Jiries Dawaher graduated high school in 2002 with a GPA of 1.53. He then served in the Army National Guard in Ohio as a helicopter and diesel mechanic for nine years, dabbling in network marketing on the side. After getting out of the military, he was bartending in Hilton Head, SC, when he got a call from a friend who was making money by wholesaling in Cincinnati — and the rest is history. In this episode, Jiries shares about using his wholesaling background to acquire multifamily properties, his top networking strategies, and how he ventured into the hotel business.
1. Applying Wholesaling Skills to Multifamily
Before purchasing his first multifamily property, Jiries had his own wholesaling company. “Wholesaling taught me everything,” he says. “It laid the foundation for everything that I needed to know going forward — I just didn’t know it at the time.” He learned how to evaluate deals, speak to investors, and build relationships. When seeking multifamily deals, he has found success by seeking out and sending letters to potential sellers who have owned properties for 20 years or longer.
2. Networking Strategies
Jiries believes surrounding yourself with people who are doing what you want to do opens your eyes to a whole new world. Social media has played a big part in networking for him. “We have such an amazing resource on Facebook,” he says. “You can learn anything on there.”
He likes to share photos of projects he’s been a part of on the platform to make connections. Having a strong social media presence has helped him find investors. “It’s so important,” he says. “Being present and just putting on display what you’re doing, because it’s really interesting and you never know at the end of the day who has extra money that they want to put into real estate.”
3. Next Stop: Hotels
Jiries had fewer projects on his plate around the time that the pandemic hit, and although he was living off of passive income, he got a little bored. His friend, Nate Barger, advised him to do a refinance, which enabled him to pull out $650K. Nate had recently closed on a Marriott hotel in Columbus, OH, and Jiries had been gaining interest. Nate’s partner, Mike Ealy, asked Jiries if he would be interested in being a GP on his next hotel deal, and Jiries agreed.
“I’m still really new to it, but I've been plugged into networking events,” he says. “I went to a huge conference down in Atlanta to learn more, and I learned a ton. It was amazing.”
Jiries Dawaher | Real Estate Background
- Owner of JDS Holdings IX LLC and Homes by CityScape, which buys and renovates homes from single-family to multifamily to rent.
- Portfolio: GP of 51 units and two hotels
- Based in: Cincinnati, OH
- Say hi to him at:
- His book: Real Estate Investing 101: How You Can Go From Broke to 7 Figures in Five Simple Steps
- Greatest lesson: Surround yourself with people better than you.
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TRANSCRIPT
Ash Patel: Hello Best Ever listeners. Welcome to the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show. I'm Ash Patel and I'm with today's guest, Jiries Dawaher. Jiries is joining us from Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the owner of JDS Holdings and Homes by Cityscape which buys and renovates single-family and multifamily properties to rent. Jiries is also a GP on 51 units and two hotels. Jiries, thank you for joining us and how are you today?
Jiries Dawaher: Doing awesome, man. Thanks for having me.
Ash Patel: It's our pleasure. Hey, before we get started, can you give the Best Ever listeners a little bit more about your background and what you're focused on now?
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah. My background - it's a wide assortment of things, so I'll give you a quick rundown. Basically, graduated high school, 2002. GPA was 1.53. I graduated 311th out of 320 kids, ninth from the bottom. I go to my exit interview in high school with the guidance counselor. He asked me what I want to do after high school. I said what I thought was the right answer. I said, "I want to go to college." Then, he asked me if I had any more real expectations. So then I was like, "Well, okay. Maybe college isn't the way." Then I walked across the hall to a Army National Guard recruiter and joined the military.
I was in the Army National Guard in Ohio as a helicopter mechanic and a diesel mechanic for nine-ish years. During that time, it was a one week a month commitment, so I did that. And I was always trying to do other things on the side. I dabbled in network marketing for a while, that was not great. Really ran a bunch of credit card debt and destroyed my credit, so that was a obstacle. But one thing it taught me was the power of residual income, I knew was something that had to be included in my life, however that happened. At the time I wasn't sure yet, but I knew that had to happen. OPM and CashFlow Quadrant, Robert Kiyosaki 101, I knew I had to get on the other side of the CashFlow Quadrant and stop trading my time for money. So again, I knew that was super-important and that was all learned through network marketing.
So fast-forward until about the time I got out of the military. I got out, I had still really not made any money at all in network marketing, so I went to South Carolina. Ended up getting a bartending job close to where I was stationed in Hilton Head. I did that for a few years. And all while I was doing that, I had a friend that I was connected to in network marketing here in Cincinnati that was basically making a boatload of money in real estate, with no money, and it was called wholesaling. And he kept telling me, "You can come up here and do it. Doesn't take any money or any credit." And I was like, "That's good. I don't have either of those things." I don't have any money and my credit was like a 473. I have never heard that number, because it was like, "What do you do? How do you come back from 473?" But you can, I promise. I did it.
Ash Patel: You wish your GPA was that high, don't you?
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah, so much. But then I ended up coming up to Cincinnati and got started wholesaling houses. And that's how I initially got started in real estate.
Ash Patel: Jiries, how many years ago was that that you started?
Jiries Dawaher: 2011.
Ash Patel: Okay, so just over 10 years ago.
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah.
Ash Patel: Tell me how your real estate journey got you to where you are today. So you started wholesaling houses and you seem like a really ambitious guy. So I'm imagining you fast-tracked your way to success.
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah, that's a good imagination. Did not happen like that.
Ash Patel: Sorry. [laughs]
Jiries Dawaher: Wholesaling was awesome. But I did have massive success in wholesaling and I ended up starting my own company in 2012, and just going on my own. I wholesaled for about six or seven years. So my thing is I wholesaled probably for three or four years longer than I really needed to, if that makes sense. I say that because wholesaling taught me everything. It laid the foundation of everything that I needed to know going forward. I just didn't know it at the time. It helped me learn how to evaluate deals, it helped me learn how to talk to investors, it helped me build relationships with other real estate agents, REO agents, just all these different people. It laid the foundation for what I was doing and I made a boatload of money doing it and I loved it. It was tons of fun and we did really, really well.
We ended up growing a real wholesale company out of it. We had acquisition people, we have salespeople, we had a full-time person that helped with off-market deals, like letters and different kinds of campaigns. At the end of the day, I realized I never moved on that cashflow quadrant. I stayed still trading my time for money. Even though we had people that worked for us, we would never become free-owning the wholesale company. I would see investors that I knew that were just building wealth by buying and holding these properties.
And a really good friend of mine, Nate, was a huge inspiration in that. He was buying 40 units, 50 units, all these different deals, and I was still over here making $150,000 a year wholesaling. But if I stopped wholesaling, I stopped making money. And so many of the other investors that we're wholesaling houses to, other people are buying them and keeping them, and that's really powerful. So that seven-year mark of wholesaling, six or seven years, when I decided to stop... Not just stop, but really slow down and focus on more acquiring and keeping these properties and building a portfolio.
Ash Patel: And your friend Nate is Nate Barger, the legend that we've had the pleasure of interviewing. A good friend of both of ours. That's awesome. When you say "we", can you describe the size of the company that you built, wholesaling?
Jiries Dawaher: Of course. It was my friend Tyler, Tyler Parker and I's company. So Tyler really ran the acquisition side a lot, and then I ran the sales and some other back-end stuff. Then we had two other acquisition associates, so we had three people that were on acquisitions, and then we have four salespeople including myself, and we had one full-time admin that helped us with just handwriting letters, handwriting this and that, closing, coordinating. That was basically our team right there.
Ash Patel: Okay, so you built a legit company and you're turning and burning houses. I would think that you can easily transition all of those systems and people into a different process. Buy and hold, or multifamily instead of single-family. How did you transition out of wholesaling?
Jiries Dawaher: Man, it just happened by accident. I went from three units to 20 in two years. And I went really fast, and made a ton of mistakes. It happened that I just got almost too busy to even think about wholesaling, because my rentals were just taking up so much of my time. It happened by accident and, at the time, it was really stressful, because on a lot of the projects that I was doing, honestly, I didn't really borrow enough for rehab money.
Because I was making so much in the wholesaling world in the first year as I'm transitioning, that I'm like, "Well, I'll just borrow less and it'll look better for the investor. I'll show them these numbers that I don't need this much money." [unintelligible 00:08:04], I needed the money and I didn't know that, because in the first year I was wholesaling houses to help fund rehabs that I under-borrowed on. So a huge mistake that I made that I thought made me look better, but in the end was stressful. But it just happened by doing it.
Ash Patel: What was your very first multifamily purchase?
Jiries Dawaher: That's a good question. My very first multifamily purchase was a house that I ended up finding, an off-market house. It's a three-unit in an area in Cincinnati in Price Hill called the Incline District. I'll back up a step, I'll tell you about my first rental property. It's a single-family house and it's not glamorous. My friend Nate Barger kept telling me, "You've got to start buying rentals. You've got to start buying rentals." So I went and I found these two deals that we're wholesaling. I just wholesaled them to myself. Their ranch was on a slab on Mount Healthy in Cincinnati. It's an area just out there, it's an area by city, but I ended up buying them both with my partner Tyler.
So I call Nate up and I'm like, "Nate, I did it. I got my first rental properties." They're these three-bed one-bath ranch on a slab. I'm like, "I'm going to be rich. I'm going to be just like you, it's going to be amazing." And he's like, "Why are you buying something on Mount Healthy? There's nothing happening there. There's no jobs going there. There's no restaurants. There's nothing happening in Mount Healthy." He's like, "That's not a good deal." I was like, "Alright." So I ended up just selling this to my partner. "Tyler, do you just want to take it? You can just get them for what we got them for." I think he still has them to this day, and they've been fine.
So then I'm like, "So where do I go? I thought I did it, but I did it wrong." Basically, we're looking for parts of Cincinnati where things were happening. That led us to the Incline District in Price Hill, and this was six years ago. It had just got rezoned an entertainment district, which means that they gave away five liquor licenses for new restaurants and bars and things to come up, and also means there's investment to follow. They're following the trend, they don't give that away to a city or neighborhood, and then let it die. That's just not what they do. So I started focusing more attention up there.
Then I found a three-unit apartment. I ended up buying my very first deal for $17,500. Now that's awesome, but on the flip side of that is I had to put in $130,000. It was a gigantic rehab for somebody that understood rehabbing kind of, but didn't really get it. I saw a lot of people doing it because I was wholesaling houses to him. It was a huge rehab to do for my very first project. I muscled through and I was able to get it finished. I was into that deal with all my own cash. Because, prior to that, I had to house-hack the house I live in. It was a wholesale deal that I ended up buying and built a lot of equity in. So I had $130,000 line of credit on that house.
So I was into my first rental for $150,000-ish. I wanted to BRRRR it. Buy, renovate, rent, refinance, repeat. So a big part of that is being able to get your money back out. So this area is still up and coming, there's not a lot of comps or anything. So my first deal went terribly looking back at it. But honestly, it was all worth it, it built the foundation. So I wanted to get my cash back out the deal, so I went to the bank and got an appraisal done on the property. The appraisal for this property came back at $135,000. Now I'm into it for $150,000 and the bank's willing to lend you 75% of whatever you're into it for. I ended up getting back from the bank just over $100,000.
So I basically left $50,000 on my first deal. But I just knew what was happening and $100,000 was still a lot of money. So moving on to my other deals, instead of putting all my cash into doing these deals, [unintelligible 00:11:42], other people's money. And I took that $100,000 and started putting that down to start borrowing money from private people, so... Can I keep my money but be able to scale a lot faster?
Ash Patel: And how did you go about getting other people's money?
Jiries Dawaher: Man, back then I feel like there wasn't as many people doing real estate out loud. I think now there's a show everywhere about real estate. Back then when I was doing real estate, it wasn't even that long ago, six years ago. People saw me, they saw me involved in real estate as far as the wholesale company. I'd always put before and afters of investors' houses, posted pictures of houses that we have coming up. So when people thought real estate, my name was one of the first names that came up.
So when I started going in and buying on my own, certain people saw that and they probably thought that I knew a little bit more than I did just because of how much wholesaling stuff I did. And I wasn't an expert yet on construction, on all those other parts of real estate. But they found me from just having a presence in real estate, just being involved in real estate, sharing photos on Facebook of stuff that I've done. I've never been a part of as far as wholesaling, and then listing, and all that stuff. I was active on social media, so people saw it. So when I started buying my own things, I had a couple of people reach out to me and they're like, "Hey, we lend money if you ever need money." "Yeah, I'll take some money."
So it's just being present, it's so important. Being present is putting on display what you're doing because it's really interesting. You never know at the end of the day who has extra money that they want to put in real estate.
Ash Patel: Yeah, that is such a great point. It's so important to put yourself out there. Let people know what you're doing, bring them into your world, so when you do have an ask, they feel like they're already connected to you.
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah. So many people want to put pictures of what they had for dinner last night on Facebook or their new car, but put what you're doing. Put in real estate, you're renovating a bathroom; whatever you're doing in real estate is super interesting for a lot of people. That's something they want to learn more about.
Ash Patel: Jiries, what does your current portfolio look like?
Jiries Dawaher: We got 51 units right now. Two of them are short-term rentals and these are ones that I own 100% of. Then, I'm partners on some other apartments and two hotels.
Ash Patel: And the properties that you own, are they multifamily, single-family?
Jiries Dawaher: I have four single-families in that portfolio. The rest are all multifamilies, and there's a commercial building in downtown Northside that I have, too.
Ash Patel: What's the commercial building?
Jiries Dawaher: It's a three-unit. The first floor is retail and then there's two apartments right above it. Two one-beds.
Ash Patel: Alright, now you're speaking my language because you know I'm not a multifamily guy. I'm a commercial guy.
Jiries Dawaher: I know.
Ash Patel: So what made you buy that? What made you buy that mixed-use building?
Jiries Dawaher: Funny story... It's not to bring up Nate on everything, but Nate's been a big part of my life, especially getting here. There was a deal that Nate brought to us in the wholesale front a while ago. At the time, I didn't really have the money to do anything with it, so my friend Grant ended up buying it. And he bought it for $200,000 back then. And now, Grant's focus has shifted a little bit. He's building tiny container homes at Red River Gorge, which is super cool. And he needed the money back out of that to finish up this rehab that he's doing down there. So he knew that I was always interested in it, so he called me up and he's like, "Hey, do you want to buy this?" I was like, "What do you want for it? I was thinking $300,000 or whatever." He's like, "Just $220,000." I'm like, "Yeah, I'll take it. I guess I can make that work." So I ended up buying it for $220,000 and then on the appraisal front, it ended up appraising for $285,000 just as it sat.
Ash Patel: Alright. So have you done more mixed-use buildings after that?
Jiries Dawaher: I have not.
Ash Patel: Would you consider doing more?
Jiries Dawaher: Absolutely, yeah.
Ash Patel: Why?
Jiries Dawaher: I love the diversification. I just love how unique it is. On the first floor of this building is Hemptations. It's a hemp store that does all this different cool stuff. I love the ideas of marrying small businesses and putting up affordable storefronts for them to grow and get started, and hopefully, stay with me. But on the other side, it's the rental business and the residential that I know so well that I know will carry the mortgage, that will cover the expenses, and all that stuff. And also make money, but a lot of times these retail spaces on the bottom are just bonuses.
I'm looking at an 11-unit right now that I've ran all the numbers based off of the rentals for the residential units. I could be all in for $650,000, and it's $780,000 when we're all done, just after residential. That's not even including any of the retail space on the bottom, which I think ends up being 3,500 square feet.
Ash Patel: How many different units on the retail?
Jiries Dawaher: So, it's 11.
Ash Patel: On the retail.
Jiries Dawaher: On the retail side, there's four different units.
Break: [00:16:05] - [00:17:53]
Ash Patel: I want to dive into that mixed-use for a bit. I actually recorded a solo podcast on mixed-use buildings; that should be coming out soon. The multifamily guys and girls are scared of the commercial side of mixed-use. The commercial guys like me do not want to deal with the apartments. They're niches that fall through the cracks. Best Ever listeners, everybody should be looking into mixed-use properties.
Just a crazy story I'll share real quick... There was a mixed-use property in Norwood, part of Cincinnati, and it was four apartments over 3,000 square feet of office/retail, whatever you want to call it. And nobody wanted it. It was $150,000, sat on the market forever. And I owned the building next door and I had a restaurant in there. It was my restaurant.
Our plan was, buy the building next door, expand the restaurant, event center, whatever. I wasn't too keen on getting more residential, so I let it drag for a bit. But a multifamily guy called me and he's like, "Ash, I'm looking at this building in Norwood. What do you think?" I told him, "I know that building. I own the one next door." And I said, "What would you value that building at?" He said, "Well, ARV for the apartments would be $280,000." I'm like, "Oh my God, you could buy this for $150,000." And he's like, "Yeah, I'm going to pass. I don't want the commercial." The crazy thing is, if this was a four-unit apartment building, all you multifamily guys and girls will be jumping all over it in the mid to high twos. But because they threw in an extra commercial spot, nobody wanted it, including me.
Listen, I didn't want to deal with the renovation of the apartments, the tenants. I ended up buying it for $150,000, appraised at $410,000. So mixed-use, man, that's the way to go. And often, like you said, the retail or office or whatever is in the first floor is just a bonus. Your apartments cover all the rents. Thanks for bringing that up. How are you finding deals today, Jiries?
Jiries Dawaher: I find a lot of deals on the MLS and everybody says there's nothing on the MLS. I literally just bought a single-family house yesterday that was listed on the market for six days. It had time to sit. There's deals out there and you just have to know how to run the numbers on it. I'm not really buying single-families. The only reason I bought this was because it's really close to where I have a lot of rental properties and I want to make sure this stays really nice. So I'm buying it to make sure my investments stay in the category I want them to be. Really, really nice young professionals, really high-end finishes; just some really, really nice rental properties.
Ash Patel: How are you finding multifamily deals?
Jiries Dawaher: Same, on the MLS, the one I mentioned. That 11-unit mixed-use was on the MLS. I'm sending letters, I'm looking for people that have owned properties for 20 years or longer. And I'll send letters saying, "Hey, if you're interested in selling, please let me know."
Ash Patel: You're using your wholesaling background to acquire properties as well. For somebody that doesn't have any wholesaling experience, if they came up to somebody like you and said, "Hey, I'm looking for this particular niche." Would you engage and would you run the postcards, run the marketing for them for a fee?
Jiries Dawaher: Probably not. I would know some people though that I could turn them on to that probably would. I'm really more focused on finding my own deals. But if I find a deal that doesn't fit whatever I'm doing for whatever reason, I would wholesale to them, [unintelligible 00:21:15.15] to do that.
Ash Patel: Yeah. I think people with those skills, the wholesaling skills, are underrated. They often stick to the one thing that they're doing. Whether it's wholesaling single-families or multifamilies, they don't venture out of their comfort zone into commercial, into industrial, into medical. A lot of opportunities out there. Jiries, if you had to start all over today, lost everything, back to your 400 credit score, what would you do?
Jiries Dawaher: I would do the same thing I did. I would start wholesaling houses and start grinding it out. The skills that we learned we could physically lose everything tomorrow, but I know I could start back. I would scale twice as fast as what I did in the beginning if I lost everything.
I would start with wholesaling houses. Wholesaling houses, I'd plug into more events. Networking is gigantic. Network around the people you want to be like, spend more time around them. It really opens your eyes to a whole new world. That's what I would do. I would start wholesaling and I would start networking like crazy with everybody. That's where I want to be.
Ash Patel: How do you network? What's an effective strategy that you use to network with people?
Jiries Dawaher: That's a good question. I've done it a few different ways. I'll lay out a couple of strategies that I followed. For me, I look for a lot of investors. I wanted to build a buyer's list or whatever it was. I would go to houses where I saw dumpsters that looked like they're getting worked on or renovated. I would stop, and a lot of times, it's the person that owns it would be there, doing something. I would talk to them, get to know them.
Then, I would go to local real estate meetups. Whether it's REIAs, Facebook groups are gigantic now. We have such an amazing resource on Facebook, you can learn anything from there. Find good, reputable groups with people that know what they're doing, plug into that. YouTube is a great resource. I would hire a coach or a mentor, it's so, so underrated. There's such a stigma sometimes about that but I always tell people, I'm not even paying the coach for what they know, I'm paying them for what they didn't know. I want to learn exactly what not to do and everything. But I would just get connected, whether it's on social media, Facebook, REIA groups, everything like that.
Ash Patel: Jiries, great advice. Can we dive into the numbers on the last multifamily deal that you found on the MLS?
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah, it's not a big one though.
Ash Patel: What's the purchase price?
Jiries Dawaher: The last one that I found on MLS, this was a little bit ago, $65,000.
Ash Patel: For how many units?
Jiries Dawaher: Two units.
Ash Patel: And what was the rehab on that?
Jiries Dawaher: I put $55,000 into that one.
Ash Patel: And you're all in for a buck ten?
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah. It appraised for $190,000.
Ash Patel: Oh, wow. Okay. That's a win.
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah, it's a huge win. It was on the MLS. It was listed. I paid list. I would have gladly paid $80,000 or $90,000 for the building.
Ash Patel: Why did nobody else jump on that?
Jiries Dawaher: I don't know. I can't give you a good answer. They need a lot of work.
Ash Patel: Did the pictures look rough to the point where people just didn't want it?
Jiries Dawaher: There was a front picture, that was it. There wasn't even pictures on the inside. But I knew what street it was on. I actually owned one two doors down from there, so I was the first one there, baby. That's why I presented a good offer. It was cash, no inspections, closed quick. So maybe I just got lucky, I don't know.
Ash Patel: I don't think so. I've gotten great deals off the MLS. As a matter of fact, I get great commercial deals listed by a residential realtor. Just mis-marketed or mispriced deals. Your venture into the hotel business, how did that start?
Jiries Dawaher: First of all, I didn't even know people could buy a hotel. I completely didn't know that was a thing. I thought the Marriotts built Marriott when they wanted one or whatever it was. It was when COVID hit and things slowed down. I'm usually doing six, seven projects at a time. Right when this all happened, things slowed down and I was only doing two. And that was fine, I was just hanging out and living off the passive income. And I just got bored.
So I went to my friend, Nate, and I was like, "Nate, here's what I got right now. What's the move here?" I owed about $1.7 million on [unintelligible 00:25:05] real estate. Nate's like, "You've got to get some cash out of here. There's a lot of cash here." "Well, what do I do?" And he's like, "Well, get the cash out." I ended up doing a refi and then pulling out about $650,000. At the time, they had just closed on a Marriott in Columbus, so I was following along. I'm like, "That's awesome. That's really cool."
And then Mike - Mike is Nate's partner, Mike Ealy. Him and I were talking more and more about the hotels and the other side of stuff. Mike's like, "I can bring you in on something if you want to do that." I'm like, "Yeah." My thought was I had to go single-family, two-family, three-family, build up units there, and then go buy an eight-unit or a 24-unit. Then, I was allowed to go buy hotels. That was always weird to me, because I'm like, "I guess I can sprint out, skip the buying at 20-unit," whatever, and I just go straight to buying Hampton Inn and Staybridge. That's crazy.
So I end up taking the money and was lucky enough to be a GP on this most recent deal we did. Now, we're partnering up, doing $80 million developments in Florida and just all over the place.
Ash Patel: How did you become a GP on that deal?
Jiries Dawaher: Based on our relationship and how much more I wanted to grow in the field, in the hotel business. I am really, really new to it, but I've been plugged into events, like networking events, went to a huge conference down in Atlanta to learn more and I learned a ton. It was amazing. I just plan on being more involved in the hotels that we're doing.
Ash Patel: What kind of returns are you looking for in a hotel?
Jiries Dawaher: I'm still learning a lot about this. I'd love to be able to get my cash back plus a 10%, 12% return over the next five years or so.
Ash Patel: Jiries, throughout your 10+ year career in real estate, what's the hardest lesson you've learned?
Jiries Dawaher: Some of the best deals are the ones you don't do. Sometimes you can get really excited, and yeah, you'd think about it and want to just end up buying something that maybe you shouldn't have bought. That's happened to me a few times.
Ash Patel: Explain that to me. So the best deals are ones that you didn't think you were going to buy, but you did buy.
Jiries Dawaher: No, that I didn't buy.
Ash Patel: The ones that got away.
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah. For example, there's a deal in a part of Cincinnati. It was a two-family in O'Bryonville, sitting next to Hyde Park. It's a really nice little pocket in Cincinnati. At the time it was presented to me, I had four houses going, and they were pretty big rehabs. And O'Bryonville was going to be a gigantic rehab. I was like, "I guess I'll do it. It would be cool to do it." It was out of my wheelhouse. My wheelhouse, whenever I was flipping single-family houses, was first-time homebuyers; houses less than $200,000. And I ended up doing it. I ended up doing it.
This house when it was all done was worth $400,000. I didn't have the manpower, I didn't have the crew, I didn't have the know-how of how different a $400,000 house is versus a $200,000 house. So I did it. That was a mistake. I would have been better off not doing that deal. The best way for me to have done that deal and to win was to not have done it at all. But I did it and I took a huge hit, a huge loss. I ended up having to bring $30,000 just to close it. I was so upside down on that house.
Ash Patel: Well, we don't get where we are without making mistakes. We've all got those battle scars, so yeah, man. Jiries, what's your best real estate investing advice ever?
Jiries Dawaher: Get started. Just get started, wherever you're comfortable. Get started and just find somebody that can help you, that really understands what you want to do. Whether it is you want to buy two units, four units, or whatever it is, just get started. I think if you're brand new, wanting to get into real estate, I think house-hacking is so undervalued. Skip the four-year degree and get out of high school, save up $15,000 and put 3% down on a two-unit or four-unit. That's the only thing you do, just based on appreciation and principal pay down and all that stuff. You could have a really, really big asset by the time you go to retire and cashflow.
Ash Patel: Jiries, are you ready for the Best Ever lightning round?
Jiries Dawaher: Let's go.
Ash Patel: Let's do it. Jiries, what's the Best Ever book you recently read?
Jiries Dawaher: My favorite book that I recently read was Harvey Mackay, How to Swim with the Sharks Without Getting Eaten Alive.
Ash Patel: What was your big takeaway from that?
Jiries Dawaher: I'm not a great reader. I'll listen to a lot of different things, but this book was really interesting, because the chapters were just two pages. One thing I really liked that I've been starting to do a lot more is creating a country club feeling. There's a little chapter in there. I'm not part of a country club, but one of the benefits is when you're done eating, you put a number down and you're done.
Whenever I'll take people out and we want to go out to dinner, I'll call the restaurant ahead of time and say, "Hey, here's my card. At the end, when we're done, don't bring a check, add 25% for a tip, and we're just going to leave." People are just, "What happened?", and I'm like, "Oh sorry. It's good." "Alright. Thanks, Jiries. Thanks for coming." So just little tidbits like that are cool things that I was able to pick up from that book.
Ash Patel: That is cool.
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah.
Ash Patel: Jiries, what's the best ever way you'd like to give back?
Jiries Dawaher: We don't rent any Section 8 houses. We had a couple of bad experiences, so we find our own way to give back. We take 10% of our units, our six units right now, and we work with a local ministry, like a nonprofit, and we will house people. There are women that came out of abusive relationships that were addicted to drugs, and they graduated the program. We would rent to them- but nobody else would rent to them - really nice apartments at 50% off-market rate just to give them a year or two years of stable rent income. Showing rent history, showing that they pay rent on time. Of course, they want to stay but a lot of times they'll end up moving on, or something else. But we give back that way, by helping out the local church.
Ash Patel: That is great. Jiries, how can the Best Ever listeners reach out to you?
Jiries Dawaher: Find me on Facebook, Jiries Dawaher. I'm sure we can post that somewhere. Instagram @jiriesd, so you can find me there. Also got a book. Lots of information about some of the stuff I did.
Ash Patel: Real Estate Investing 101 is the title of that book.
Jiries Dawaher: Yeah. How You Can Go From Broke To Seven Figures.
Ash Patel: Broke To Seven Figures In Five Simple Steps. Awesome. Well, Jiries, I got to thank you for your time today, man, sharing your story. You started out with a stellar GPA. I know I made fun of you, but my freshman year GPA was a 1.7, so I'm in good company here.
Jiries Dawaher: We did it. Yeah, against all odds.
Ash Patel: Yeah, man. And listen, your time in the National Guard, thank you for that. The network marketing, credit card debt, bartending, and finally getting into wholesale and perfecting your real estate game, now investing in hotels. So Jiries, thank you again for your time today.
Jiries Dawaher: Awesome. Thanks, Ash. I'll see you guys soon.
Ash Patel: Yes, sir. Best Ever listeners, thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five-star review. Share the podcast with someone you think can benefit from it. Also, follow, subscribe, and have a Best Ever day.
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