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Articles by JS Burnett
“Right now is the absolute BEST time to buy real estate!” - Shark
Forum Categories All Real Estate Consultant · Houston TX · Member since 2021 · 123 posts · 92 votes Attorney · 10451 Mill Run Cir #755 Owings Mills, MD 21117 · Member since 2024 · 596 posts · 202 votes 1h Member since 2026 · 10 posts · 6 votes 1h SponsoredRentRedi 2 Rentals Today. 20 Tomorrow. Same $12/month Price. Collect rent, screen tenants, manage maintenance, track finances, measure performance.
What flippers get wrong about bids when they move to commercial
Forum Categories All Real Estate Consultant · Houston TX · Member since 2021 · 122 posts · 91 votes Accountant · San Francisco, CA | Remote · Member since 2026 · 64 posts · 33 votes 34m Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Want to know the actual secret to being an entrepreneur?
Forum Categories All Real Estate Consultant · Houston TX · Member since 2021 · 120 posts · 90 votes Real Estate Agent · Columbus OH · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes 30m solid reframe, have not gotten here yet in my career but I'm certain its harder said than done. Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Boring is usually the right answer.
Client came to me convinced their contractor was over-billing. I went through the draw schedule line by line. Contractor wasn't over-billing. Client's own scope changes weren't documented anywhere, so every change order looked like padding. Fixed with a change-order log, not a lawsuit. Sometimes the fix is boring. That's usually the sign it's the right one.
"Just get to 100 doors." - every guy trying to sell you a course.
I know a guy with over 100 doors. Some months he clears less than $1,000. Not $1,000 per door. $1,000. Total. After running an entire portfolio the size of an apartment complex, working nights and weekends, fielding calls, chasing rent, replacing water heaters, the number at the bottom of the page some months is less than what a lot of people make in a single week at a job with a lunch break. But sure. More doors.
I've screwed up. A lot.
Bought materials twice because I wasted the first round. Paid partners for work they never finished. That's the tuition nobody tells you about. But I've been lucky, I've dodged the pitfalls I've watched swallow investors, developers, lenders, even inspectors. And you can't warn someone who's chasing the easy money the internet keeps dangling in front of them. They're not listening. They're calculating. Truth is, society doesn't build things to last anymore.
The paperwork that actually protects you on a construction project. (checklist)
I review construction bids and project documentation for a living, mostly commercial and investment property work in Texas. The pattern I see over and over: disputes almost never come from bad workmanship. They come from missing paperwork that should've been nailed down before the first sub showed up. Sharing the checklist I actually use when I review a project, in case it saves someone here a bad month. Scope of work - Get materials, finishes, and specs in writing.
I'm buying a deal that already failed twice.
Once when it closed and once when someone tried opening it back up. Here's the plan to actually make it work. Someone else's vision, someone else's contractor who took the money and vanished, someone else's optimism that skipped every step that would've caught the problem before it became a disaster. That's the property. That's also, more often than people admit, the entire story behind why a "good deal" ends up sitting there half-finished. I'm not doing anything special to fix this.
Don't let your future existence be part of someones moral test.
This lady owns 4 homes and they are currently cash flowing. Not a bad problem. Although she discovered her "Mentor" made 20k-65k per home, without her knowing. Now, she owns property worth less than she paid and doesn't have very much in writing. Luckily she has the deeds and is getting rents. But realizing you should have 80k and 1k more per month towards your bills, and someone you trusted took it; is heartbreaking. Greed is a wildly powerful thing. It has more power than people truly realize.
The 10 things that kill deals, and none of them are what new investors think
I've walked a lot of properties over the years (30 years in construction/inspection), and the deals that actually blow up are almost never the obvious stuff. New investors worry about paint and countertops.
why the best deal I ever made started with shutting up and listening
Every deal has two problems. The property problem and the people problem. Most investors are trained to solve the first one. They underwrite the asset, model the returns, plan the rehab. That's table stakes. The ones who consistently win solve the second one. Every seller has something going on beneath their asking price. Every potential partner has a concern they haven't voiced yet. Every contractor dragging their feet on a job has a reason that probably has nothing to do with you.
The one thing that gets CRE sellers more money without spending a dime.
Been in commercial real estate a while and this question comes up constantly from sellers: "How do I maximize my sale price without putting more money into the property?" Everyone assumes the answer is some renovation or capital improvement. It's not. The biggest lever is disclosure. Every commercial building has issues. Roof's got a few years left, HVAC is aging out, parking lot needs work, whatever it is. Buyers are going to find this stuff in due diligence regardless.
AI estimating for construction is becoming more common.
On standardized projects in controlled conditions it can be a useful starting point. On a new build with site specific conditions it can get you into serious trouble if you treat the output as a finished product rather than a first draft that requires human verification. I have seen AI generated construction estimates that missed ground stabilization requirements.
Only 4 out of 30 units were rentable.
Pricing out construction and acquisition costs based on hope is the number one deal killer in this business. Not bad markets. Not bad contractors. Hope. I know someone who bought a 30 unit RV park. Seemed straightforward. Existing operation. Income in place. County showed up after closing and shut down 26 of the 30 units because the well and septic were only permitted for 4. The previous owner had been operating the rest illegally for years.
He's on the hook for a million dollars.
Here's something I see constantly after 30 years in this business. A developer has a legitimate deal. Good location. Real plan. Numbers that actually pencil. They've put months of work into it. Then they put together a pitch deck themselves, send it out to potential investors, and wonder why nobody's biting. The deal isn't the problem. The presentation is. But when you suggest getting professional help putting it together, suddenly that's the expense they can't justify. So what happens instead?
How I actually evaluate a deal, and why most people are doing it wrong, on both ends.
Updated about 1 hour ago on 06/15/2026.
The SFH wealth myth, and why I still own some anyway
Updated 36 minutes ago on 06/12/2026. Most recent reply Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 94 Votes 72 94 Posts 72 Votes Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 94 Votes 72 JS BurnettPoster Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 72 Votes | 94 Posts I've been doing this for thirty years. Houses, commercial, development. I still own single-family. But I want to be honest about what they actually do and don't do.
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Updated 31 minutes ago on 06/08/2026. Most recent reply Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 93 Votes 71 93 Posts 71 Votes Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 93 Votes 71 JS BurnettPoster Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 71 Votes | 93 Posts I need to talk about something that happens at real estate education and networking events that nobody in a position to stop it wants to talk about. New investors show up.
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the deal structure ARV$400,000 65% of ARV $260,000 Minus repair cost-$70,000 Purchase price - $190,000 Lender funds 100% of the $190k purchase because the spread to ARV covers the risk. hard money loan Loan amount (purchase only) -$190,000 12% interest / 6 months-$11,400 Origination: 2 points-$3,800 Total financing cost-$15,200 Repairs are drawn from the loan in tranches, first draw at 25% completion (~$17,500).
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Two dentists came to me with a development deal that had almost everything going for it. They had their own capital in the deal. They had a well thought out plan. They owned the land. They had a banking relationship they had spent years building and genuinely trusted. The bank said no. The reason was not the numbers. The numbers worked. The reason was that nobody involved in the deal had ever developed anything. Not a small project. Not a simple buildout. Nothing.
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Private lenders talk to me about this constantly. Not the deals that worked. The deals that are unraveling and why. It is always the same story told with different addresses and different asset classes but the same root cause. The project was mismanaged before it started. Low bid that nobody questioned because the number made the deal work on paper. Timeline built around optimism not experience. No real cash reserves because the pro forma was already stretched.
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because most of what gets built and marketed as affordable is just cheap. And cheap costs more in year five than quality costs on day one. I've been a GC and developer in Houston for thirty years. I've built houses, retail centers, office parks. I know what things cost to build, what they should cost, and what it costs when the spec gets value-engineered into the floor. What I'm focused on right now is a two-part model. Small-footprint homes for first-time buyers.
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Updated 30 minutes ago on 05/17/2026. Most recent reply #2 Investor Mindset Contributor Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 84 Votes 69 84 Posts 69 Votes #2 Investor Mindset Contributor Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 84 Votes 69 JS BurnettPoster#2 Investor Mindset Contributor Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 69 Votes | 84 Posts Hot take incoming.
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SpaceX just filed a property tax abatement application in Grimes County, Texas, roughly 60 miles northwest of Houston, for a semiconductor fabrication facility called TerraFab. First phase is $55 billion. Full buildout up to $119 billion. The public hearing is June 3rd. This matters for anyone investing in the Houston market for a few reasons. On the cost side: the labor market for commercial construction in Houston is already tight.
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Not fight. Argue. Make a case. Challenge the assumption. Ask why the numbers look the way they do and whether anyone has actually tested that. Real estate has a specific version of group think that is particularly expensive. Everyone in the room wants the deal to work. The broker wants the commission. The lender wants to deploy. The operator wants to execute. The investor wants the return.
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They just finished their analysis. This comes up constantly in real estate and I want to name it directly because I think it holds a lot of people back. There is a type of investor, you have seen them, who seems to have no fear. They move on deals while everyone else is still debating. They say yes when other people are paralyzed. From the outside it looks like confidence bordering on recklessness. It is almost never recklessness.
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The investors I've watched build real wealth over time weren't always the smartest or the best capitalized. They were almost always the best at investing their time. Time invested well creates opportunity. Opportunity is what everything else is built from. A deal found because you were paying attention when others weren't. A relationship built because you showed up consistently when it wasn't convenient. A decision made well because you had spent time learning what most people skip.
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Built like the western towns they constructed for movies. Looks real from the street. Walk around back and there's nothing there. No structure. No foundation. Just enough front to make the camera believe it. This space has a version of that on every platform. The deal flow that doesn't exist. The portfolio that's really one property and a lot of creative photography. The mentor whose entire business model is selling access to knowledge he acquired by selling access to knowledge.
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I see a lot of posts asking, "is it worth renovating my STR?" so I wanted to put hard numbers to it. I've been tracking renovation costs and revenue impact across my portfolio. Here's the honest breakdown of the 5 projects that consistently deliver the best returns, and what you'll actually spend doing them yourself vs. hiring out.
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I have been in commercial construction and development in Texas for 30 years. I want to talk about something that comes up constantly and almost never gets discussed openly in deal rooms. Municipal water and utility infrastructure across Texas is being pushed past what it was built to handle. This is not a secret. Developers know it. Engineers know it. Municipalities know it. Contractors bidding the work know it.
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An incomplete bid doesn't look incomplete. It looks competitive. It looks professional. It shows up on time with a cover page and a handshake and a reference list. What it doesn't show up with is everything the project actually requires. The things that kill budgets are never in the bid. They're in what the bid doesn't say. Vague line items. Missing code requirements. Structural work that isn't mentioned because mentioning it loses jobs. Mechanical upgrades the existing system can't avoid.
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It's arithmetic and attention. Most buyers just don't want to invest the time. Every major system has a lifespan. Every replacement has a cost. Your job is to know both. Roof: 20–25 years. If it's 18 years old, you don't have a working roof, you have a countdown clock. Price it accordingly. HVAC: 15–20 years. Water heater: 10–12 years. Electrical panel: know the age, know the amperage, know what an upgrade runs in your market.
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And I'm going to tell you what I found when I walked it, because this property is basically a masterclass in how to slowly murder a perfectly good asset one bad decision at a time. High insurance costs. Low occupancy. "Gee I wonder why" energy absolutely radiating off this thing. The roof is 18 years old. Now, is it one roof? No. Is it a roof with a few patches? Also no. It is HUNDREDS of patches.
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Self managed office warehouse park. Sixty five plus units. Owner had been running it himself for over a decade. No major issues. Tenants were paying. Buildings were standing. He wanted to expand. Add new tenant spaces. Had a contractor lined up. I walked the property before anything else. The roof decking on multiple buildings was compromised. Moisture. Compression. Years of it. Nothing visible from inside yet. Nothing a tenant would think to report.
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Investors with college backgrounds tend to pay for mentorships without much resistance. They're conditioned to it. Paying for knowledge is how they've always moved forward. The mentor industrial complex in real estate is built almost entirely on that muscle memory. Investors without that background tend to go the opposite direction. No courses. No coaches. Just doing it and absorbing the losses as education.
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Updated 35 minutes ago on 04/10/2026. Most recent reply Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 51 Votes 37 51 Posts 37 Votes Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 51 Votes 37 JS BurnettPoster Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 37 Votes | 51 Posts This is something most investors haven't thought about and probably should.
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Updated 17 minutes ago on 04/08/2026. Most recent reply Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 48 Votes 33 48 Posts 33 Votes Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 48 Votes 33 JS BurnettPoster Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 33 Votes | 48 Posts I called a property manager last week to ask about vacancy rates in a submarket I was looking at. Simple question. Thirty second answer expected.
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Margins are thin right now. That means every decision on a project has to be right the first time. The way I approach every deal starts before the bid is signed. I read the scope the way a contractor writes it, looking for what's missing, not what's there. Missing line items don't show up as problems until demo starts and walking away isn't realistic. By then the number has changed and you're absorbing it. On a recent commercial repositioning the bid looked clean.
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I overshare. I over-explain. I give full answers to questions that only asked for partial ones. I have ended calls knowing I handed over more value than I invoiced for, and I have done it again the next day. I've been working on it for 30 years. I am not better at it. What I've noticed is that the most capable people I've worked with, the investors, developers, and operators who actually know their business, have the same tendency.
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Updated 29 minutes ago on 04/02/2026.
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Updated 22 minutes ago on 03/31/2026. Most recent reply Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 37 Votes 24 37 Posts 24 Votes Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 37 Votes 24 JS BurnettPoster Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 24 Votes | 37 Posts They're running themselves into the ground and calling it a portfolio. I'm not saying that to be harsh.
Why I stopped trying to mentor real estate investors
Updated 12 minutes ago on 03/22/2026. Most recent reply Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 30 Votes 19 30 Posts 19 Votes Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 30 Votes 19 JS BurnettPoster Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 19 Votes | 30 Posts I tried mentoring. Several times. With people who had been asking me for years to teach them. They all stopped. Not because the information was wrong.
25 Years in Construction Just Became a Book. Ask Me Anything.
I have been a general contractor, a handyman, a project manager, a property manager, an active investor, and for the last several years a construction consultant for investors and developers. I have done over five hundred commercial projects. I have consulted for publicly traded REITs and served as an expert witness on construction disputes. I thought writing a book about what I know would be straightforward. It was not. The part that surprised me was not the content. I know the content.
Updated 20 minutes ago on 03/20/2026. Most recent reply Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 27 Votes 17 27 Posts 17 Votes Real Estate Consultant from Houston TX Member since Dec 6, 2021 Posts 27 Votes 17 JS BurnettPoster Real Estate Consultant Houston TX 17 Votes | 27 Posts Go into debt for things that pay for themselves. Then use what they pay to cover the things you used to go into debt for. Here is the simplest version.
The four questions serious lenders are asking right now
Every lender worth working with is asking the same things before they fund. Line item construction cost broken down by trade. Not a GC summary. The actual scope with actual numbers behind every line. Monthly holding cost calculated honestly including a realistic buffer for overruns. Because the timeline always moves. A real insurance quote on the actual property. Houston is seeing premiums on older wood frame multifamily that are destroying NOI on deals that looked fine before the quote came back.
I'm Going to Say Something That Doesn't Make Me Popular in This Space
Some of the most followed educators and mentors in this space are using their audiences as deal flow exits. Not all of them. But enough that this needs to be said plainly. Here's the model: build credibility, build a following, gain trust, then offload deals you've already passed on to students who don't yet know what they don't know. Collect an assignment fee, a referral fee, or a markup buried in the price. Rinse. Repeat. I've seen the results from the buyer side. Not once. Dozens of times.
Updated 20 minutes ago on 03/12/2026. Most recent reply 21 Posts 8 Votes The due diligence process doesn't have to feel like you're drinking from a fire hose. But for most investors scaling into larger multifamily, it does. And that overwhelm is where expensive mistakes get made. Here's the honest truth: you don't need more information. You need a better sequence. The investors I've watched scale consistently aren't doing more due diligence than everyone else. They're doing it in the right order.
I thought I was learning. I was just collecting bad advice.
Updated 9 minutes ago on 03/10/2026. Most recent reply 13 Posts 6 Votes When I was starting out I thought I was learning. Turns out I was just collecting opinions from people I had no way to evaluate. I did not know enough to know what the right questions were. I did not know how to research the answers I was getting because I did not even know what I was looking for.
Standard property inspections are surface level by design. They walk the property. They check what they can see. They hand you a report. What they're NOT doing: — Scoping your sewer line — Testing for mold behind the walls — Calculating your true deferred maintenance cost — Putting together an actual capital plan — Telling you what this building is really going to cost you over the next 5 years That's not a knock on inspectors.
Why Houston contractors are different and what it costs you.
Updated 18 minutes ago on 03/06/2026. Most recent reply 6 Posts 3 Votes JS BurnettPoster 3 Votes | 6 Posts Houston is not like other markets. If you are buying here remotely this is the thing that will cost you the most money if nobody tells you first. In most states a general contractor has to be licensed. There is a baseline. A test. A credential that at minimum proves they sat down and learned something before they were legally allowed to take your money. Texas has no GC licensing requirement. None.
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