Episode 5: Turning Corporate Skills into Real Estate Gold: The Justin Cambra Story

Welcome back to another episode of The Breakthrough with Stephen Husted. Today's show is an absolute gem as we dive into the incredible journey of Justin Cambra, a true virtuoso in the realm of real estate. Justin's story is a testament to the extraordinary places life can take you when you harness the power of diverse experiences. Justin shares his humble beginnings on a farm, where discipline and consistency were part of his DNA. These early life lessons turned out to be the building blocks of his monumental success, taking him from Amazon's corporate corridors to the landscapes of real estate investing. In this episode, you will learn: Takeaway 01: Consistency Breeds Success Discover the magic that springs forth when daily discipline, cultivated in farm life, transforms into an unstoppable force driving corporate and real estate triumphs.
Takeaway 02: Transferable Skills Justin's journey teaches us that skills cultivated in seemingly unrelated domains can be potent assets when transplanted into new territories, such as the world of real estate.
Takeaway 03: Balancing Act: The balance between content creation and the mechanisms of real estate Learn how to build your brand while keeping the wheels of your business turning. Remember, your journey to greatness starts with a single step. Enjoy the episode.

TRANSCRIPT

∎ Teaser / Highlighted Clip

[Justin Cambra] (0:00 - 0:29)

I was helping a buyer client do a creative finance deal. And then I posted, love to help my clients do creative finance deals. I actually just closed a deal two weeks ago from a guy that saw that, that's within my network that said, Hey, you do creative financing.

He's in sub two. And then I'm like, yeah, I'm an, I'm an agent and I can help you. And so that, that one little post, what is it?

60 characters landed me a client.

[Stephen Husted] (0:30 - 0:32)

Oh, I love this.

[Justin Cambra] (0:32 - 0:37)

Yeah. So 60 characters translated to roughly $15,000.

∎ Podcast Intro:

[Stephen Husted] (0:37 - 2:35)

Welcome to the breakthrough with Stephen Husted, the show that takes you behind the scenes with successful entrepreneurs, real estate investors, and other movers and shakers in the business world. In each episode, we'll sit down with our guests to explore their personal and professional journeys, including the challenges they faced, the breakthrough moments that propelled them to success and the strategies and the tactics they used to get there. Get inspired by new ideas and strategies and get to know our guests on a deeper level.

Join us for candid conversations, powerful insights, and plenty of breakthrough moments. Please help us grow by subscribing and sharing the podcast and welcome to the show.

∎ Guest Introduction:

Hello, everybody. Today, we have a guest who's truly a trailblazer in industry. I want to introduce Justin Kambra, a dynamic individual who has not only excelled at the corporate world at Amazon, but has also carved out his path in real estate investing. I mean, his journey is like a symphony of strategic moves from MBA in financing to launching an investment group with Amazon.

And let's not forget his prowess in content creation on social media. Now, Justin's story isn't just about making money. It's about crafting a legacy and seizing every opportunity.

And if you've been wondering how to blend your corporate career with real estate, this is the episode you don't want to miss. From his farm routes to building a portfolio of properties, Justin's insights and strategies will have you rethinking your approach to real estate. So grab a notebook because we're diving into everything from his experience at Amazon, launching an investment group, and how farming background shaped his disciplined mindset.

∎ Podcast Proper:

Thanks, Justin, for joining on today. I appreciate it.

[Justin Cambra] (2:36 - 2:42)

Hey, Steven. I'm happy to be here. I look forward to help you out, launch your podcast, and grow and increase your network.

[Stephen Husted] (2:42 - 3:38)

Thank you. Starting a podcast, I'll say that I had this as something I wanted to do in May, last May, and didn't really realize how much time and backend would be needed to do this. It was pretty incredible.

And I think that had so many other things going on that it just kept dragging on. I'm like, oh my gosh, let's get this thing launched. It's going to be happening soon So I'm glad you could join on now, but I'll probably end up having you back down the road here too.

So I think that it's just be the start of it. So today I got Justin Canberra on the podcast and I have met him back. I think we met at BiggerPockets, but I don't recall where we were when I met you.

Did we meet at like lunch or something? Or how did I meet you? Did I meet Jess White?

[Justin Cambra] (3:39 - 4:04)

Yes. It was BBCon 2022 where we were at in San Diego. And I want to say it was like between sessions or something where we met up.

And Jess, I've known him actually from Instagram. And we've since gone to a couple of BiggerPockets conference together. And he's a great networker.

I'm sure he's probably the connector. Yeah. Yeah.

[Stephen Husted] (4:04 - 4:34)

So I know you got a pretty good story. So hopefully we can dive into this and give a lot of background of where you came from. I know you went to Berkeley, right?

Yes. And got an MBA in finance through there. And then you ended up in Amazon at one point.

Okay. And then you started an investment group through Amazon. Is that true?

[Justin Cambra] (4:35 - 5:11)

Yeah. So I started, it's called Real Estate at Amazon and it started December, 2019. And then originally it was just me creating it.

And then I created a real estate at community. Or a committee, which then kind of grew to roughly 15. Because my end game was to leave Amazon.

So for real estate to survive, I had to create a committee to keep it forward. So when I left in September of last year, it's about 1100 people. And then fast forward to now it's around 1500 people.

[Stephen Husted] (5:12 - 5:17)

Wow. So are you still a part of it? Is it still something you're doing on a monthly?

[Justin Cambra] (5:17 - 6:10)

I'm not fully engaged with it, but I'm still connected with some of the members. We're actually having a reunion at the end of this month with the committee members. Because there's a few of us that have already graduated.

I retired. And so getting back together. I'm just so thrilled to see that it's growing and bigger.

The last couple of guests they had on were Jamil Damji, Pace Morby, Ashley Kerr, Dave Meyer. Through Bigger Pockets Conference and making the connections, we've had other BP guests on before. And now it's just kind of getting that flow where it's like a perfect blend of high quality guests coming in.

And then obviously people that want to build that side hustle money, ultimately break the shackles and go get free of their W2.

[Stephen Husted] (6:11 - 6:23)

Wow. That's awesome. So give the audience a background on you.

Where'd you come from? What have you been doing? What's your whole story in real estate?

I'd like to hear all of it.

[Justin Cambra] (6:24 - 10:07)

Yeah. So I'm originally from, I say Seattle, but I grew up in a small city. It's called Auburn.

So it's about an hour south of Seattle. Grew up on a farm. And I think that's where you're going to see within the storyline today, a history of consistent daily action.

And I attribute that to growing on a farm because cows got to eat every day, right? You can't not feed them. So growing up doing that consistently over time, I've just taken that, it was ingrained in me and I just keep that going forward into my real estate investment.

And when I was in the workforce, that was the same thing that helped propel me. So grew up on the farm, went to Enumclaw High School, which is the neighboring town over. And then my undergrad, I went to Washington State.

So I grew up on a farm, so I liked agriculture, but I liked business. And then I was like, I just said, let's combine these two. And I had an ag business degree.

And so out of that, I went to the first job out of college was Cargill, which I was in animal nutrition division for four years. So moved around, it was in Washington, California, Texas, then back to Washington. So I was just in that, it was animal feed, dairies, dairy feed, poultry feed, beef feed, all the different, fish food, all that kind of stuff.

Then from there, I was like, at the time I was married, we're trying to like, stop moving around. And then I ended up working at Safeway, which is a West Coast real estate chain, and started in one of their manufacturing plants. And then ultimately, I moved from Seattle area back down to the Bay Area to get Safeway's headquartered out there.

And so now I was like, right at the GFC. So the great financial crisis, you know, so when I moved there, I'm like, man, okay, I'm going to buy something down here, just to live. I had no intention of ever investing.

So I bought something there literally at like the trough of the market. So that was like, that was, so if you're familiar with the Bay Area, actually, you're from San Jose, right? Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So Mountain House is the city.

So straight east of the Bay Area. I say Bay Area, because like people around here don't, wouldn't have no idea where Mountain House is. But you, you know, Mountain House, that's what is that 586, whatever that diagonal is from San Jose towards Tracy.

And so I lived there for about five, no, eight years, I think it was. I mean, in that time, I like, great, this is cool and everything. But now I want to move back to, to Washington.

And that's how I got into the MBA. My boss had graduated from Berkeley. And she was paramount in getting me my application in, getting it approved, and getting in there, because I was like my ticket to go back home.

Because once you get your MBA, and you know, for evening, this is the evening and weekend, there was probably top one, two across the US. And so you're easy, like, they bring all the employers to you. And because I want to go back is going to be Microsoft, Amazon could have been Boeing, Starbucks, all these major players that are based out of Seattle, that was my intent.

And so got my, my evening and weekend MBA. And then that's when I came up to Seattle, worked for Amazon.

[Stephen Husted] (10:07 - 10:14)

So your MBA, I got a question for you. What has that MBA done for you when it comes to real estate?

[Justin Cambra] (10:16 - 11:19)

What I like to say is like, what the MBA, I focused in finance, obviously, that helped me and some of the more analytical financial stuff. But really, it was about being around smart people and teaching yourself how to learn. And so in real estate, the biggest barrier is people are like, well, how do I do it?

So getting an MBA, all that was the how, okay, what books do I need to read? What websites, what people connecting with people, you know, and the other thing going to Berkeley, like I barely got in, I was waitlisted. Everybody there has is super smart.

So that helped me deal with really smart people who are excelling. So, you know, fast forward that to now when I go to bigger pockets conferences, where people meet people like you and Jess and other successful people, is how do you build rapport and interact? So like how to learn how to interact with smart people, that was the biggest thing that I took away from the MBA.

[Stephen Husted] (11:20 - 11:54)

Yes, I've noticed that I have several friends and investors that have MBAs, and they, they're very methodical in a lot of ways and how they approach business, which I think really helps them. And I just noticed that and some of my friends, they just can get into something and they know how to kind of just they know how to break down the system of getting going on something instead of sitting back and going, I'm lost. They kind of have a little different of a grasp.

So yeah, that that's great. So once you got the MBA, then you were you're back into Seattle and at Amazon at that point?

[Justin Cambra] (11:55 - 11:56)

Exactly. Yeah.

[Stephen Husted] (11:56 - 11:56)

Okay.

[Justin Cambra] (11:57 - 14:19)

That was, that was 2013. So graduated in May, took a month, I think it was a month off. And I started right after, I think it was around 4th of July 2013.

And so that was my first job at Amazon. So I majored in, because my goal was like, okay, yeah, I want to go back to Seattle. But through my other jobs, I had like operations background was predominantly my experience.

But then, you know, if I want to own my own company, I needed to know more about the money. So I focused on finance. And then I was like, okay, I want to get a finance job now.

And Amazon, I was in, hopped right into finance. So first, first kind of tech job, first finance job. And then my first role, it was a rotation.

So my first role was in advertising, I knew nothing about advertising. And so I kind of got thrown right in. And I learned a ton there.

And really what I learned over those four years, I worked there nine years of the first four were in finance, what I learned is that I can do it. But it doesn't wasn't inherently what I love to do. Which then like, you know, I could do it, but it'd be like 110% of my effort.

Somebody else could do it like 80 90%. And I was like, I need to find something better that that matches with my skill set. Because Amazon does get a bad rap for churning through a lot of people.

The thing is, is the speed and the scale, you have to have all your skill sets applied to what that job is. If there's a misalignment, you're it's going to be friction, it's going to be tension, you know, internally in with, you know, Amazon. So once I shifted into my second role, which is biz dev, I mean, this was like the, you know, I love that job is so cake, right?

I would travel around and pitch vendors to create a brand that was exclusively sold on Amazon, we would do the advertising, they do the manufacturing, we do the distribution. And it was like the greatest thing ever, I was traveling all over the US, it was building all these frequent flyer miles. And it was just super fun.

Like who doesn't want to sell to me when I was working at Amazon. That's like, it's the easiest sales job you could ever have.

[Stephen Husted] (14:20 - 14:31)

It's good too, because sales, that part of Amazon and doing sales, I would imagine probably translated into the real estate part of it too.

[Justin Cambra] (14:32 - 16:03)

100% because when we launched this group was called Amazon Accelerator. I don't know if it's still around or not. But we literally would get the list of manufacturers.

And we'd have we'd have our list, we go down the list, how many people do you call today? How many did you set appointments? Yeah, the whole sales funnel, right?

So how many got appointments? And then how many did you pitch? And then what happened after post pitch?

Did we have a follow up meeting? Are they in contract phase? Did we sign?

And then once they signed, then it was more ongoing operations. So because I was there on the ground floor, so there was, I think, maybe like, less than 10 vendors at the time when I came in. And then by the time I left, there was hundreds of vendors, not just in the US, as international as well.

So getting that sales funnel mentality, you know, you got to put a lot in to get get the results. And getting to that, this is key, because I'm doing this right now as a real estate agent, getting reps in front of people where you don't necessarily know what you're talking about yet. And so you're kind of learning on the fly.

So that gave me a ton of experience in it. Because I was like, I was just learning what it is. And then the next day, I would have to be like, here's the program, here's how it works.

And they're, they're asking me all these questions. And I, you know, have to figure out the answers to reply back to me either live or, you know, post those meetings.

[Stephen Husted] (16:04 - 16:15)

So how did that translate into now being a realtor at Keller Williams? So how did you tell me how you transitioned that part in?

[Justin Cambra] (16:16 - 17:03)

So into specifically the calling or Amazon? Okay, so the way that I from calling aspect is one just getting over the fear. A lot of people have massive fear, even myself, like, I'm a real estate agent now.

And then I'm going to tell them that I'm know how to to list their house for more by or help them by helping them by that's easy. I do that all day personally. Now the sell side, I have to overcome that saying, like, why, why should they work with me?

And what's the value proposition? So, you know, taking my Amazon experience, I can help tailor that how I apply that to when I'm talking to sellers, whether that's expired listings, canceled listings, or just people that I know that are looking to sell.

[Stephen Husted] (17:04 - 17:08)

How much time you spend per day, you cold calling every day?

[Justin Cambra] (17:08 - 17:57)

Yeah, so my goal is one hour, I'm in a real estate mastermind for investing. One of my friends in there, he works at a competing brokerage, but we have a one hour session per day where we're on our cell phone. And he's got video watching me and I have video watching him.

We have our mics on so that we can listen to a we're making the call and be like, we can help each other. Like if I get stuck on something, maybe you should have said this, you know, so we're trying to do one hour a day and then one hour a day minimum of follow up. So people you talked to in the past follow up with the appointments or did you give them an offer if you're trying to buy it?

Or did you give them your marketing information in terms of you're trying to do a listing?

[Stephen Husted] (17:58 - 18:13)

That's really cool. And it that it's interesting because what you're saying is there's a lot of discipline there. You're following a system, right?

And you're doing that on a daily basis. But then that kind of, that's something that goes back to on the farm.

[Justin Cambra] (18:13 - 18:14)

Right.

[Stephen Husted] (18:14 - 18:15)

Discipline.

[Justin Cambra] (18:15 - 18:16)

Exactly. 100%.

[Stephen Husted] (18:17 - 19:13)

100%. And I totally understand that. I mean, I didn't work on a farm.

However, I've done some of the same things in my whole life over and over and over, whether it's working out, cycling, it's a discipline. And I just try to do it all the time to make that discipline and to translate into other things. So I totally understand where that farming background of discipline is now translating to what you're doing right now.

And you know how I understand this? Because I watch you on Instagram. I watch what you post.

It's very methodical. I can tell you're following a system. Not everybody would catch that, but I do.

So I like that. And I think that's what it's all about too. Just showing up and doing it.

And some days you probably do it and probably there's no traction. Probably nothing goes your way at all. But all of a sudden that one day comes around and it all does.

[Justin Cambra] (19:14 - 20:25)

Exactly. Since we met, I'm in springboard wealth. That's when he's obviously really big on Instagram.

And so he's really pushing us to do stories. And I had never done stories up to then. So I'm actively trying to do more stories.

And what I've noticed is now my postings are following up. So I need to get more postings. The thing is, I could just do content every day, but I'm my own barrier.

I just need to time block, get more of it out there. Because the issue, like you're saying, it's methodical. I'm like, well, what would I actually want to hear?

And then how do I say that? And then how do I make it entertaining to where they'll actually soak it up? And so the content is not necessarily the hard part.

It's like packaging it to where at the end game, I'm doing that to build my followers, which then leads to back to the sales funnel. People that want to sell to me, people that want to list to me, or people that want me to help them buy, or people that want to invest with me, private money, joint ventures, whatever.

[Stephen Husted] (20:25 - 22:14)

It's a delicate, delicate balance between all of them. Because you're in the same situation as me. And because we're a little bit more unique as agents than certain agents.

I'm sure you know, there's a lot of agents that don't have investment properties. They don't even deal with that part of the business. So, you know what I mean?

And that could be a full-time business in itself, right? How that's ran, all your systems in place for that. And there's so many things that go on, on a daily basis, if you have a portfolio of properties.

So you got that. Then you're dealing with buyers and sellers, right? So you're dealing with that aspect of it.

So you're cold calling, you're prospecting, you're lead nurturing, and then you're helping them buy and sell. And then you're stacking on top of that content. And it is very, I find it really hard to balance it all out.

Lately, I have. I sometimes tend to go too heavy and just obsessed on content and things like that, where I'm not nurturing my database. Or I'm focusing on the smaller things in the business, working in the business instead of on the business.

You know, that is the things. And we've been going through that a lot lately. And I have literally a team.

I got a couple assistants, you know, full-time for the most part, social media manager. And it still, you know, doesn't free me up in the way that I want to be freed up. So I've been, I know watching you, like I see you post on your little, on the, it's not the stories.

What's the other part that you can put the notes?

[Justin Cambra] (22:15 - 23:05)

Oh, yeah. That's something new that just came out. Like, which that came out, if I remember right, maybe January-ish.

And I saw somebody posted on there and I was like, Oh, I'm just going to start doing this every day. You know, because like, that's tells us like, that's free advertising. Okay.

And, you know, sure enough, I started doing that. And then I was helping a buyer client do a creative finance deal. And then I posted, love to help my clients do creative finance deals.

I actually just closed a deal two weeks ago from a guy that saw that, that's within my network that said, Hey, you do creative financing. He's in sub two. And then I'm like, yeah, I'm an agent, I can help you.

And so that, that one little post, what is it? 60 characters landed me a client.

[Stephen Husted] (23:07 - 23:08)

Oh, I love this.

[Justin Cambra] (23:09 - 23:14)

Yeah. So 60 characters translated to roughly $15,000.

[Stephen Husted] (23:14 - 25:13)

Yeah. It's like that. And it comes on something, maybe you don't even expect it.

You're just putting it out there, but it, it somehow triggers some type of value or some intrigue from somebody else. I totally get that. I made a video on property management and that, Hey, you have a property management out of state and you have some repair items and you get done.

Don't just go through the property management company. Make sure you have another handyman that, you know, can also give you a quote to make sure that you're not overpaying for the same type of work. So I made that video.

And the reason the video went out was because it, you know, I know I saved the money from going through a handyman instead of the property manager. So I made the video, posted it, went on Instagram, went on to Facebook. And then on Facebook, I had a friend from high school reach out who lives in Arizona and said, Hey, I saw your video on property management.

I have my mom passed away and her house is now a rental, but it's, you know, I don't know if I'm getting overcharged. Can I talk to you? Well, we talked, she owns the house outright.

She's not making that much money on it. So now what we're doing is we're selling it. She's buying a primary in Arizona and she's going to start investing.

So that one video created not only the sale of the house in California, but now she's going to be, I'm going to be consulting her for buying out state, you know, getting into real estate investing. She's about to start that journey. And she doesn't even know what the amount of money she's going to be netting over a million dollars.

She has no clue what she can potentially do for her future and her daughter's future and her daughter's kids future. You know what I mean? Like they just don't know.

Like I just, the leverage and the strategies and everything that go along with that. So now I'm taking her under my wing. All based on a video.

[Justin Cambra] (25:14 - 25:58)

The thing that, you know, that's great. It's going to parlay the business, but if you're like me, like I'm helping buyer clients do house hacking. They get that first property.

And then you're like, you just taught them how to fish. And now they're like, okay, now they're on the path to freedom. She's going to take that million.

She'll buy a primary. She'll buy a couple of properties I'm imagining and then start generating cashflow. Five years from now, you're going to be like, you remember when, when we had that crazy idea to sell and then reinvest, you know, that's like, that's for me, like, yeah, we make money.

But when we leave this earth, like these are things that we help change people's life. It's amazing.

[Stephen Husted] (25:59 - 26:39)

Yeah, absolutely. And it wasn't, let's say 10 years ago, this was hard to do. Like you and I would not be having this conversation.

We wouldn't be conversating on Instagram. There wasn't very, there wasn't conferences like bigger pockets, you know, 10 years ago. Like it is changed.

The whole thing has changed. We're so connected now with information, which is really cool because now we can push that out. For instance, you know, I think, I think we, I don't know, for me, I take a lot of things for granted of what I know, but when I pass it to somebody else, it's like gold to them.

You know, do you, do you get that feeling too? Because I learned from you.

[Justin Cambra] (26:40 - 27:47)

A hundred percent. So there's all these things that we're, we're soaking all this stuff and we just assume it's commonplace. But then when you go, where this hit me was my girlfriend and I went to a friend of ours, had a real estate meetup.

It was mainly for new people at their house. And so my girlfriend, you know, I'm over socializing, you know, probably drink on my hand, but she was over talking to these other people that were new investors. And then she goes, she came over to me later.

She's like, it's amazing how much I know. Cause she, she's not involved in, in my investing at all because she doesn't like it. She, she just, she's got different, you know, you know, activities and hobbies, but all I talk about is real estate.

And so she's like, man, it's amazing how much I know just because I'm talking to her about it, or she hears me talking to sellers or buyers or whatever. And she's like really well versed, even though she's, she's never owned a primary residence. So it's, it's, it's amazing how, how much information you have when you don't even, because, because you're just always soaking it in.

[Stephen Husted] (27:48 - 28:09)

Right. Yeah, absolutely. So let's hear a little bit about how you started to build your portfolio because we haven't gone down that let's, let's hear what was that trigger point for you?

What did you start doing first and foremost? And then did that, did those first couple of properties really start pushing you to kind of go all in?

[Justin Cambra] (28:11 - 32:07)

Yeah. So my first one's about, you know, we're at Amazon, it's 2013, you know, I've been slugging it away for like three years. I moved from downtown, you know, did the whole city life for a while.

And then I moved to West Seattle, which is a little bit more subdued. And then I was like, I actually, at the time, I was like, I back to the misalignment, right. The skill sets and the requirements that, that Amazon, you know, I was like, I actually hate it.

I hated working at Amazon, but I couldn't leave because the golden handcuffs were there. Because I was getting, you know, in my year three and four, 120 shares every six months, you know, which is a lot, you know, in today's, that would be 20x that because, you know, they did the 20, 20 to one. So I had all this money coming at me as I can't leave and I hate this, but I got to figure a way out.

And so, you know, I started like, how do I get out of this thing? I've got money coming in. I know that I don't want to do this forever.

And I started to get on the internet. And then it just seemed like real estate was like the average Joe guy could do this. And so I started doing that.

In hindsight, I was like, I remember seeing bigger pockets because it was the old logo. I don't know if you remember the old logo. Cause I was like, Oh, what's this, this bigger pockets things.

But when I was thinking about like, well, I can't just buy a house cause it's not going to help me. So if I get a house with another unit, then it can help me lower my cost, lower the cost, make more, which generates more money to buy the next one. And, you know, I didn't understand how sack at the time I wasn't on bigger pockets yet.

And so what, but I knew a basketball was and one, so you get, get the basket, get fouled. And then you'd have the, and one, the extra free throw. And so I was like, I need to find these and one properties.

And so that's what I was looking for when I went to find my first, you know, first property within Seattle. And that was in August of 2016 ended up buying a duplex. I still live there.

I still, I still live in the top, which is a one bed, one bath. And the bottom is three bed, one and a half bath. And the bottom covers everything, principal, interest taxes, insurance, and, and some of the utilities.

So effectively I live free, but like the, the and one or and two on this is that, you know, at the, it has, it's on a large parcel. And so the end game is, is develop the end of the parcel. But what I'm doing right now is I have two other income streams on there.

I have two, two cars on Turo that it's down a little bit right now, but I'm roughly about 1800 a month in revenue. My cost structure is 1500. So I'm netting about 300.

And then just recently I started renting parking spots out. So I'm almost up to $700 a month just on parking. It's like the easiest money I'm making right now.

So like, I've never even met some of these people. They, they just click through the neighbor app, try neighbor here on there. And they go through the app.

They, they click yes. I accept their, their reservation and they just show up and I just say, I'll put a cone out there and be like, park by this cone. And then, you know, a lot of them, they just leave it.

There's a guy that's been there like four months. He's got a tarp over it. You know, one of the, not a tarp, but like the fancy like covers for it.

And he's, I don't know if he'll ever come back, but I'm like, he's like $150 a month. I'm like, that's fine by me.

[Stephen Husted] (32:08 - 32:16)

And what kind of, what are they parking? Are they really nice cars? Are they doing them in the traveling?

Like, do you even have a background on, on these people that are renting your services?

[Justin Cambra] (32:16 - 33:26)

So I have a little bit of everything. So right now I've got a guy who I believe lives in Dubai or he lives here, but has a home in Dubai. So he goes there for like two to four weeks at a time.

I've never seen this guy, but he shows up. His car's there. Then I've got a startup company that's called Scoop Troop, which you basically pay them to scoop up dog poop.

So he's got the car there and he's going to expand as his business grows. Then I've got a guy who lived downtown, but he, I think transferred to another job, but his car was, you know, getting ticketed. Cause he, I guess he parked it out.

So he literally towed the car and is sitting there. I don't know how long he's going to do that, but he's already been there for like four months. Then I have my first boat.

So this guy is paying me $200 for a boat. I saw that. He'll be there for one to two months.

He's got to fix the boat for, I don't know what's wrong with it, but so he's got a tarp over it and then he's supposed to come out and fix it during the day. And then when he's done with it, he'll pull it back out.

[Stephen Husted] (33:27 - 33:34)

That's great. So you just utilize every part of that property to maximize your cashflow out of it.

[Justin Cambra] (33:35 - 33:54)

Exactly. The end game is I, you know, as it sits right now, I can put eight units on there, tear down the duplex and put, you know, those high rise condo type townhomes on it. Because where I'm at, if I get high enough, you can see Seattle to the north of me.

[Stephen Husted] (33:55 - 34:04)

So you got that property cranking, you got the cashflow going from there. Now, where else have you built out your portfolio?

[Justin Cambra] (34:06 - 34:30)

So we're at, you know, fast forward all the way to today. Now I have 44 properties across four states, 123 rental units. And I haven't done the math, but it's around $100,000 of rent coming in.

Of that amount, roughly 20% is within partnerships. The other 80% I own outright.

[Stephen Husted] (34:31 - 35:00)

That's fantastic. That's great. So how do you manage your day-to-day of your investment portfolio?

Tell me who's on your team, what software are you using? This is really what I want to get into with you. Like I'm really intrigued to know about this part of it.

I just want to understand how good I'm doing. And I just want to, I know you have some things that I can selfishly take from this.

[Justin Cambra] (35:03 - 35:09)

The funny thing is I'm going to burst your bubble. You're looking at the entire team right here.

[Stephen Husted] (35:09 - 35:10)

Oh my gosh. Okay.

[Justin Cambra] (35:10 - 36:49)

So I'm trying to hire a VA for myself to start helping me. In terms of like the real estate portfolio, yes, I have property managers. So in each state I have a property manager.

And in Washington, I have a long-term one and a short-term one. I manage only one unit that's at the house hack. It's just, it's easy for me to do it.

And that's a medium-term rental. In terms of outside of that, I have like a contractor in Milwaukee that I have, and I have inspectors in each of the states that I use. But my biggest problem is just that, that I'm, you know, the only guy.

I always make this joke because everyone's talking about systems and I'm like, yeah, I have an algorithm, but I just call myself the algorithm because like everything comes to me, I just do it, which is not scalable. So I'm getting to the point now where it's like, how do I keep growing the real estate portfolio and build my fix and flip wholesale business while becoming an agent? Cause I just really started being an agent October last year, building my agent business.

So that's my problem is I'm, I need help on scaling. So I actually have a meeting tomorrow with a guy who's done very well at this. If you haven't followed this guy, his name is Ryan Weimer out of Boise, Weimer Investments.

This guy is a stud. So, you know, for free, he's going to spend one, you know, half hour hour with me tomorrow, help me kind of, you know, figure out how do I scale up? Like who do I hire?

How do I hire him? All that kind of stuff.

[Stephen Husted] (36:49 - 36:53)

So how'd you get an hour with him?

[Justin Cambra] (36:54 - 39:03)

So this is way back. I used to be in David Green's mastermind. This is probably like 2018 or something, 2019.

And it was either David Green or somebody within that mastermind brought up this guy named Ryan Weimer. He was in San Diego, I believe at the time doing his business. He is scaling up his business in Boise, Idaho.

And so he came presented to us. I kind of followed him, stayed connected with him. And I've just seen him just hockey stick it.

It's amazing what he's done. And so when he, he just had like a, he's just give us back. And he had a meeting last week talking about changes in the, you know, the dynamics of the market and why seller financing, which I love, is so important and the tools that he's using.

So I did that. And then in, and he's like, if I can help you guys out in any way, I'm like, this is my chance. So it's like, Hey, would you be open to connecting with me next week to figure out how I could scale?

And I was basically like, how do I become like you? Because like, you got to find that person that's where you want to be. Right.

And, and literally you're drafting off of them. They're like, you know, back to your point earlier, they think it's common, everything they're doing, but I'm like, Oh, how did you do the job description? Who did you hire?

How much did you pay them? What activity are they doing versus what you do? And then, you know, and for me, my biggest hang up right now is, so yeah, I have money coming in from the agent business.

Occasionally I have wholesale fix and flip, and then I have the steady rental income, but I'm like, as soon as I hire somebody, that's a cost going out the door. And so it's like, I have to generate more money to get, you know, so where I can live and then bring this other person. So it's like, in my mind is like, I got to generate a bunch more cash and leads to then have this other person help me chop it up, process it to make more money to then pay for that person.

And then the next person and the next person.

[Stephen Husted] (39:06 - 39:32)

I think we can have this conversation by a phone call down the road too. Yes. Cause I'm already going, okay, this is a whole nother.

Yeah. Because you must be time blocking. You must be very good at your time block and how you do things.

I know you said you did an hour of cold calling, but tell me what time you start your day and then how are you, how are you structuring out that day?

[Justin Cambra] (39:34 - 40:55)

Yeah. So my, so like during the week, so like today, get up at 4 30, doing orange theory at 5 AM to 6 AM. And then I got home, I cleaned the car for Truro cause I have a new guest picking up the car today and then showered, came into the office by eight and then one hour on the, on the cold calling.

And then I spent the next hour doing just kind of odds and ends like following up with stuff. And then I'll do this this afternoon. I'm doing a handing keys off for the, for a buyer that bought two weeks ago.

And then generally speaking from five and on, I'm not doing a whole lot. I'm generally that I reserve for a personal time or going to meetups cause I have a meetup Wednesday night and Thursday night this week. But generally speaking in the AM is a lead gen and then, you know, business-y like any sort of, from opening mail to paying bills, the following up on projects with people, that's kind of my like nine to noon.

And then afternoon is more following up on leads. And you know, when I do appointments with sellers or buyers, that's generally two to 5 PM.

[Stephen Husted] (40:56 - 41:01)

Okay. And where are you, where are you getting all your, your lead source at this point?

[Justin Cambra] (41:02 - 41:54)

So right now I'm doing predominantly Vulcan seven. So it's similar to, I believe there's a program called Red X and there's a couple other ones out there. I want to say it's three 50, $400.

That gives me four rent by owner for sale by owner expires canceled. And then you can do circle prospecting. And so that's where all my new leads are coming in from.

And that's where I've been spending all my time. Well, like you were saying earlier, I've done zero sphere, which I need to get into that. And my assumption is, and it's probably not a good one, is that I'm posting, if they're my sphere, they're on Instagram with me or Facebook.

And so if they need something, they'll reach out. But I do need to nurture those better because those would be much easier wins.

[Stephen Husted] (41:55 - 42:00)

Right. Well, cause they know you, they, it's an easier conversation for sure.

[Justin Cambra] (42:02 - 42:32)

The trade off. Yes, it is easier. But my thought was like, and I learned this cause Keller Williams has training galore, which is why I came here.

And they're like, if you need money now, you need to be calling expired listings and for sale by owners. You already know that they want to sell. So that's the fastest past the money.

And at the same time, you can work on your, your sphere such that you can get quick money now. And then you can start parlaying your sphere into more deals.

[Stephen Husted] (42:33 - 43:32)

So not to go back onto this whole system thing again, but you know, I get into these conversations with my assistant Angel all the time where we'll go down the rabbit hole on some random things where it's like, okay, I just saw the owner statement from the property manager. And it showed that we had, you know, grass cutting at three different properties. I thought that the tenants both would be paying that, you know, and we'll talk about that for 10, 15 minutes.

And I'm like, wait, didn't we already talk about this like three months ago? Why is this still on there? I'm constantly playing this game of going through all these different, which I know it's part of the business, but it's, it's also will suck your time away too.

So like, how do you, you have a lot of units. Are you, how are you going through all the day to day things that have to, you know, that grab your attention? Because I know there's things that pop up that even though you have a property manager, there's still stuff you have to approve or not approve or move to somebody else to do it.

[Justin Cambra] (43:33 - 45:57)

Yeah. So the reason why I've been able to do the one hour legion is because I have accountability. That's why we're on video camera.

They can hear the calls. I can hear his calls. The short answer is like, I'm just muscling it.

But there's been times where I haven't even looked at a property management statement for three months. And then I look at it. I just posted this one on Instagram.

I was like, guys, how do I have a thousand dollar bill on a unit that I purposely held vacant during the winter? Cause I didn't want to shell out the 10,000 to turn it. Like you're, I'm sure you're jacking up the heater.

So how do I have a thousand dollars back to your point about digging in? So then as I'm digging in, following up with the people that manage utilities, one lady left, the new person came in, come to find out there's a squatter in there that's been tapping into the electricity. I'm like, guys, how am I finding this?

I'm 2000 miles away. Like, and I'm like, killing me softly, you know, but I'm like, okay, you know, this goes back, this is like, through David Green's mastermind, he got me into Jocko Wilnick, you know, and it's extreme ownership. And I'm like, all right, this is my fault because I didn't have a way to hold them accountable.

So then it's like, okay, how can I change that? All right. We should have a review on utilities.

And like, you know, you should look at all accounts. So like, I need some sort of like processor system such that they're able to catch it and I'm just monitoring them. And that, and that monitoring is like an Amazon thing.

They're always about, you can't manage everything at Amazon. It's just too big. Even with the hundreds of thousands of people, they would do metrics around exceptions.

So you look at a lot of charts, generally at Amazon, all the charts look like this. So, but you're looking for some sort of outlier. So then you're like, okay, there's an outlier, spend the problem, spend the time on that.

And so that's what I'm trying to figure out is like, how do I take all my property management reports such that I can start seeing, you know, outliers up and down on costs and revenue, vacancy, all that kind of stuff.

[Stephen Husted] (45:59 - 46:06)

I'll answer that for you. I got this for you. That's your VA's job.

[Justin Cambra] (46:06 - 46:06)

Right.

[Stephen Husted] (46:06 - 48:46)

You train the VA every month, you know, whoever that person is, that when that owner statement comes through, they do the review. But one, it comes down to the training part. You will train them first on what to look for.

Like, hey, I should be grossing $20,000 on this particular, you know, whoever that's management is looking over whatever properties and, you know, to look out for those things. That's what my VA does. And she'll go through it and we'll have that discussion.

Sometimes I just go there because I'm, you know, pretty much a control freak. I'll go there first and then come to her, but I don't need to. She'll go through it and then tell me, okay, here was your gross.

Here was some of your expenses. Here's some things we have to look at. I'm going to reach out to the property manager now and get some clarification.

I'll get back to you. There you go. Love it.

That's what a VA will do. And, but you know, I think, but here's something that I think I want to try to implement. Here's a good example.

We have a property that's on the but it was going to be a rental at one point. So we've had contractors, property manager, now we got a listing agent. And so we've had different lock boxes.

We got a, you know, alarm on it. And the water meter was having an issue. So we had to call the water company and she needed to give the water company the combo box and the alarm code.

Well, we were off right there. She had to call me. We had to have a conversation.

The notes were not as clear. And I, so, and then at that point, I'm a little frustrated because I'm spending 10, 15 minutes on this. Right.

And then she's spending time because what I'm telling her is, look, we want this dialed in where it's almost like a CRM for investing. I would say like, I'm sure you can, maybe Stessa would be the thing you could try to use it that way, but where every property has combo codes, alarm codes, everything that's detailed so that even my main VA, she's not going to be my main VA for much longer. She's going to be running the VAs.

And we want to have that where she doesn't have to have that question. And she definitely doesn't need to talk to me about that question. Where it's all somewhere that they can reach out to.

There's a database where everything is at. So that has been my hyper focus on getting that part done because I feel like those little things add up over time. If you spend 15 minutes there, now you're spending another 15 minutes, two hours down the road on that.

Now you've almost gone into an hour after you do these throughout your day. And time is so valuable.

[Justin Cambra] (48:48 - 49:28)

The thing is, the way I'm operating today is not going to give me the freedom to travel, which I want to get. My goal now is how do I scale the business, make money to retire my girlfriend so then now we can both travel. But the way that it's set up today, I'm not able to break away.

I mean, I could take a week, no problem, but I couldn't take a month off. So that's what I need to figure out and get these VAs hired to start taking some of these tactical things that are repetitive. And I'm more of the auditor of all those tasks.

[Stephen Husted] (49:28 - 49:40)

Right. Yeah. And you're going to be very good at it too, by the way, because you're disciplined.

I mean, I know the characteristics and I know that you're going to just take off.

[Justin Cambra] (49:41 - 49:43)

I know I need to do it.

[Stephen Husted] (49:43 - 50:05)

Yeah. We'll have a conversation on that down the road here. Definitely.

I'd love to give you more information on that. So now where you're at, so you became an agent, you're working at Kelly Williams, you got all these things going on. What's next?

What are your goals? What are you trying to get? What do you want to get done this year?

Is there anything that's bigger that you haven't started yet?

[Justin Cambra] (50:06 - 51:43)

Bigger that's not started. Well, first of all, my goal is what I call the triple crown. How do I make a million dollars in revenue from rentals, a million dollars as an agent and a million dollars fix and flip and wholesale.

So like I've made zero and fix and flip and wholesale. So like, obviously I'm, I'm way behind, but the million dollars and I'll get, I already have that on track for the rental properties, the real estate side, I can muscle a million, but I have to really get going on the wholesale fix and flip side, because that's going to give me more money to buy more investments faster. So that's like the, the, the big thing that I need, why I need the VAs so I can spend my time on that area of the business.

Yeah. And what was, oh, the other thing I haven't started yet. Actually tomorrow, tomorrow there's two other guys.

We're, we're actually creating our own podcast, YouTube content. So we're, we're trying to do our first episode tomorrow and try to build that out over time. Cause like in today's world, it's still the wild, wild West.

And we have a opportunity, why I'm sure why you created this, this podcast to carve out a nice niche to where you have a big following to where you can use that, you know, harvest that at some point in the future for more business, more investors, you know, or in my, in our line of business, we get a lot of friends with that too. So that's cool.

[Stephen Husted] (51:45 - 52:09)

Yeah. It's, it's definitely a, I think it's, and it's so social too. You know, the fact that we can have this conversation and get inspired from one another, like you'll say something, I'm like, oh yeah, that's cool.

You know? And then like you're saying something to me and like, okay, I can help. But you know, it's, it's been a, it's great.

It's here. It's here for us now. That's for sure.

How many people are going to be involved in this podcast that you get going?

[Justin Cambra] (52:10 - 52:10)

Three.

[Stephen Husted] (52:11 - 52:11)

Three of you.

[Justin Cambra] (52:11 - 52:12)

Okay. Yeah.

[Stephen Husted] (52:13 - 52:16)

Is it going to be, are they all local to you?

[Justin Cambra] (52:17 - 52:21)

One's local and then one's out of Atlanta. Okay. Awesome.

[Stephen Husted] (52:22 - 52:48)

At the end of my podcast, I always ask my guests a question. And so I'm going to ask you this one. I want to know one of your breakthrough moments because the name of my podcast is The Breakthrough with Stephen Husted.

So what I want to know is if you can give me, recall a breakthrough moment that you've gone through that, you know, you, you, maybe you were going through something really tough, took you a long time, but then you finally got through it.

[Justin Cambra] (52:50 - 54:50)

There's a couple of those ones. Like what's the best one to use? I guess for most recently is obviously the breakthrough moment of going from W2 live to, you know, financial independence, retired early life.

So that was September 2nd, 2022. So just six, seven months ago. So, you know, there's a lot of buildup that went into that.

Cause that really took August of 2016 all the way to call it August of 2022. So what is that just over like six years? Right.

And the, the breakthrough of that was just, you know, when you think of breakthrough, you think of instantaneous thing, shattering something, but in reality, it was back to my the farming consistent work over time, that action, and more, more importantly, the fire within to keep, keep fueled through that whole way. You know, that was really like my breakthrough moment. And really what made me think of that is that I was so focused on that one thing.

I never thought about what you do when you're on the other side. And then, so like the, and I, I'm assuming this is a common problem. And I actually would talk to Jess about it a lot because I was like, you know, like how do you, how do you structure your day?

Like after you're not at the job anymore, simple stuff like healthcare. How do you grow your real estate agent business? And, you know, how do you manage your money?

Right. And credit, right. Cause like, obviously when you have a W2, it's easy to get loans.

Now that I don't have a W2 or I haven't built like the agent consistent yet. So it's like harder to get loans. And so like how to manage this new world that I live in.

So, I mean, that was like my, my most recent breakthrough.

[Stephen Husted] (54:51 - 55:17)

That's great. Well, I think you're, I think you're doing a great job and you inspire me. And I'm, you know, that one of the reasons why I reached out to you to get you on the podcast was I enjoy watching you online and it was great, you know, to meet you at the BiggerPockets and yeah, I can definitely have another conversation with you in a phone call to help you out with the VA part, but how can, how can the audience find you?

Where are you at?

[Justin Cambra] (55:18 - 55:48)

I'm predominantly on Instagram. So right now everything's under JC Canberra. So JC, and then my last name, C-A-M-B-R-A.

Great. You're going to start seeing a new one. It's already out there that I'm going to start creating this persona or this brand around back to the breakthrough moment is from W2 to Freedom.

So the handles W2 to Freedom, I'll start putting more content specifically around that, that niche in the very near future.

[Stephen Husted] (55:49 - 56:06)

That's great. Well, I look forward to seeing all of it. So I think that's great.

Keep doing it, man. You're doing a great job, but let's end it today. Let's end it for today.

And, you know, hopefully we can get you back on here a little bit down the road and see what else you've been up to.

[Justin Cambra] (56:07 - 56:22)

Love it. Thanks for having me on Steven. And the next time I come on this will hold me accountable.

Well, the topic is going to be my breakthrough moment of how I went from zero to one or zero to many virtual assistants to help my business scale.