a sustainable business. Tickets are on sale now, but there are only 100 tickets. So go to biggerpockets.com/conferencesnow and get your ticket today. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle?

• 10:18Dave Meyer?

  Active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes 10% below market value in the best markets across the country without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what Rent to Retirement does. They're a full-service turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50% to 75% of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit biggerpockets.com/retirement to learn more. Most deals don't fall apart because of the numbers. They fall apart because of the financing. You find a property that cash flows, the deal makes sense.

• 11:03Dave Meyer?

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• 11:44Dave Meyer?

  If you're buying rentals, refinancing, or scaling your portfolio, go to hostfinancial.com. That's H-O-S-T financial.com and see what you qualify for. Some listeners may wonder why their insurance quote only took 30 seconds. Some listeners may wonder why their insurance quote took 30 seconds. A better question is, how long will that policy actually hold up when you need it? At Enreg, the goal isn't just getting coverage in place, it's making sure your investment property is properly protected when a real claim happens. That's why they take time to evaluate each property's unique risks and build coverage design for the realities investors face.

• 12:26Dave Meyer?

  Because anyone can sell a policy, Enreg focuses on standing behind it. Visit n-r-e-i-g.com/bpplc to learn more.

• 12:36Henry Washington?

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• 13:21Henry Washington?

  If you're a BiggerPockets Pro member, Mind will save you $500 for every home you onboard, up to $10,000 in your first year. Check mind.co to save time, money, and frustration. That's M-Y-N-D.co.

• 13:40Henry Washington?

  What's going on everybody? We are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. We're talking with agent and investor Obie Johns. Let's dive back in. You did a house hack and you were like, this is pretty cool. Then you said you were looking at doing a flip. So I'm very curious, were you trying to do a flip in that same childhood neighborhood too, like you were trying to get back when you lost on the first house?

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Somewhat. So I worked with a lot of flippers and I like, I knew the process from underwriting the deals to what people want in a finished product when it's time to sell the house. I knew the full beginning and I knew the full ending and I wanted to know everything that my clients go through when they're flipping a house, like working with contractors and financing the project. And so I figured this would be a great experience to flip a house. That way, when I speak, it's from personal experience and not just, you know, I've seen this work. It's, this is what worked for me. And I think it made me a lot more confident as an agent because there just wasn't any question anymore on what you had to do to successfully flip a house. So I decided, you know, I'm going to give this a shot.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Part of the inspiration was when we bought this duplex and we loved the house. It was like, we're so happy how it worked out, but a couple of months into closing, our sewer line collapsed.

• 14:58Henry Washington?

  Been there, buddy.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  And so you know what that situation looks like and smells like. It's not a pleasant position to be in. And it cost us about $7,000 to get it excavated.

• 15:11Henry Washington?

  Oh, you got a flight.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  We're right next to the city line, so they didn't have to dig very far and they didn't have to put in a whole lot more. But, but seven grand was a lot for us when we, you know, just put down our down payment and we're furnishing two extra bedrooms that we didn't have. And we had a, I want to say like a month or two of vacancy, just as we like did all the final touches to the property. So it definitely hurt a little bit. And so I said, you know what? I'm going all in on real estate. I'm not going to let this deter me. And so I wanted to buy another property and I figured if I make a profit on this flip, I can pay myself back for what we just had to spend on our sewer line, all that money we just buried in the ground. And I would get my confidence back to, to keep pushing in real estate.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  We actually found it off-market for, I want to say $153,000. It was about 10 minutes away from where we lived. So not quite the same neighborhood, but I was familiar with the area. It didn't need a whole lot of work. It was mostly cosmetics. We finished the basement, painted, did some roof work, gutters, not a whole lot. It was a pretty simple project. We put in, let's say around $40,000. I documented the whole flip day by day on Instagram. This is actually how I kind of started doing social media a bit more. I made a series about flipping my first house. Episode one, I went in there and they left a bunch of stuff behind. They weren't supposed to leave it. And so we had to clear out the house.

• 16:39Dave Meyer?

  In there, yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  And then, you know, we find things that we didn't see on our initial walkthrough. And so it was just day by day, problem by problem, ended up going very viral on social media. I want to say the series got over seven million views.

• 16:54Dave Meyer?

  Whoa.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  A lot of offers from the videos that I was posting because we started posting it on the day that we started. And so I was getting comments, you know, halfway through of people saying, where's this house? It, it looks like it's something that my clients are into. And so when we listed it, we actually set a record in the zip code for most single day showings.

• 17:17Dave Meyer?

  What?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  We had, I want to say 26 showings in that first day, which, you know, this is 2024. Like this isn't COVID, like 2020. It was the most in the whole zip code. We ended up getting 10 offers on the first day. I want to say three or four came from agents who either their clients were following the series online or they were, were following it and they recommended it to their clients. We ended up going 25,000 over the list price and ended up making 44 grand on that first flip.

• 17:50Dave Meyer?

  Unbelievable. That's amazing. Congratulations.

• 17:53Henry Washington?

  That's awesome.

• 17:54Dave Meyer?

  And so why, why aren't you doing it again?

• 17:57Speaker 01

  It was, I mean, it was stressful. Like it was awesome and it was a great experience, but I've learned to tolerate the stress of being an agent and flipping a house is just a different kind of stress. Once you go through it, you kind of figure it out, but it just wasn't the stress that I chose. I didn't feel the reward. I mean, it was very profitable and I, and I love that about it, but it wasn't as rewarding as helping, you know, my clients get their wins or helping people into their first homes. And so it didn't feel like the stress was outweighed by all the benefit of the project.

• 18:33Dave Meyer?

  Obie, I'm, I am so glad you just said that. I think this is the most overlooked part of being a real estate investor because there's so many things that you can do. But the only way you make money in real estate is if you could stay in it for the long game. Like that's, that's how you do it. And if you don't like doing something, it doesn't matter how profitable it is. Like you're going to burn out at some point. And so I don't flip. I've, I've passively invested in flips, made some good money, but it's just not for me. And I think the way you described it is perfect because every, every job has stress. Everything has stress, but you can tolerate the stress of being an agent. It's such a perfect way to say it. That's something you can live with and that you feel like that stress is balanced with

• 19:14Dave Meyer?

  the reward that you personally feel from helping people get into a home or to sell their home. And that just flipping doesn't do it for you. Like Henry, you're probably just the opposite, right? Like you've never wanted to be an agent and you love flipping homes.

• 19:27Henry Washington?

  Absolutely.

• 19:27Dave Meyer?

  And that's why you've been able to sustain your business for 10 years.

• 19:30Henry Washington?

  Wholeheartedly agree with you. I loved everything about that answer and the previous answer in saying, hey, I had to make a choice. Do I want to flip houses or do I want to be a good agent? Because when people ask me, should I get my license? My response to them is like, I don't know. Do you want to be a really good real estate agent and help people buy and sell homes? And if the answer is yeah, then heck yeah, go get your license. But if, if it's not, then I would probably wait, do a couple of deals and then figure out if your license makes sense for the kind of investor you want to be. Dave, you're absolutely right. Like being an agent sounds like my nightmare. I don't want anything to do with that at all. But I understand the warm fuzzies of helping someone. I get mine a different way.

• 20:15Henry Washington?

  I get mine through flipping houses and providing good rental properties and, and teaching people how to do this business, right? But it's all hard, y'all. It's all hard. Not doing real estate and key, and just working a day job until you retire is hard too. Like you've got to pick the hard that makes sense for you and it's, it's going to be different for each person. What a great answer.

• 20:35Dave Meyer?

  So Obi, I wanted to ask you, you brought up social media because you have a great social media account. Did you expect your series to catch on in the way it did?

• 20:44Speaker 01

  I thought it was interesting. I would have been interested in following it. The quantity of views and interactions and everything surprised me. I didn't know that it would be that crazy, but I didn't know that it was a cool story. I framed it as, you know, me buying my first house and us running into a huge repair. That made me wonder if real estate was even the right thing to do. And flipping this house was supposed to be like the hero story of like, yeah, you know, we made it back. We got a big win. But the scary part was like, I started filming and posting before I had sold the flip. We were still working on it. And there was a, I sat down with my wife after like, the first video went viral,

• 21:27Speaker 01

  millions of views. I got like 100,000 followers in like a span of maybe a few days. And I told her like, what happens if we don't like profit? What happens if we lose it on this house too? And what happens as my reputation as an agent? If, you know, I just put myself out there and it doesn't work. And I, you know, we talked about it and the conclusion we came to was, I think that people will feel inspired that you tried. And this isn't going to be your last try. You're not going to stop if this doesn't work out well. And so I started off a little bit nervous and then I just felt really comforted by the support that I was getting online. People saying like, I don't know you. I just met

• 22:09Speaker 01

  you, but I believe in you. You got this. And like, I needed that. It was good to hear at the moment. So it did a lot for my career. It did a lot for my confidence as well.

• 22:21Henry Washington?

  This is really cool, man. There's tons of people who want to share their story on social media. What advice do you have to those people? And kind of what experience? We talked a little bit about the positives, how it's impacted you. Like, has there been any downside to you having a social media presence in your business or personal life?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  For me, coming from the angle of, I'm just gonna give things a go and document it. I think that's what works really well right now on social media. There's a lot of people who have all the answers, but

• 22:49Henry Washington?

  They think they do.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  A lot of people who say that they've got all the answers and there's less people who admit that they don't and are willing to be vulnerable and take you through the experience with you.

• 23:02Dave Meyer?

  That's what people resonate with is like, it's hard to connect with someone who pretends they know all of the answers. Like, no one does. And so you're like, actually connecting with how other people really feel.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  I agree with that. You asked, have there been any downsides? It takes a lot of time to do social media. And right now, I'm a one man team. Hopefully by the time this airs, I've got some assistance because it's something that I've been, been looking to do. But I just, I love making the videos. I love telling the stories. And so it's been hard for me to hand some of that over. And I would say it's been, it took about a few years before I really started getting a great return on that time spent. This year, about 80% of my business came from social media. And I'm probably three years into doing social media. Even when I did that series and I got a bunch of followers, it didn't immediately turn

• 23:57Speaker 01

  into a bunch of deals. It turned into a lot of support and it turned into my name being out there. But then people are like, hey, you're the guy who flipped your first house. My cousin wants to do their first flip. And it just kind of started to, you know, we pushed the snowball. And it took a little while before things really picked up. But now I'm spending less time and content and getting more results from social media than I was a couple of years ago.

• 24:24Henry Washington?

  All right, we've got to take a quick break, but we'll be right back right after the break.

• 24:29Dave Meyer?

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• 29:48Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. Let's jump back in. So what happened? Did you do more flips? Have you pivoted into rentals? Like, what came next and how would you define yourself as an investor?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so after that first flip, I took a pause on buying properties for a little bit. Part of me almost thought maybe I got lucky with how everything turned out. And I didn't want to prove to myself that maybe it was luck. So I just focused on helping other people buy their properties. And I got a little antsy. I did purchase another property. I got into partnering with some other investors. Don't know if I'm the one to like coin this term, but I got into what I like to call vibe flipping. Like, have you heard of vibe coding?

• 30:31Dave Meyer?

  Yes.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  So I think that, you know, a lot of flippers, they have a list of all the finishes that they'll do. They'll do, you know, Greek villa or agreeable gray on all the walls. And you've got the same white shaker cabinets. And through my first flip, I actually put a lot of the design choices on my Instagram as polls and let people pick what we should do. And it turned into a really unique product on the market that stood out from other properties. And if I'm, you know, posting an option that gets 80% of the vote, I'm going to assume that, you know, buyers will also agree that that 80% of buyers would prefer that over something else.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  And so it actually was a weight lifted off of me having to figure out what design choices I had to make. And I let my audience do that and it turned out really well. We had a unique property that we put on the market, unique colors that we put in different rooms. We did, uh, we flipped the mid-century modern house earlier this year. And that was, that one was really fun to design. We left a lot of the design up to our audience. And we ended up getting a buyer from Oregon who found it on Zillow. And they just thought it was like the coolest house that they've ever seen and they wanted to move to Ohio. And so maybe my advice to people who want to get into flipping is use your own creative taste on your project.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Because I think that your, your product will stand out. And across the flips that we've done, I've averaged five days on market. When Columbus's average days on market is maybe like 30 or 40.

• 32:07Dave Meyer?

  Wow. Dude, that's, it's so good because so much of the advice about real estate investing is like build a system. And you do need some systems, but taste and design is hard to systematize when you're trying to apply them to homes that are inherently different. And like, if you took those gray colors you named and the luxury vinyl plank and put that in a mid-century home, that's a travesty. Like, you shouldn't do that and everyone would hate it. And I know, I look at Zillow, like everyone knows when you walk into a flipped house, especially in your neighborhood or in your market, because they all copy each other too. And so you're like, okay, I know these exact floors. I know these pendant lights. And I'm already skeptical of the quality of this home because it was probably someone who was mailing it in

• 32:52Dave Meyer?

  and didn't spend the time to actually think about how to make this house great. And I think a lot of that, just rinse and repeating, gives flipped homes a bad name and people don't want to buy them. And if you actually demonstrate that you care about the finished product and that the people are going to enjoy living there, lo and behold, you find people who actually want to live there. It's, it's, it makes so much sense to me.

• 33:16Henry Washington?

  You know, when I first got into flipping, our first few flips just sold so fast. And, uh, it was because we cared about the design and each one of them were different. And I wanted them to cater to who that buyer is in that specific neighborhood for that specific house. And that isn't a copy paste on finishes per house. So I just love giving people something that they aren't expecting in a home and that helps them to sell faster. Now, is that harder to systematize? Absolutely. But can you create systems around that? Yeah, you can do that as well. And especially now in a market where, you know, eyeballs are limited, the better your design, the more eyeballs you're going to get.

• 34:00Henry Washington?

  And in every single market, there's a number of how many eyeballs it takes to get an offer. So the more eyeballs you can get into your property, because your design is unique and amazing and shows you care, the more offers that you're going to get. So it's vibe flipping, but it's also profitable.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Definitely. The, the most recent flip that I did, it made $57,000. And it followed that, it followed that same process of how do I make this feel like it's going to be someone's home? Not just, you know, how do I turn this from an ugly house into something that is inhabitable? But like, how do I make it feel cozy? And I think that's what, what leads to properties, you know, increasing your margin on a flip is, yes, someone can live here now, but why will someone want to live here?

• 34:48Dave Meyer?

  That makes you feel good when you sell a home too. It's like, it's profitable, but like because you created something of value, not just because you were able to pawn it off to the next person. I also just want to shout out and say, because Henry and I talk about this all the time, this also matters for rental property investing.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yep, absolutely.

• 35:05Dave Meyer?

  People love to just turn their rental properties with the same crappy cabinets and countertops and luxury vinyl plank floors, and no one wants to live there. Or they will, but it's, they're going to leave at the soonest opportunity that they can, because you don't make it feel like a comfortable place to live. It's not valuable. You're not making something that is a great place for your tenants to live. It's not a good customer experience. And so I vibe flipping, Obi, you got to brand this one for us. I'm terrible at this. But something where you also create a vibe also applies for rental property investing as well.

• 35:41Henry Washington?

  Well, this has been really cool, Obi. I appreciate you coming on the show, being super transparent about your journey. And I think it's such a practical episode because of your age. There's a lot of people who are your age who are right now trying to navigate all of these same decisions. And you kind of did it all. You became the agent, you listed houses, you house hacked, did some flips. You said you're sitting in a short-term rental right now. And so for the investors who are listening, who are curious and cautiously considering jumping in right now, given the state of the market, what path would you recommend somebody in a very similar position take?

• 36:20Speaker 01

  For me, at the end of the day, I wanted to do something that I enjoyed. And so I didn't want to leave any options on the table. I wanted to experiment with each of these different ways to invest in real estate to see what, you know, really felt good. Because, you know, if you don't like it, you're not going to want to wake up and do it first thing in the morning. And so I think it's, obviously in real estate, there's risk. But if you're an intelligent person, you can navigate that risk and you can attempt any of these approaches. Relatively new, without much experience, I, um, my, my most recent flip, it was 100% financed. I didn't use any of my own money to flip that house that we made $57,000 on.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  You don't need to use your own money. There's first time home buyer loans, like our duplex, we only had to put 5% down. There's a lot of ways to get started. I think you just have to give it a go. And don't convince yourself that you've got to get it right the first time when you pick, maybe the, the first way that you want to get into real estate. It's the experience that you'll get from that can transfer into other forms of real estate investing. And so that's something I learned pretty early on when I dabbled in wholesaling and then I got my license and became a Realtor. I was, you know, having the same conversations on the phone with sellers who needed to put their house on the market. I was just able to offer them different ways to, to get the job done.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  So I would say there's really no barrier. All the information is online. It's on podcasts like this. There's so many resources out there and money is not a barrier. You don't need a lot of money to get started. And you don't have to pick the best way to start. You just have to, to give it a go. And from there, the momentum will take you into wherever you really want to end up being.

• 38:03Henry Washington?

  I like that because if you're going to start with a single-family home, the risk is a whole lot lower, right? A house very rarely goes from worth something to worth nothing. So even if you're not as profitable as you want to be, or maybe you don't even make a profit on your first deal, if you start with a smaller, single-family home, what you're doing is exactly what you said. You were like, I am learning what I want to be as an investor. I don't know yet. And I think a lot of people want to decide what kind of investor they want to be before they've ever done a deal. And you will learn so much through your first real estate deal. You're going to learn what you want to do again. You're going to absolutely learn what you never want to do again. You might learn, you never even want to do real estate again.

• 38:47Dave Meyer?

  Also fine, if you've tried it.

• 38:49Henry Washington?

  Yes, if you've tried it. There's a difference between getting the bug and then actually defining yourself as a real estate investor. And it takes some experience before you can actually do that. And so I like the concept of like, let's put some skin in the game. Let's get started with something lower risk and let's learn about who we, who we want to be, what we want to buy, where we want to buy, how we want to buy. There's just, there's too many things to learn on the front side and be able to apply without never having done it. Now, can you leave us just with a little bit on like, where are you now as an investor? And then knowing what you know now about the market, you just left BPCon, like what are your future goals for real estate?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  So right now, it's, it's still just the duplex that we house hacked. I mean, with rates being higher, I am seeing a lot of my clients pivot towards flipping homes.

• 39:38Dave Meyer?

  Really?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  And having a lot of success in flips, you know, properties that will cash flow a couple hundred dollars, might make you 40,000 on a flip, 45,000 on a flip. In my market, Columbus, um, there's still a lot of buyer demand, even in other places in Ohio. I hear Cincinnati is a really great market. Um, even the, the smaller cities like Dayton are performing really well. So I am hoping to guide more clients through their flips. Um, you know, changing their life off of their first flip is something I, I did myself. And it's something that I think other people should do as well. I like being an investor-friendly agent. I love also just helping people get into their first home.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  So I'd say from here, it's spending 90% of my time being a Realtor and helping people accomplish their real estate goals. I might flip a house a year just to make sure I, I keep up with the trends and what the market looks like. I've already had my fun in it and now I like to share some of those good deals with the clients that reach out to me looking to get into flipping. So hopefully level up my transactions. We hit, I want to say top 5% in the brokerage last year. I don't know how far I am from top 1%, but that's something that I, you know, I got to keep pushing until we see that number.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  So it's just scaling my agent business, doing more transactions and, you know, helping people let real estate change their lives.

• 41:05Henry Washington?

  This is cool. You're wise beyond your years, my man. You've learned a lot of lessons that a lot of people in their 40s haven't learned yet.

• 41:11Dave Meyer?

  That's true. How old are you? Can I ask that?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  I'm 28. I'm 28.

• 41:16Dave Meyer?

  Wow. Yeah, you are wise beyond your years. Well, congrats on all your success, Obi. It's awesome to hear your story, to hear all the things you're doing in real estate. Congrats on the social media and most importantly, on your grown family. It's super exciting.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Henry, for letting me share.

• 41:33Henry Washington?

  Well, you can't get out of here just yet. You got to let people know where they can find you or follow you or learn more about what you do.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  I'm probably the only guy named Obi that will come up when you, you do a Google search. So you can search me online, Obi Johns. I'm on Instagram at soldby.obi. And I'm sure my email or something will be in the description. You can reach out to me directly if you're looking to invest in Ohio, central Ohio.

• 42:00Henry Washington?

  Boom.

• 42:00Dave Meyer?

  Thanks again.

• 42:01Henry Washington?

  All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. As always, we'll see you on the next episode.

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