Identifying Real Estate Potential with Jamil Damji

His name is Jamil Damji. He’s someone that I’ve known for a while, been following him on YouTube. He also works with Pace Morby. Maybe you caught that episode that I did with Pace, and I got a lot of comments on it.

Well, this one’s going to take you to a whole nother level now to have Jamil on here, because he has such an impressive resume when it comes to real estate investing. He’s engaged in over 6000 wholesale deals or real estate transactions. He has a background not only in investing, but working with students, and he just has his pulse on the real estate industry. This is what comes from having someone who’s out there doing it for so many individuals out there in the marketplace, that talk about how to invest in real estate but they never actually invest themselves.

What I want to do with this episode is I want to bring out Jamil and we’re going to delve into what’s going on out there, what he’s been doing, so you can all get some sense as to where you should place your focus. Jamil. Hey, man. Thanks for coming on. It’s been a long time.

Jamil: Yeah, it’s been a minute, but I actually catch you more than you catch me because I’m a big fan of your channel. I think you’re incredible and I love the work you do. I’m a student of yours so it’s actually an honor to be here.

Clint: Thank you. All right, before we get into it, tell me about Triple Digit Flip on A&E.

Jamil: It is our television debut. Pace Morby, myself, my sister Rahima, and Laura Morby (Pace’s wife), start in an ensemble cast for a television show on A&E called Triple Digit Flip, where we really dive into and pull back the curtain in our real estate businesses and primarily my company, KeyGlee. KeyGlee is a nationwide wholesale operation, we’re franchised across the country, and we allowed A&E to bring their cameras in and take a look at what we’re doing.

Essentially, they watch us either go out and find distressed properties. They will go door knocking, we’ll drive for deals, we will reach out to homeowners, make relationships with other wholesalers and real estate agents. Then we actually make a decision between which houses we want to wholesale, and which houses we want to actually take down and fix and flip.

You go through that entire decision-making process with us and the team, we break down the reason why we do what we do, and then you follow a house all the way through from the moment we pick it up to its reveal at the end. We teach exactly how we gain and add value in these renovations.

For anybody out there in the home renovation space, it’s really interesting the things that you can do, and how you can get creative to add value. For instance, in last week’s episode, we had an enclosed carport in a property and we were able to essentially add $20,000 in additional value by enclosing a small closet in that room, adding a window, and turning it into a bedroom.

Routinely, we push comps in areas because we’re very creative in how we can add value. I have been very interested in appraising and understanding how appraisers value property. Because of that, we have a unique take on how to actually renovate a home to maximize the profitability of each project.

Clint: You see, that’s key when it comes to real estate investing, is that when people look at an asset, can they see where the value is? They may see a home that’s a three-bedroom home, and they don’t realize that they could potentially turn it into a four-bedroom home or pop the top and put on a whole nother level for a minimal cost. You can then possibly double the value from where it’s at.

Jamil: Absolutely.

Clint: So that’s what you guys teach. What are some of the basic things for a real estate investor, where can you typically find value in a house that gets overlooked?

Jamil: Oh my gosh, in so many places. For instance, any small additions that might be on the property—whether they were permitted or not—if they’re there and they’re actually on the property when you close, you can have the county come and reassess the property.

Often homeowners won’t have the county come in and assess additions that have been made on a property because they pay increased property tax, but for our intents and purposes, we want that additional square footage so we learn how to have that square footage added into the tax record, which then ultimately allows us to sell for a higher dollar because we get increased dollar per square foot. That’s just one thing.

Another thing that we can do is, as I just mentioned, enclosing dens and turning dens or small rooms into actual bedrooms, figuring out how to add parking is a huge thing, especially at different price points. Then learning and understanding the things that could actually hurt you in investment like how much being near traffic could affect your value, especially in higher price points. We’re constantly making judgments based on really fine details in our knowledge of what creates value in a house.

Clint: Which areas are you investing in?

Jamil: We love working class neighborhoods, but we’ll also do luxury flips as well. Primarily, we’re just looking for value-add opportunities. You see as wholesalers, what we do, and for those of you that are watching and don’t understand or don’t know what wholesaling is, that’s where we just find distressed property or distressed situations and we offer a cash alternative to a homeowner if it makes sense for them. Then we’re able to actually contract that house and then either sell that contract for a profit or actually do the fix and flip.

Our intentions are always to do the fix and flip. But because we have such talented people on our team, we end up bringing in more opportunities every month than we can actually do. So we pick and choose the best ones during our due diligence periods, then the ones that we actually don’t want to do renovations on, we’ll wholesale the contract out. Essentially, all we’re doing is finding potential, and then selling a little bit of that potential to somebody else or realizing that potential for ourselves.

Clint: There’s an episode with Maxwell that the people on the channel have watched and he’s a wholesaler. You know Max. That’s what he talked about was that mindset. Being able to identify the right types of deals that you could just pass by normally, and then find that value in them.

You’re also doing something I’ve told people over and over again. When I talk to people who flip property, 50% of them look at me, they’re like I don’t want to deal with that. But you’ve nailed it. You get properties tied up under contract. If you’re a flipper, you also have to look at the wholesaling side because that’s another way to monetize your business.

I think that’s what people who are watching this or thinking about flipping property have to realize this, you need to build up your buyers list. You guys have sold us properties, but you have a list of individuals out there that you flip properties to.

Jamil: Correct. In fact, our nationwide buyers list is incredibly large, nearly half a million people at this point and growing every single day. That’s a lot of people that are interested in investment real estate. It’s obvious that we’re living in a world right now where inflation is out of control, we’ve got obvious heat in the real estate market, then you have all these different players that are on the field right now doing business in real estate.

When you look at the private equity companies, Wall Street, and then you look at the Ibuyers, I’ve noticed something quite interesting happening. That’s a new form of demand in the real estate market that’s completely unprecedented in any time in US history.

Normally, the real estate market is cyclical and you look at that and you say, wow. The reason it’s cyclical is because interest rates drive that pressure, demand drives that pressure, global socio-political things drive that pressure. When you can see people either jump into the market or relax out of the market, it’s because of natural human behavior.

However, what we’re seeing right now is billions and billions and billions of dollars injected into our market, without the natural buying appetites of human beings. These are Silicon Valley investors buying from the sky. When you have that kind of artificial demand, you have one of two things to do. You can either ride that, understand what it is, and time it perfectly so that you can execute a beautiful buy, realize a dramatic increase in value, then at the time when you start seeing private equity start to change their positions, that’s the time to sell.

Because we’re noticing this trend, our companies have been extremely profitable because we can not only buy properties for ourselves that make huge profits, but we can bring these opportunities to other people and show them how they can realize incredible profit margins for the next few years.

Clint: How are you figuring out when Silicon Valley’s coming into an area and then you identify that area as a buying opportunity?

Jamil: We watch the tax records very closely. We see everything that closes and we know all of the big players, LLC names, their trust, and all of the things. We literally track their every move and we know where they’re coming in and buying.

You know what’s interesting, Clint? We just did a flip where we beautified this house in the neighborhood and it was actually overdone. To be honest with you, we overdid it for the area, which is great. I actually have no problem with that. What we didn’t realize at the time was that we were sitting in a hotbed of Silicon Valley holdings. What ended up happening is when we put our property on the market, an Ibuyer came in and paid us $50,000 over our list price, waived all inspections, and closed immediately. Some of my friends were like, why would they make such a dumb buy? What would be the point? Then you look at how many houses they own in the neighborhood. They just increased their balance sheet by $3 million on one purchase.

Clint: When you say Ibuyer, so people understand, you’re talking about someone’s coming in off the Internet, they just see it, they come in and make an offer to you?

Jamil: Correct. There are a number of Ibuyers out there. We see Zillow is really moving quickly to capitalize and have market share. They’re buying up lots of American homes. Opendoor, Offerpad, two other great companies that have been out there buying up homes. Again, I’m not saying there’s anything nefarious happening or anything bad is going on. It’s business and these guys are entitled to do business how you’re able to do business.

I think that when you see the state of the economy and how inflation is really just beyond anyone’s expectations, you need to have cash in an investment vehicle that’s protected against inflation and housing is just that piece.

Clint: Those buyers that are buying them, they’re turning them into rentals, right?

Jamil: They are.

Clint: I’ve seen that here where I live. One of the developers in this area has taken a lot of, I would say 30%–40% of his properties, and rather than selling them, he builds new homes. He just turned them into rentals right now because the cash flow, the return is so much better than selling the property. He’s like yeah, if I plan to sell in a couple years I’ll unload it, but right now I’m just going to capture that cash flow. There’s a ton of opportunity.

I think the problem with some people right now when it comes to investing in real estate, is that they get this impression that the market is too hot out there. There’s not enough opportunities to find gain in properties because they’ve all been bid up. What is your response to that?

Jamil: They’re looking in the wrong places. That’s just it. Here’s the thing, guys. If you’re in the stock game, do you want to be buying IPOs or do you want to buy on the retail from your Schwab guy? Let’s be honest. Who gets to play? The guys in the know. The people that are behind the scenes. The ones who know where to look for the deals.

If you’re buying off the MLS, you’re buying wrong. I promise you, that’s not where you’re going to find opportunity. What you need to do is you have to network with talented wholesalers in your area. I would love to do business with you. If you want to have access to some of our inventory—again like I mentioned—we’re in many of the major US markets. Reach out to me. I’m 1000% available to help you guys find those deals. They don’t exist on the retail market. They trade behind closed doors.

Clint: Absolutely. I’ve told people many times that with our acquisitions in Winston-Salem, it’s been that way, that these never hit the MLS. It’s just we know people like yourself, and we get deals that way. That, I have found, is the way to really explode the portfolio.

You’re out there finding deals, I think the thing that a lot of investors have is how do I tap into someone like you to gain access to those types of deals?

Jamil: You literally reach out to me. I’m 100% available, you can DM me on Instagram, it’s just @JDamji. Follow me on Instagram, send me a DM, and I will direct traffic. I’ve got people in my Instagram who, if you just let us know what market you’re looking in, they will direct you to a franchise director in that area, and you can start sifting through the opportunities.

There are amazing opportunities. It’s the hottest market in the history of the United States, correct? I just bought a house yesterday that has $200,000 in potential equity.

Clint: What I’ve heard from you now is that you’re doing a lot of analyzing of the tax records. What are you looking for when you go in there to look at the tax records? Say, if I live in Ohio, in Cleveland, in that area, and I want to start doing this and I’m struggling. If I would start looking at tax records, what should I be trying to identify?

Jamil: You want to look at are there LLCs that are showing up over and over again that are purchasing in cash? Then you can do a little quick search to see what are those LLCs doing? Are they buying? Selling? Are they buying, fixing, and selling? Are they buying, renting and holding?

You just look for patterns, you look for patterns of activity. Because you see those patterns, you’re able to very quickly determine whether or not this person could be either somebody you sell property to or somebody that you buy property from. There is always a trail. There’s always a trail in every transaction, and all you need to do is a little bit of dissecting to find out what side of the coin you want to play in.

Are you looking to buy deals? Well, then you want to see who the seller of that transaction was so that you can go make a relationship with that wholesaler. Are you looking to hold deals or you looking to sell stuff? Well, then you want to find out who the buyer of that deal was so you can make a relationship with the owner of that LLC and start selling them properties or opportunities.

There are folks out there, Clint, who literally have an entire business model, just looking around at tax records, finding LLCs that are purchasing, making relationships with folks like myself, and flipping contracts to those people. Look how easy I just said that to happen. They’ll go, they’ll get a list, they’ll search the tax records and see who closed in the last six months in an LLC. Then you go and skip trace that LLC.

If you guys are wanting to find resources on how you can skip trace—skip tracing is essentially finding contact information for a homeowner or an LLC—you can also reach out to me for that on my DMs and I’ll send you in the right. There are all kinds of services out there that you can use for that type of data.

Then you call these people. You make a relationship with them. Then you literally look at my website, see what opportunities I have. Call the buyer, ask if they’re buying. If they are, you copy and paste the stuff that’s on my site to them, add your little fee, and all of a sudden if they take the deal you just made $10,000 at your kitchen table.

Clint: If somebody wants to get started—you’ve got your website, they can go there, and I’ll put all this in the show notes—what are some of the basic systems that you think are really important for real estate investors that are out there in this market right now? I know there are tons of different software and things that people tell you, services you should sign up for. What would you recommend?

Jamil: Honestly, I think the only one that’s necessary is understanding how to comp properties. That’s the foundation of this business all in all. You don’t want to ever take my word for it. You don’t want to take somebody else’s word for how much something is worth. Learn how to do that.

Every single Sunday on my YouTube channel, I go live on YouTube, and I teach the general public how to evaluate property, how to spot potential. Build that muscle memory up. Get those synapses firing in your brain so that you can immediately spot potential.

If you can do that, there’s no chance you’ll fail at this business. But anyone who I’ve seen come in and fizzle out is because they didn’t spend time on the basics. They didn’t spend time trying to figure out how to understand value. Once you can understand value, my friend, you can create enormous amounts of wealth.

Clint: What is something that if I’m trying to figure out the value, what are the basic principles that I should look for?

Jamil: I love that you asked. I have appraisal rules. I went to appraiser school. I never got licensed because it wasn’t necessary for me, but I learned all about it. Then I interviewed appraisers across the country and I found common criteria of what they would look for when they’re appraising houses. Things like not leaving a subdivision when you’re trying to find a viable comp for your house. A lot of folks and real estate agents get this wrong. You know that they don’t teach realtors how to comp properties at realtor licensing school?

Clint: And how they price them.

Jamil: Honestly, that’s the reason why there’s just so much craziness on the MLS, because real estate agents don’t price property based on the actual value. They price property based on if they’re going to get the listing by agreeing with a homeowner as to what that homeowner wants to sell the house for. That’s what happens. I’m just pulling back the curtain for everybody.

Look guys, this is a dog and pony show out there in the world and you can learn how to play in it and get rich if you can figure out how to do this right. You’ll learn how to comp and as I was just saying, not leaving a subdivision is important, keeping your comparables within a quarter-mile of your subject property. Making sure that you’re comparing like to like, not comparing a two-story house with a single-story house. A two-story house will always have inherently less value than a single story because there are more buyers available for a single story because there are no stairs.

Knowing these things, understanding how siding, fronting or backing, commercial or traffic will affect your value. Understanding how much an additional bathroom is worth, understanding how much a garage is worth, understanding if you don’t have a garage, you lose. Knowing the differences in these small little nuances can allow you to spot value and opportunities and then as soon as you get that, it’s off to the races.

Clint: Got it. I know you provide coaching. You have a company that does that, and you get your real estate company as well where you’re finding deals and making them available to people. Do you teach that as well? It’d be really difficult for myself to go out there and try to figure this all out on my own. Are you a resource for individuals?

Jamil: Absolutely. I’ve got a coaching platform called AstroFlipping. You could go to astroflipping.com and give us a look. Honestly, I love it so much. I feel like I’ve been called to be a coach, even though my real estate companies are extremely successful and I make the bulk of my income from my deals and the transactions that I do. I am so energized to be able to impact and affect people’s lives by teaching them how to do this, that I personally am the person who shows up to those coaching calls.

Even though I have hours of filming to do every day, I’ve got to run my companies. One of my relaxations of meditation for me, if you want to call it that, is communicating and connecting with students. I love to be able to show you guys how we do what we do and help you in your real estate careers, if that’s what you so choose to do.

Clint: Yeah, it’s a testament that A&E approached you all to create a show, especially when I look at the market, I thought, all right, flip this house, all of that stuff seems to be overplayed. But you guys bring a unique perspective to it. They saw that talent, and they saw your history and how many deals you’ve been doing. What you’ve got a hold of right now is obviously working in the market and it’s something people should be looking at.

Jamil: I agree. There was a thorough vetting process when A&E approaches somebody to do a show with them. They look at your financials, they look at your businesses, they look at your LLCs, they do background checks. They do everything to make sure they’re investing in the right people. It’s expensive to make a television show, so they need to know that their horse is going to be a healthy one.

It’s great. I have to say just how grateful I am to our production company, Six West Media, as well as A&E, for them allowing us to be authentic. I watch a lot of these home renovation shows. I’m a fan of them. I think they’re great, but they’re a little bit fake, you know what I’m saying?

Clint: Yup.

Jamil: When you see that and you’re in the industry, it’s cool. But at the same time, I’m like this isn’t helping the public. Folks aren’t learning how to do anything here because you guys are lying. What we’ve done is we’ve just pulled back the curtain. We’re being honest about it. We’re showing if we get kicked in the nuts, we get kicked in the nuts. It is what it is and you go through this with us. You go through the journey of every house with us. We talk about it in transparency and we really just hope that people can look at this and take it for what it is.

America has an opportunity right now. People have been out of work. They’re trying to figure out and pivot. What am I wanting to do with my life? We all had an opportunity to think about purpose in 2020. I can tell you that every person had that moment where they sat in their house and they said, what am I doing in my life? How am I impacting people? Am I proud of what I’ve done in the last 40–50 years? Do I want to make a shift?

I want to do something where I celebrate my gifts, where I celebrate the talents that I’ve naturally endowed with. That’s what I’m talking about. For a lot of people, that is woven into real estate. If you have this idea that you love designing, that you love the way space makes you feel if you love driving in beautiful neighborhoods and looking at architecture, if you ever just notice how pretty landscaping can be in a property, if that resonates with you, then real estate might be for you.

Clint: Absolutely. You give me some really good takeaways here. If I’m listening right now, you told me to look at the tax records. That’s where you have to go and you start doing research there. You’ve also said you want to find out who the buyers and sellers are because those are going to be your key players to know whether or not you have Silicon Valley in your neighborhood or big hedge funds buying it up because that’s going to indicate trends.

Then you’re talking about comping properties, how to comp things the right way, find value, hidden value in deals, knowing when you see it that you can turn that property into something that other people do not see, is really key. All those during this interview, I think it’s going to be phenomenal for my YouTube followers to really help take their investing to the next level.

I’m sure some of them have a question as well because in my studio at my office, you’ll know I have bottles of wine, bottles of whiskey on one shelf, and I’m looking behind you right now and it looks like have some Port back there and I’m not sure what is that other bottle that you have sitting back there?

Jamil: I’ve got some Snoop Dogg wine.

Clint: Oh, is that what it is?

Jamil: Here’s the thing. I’m an old school 90s rap fan. I love 90s rap and I love Snoop Dogg, so he gets a place on our shelf.

Clint: Do you drink it or do you just display it?

Jamil: It’s been there for about a year-and-a-half. It’s not for my taste. It’s just because I love the Dogg.

Clint: Right on. The other day, I’m building a wine cellar.

Jamil: Awesome.

Clint: Yeah. It’s been a long time coming. I keep accumulating the bottles. I got to start putting them somewhere. We took a big room down in our basement and we’re turning it into a wine cellar, so it’ll be fun.

Jamil: Would you like to know what that wine cellar might be worth in value to your home?

Clint: Absolutely, what is it going to be worth?

Jamil: Depending on what’s the price point of the area that you live in.

Clint: It ranges from $1.5 million to $6 million.

Jamil: That’s probably going to be around $50,000, Clint.

Clint: Wow. All right.

Jamil: If you’re going to build it out in about 15?

Clint: Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Jamil: There you go, that’s an ROI.

Clint: Yeah, it is. I just plan on filling it and enjoying everything that’s in there. I keep buying more wine, so I told my wife if that can accommodate up to 550 bottles. I’m about 100 bottles shy of that right now, so we’ve got to have it filled.

Jamil: You do.

Clint: All right. Well hey, thanks for taking the time. I know you’re a really busy individual. We can only schedule this on a Saturday because of your schedule, but I appreciate it. Like I said, everything’s going to be in the show notes, so those links, to reach out and contact you. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to hit you up that way and get more information. Anything you want to leave in parting?

Jamil: Clint, again, I just really appreciate having the opportunity to hang out with you on a Saturday. Thanks for accommodating me to do this on the weekend. I know you’ve got things to do as well. Incredible fan of yours.

To everybody listening, just remember, you can do anything you absolutely put your mind to. You just have to take that first step. That’s the hardest thing for a lot of folks is just taking the first step. And think, the reason why? Is because you’re already looking at steps two and three. Abandon that. Abandon steps two and three and take step one. Steps two and three will illuminate themselves and show you the way. I hope you guys all have immense success in your lives. Peace and love.

Clint: Awesome, thanks.

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