Making Money 7 Different Ways on Each Property (Without Even Owning It!)

Henry Washington:She makes money seven different ways on every real estate deal and never even owns the property. Most real estate investors think in deals. They think buy a property, renovate it, sell it or rent it out. One revenue stream per house. In 2022, Chauncey was flipping houses and accumulating rentals doing 20 deals per year. To make more money, she needed more capital and more contractors and more tenants, and that means more headaches. So she built an entirely new model. Now she runs a vertically integrated real estate operation. Her clients put up the capital and they keep the profits, but Chauncey takes the cut at every stage of the project, which can often even be more profitable without all of the risk. This business gives Chauncey a unique view of the entire real estate investing ecosystem. Today, she’s sharing the lessons she’s learned from this rare real estate perspective.What’s going on everybody? I’m Henry Washington. Oh yeah, and Dave’s here too. What’s up, Dave?

Dave Meyer:Don’t sound so disappointed. I’m excited to be here. This is going to be a fun conversation with Chauncey today.

Henry Washington:Yes, I’m super excited too. And honestly, there’s probably a lot of real estate investors out there who have the skills and resources to do something like this and they probably just haven’t done it. Today we’re talking with Chauncey Pham, an investor in the Dallas market, and we’re talking about building wealth through real estate ecosystems, not just properties. Chauncey’s going to show you how to think about real estate as a business with multiple revenue streams, how to source deals creatively without relying on wholesalers, and which pieces of the process you can start monetizing today, whether you’re flipping, buying rentals, or doing any other strategy. So let’s bring her on. Chauncey, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

Chauncey Pham:Hi, thanks guys for having me on.

Henry Washington:Let’s start this off the same way we start off every show. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and what you were doing prior to real estate?

Chauncey Pham:So my background is hardcore one call close type sales. And then I end up transitioning into a marketing role. I was an account executive for a marketing firm where I worked with a lot of C-stores and fashion chain, so BCBG, BB, Circle K. And I essentially was the liaison between their marketing departments and my company who actually created all of their point of purchase marketing. And so it was really, really cool because I learned the psychology behind marketing in that role. And while I had that job, my husband and I end up buying and selling a couple of primary residences. And our loan officer was like, “You’d be really freaking good if you got your real estate license.” So I got my license, but I legit got my real estate license because I wanted us to go to Disney World and ball out with the VIP passes and pass it.That’s why I got my real estate license.

Dave Meyer:So you’re like, “If I sell one house, then I could go to Disney World.”

Chauncey Pham:I can go to Disney World and fall out. And so that’s why I got my license. But because I had the sales background and the marketing background, within three months of getting in the business, I’d made my entire annual salary in commissions. And so I quit my job and it was off to the races from there.

Henry Washington:So what year was this when you got your license and then decided to do your actual first real estate deal?

Chauncey Pham:So I got my real estate license in 2016. And I just was a traditional realtor from 2016 until I picked up my first investment deal in 2019. So after a year of having my brokerage, which by the way, the root word of brokerage is broke and that’s what the hell I was for the whole year and a half at it because realtors don’t sell anything. 90% of them don’t sell nothing. And so I essentially then moved my brokerage, shut it down and went over to the national brokerage that I’m with now and became the top recruiter within the first year that I was there, brought 400 agents underneath me. And that first year was making money off of all of their sales, which then allowed me to get out and start investing. So I started doing that in 2019.

Dave Meyer:Chauncey, we get this question a lot about becoming a broker, real estate agent before becoming a real estate investor or in tandem with becoming a real estate investor. So what is your advice to people who are considering that path?

Chauncey Pham:I 100% attribute my successes and my mindset in being an investor to the fact that I was a realtor first.

Dave Meyer:Really?

Chauncey Pham:100%. Interesting. And I would recommend to anyone that wants to be an investor to at least explore getting their real estate license, not so that they can go and sell houses, but so that they can understand the basics of the real estate transaction from the consumer perspective. Because when I started flipping, I knew what it was like to take a buyer to see eight, 10 houses in a day, and at the end of the day, ask them which one they want to put an offer on and how 90% of them were completely forgotten because they were all just white, gray, same floor, same trip, same finish. It’s all the same thing. They didn’t remember any of them. And I knew what made them tick emotionally. So I always said, if I start flipping, I’ve got to find a way to be strategic in creating a product that’s going to be memorable for clients and be something that people actually seek out.And 100%, that is what has set me apart from everyone else that’s in my market.

Henry Washington:I don’t 100% agree with you on the getting your real estate license first thing, but I totally understand that perspective. And I like the perspective of understanding both sides of the transaction because you’re absolutely right. A lot of investors, purely numbers focused. The amount of times I’ve heard flippers say, just get a spec sheet and flip the same house to the same spec sheets, same colors, same finishes, because it’s better for business drives me up a wall. Every house we do is about what we think the buyer in that neighborhood or that particular market wants, and that’s what’s going to help your houses sell faster. So that perspective on why you should get your real estate license, I think is a pretty cool and unique perspective. And I agree with you. Investors need to learn more about what your customers want. And sure, there’s probably some happy medium between systems processes and repeatability and then still having some form of individuality, but you’ve got to do it properly.

Chauncey Pham:Correct, correct.

Henry Washington:I’m assuming as you were doing these real estate transactions as an agent, you were like, “Hey, these investors seem to be making some money. How are they doing this? ” What made you decide I’m going to take the risk and do my own real estate deal? Because it sounds like you were killing it as an agent, right?

Chauncey Pham:Yeah. So what made me kind of pivot from just being an agent to an investor is I had an investor client. He reached out to me. He had a flip that was in a neighborhood that I had sold quite a few listings and was like, “Hey, can you just go and give me some feedback on this property? It’s been sitting on the market and not getting any showings. Let me know. ” So I went, called him the next day and I said, “Here’s my advice, here’s what’s going on. ” He called me then the next day and said, “All right, I’ve got good news and I got bad news.” The good news is I don’t have to deal with the realtor that had my house listed and the bad news is I don’t have to deal with her anymore because I fired her. And if you don’t take my listing on, then I’m screwed because all my money’s in this house.And so I took his listing on and I sold it the very next week over asking. And from that point on, I became his agent. So I helped him with acquisitions, I helped him on the consulting side. And then when his flips would go on they’re ready to go on the market, I actually listed the properties. And I would see every single time that we went to the closing table, how much money he was making versus what my commission was. And I also learned his process. He didn’t have one. He didn’t have a duplicatable process. He literally just was like, luck. Deals were falling into his lap and then he would get it and take it down. And when I would ask him, “What’s your process of getting these houses?” He had zero processes. And so for me, I said, “If this guy can do it and he’s making this money, then I definitely can create a duplicatable process and system and plus all of these lips are kind of ugly so I can do it and I can do it better.” And so I actually talked to my husband who was basically a C suite executive and he was our breadwinner, right?I was making great money, but he has the insurance, he got the job. And I’m like, “Babe, quit your job and join me in real estate and you can open our investing side.” And he was like, “All right, bet.” And he did. Really? And he did. That’s

Dave Meyer:It.

Chauncey Pham:Just

Dave Meyer:Like that?

Chauncey Pham:Literally, it took him a couple of months.

Henry Washington:He’s a sales expert.

Dave Meyer:Do what to say to him. Yeah. He didn’t even know it was coming. And he’s

Chauncey Pham:A sales guy too. So we always argue about who’s the best closer. And I’m like, who’s the best closer now? And so yeah, got him to quit the job and he started our investment company in November of 2018. And January 2019, we had our first deal.

Henry Washington:All right, we’ve got to take a quick break, but when we come back, we’ll hear more from Chauncey right after this.

Dave Meyer:As a host, the last thing I want to do or have time for is to play accountant and banker. But that’s what I was doing every weekend, flipping between a bunch of apps, bank statements, and receipts, trying to sort it all by property and figure out if I was actually making any money. Then I found Baselane and it takes all of that off my plate. It’s BiggerPocket’s official banking platform that automatically sorts my transactions, matches receipts, and shows me my cashflow for every property. My tax prep is done and my weekends are mine again. Plus, I’m saving a ton of money on banking fees and apps that I just don’t need anymore. Get a $100 bonus when you sign up today at baselane.com/bp. BiggerPockets Pro members also get a free upgrade to Baselane Smart that’s packed with advanced automations and features to save you even more time.

Henry Washington:All right. We’re back with Chauncey Pham, talking about vertically integrating your real estate business. Let’s get back to it.

Dave Meyer:So what

Henry Washington:Did that first

Dave Meyer:Deal look like?

Chauncey Pham:This particular property, we went out and walked it and long story short, we were able to pick it up for $125,000. The lady just wanted enough to pay it off and have a little bit of money to walk away. We bought it for 125. There was nothing wrong with the house. We were going to put about 20 grand into it and sell it at the 215 mark, but instead I threw it on the MLS in coming soon and had an investor that was looking for rentals in the neighborhood, put it in for coming soon at 192, went under contract, sold it two weeks later at 186 and did absolutely nothing to it. So it was basically a wholetal deal and I was able to take that 60,000 and then we just kind of kept rolling from there.

Dave Meyer:Obviously that sounds incredible, Chauncey. People are probably wondering, is that possible? Is it possible anymore or is that kind of deal a relic of a different time in the market?

Chauncey Pham:I don’t think that her situation was unique. The way that we were able to capitalize on that was she had previously had the house on the market with a realtor and it had gone under contract.And when it had gone under contract, the title company popped up with a lien and it was a consumer debt lien. And so when we talked to her, she was like, “Last year tried to sell my house, but this lien is on here. If you guys can just get this lien gone and just get me this much money in my pocket, you can have the house.” And so I think that what was unique about that situation wasn’t necessarily unique. It was the fact that we understood how to solve a problem. And so are those types of deals still out there where you just need to be a problem solver? Yes. All day long, that’s what all of them are. And I just think that far too many people are in the game and they’re not looking at themselves as problem solvers, rather they’re going in with kind of a one trick pony because even when we went to her, it was not, “Let me just buy your house.” It was, “I can buy your house.I can list your house because I’m a licensed realtor.” That’s another reason you should probably get your real estate license. I can renovate it if you want and then take the cost of the renovation, just put a lien on it and then we can sell it on the market, whichever solution is best for you. And so I definitely think those deals are out here.

Henry Washington:Yeah, those deals definitely exist. I have one under contract right now that I think we’re paying 180. It doesn’t need any work. We’re going to clean it up, throw it back on the market for 250.

Chauncey Pham:It’s

Henry Washington:The situation that’s causing us … It’s called the lady is about to lose it in foreclosure, and so we’re going to buy it. She’s going to make some money instead of just lose it. And then we’re going to turn it in. The house was built three years ago. So it’s about looking for situations, right? Correct. Chauncey, can we play a game?

Chauncey Pham:Yeah. I’m

Henry Washington:Going to put your skills to the test.

Chauncey Pham:Okay.

Henry Washington:We’re going to role play. I’m going to be a seller. I like that. So I filled out your website. I have a house on 123 Main Street. You get the lead and you’re calling me and I answer the phone and what do we say? What do we do?

Chauncey Pham:Hey there, Henley. How are you?

Henry Washington:Oh, I’m doing great. How about you?

Chauncey Pham:I’m doing pretty good. Hey, you’re the owner, right? Over at 123 Main Street?

Henry Washington:Yes, I am. Absolutely.

Chauncey Pham:All right, cool. Well, I got your information from my website. It looks like you are looking to sell this thing really quickly. So tell me this, before we even get into the conversation, if I could wave a magic wand for you, get this thing sold exactly the way that you want to, how does this situation play out in your head?

Henry Washington:I would love to get it sold and get it sold quickly because I really need to unload this property so that I can get the money I need to move on to my next property.

Chauncey Pham:Okay. So number one, how much money do you need to move on to your next property? And number two, why do you need to sell so urgently?

Henry Washington:Yeah, I need to sell urgently because I found a house that I really want to buy and this one has too much work that it needs for me to get done. So I just need out.

Chauncey Pham:Okay. So you need out. And how quickly are you looking to close?

Henry Washington:At least 30 days or less. If you can go faster, that’d be great.

Chauncey Pham:Okay, awesome. And so then at that point, I would typically do some sort of analysis with them and start pulling up the comps on the property. And at that point, I would start really poking the bear at the pain. So I would ask them to send me any pictures or possibly FaceTime me. Let’s do a quick video walkthrough of the property so then I can compare it to what’s on the market. And this way, this can expedite me getting them an offer. I don’t even need to come out to the house. FaceTime me real quick, get me on Zoom. Let’s walk through it right now. I can get you an offer right now on the phone. And I’m going to also, at that same time, pull up some other properties and have him pull it up and acknowledge the fact that his property is nowhere close to those so that when I come with my low ass number, he’s not offended.So Henry, you understand your house doesn’t look like 124 Main Street that’s right up the street. This one, look, this one has granite countertops. We just walk through, yours has for Micah, and I’m going to have to replace all of that, right? You understand that? And so I typically walk them through all of that and then I’ll even normally ask them a question. So Henry, based on these houses that I just showed you, how much money would you personally think needs to be put into your house to get it up to that level?

Henry Washington:I love this question because I do it all the time. I would say somewhere between 25 and $30,000, which in seller talk means what to an investor.

Chauncey Pham:Yeah. Now Henry, how are we going to get 25, $35,000 done on the … You think I’m doing the work or I’m going to hire someone? I have to hire someone. There we go. So that’s not going to work. Realistically, this is looking like about $100,000 that I’m going to have to put into it. So let’s back these numbers out. So you want to walk away with X, Y, Z, and in order to do that, I would have to give you this number. But if I attack $100,000 on top of it, when I turn around to sell it, I don’t have any money. So let’s work out something that’s fair. Does that work? If I can solve your problem and the timeframe that you need it solved, but I’m also solving a problem for myself, let’s make some shake. And that’s typically how it level with them.

Henry Washington:And that’s the investor standpoint. Now, when you make those offers, are you also offering them a solution where you’re the agent?

Chauncey Pham:Correct.

Henry Washington:At the same time?

Chauncey Pham:So typically if they are offended by the investor offer, look, you don’t get both at the same time. You can’t be out of time and want more money. So if you want to tell me right now that you’re not out of time, then I have another solution for you. And that solution is we can come in. We can maybe do a little bit of work on the property for you. I own my own construction company, so I can come in, I can do the work for you. We can get paid on the back end, so we can work out a deal that way. I’ll list it for you. I’ll control that part of the transaction for you, make sure that your fees and all of that are really good on that end. We’ll take care of the construction for you and then we get it sold and get you that higher number, but it’s going to take a little bit more time.So which one do you want? You want time, you want money?

Henry Washington:I love it. I love it. I do a version of the same thing, but what you were essentially doing when you asked me what I wanted was you were trying to figure out which solution makes the most sense,

Chauncey Pham:Right? Correct.

Henry Washington:If you’re saying you need to move quickly, then you’re thinking as an investor. And if you’re saying, “I have all the time in the world and my house is in great shape,” then you have an option as an agent to list that property. And I think that that’s what investors need to learn is your job isn’t to sign your contract on your next deal. Correct. Your job is to figure out what does that seller need, what do they really need because they’re obviously going to hold something back because they think that we’re here to swindle them and get this best deal possible, right? And so they’re holding these cards close to the chest. But as you ask questions, you can start to figure that out and you can start to present a solution that actually works for them. And I think what you’re saying is as a licensed agent, I now have more options to help somebody than somebody who is not a licensed agent because all they can do is make a cash offer or maybe do something from a creative financing aspect,

Chauncey Pham:But they

Henry Washington:Can’t list a property and they can’t do some of these other things. And so I do think that licensed agents have a superpower, but I don’t know that they all know how to use it. So you did your first flip. About how many flips did you do in a given year and for how long did that last?

Chauncey Pham:So our first year, 2019, we did exactly 10 flips. Wow. Yeah. So we did 10 our very first year. So that $60,000 kind of gave us a little confidence and we built the little process out and then we bought our second property. And then after the second one, we had the opportunity to pick up three more. So we were running four at a time right after our first one. And so by June of that year, because we picked up our first in January, by June, we’d completed like five or six. And then it kind of kept snowballing from there until our highest year, we did 21. Oh

Dave Meyer:My God, that just gives me so much anxiety. I can’t even think about that. But it’s awesome. I mean, it’s incredible. But can you tell us a little bit about them, Chauncey? How much were these deals? What were you paying for them? How were you financing them? And how big of the renovation were you doing because you were doing so much volume?

Chauncey Pham:When we first started, we were buying in the high ones, low twos, and then we were doing around $60,000 renovations and selling in the mid threes to high threes. We continued to progress. And obviously here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area-

Henry Washington:So did the prices.

Chauncey Pham:I mean, that doesn’t exist anymore. And so now we’re acquiring pretty much all across the board, but I would say that our sweet spot is acquiring somewhere in the threes, doing around $150,000 renovation and selling in sevens, high sixes or sevens. Wow. One deal that I just completed, we’re able to pick it up at 405. We did $190,000 or so renovation and it sold at 860.

Dave Meyer:Wow, amazing.

Henry Washington:So those numbers, the original numbers, the purchasing the ones, renovate for about 50 to 60, selling the threes, that’s about what my market is now. And it seems like you’re focused more on a higher price point purchase. Is that the same home that you were buying when prices were different or are you specifically looking for a higher end type of deal?

Chauncey Pham:So our goal is not necessarily to buy a house at a particular price point. We always like to look for houses that are standouts, that when on the market they have something cool or quirky about them. So whether it’s the layout, it’s something architectural about them, it’s the lot, and it just always tends to be around that price point. But realistically, the specs of the homes that we’re buying right now are about the same as they were when we first started back in 2019, the prices are just so much more expensive.

Dave Meyer:I like this approach. I just have to say, I think I like the idea of looking for something different. In my opinion though, there is a part where it goes too far, right? How quirky are we talking?

Chauncey Pham:Nothing crazy, but I just refuse to do just standard gray or white walls with … I need something interesting. We go for large skylights, cool entrances, funny layouts. We do a lot of sunken living rooms, a lot of-

Dave Meyer:Very 70s,

Chauncey Pham:Yeah. Yes, yes. And we keep those elements where most flippers would go in and probably try to make everything look like everything else on the market. We find the houses with old character and we try to preserve it.

Dave Meyer:I assume it limits a little bit who you sell to, but are those people more interested then? Like you get people who are really passionate about the homes because there’s something that they get attached to.

Chauncey Pham:Yes, correct. So essentially my marketing background, even just doing marketing online will tell you that your job as a marketer is to create an offer that’s so irresistible that the consumer can’t not buy. They feel stupid for not buying it and to almost create raving fans to your product. And that’s kind of the approach that we take. And so yeah, we are normally getting multiple offers, but we’re not getting 15. We may get three or four, but those three or four people that want the house and the one that ultimately ends up going under contract will do anything to make sure that they stay under contract because they know they can’t find another product like ours.

Dave Meyer:So much good stuff here from Chauncey, but we’ve got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. Let’s jump back in with Chauncey Fan. So you’ve talked a lot about flipping, but have you ever thought about doing rental properties or any other strategies alongside flipping?

Chauncey Pham:Yeah. Yeah. We have some rentals out in East Texas. So we have a portfolio of 17 rentals in East Texas. But what I found here in Texas is that it’s very difficult to cash flow anything in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, simply because taxes and insurance is so expensive on top of the acquisition costs. So the market that we’re in is like Texarkana, Tyler, Longview. I’m actually from Texarkana. So you’re able to buy properties there for really cheap. A lot of people rent forever there and you’ll get good cash flow, 500, $700 a month. But the problem is the value of those houses, they don’t increase. So you’re cash flowing, but if you go to sell it 10 years later, you’re lucky if the value has gone up $20,000 or so. So I’m not really hardcore interested in the building of rentals. We really like to leverage doing things that get us a lot of capital in hand and then taking that and kind of investing in other outlets.

Henry Washington:So it sounds like you used your market expertise as an agent to understand where I can buy for cash flow and where I can buy to increase my return so that you can strategically buy rental properties, but it sounds like the flipping business is what’s really generating the income, but the market changed, the price points shifted and that means risk shifted. Is there anything else that you did do or have done to help you mitigate the risk and the change of the market that has happened over the 2025, 2026 market? Because a lot of people fell on their face in 2025. So how are you staying profitable?

Chauncey Pham:Absolutely. So really excited about this new kind of model that we built out and it’s our turnkey model where we essentially are operators. So instead of going in and actually owning the properties, we have clients that are liquid, typically at least $150,000 or so, and they are interested in getting a return on their money through flipping, but they don’t have anything except for the money. And instead of doing what a typical flipper would do, which is take their money and then go and buy a flip and then give them a fixed return on it, instead we’ve built out all of the verticals around flipping houses. So you’ve got to find it, you got to fund it, you got to fix it, you got to furnish it, and then you got to flip it, right? So I own all of those parts of the transaction. So we’re sourcing the deals, we are the lender, we broker out money and then we have our own commercial line of credit that we loan out.We own the construction company. I have the staging inventory because of the real estate brokerage that I went to, I have hundreds of agents underneath me, so we’re listing the property. So essentially we’re able to go to our clients and say, “Hey, I’ve got this house, I’ve got it for, you can pick it up for $200,000. Here’s the scope of work. It’s going to cost approximately X, Y, Z.” It’s accurate because I own that part of the process. Here’s the design, here’s everything that has to do with it. Here’s the average days on market, here’s the ARV, and so your potential profit when it sells will be X, Y, Z. Do you want to take it down or not? And if so, then we start that process and I’m making money in every single one of the steps of that process that that person would’ve otherwise had to gone out, find a house, get a lender, find a GC, hire a designer, hire a staging company, find a realtor.I’m all of those things for them. And I’m able to make six figures on each deal with zero money out of my pocket. And so I’m leveraging my skillset in house flipping to have now become an operator and built out a highly profitable business without me having to technically own the asset.

Dave Meyer:I mean, that sounds incredible. Both from your perspective, but also from a flipper, if you’re not a professional at this, it sounds like you’re offering a lot. But if you’re making six figures, what are the margins for the flipper?

Chauncey Pham:It depends, but I mean, they’re typically making 20%, 25%, somewhere in there.

Dave Meyer:Okay. But are they running the project? Are they doing-

Chauncey Pham:No, they do nothing. They’re completely hands off. They

Dave Meyer:Do nothing.

Chauncey Pham:They do nothing.

Dave Meyer:Okay.

Chauncey Pham:They do absolutely nothing except for sign on the dotted line and acquire the property and sign when it closes.

Henry Washington:So you’re not worried about making money as the investor, you’re worried about your companies making money all along the way? Is that …

Chauncey Pham:Correct. Correct.

Henry Washington:Okay. So walk me through what that looks like from an investor’s standpoint. So what’s a typical deal look like for you as the business owners and the investor?

Chauncey Pham:They all look different because I own the different pieces of the process. There’s no set fee for each part, if that makes sense. Okay. So some houses, if I’m able to acquire it really low, then I can front load it and I can make more money on the acquisition. So if I’m able to acquire a property that’s worth 350,000 for 85,000, then obviously I can offload that to my client at maybe a 150. So now I’ve made a big chunk on the front end, right? Versus a house that I’m not necessarily acquiring really, really low, but I know it has extensive construction, then I can ultimately structure the deal where I’m making more money on the construction side or in the design. So there’s no set numbers. We underwrite them differently. Every single house is completely different, but our goal is to make sure that our turnkey clients are coming back.So our goal is to make sure that they’re making money. And so I’m going to structure the deal in a way that every time they’re getting more money than they would in any other way in putting their money in the market in any way. And so as long as I can do that and they’re not doing anything and they can call themselves a house flipper, they get the ego of being able to say, I’m an investor with being hands off, but then getting a 20, 25, sometimes up to 35% return on it, then they’re happy as clams.

Dave Meyer:I’m just trying to understand the risk reward profile here

Chauncey Pham:Because

Dave Meyer:It’s like other turnkey properties, right? Normally, if you go and buy a turnkey rental property, you’re giving up some of your upside to lower your overall risk.

Chauncey Pham:And

Dave Meyer:That’s kind of what this seems like. You’re giving up some of your upside in a flip to lower your overall risk. So I’m just trying to understand what the risks are for the flipper. They’re owning the property, they’re still liable for cost overruns. So those are important considerations for people who would consider this model.

Chauncey Pham:Yeah, absolutely. But the cost overruns aren’t the … We went over and you just have to pay it. It’s, this is a decision that as a real estate investor, you need to make. And ultimately, when we are underwriting these properties, we are extremely conservative with our numbers. So we are calculating everything as if everything has to get fixed. We’re talking all of the MEPs, everything cosmetic. So if there happens to be an overrun, then that’s typically because we’ve seen some sort of upside. So the house across the street just went on the market and it has an extra bedroom and we have the opportunity to convert a space here to a bedroom if you want to achieve that number. So then at that point you get to make that decision. It’s not just an arbitrary, “Sorry, we went over. You got to pay this extra money in construction.” It’s not that type of thing.So they get what the full scope of work is before they even make the decision to acquire the property and they know what all of that looks like.

Henry Washington:And it sounds funny, but like you said, I’m making more than them, but you’re making more than them across several different Different businesses. Correct. And this is all money that an investor pays to other companies anyway. Yeah, we’ll be being paid anyway. This is what I do anyway. Everybody always makes more money than me. It’s just what I get to walk away at the end of the day. I pay my contractors, I pay the title companies, I pay the real estate agents, I pay the project managers, and then I get to keep what’s left. The process doesn’t change. It’s just that in this particular niche, in this particular market, you own all these businesses. So you’re mitigating your risk by taking your profit margins through your companies and not having to own the real estate asset, and you’re still making money flipping houses. You’re just not the one owning the asset and you get to offer essentially a turnkey product to your seller.That’s a pretty cool perspective. Vertical integration is, I think, important to most businesses, but it’s an intimidating thing to take on. How did you take that bite of the elephant to where you started to own different parts of the process that weren’t the typical buy the house, renovate the house?

Chauncey Pham:Yeah. So it actually started with this mastermind that I’d gone to for real estate, and they had us do this exercise where we wrote the word realtor in the middle, circled it, and then we had to come up with who all in a transaction made money. And at the end of the day, I think we came up with 45 different people in a real estate transaction, make money from something out of realtor rinks. So then when we found ourselves on a television show, flipping houses and getting more and more demand for needing to get more houses, we were like, “Man, I don’t really want to buy more houses. How can we leverage what we know? How can we … ” And I just had this thought and I told my husband, I’m like, “We did this exercise when I was a realtor. Let’s see all of the different parts of flipping a house, how many people are making money off of that?” And instead of us going out and always buying more houses, why can’t we just leverage our skillset in this and leverage our expertise and make money off of all of the different parts? Because ultimately that’s what people have the most problems with is implementation. So if I can implement things for people that I’ve already become an expert at and I can just make money, then that’s how I’ll do it. So it really was kind of born from, again, this idea that I learned being a realtor and then out of necessity of just continuing to need to buy more houses on the television show. And right at the tail end of that, and I’m like, I’m tired of having to buy more houses. We finished and wrapped production with the show and we were like, let’s try this turnkey thing. Enough people now know us.We have the credibility. We have the processes built out. And so then we just started doing what we were already doing. So then it was pretty simple. We were already sourcing deals. So we just made that a legit process. We already understood hard money lending. So then we looked at what it would take to get a line of credit that we could loan out and broker for other hard money lenders. We already had our own construction company, so that was already set in stone. But then we got our tax resale certificate and then we set up accounts with all of the wholesale suppliers for the materials. We then bought the staging inventory and set that business up. So it was things that we were already doing. I think you start to get into the weeds with vertical integration when you’re trying to reinvent the wheel instead of looking at what you’re already doing, who you’re paying money to, and then seeing how you can kind of bring that in- house, which is ultimately what we did.

Dave Meyer:It makes total sense. I mean, this money is going out. You might as well get some of it if you have the capacity to do it. It’s impressive, super impressive that you’re able to run all these businesses. Did you start all of them? Did you acquire them or is all this from scratch?

Chauncey Pham:No, we started.

Dave Meyer:Wow, that’s

Chauncey Pham:Awesome. We started them all from scratch.

Dave Meyer:Very cool.

Chauncey Pham:Just one by one. And they’re not running independently. I’m not marketing all of them. So it doesn’t seem daunting.

Dave Meyer:Yeah. It’s not like you’re doing staging for someone else. You do it for yourself. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That makes total sense. So you’re marketing turnkey and then everything else flows from there.

Chauncey Pham:Correct.

Dave Meyer:That makes sense.

Chauncey Pham:And occasionally we get the one-offs where someone just wants a retail construction job, we’ll take it. I do design jobs for other people, but that’s not my focus and that’s not what I market, but I do have the ability to do that. So as the market changes, I’m in the position to make money in a ton of different ways when other people aren’t.

Henry Washington:Well, I commend you, you’re braver than me because the amount of times I’ve thought, man, I should just start my own construction company because I’m running all these crews anyway and just haven’t pulled the trigger to do it. You are my inspiration that this is absolutely possible, Harry. Especially with the level of experience- Totally

Chauncey Pham:Doable, dude. It’s so doable. It really is.

Henry Washington:All right, Chauncey, thank you so much for coming on the BiggerPockets Podcast and sharing a literal wealth of experience. I wish we had more time to be able to dive into all of the things that you have experienced and have experience in in the real estate world. Thank you so much.

Chauncey Pham:Thank you for having me guys.

Dave Meyer:Thanks, Chauncey.

Henry Washington:Also, guys, if you learned something from this episode, then I recommend you checking out BiggerPockets Podcast, episode 1160 that’s back from August 2025, where Dave and I both shared some of our favorite cheap and easy methods for sourcing great deals. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. We’ll see you on the next episode.