Why Starting with a Single-Family Home Could Be the Biggest Mistake Sabotaging Your Real Estate Empire Before It Begins

Henry:
Most people will say start small in real estate, buy a single family home or a duplex, learn the ropes and build your portfolio slowly as you gain confidence and capital. But say your goal is to reach 16 units someday. And now there’s a 16 unit building staring you right in the face. You’ve got the down payment money, so should you take it down for your very first deal or should you start small? You could fast-forward years of buying houses one by one, but one bad deal this size could totally wipe you out. I’m debating this question and a few others today with a special guest co-host. Is jumping right into a big investment property a smart way to accelerate your wealth building journey or is it a recipe for losing everything before you get started? And spoiler alert, we actually disagree on the answer. So if you’re figuring out where to start your own investing career, stick around.
We’ll break down both sides and help you decide whether slow and steady or going all in is right for you. What’s going on everybody? I am Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. And today we’re answering questions from the BiggerPockets forums. I usually answer these questions with Dave, but he’s out of the office today. But don’t worry, I brought in a special guest. Now you’ve probably heard Chauncey’s full investor story. She was interviewed on episode 1256 back in March. But for anyone who missed that one, Chauncey, why don’t you give the people a little introduction?

Chauncey:
Yes, yes, yes. So Chauncey Pham started out as a realtor in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, quickly went to owning my own brokerage and then progressed into becoming an investor. So I coined myself as the investor friendly realtor where I understand the investment side of things as well as the retail real estate side of things. And currently I am working primarily as an operator of a turnkey flipping service where I’m flipping houses for others. I’ve removed the financial exposure of the typical acquisition side of things and I’m helping others achieve their financial goals through house flipping.

Henry:
I love it. And you’re being a little modest, but let everybody know about how long you’ve been in this business. I’ve

Chauncey:
Been in the business for almost 11 years at this point. So I’ve learned a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And right now I’m using all of it and leveraging all of it to live this beautiful life.

Henry:
If you can’t tell already, Chauncey is a rockstar. She has been doing real estate for quite some time, has been extremely successful. So I’m super excited to hear your perspective on some of these questions. Hopefully I can get you a little riled up, get you going a little bit.

Chauncey:
Yes, yes.

Henry:
All right. Our first question is from Nekesh and Charlotte and he asked, “I’ve seen the general trend where investors invest in single family homes and then they consolidate to multifamily eventually. I can possibly afford to buy a quadplex or even larger. I’ve seen some 16 unit properties for sale in my area in Charlotte and I have a down payment that I could use to buy potentially, but I feel like I’m skipping ahead and taking a shortcut. Is it a terrible idea to go straight into a larger property or should I start with single family homes?” Now, I definitely have a perspective on this, but I’m curious to know what you think as an. Have you done multifamily as rentals?

Chauncey:
Yeah, we have a small multifamily. It was an eight unit out in East Texas. I have an opinion on this, not necessarily probably as strong as yours, but I tend to think that this whole crawl before you walk, walk before you run mentality is group think in these forum settings primarily from people that can’t run first. They can’t run. They can’t sprint. So of course they’re going to tell you to crawl and to walk first. I think that if you have the opportunity, you have the funds and you understand the risk involved with the acquisition of a 16 unit, then if you got the resources and do it, you’re able to do an acquisition of 16 doors in one shot, one inspection, get exposure to a commercial loan product and really get yourself out there without having to go through 16 single family homes just to build that many doors.
And so I personally think if you got it, do it.

Henry:
My perspective is you can make money in real estate a million different ways. You don’t have to start with a single, but I do believe if you’re brand new, never done a deal, haven’t spent a lot of time researching, don’t have friends or family or business partners who are in the business, just coming in out of the cold and buying a 16 unit is risky. It’s risky because a lot could go wrong. You can blow your budget. If you’ve never done a deal, it’s sometimes best to take your bumps and bruises on a single family home where you’re not going to lose your shirt. But I don’t think you need to spend years buying single families and then start to transition. If you just want to do one single, learn the business, learn what you’re good at, learn what you’re not good at, and then you want to jump into a multifamily, I think that may be a safer take.
Or try to find a partner or a mentor or someone who’s going to help

Chauncey:
You

Henry:
Get eyes on your deals, help you with decisions you’ve probably never had to make before, help you understand how to find the right tenants, how to manage that size of a renovation because it is, it’s going to be a little more extreme than doing it on a single family. Yes, multifamilies can be largely more profitable, but a lot of times it’s because they come with more risk. And so that’s my two cents.

Chauncey:
I mean, that’s fair. That’s fair, but it’s very safe and conservative. I’m going to jump out there. I’m going both feet in the deep end. I’m like, “Just do it. That’s the only way you’re going to actually learn.” But I do say jumping both feet in, but doing so in an informed way, understanding the risk, making sure you have the reserves, making sure you have the PM systems, making sure that you know all of that. And like you said, the easiest way to do that is to just partner with someone. So I say do it, go for it, but find someone that this is their niche and partner up with them.

Henry:
Or at least have that person as a mentor, even if they’re not on

Chauncey:
The

Henry:
Deal with you, find some way to incentivize them to guide you through this because it can. The mistakes are going to be multiplied because of the size of the asset.

Chauncey:
Yes, absolutely. I agree. Okay, so we just agreed on something.

Henry:
Yeah, yeah, of course. That’s a good start.That’s a good start. We’ll see how it continues. All right. Our next question is from Jackson in Columbus, Ohio. He said, “I’m 19 with a solid W-2, but I want financial freedom and a business my son can eventually inherit. I’m renting. I’ve got about 20K ready to invest, good credit, and a background in construction with a lot of contractor connections. What would you get into first? I’m eager to start, but the risk scares me. Failing in front of people and putting my family in a tough spot is a real fear. I’m looking for strategy to move fairly quickly while still managing risk. Appreciate any advice.” So I’m going to have a little bit different take on this one. He says, “I’m looking for a way to scale quickly while still managing risk.” Buddy, you’re 19. You got time on your side.

Chauncey:
Yes.

Henry:
You have all the time in the world to grow and scale a business. And I understand wanting to start building it and build it up so you can have something to leave to your son, and that’s admirable. I do this because I want to leave assets for my children. But I think that if you’ve never done a deal, I don’t know that you should be having a scale conversation. You should be having a how do I do my first deal conversation. You should be focused on how do I find a deal? How do I learn the business and then evaluate after? Once you’ve got a few deals under your belt, you’re going to learn a lot about yourself as an investor and being able to make adjustments and having the time to learn and then adjust your business or business plan based on the mistakes or the successes that you had is a huge advantage.
I do think you should absolutely be looking to invest, but I don’t even necessarily think a pure investment property is maybe even the best first step that I would take. If I was 19, I’d be looking to buy a house hack opportunity and that’s where I would start because then I get to reduce my expenses. I get to live for free. I get to learn the business. When you’re 19, you got nothing but time on your side. I would try to take advantage of that and build a business that you actually enjoy.

Chauncey:
I agree with that, but I’m going to take it a step further. First of all, I’m going to say that at 19 years old, failure right now is the cheapest that it’s ever going to be. That’s fair. But there was something that he said that stood out to me. He has construction experience. And so his main question is where should he start? If I were him, I wouldn’t even start with house hacking just yet. I would get my capital up if I were him through wholesaling, but I would do it in a different way. He has a very unique opportunity to market deals that not only give him assignment fees, which is going to be quick capital, but that will also ultimately feed his construction business that will give him capital as well. That’s a good point. What we see right now is wholesale deals coming out.
They email blast to everyone. The numbers typically are nowhere close to what they should be. The construction numbers are typically way off base. There’s no real plan. Imagine if he actually came out the gate swinging with wholesaling and giving good bids, giving a decent scope of work and offering his services on the back end of those deals, because let’s be real, most wholesale deals are scooped up by newbies that don’t have relationships with construction companies and things like that. I think he should play that game first for a while, partner up with some of the investors that he’s working with, learn from some of those investors, and so that once he has more than 20K, maybe once he’s got 75K, 100K from stacking the capital from those construction jobs and from those assignment fees, then he’s in a safer position to go in and then decide which avenue he wants to take with investing.
So then at that point, maybe he can house hack. He’ll have 20% down on a good property. He can flip a house if he wants. He can buy that long-term rental and he will have more options because $20,000 in regular life is a lot of money. $20,000 in real estate is real, real tight. It’s not a whole lot that you can do with that, but he has a very unique opportunity to build on that using his skills and that’s how I would play it. So I’d go in as a wholesaler and, “Hey, this is the deal. This is a real scope of work. This is a real bid. By the way, I can finish it out for you on the back end, stack that cash, make those relationships, and then go into investing in about a year.”

Henry:
That’s a great perspective. I think that’s a really good idea. I am always going to be team house hack, especially when you’re brand new. And if you’ve only got 20K. Of

Chauncey:
Course.

Henry:
If you’ve only got 20K, house hacking is about what you can afford because you can put 3.5% down, you can get yourself multifamily. And there’s nobody saying you can’t do both of these things at the same time. I just think house hacking gives you such a competitive advantage, especially when you’re young. It’s harder to house hack once you get married and you have more kids because people don’t want to share walls and you want the white picket fence and the single family home. But when you’re young, man, I lived in some crap holes when I was young and I was renting. So had I been smart enough to house hack back then, I might’ve been able to live in some much nicer places and been able to save a ton of money doing it. All right, we are two questions down. Chauncey and I are cranking these things out.
We’ve got another question from Ali and Houston, but we’ll get to that right after the break.
We are back on the BiggerPockets podcast. I am here with investor Chauncey Pam, and we are answering forum questions from the BiggerPockets forums. Our next question is from Ollie in Houston and Allie says, “Do you tell contractors your real rehab budget before they bid?” Say, “The most I can spend on a rehab is $70,000. If I tell the contractor upfront, we can work backward from that number and figure out what stays, what gets cut and where the money matters most. But part of me also thinks that the quote will somehow come back at $69,800. Do you share your actual budget before getting a bid or do you keep it private until the contractor prices the scope independently? Has showing your hand ever helped or did the bid just grow to meet the number? I am so curious to hear what you have to say as somebody who does construction in-house.

Chauncey:
Okay. So should you tell the contractor exactly what your budget is? I’m going to say yes.

Henry:
Okay.

Chauncey:
But I’m also going to take it a step further and I’m going to say that you actually need to know what your budget is. And one step that most investors are missing is they never have the design down before they try to get a bid. What I experience coming in as the contractor for investors is they come in, they give us a number, and then they’re pissed off by the end of the job because the number has almost doubled, but it’s because they didn’t have any specifics about what the design was supposed to look like when we gave the initial bid. Things like whether or not the faucet is going to come out of the wall or if the bathroom faucets are coming out of the countertop, whether or not they want to use a vessel sink or an undermount sink, that drastically changes whether or not we’re bringing in a stone fabricator or whether a hacker can just drill a hole in the top of the countertop and set a vessel sink on top.
All of these are things that people tend to not consider, and it’s because investors don’t know a lot about designs. They tend to get ideas midway through the project and then get pissed off when the contractor comes back and the number is way off. So I’m going to say yes, number one, you need to tell them what your budget is, but more importantly, you need to understand what your design is so that they can accurately tell you if they can execute that budget within the numbers that you have.

Henry:
Yes. Because just because you have $70,000 doesn’t mean you can complete your renovation for $70,000. You don’t know

Chauncey:
If your

Henry:
Scope matches your budget.

Chauncey:
Correct. Correct. So most of the time the scope doesn’t even match the budget, but they don’t even know what the real scope is because they don’t know what the hell needs to be done to the house. And they’re just kind of winging it and they’re throwing things out there that really drastically change the numbers. And so yeah, tell them what your number is and what you’re working with and they can give you a realistic expectation.

Henry:
So I’m going to speak from experience here. At the times when I have told my contractor what my budget was, sometimes the bid has come in at that number, sometimes it’s come in over that number, and sometimes it’s come in under that number. But in none of those situations did I feel like I was taken advantage of. I feel like the budget came in where it needed to come in, in order to get the project done appropriately. And I’ve just found that approaching a relationship with honesty tends to breed more honesty. No, I’m not saying I just go out there and say, “Hey, I’ve got $50,000. This budget needs to come in at $50,000.” And so what I would say is you need to be less focused on sharing the budget per se, and more focused on dialing in your scope of work and sharing that.
Because if you give a good contractor a well-designed, well-thought-out scope of work, they will get you an accurate bid, period. Whether that bid is your budget or not your budget, because like I said before, and like Chauncey said, just because you got 70 grand doesn’t mean you can get that house renovated for 70 grand. I’ve seen people with wine taste and beer money many times.

Chauncey:
That is a hundred percent the case. And as a construction company owner, I can tell you our goal is not to come in and say, “We got to pencil whip them down to every single dollar that they can spend.” Our goal is to just get the job done within the budget that they have. If it can be and if it can’t, then we would like to express what your expectations should be. We can’t do that if you don’t know your scope. So focus on the scope more than

Henry:
Anything. All right. Our next question comes from Amber in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Florida. She says, “If you could only keep one professional in your investing network, who would it be and why? CPA, lender, realtor, property manager, contractor, insurance broker? You do it all. So who would you think?

Chauncey:
The most important person in my ecosystem is my project manager because my project manager also happens to be a realtor, and I was very strategic about that and trained a realtor to become a project manager. So my project manager helps with acquisitions. Obviously, project manages the properties. He has his thumb on all of the subcontractors. He has his thumb on all of our materials vendors. I’ve set up my organization where I incentivize him to make sure I stay under budget. And if I stay under budget, then he gets the difference between what the budget was and the savings. He affects the cost of my loans because he influences the timing of the jobs. He influences the cost of everything. And so 100% my project manager.

Henry:
My answer is much more traditional. By far, my investor-friendly real estate agent is the most important person on my team because they have the keys to all the other relationships that I may need. So even if I don’t have a relationship that I need in my business, my investor-friendly agent knows someone. They have someone in their phone that they can share with me that can help me. The amount of money that my investor-friendly agent has saved me, made me, helped me avoid losing. I don’t even know that I could quantify it. It is by far the most impactful person, but I have a bonus team member that I think is extremely overlooked and hugely important, and that is your CPA/bookkeeper. I feel like investors who are new do not find the right fit for this role until way late. This is the role that helps me understand if my business is even profitable.
They’re doing the bookkeeping, they’re managing the P&Ls. If I want to know what properties are going well and what properties aren’t going well, I have to go work with my bookkeeper and my accountant to read those documents and figure out what’s performing. So for me, I think that that’s a huge role and I think that that’s the one that’s going to help you continue to make better decisions as you continue to grow and scale your business.

Chauncey:
I 100% agree. But what I also noticed is you said your investor-friendly realtor, and also my project manager is a freaking realtor. He’s a realtor. And you were saying that your realtor kind of ties you to everything, and I’m sitting here saying my project manager, who’s also my realtor, kind of has the ties to all the pieces. So then I guess it would be a realtor in some capacity. And if you could get them to work multiple pieces, then it’s even better.

Henry:
Chauncey, I cannot share a microphone with you and not ask you this question. So this question isn’t from the forums, it’s just from my heart.

Chauncey:
Oh, Lord.

Henry:
Should investors who are just starting out go and get a real estate license?

Chauncey:
100% they should. And not necessarily so that they can list their own properties, not necessarily so that they can actually become a real estate agent. But I think that my successes have come from me having been an agent first and understanding the consumer perspective. I understand what consumers want, and everyone overlooks the freaking consumer in the ecosystem of being an investor. We’re just looking at spreadsheets and we’re just trying to pencil whip and get our numbers to make sense and get our profits. And we forget at the end of the day, we’re actually creating a product, whether that’s for rental or whether that’s for fix and flip, but a consumer is going to consume the product that you’re creating. And if you don’t understand them and you don’t understand what they want and how they operate and the psychology behind them, then your product is going to lack.
And so I definitely think investors should get license and experience retail real estate sales in some capacity to help them understand the consumer, which will in turn help them create a product that’s wanted.

Henry:
This is one thing that I disagree with you on, but I love that perspective. I think people feel like they’re moving forward in their investing career by going to realtor school and getting a license, and it’s just a way for them to delay actually doing a deal. You don’t need to do that. Just go do a deal.

Chauncey:
Correct.

Henry:
But if you’re truly trying to get better and you want to learn what consumers or what the customer wants in terms of a product in the space, I think that what Chauncey’s saying is absolutely helpful. And you can do two things simultaneously. You can be looking for deals and analyzing deals and you can be getting your real estate license all at the same time. You don’t have to do one and then the other.

Chauncey:
Correct.

Henry:
We’ve got one last question that I am super excited to hear your perspective on, and I’m going to ask you right after the break. We are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. Chauncey Fam and I have been answering forum questions from our BiggerPockets users in the forums, and we’ve got one last question here. This question comes from Sophia, and Sophia says, “I joined a brokerage in hopes of learning commercial real estate and specializing in multifamily apartment buildings. It’s been a couple of months and I’m receiving no training. When I have questions, my mentor answers them, but I’m looking for another brokerage that can teach me instead of just handing my mentor leads. I’m realizing really quickly what this business entails and how you only have yourself and you can’t really trust anyone. It’s unfortunate because you would think that you are surrounded by people who are looking out for you when you’re first getting started.
I would love to hear what you guys have to say.

Chauncey:
Okay. So let me give you my spiel because I’m very passionate about this. I’m going to get on my soapbox for a minute. When you get your real estate license, what people need to understand is it’s no different than you deciding to open Joe Blow’s shoe store and you going down to city hall to get a business license to operate that business. You getting your real estate license is the same. And just as the next step of getting that business license is finding a place to actually conduct business, so finding a storefront, that is the process of you finding a brokerage. That’s how you should look at your brokerage. Your brokerage is nothing more than the strip center or shopping mall that you decide to house your store in, but it is ultimately your store. And just like you wouldn’t expect for a property manager or strip center manager to tell you how to run your shoe store and what hours to work and how to get customers through the door and what point of sale system to use, you can’t expect for your real estate brokerage to tell you how to operate your business.
Their job is one thing and one thing only, and that is to create a safe environment for consumers to conduct real estate transactions, whether that’s residential or commercial. They are more focused on the legal side of things, holding the insurance and making sure that no fair housing laws have been violated. They are not here to teach you how to be a business owner. They’re not here to teach you business acumen and they’re not here to teach you how to market yourself. Those are all things that you will have to learn on your own. And the reason that other realtors and other licensed people are not helping you is because you’re their competition. So why would they spend their time teaching you how to take money out of their pocket? And so the onus is on you as a realtor to come in and understand that you are opening your own business.
It is like running a store and you are going to have to seek out people, pay those people more than likely that you sought out to be your mentor. They’re not here to be your friends because they’re out here grinding, running a business just like you are. And I think that that is something that a lot of people don’t understand. They come into it thinking that it’s like a job and that their brokerage is like their employer when in all actuality it’s more like you’re coming in and opening a store and your brokerage is simply the strip center that your storefront is housed in and you need to function accordingly.

Henry:
That might be the best definition of an agent brokerage relationship that I’ve heard, and I could not agree with you more. This is part of the reason why I feel the way I feel about the last question we asked is that people go to get their license and they have no idea what they’re signing up for. And when I was reading the question and I read the line, I’m realizing quickly what this business entails and how you only have yourself and can’t really trust anybody. Yeah,
That’s entrepreneurship. That’s what you signed up for. That’s literally what you signed up for. And so I think it sounds like you just need to change your mentality about what it is that you are doing. You are on your own and it is your job to build your business in the way that you see fit so that you can be profitable. And yes, you will have allies along the way and people that can help you and some of those people, sure, will be right there next to you in your brokerage, but I think you may have to rethink how you’re approaching those relationships and most of all, adjust your expectations of what you think other people should be providing you. I’m not saying to be bitter or be cutthroat or not be helpful to other people. I think a lot of the times too, you just got to put some good old-fashioned life lessons to work here.
And a lot of the times when you need things from other people, the best way to get people to get you what you need is to be the thing you need to them.

Chauncey:
I 100% agree. And I have had the unique perspective and ability here and opportunity to work with thousands of agents and 90% of them have this mindset because I really think that it’s the way that real estate has been featured on television and on the reality shows. You just open

Henry:
Doors, right Chauncey? You

Chauncey:
Just open

Henry:
Doors and say, this is the living room and this is the bedroom and then voila, I made $5,000.

Chauncey:
It’s crazy and it is nothing like that. You’ve got to know how to market. You’ve got to have some business acumen. You’ve got to understand networking. You’ve got to have customer service and be able to read people and be able to talk to people and have sales and closing skills. And unfortunately, most people that get into it don’t have that. So definitely shift your mindset, invest in yourself, invest with maybe some production coaches or even just be reciprocal with something of value that you have with another agent and you can definitely get there, but your brokerage will never do it. I would challenge you, Sophia, to think about this. What does a real estate brokerage sell? Real estate brokerages sell agents. Agents sell houses and you’re expecting for a brokerage that sells agents to teach you how to sell houses. And so I think if you keep that in your mind at all times that this brokerage’s job is to simply sell agents and they make their money off of agents, then I think your expectations will shift as well.

Henry:
All right. Those were our forum questions. First of all, thank you so much, Chauncey, for joining me on the show, helping me get this done while Dave is off doing whatever it is that Dave does. Thanks for filling in.

Chauncey:
Yes, absolutely. It’s been a joy.

Henry:
Before we go, a reminder that we found these questions on the BiggerPockets Forum. So if you have real estate questions of your own, you can go to biggerpockets.com/forums and you can get advice from more than three million members totally for free. And if you’re lucky enough, then maybe myself and Chauncey and Dave might talk about your question right here on the show. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you on the next episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast.