‘The Bachelorette’ Alum Tyler Cameron on Building a $3M Portfolio in 3 Years!

Ashley:
This is Real Estate rookie episode 411. What would you find out if you rehabbed your childhood home? My name is Ashley Care and I’m here with Tony j Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast where every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. We are here today with Tyler Cameron, a seasoned investor and TV personality that is sharing his projects and all the fun that goes into construction. Now, today we’ll get into the 4 1 1 of Tyler’s short-term rentals, and here some of the mistakes he’s made and how that has helped him improve his project. So we’re excited to hear what you’ve learned while getting your hands dirty. So Tyler, welcome to the show, brother,

Tyler :
Man, I appreciate y’all having me. I definitely will put the rookie and rookie for y’all. So I’m excited to get down with this and big fan of the show, big fan of BiggerPockets and everything that you guys have been able to create and do. It’s an honor to be here and excited to talk what I got into now.

Ashley:
Well, Tyler, I’m really curious as to what your childhood home has to do with real estate investing for you.

Tyler :
Yeah, no. So here’s a long story that I’ll try and make short. My home is the first home my parents ever brought me into and 31 years of living in that home, we put a lot of wear and tear on that house. When my mom lived there, it was a home and then when she passed away it became a frat house and we just kind of let it deteriorate, but we wanted to renovate it and honor my mom the way that she would’ve wanted the house done. We had a lot of our old plans and ideas that we were able to make the house with and the reason why it is a rental property now is I was living in it for a little bit, but then I kind of felt guilty of living in it. I’m like, well, this is me and my brother’s house now I can make something out of this and I can go find myself the next project for myself. And I turned it into a short-term rental and now it’s kind of like that gift that keeps on giving the light that keeps shining. My mom keeps looking out for us, it’s creating great profit for me and my brothers and hopefully that’ll turn into the next real estate project for me and my brothers to share.

Tony:
Yeah. Well Tyler, I’m super happy you guys we’re able to kind of honor your mom by taking this project down, brother. So kudos to you guys. Now, I know every rehab project isn’t without its surprises. So I guess I’m curious, did you find anything unexpected during the renovation project here?

Tyler :
This is a new term I learned. Is it what NSFW not safe for work. So this might be one of those comments guys, but why not? Why not throw my little brothers under the bus? So my little brother Ryan was just the biggest punk in high school. And so as we’re the home, we are ripping out one of these walls and it’s the wall between his room and the living room. And when we opened it up, we found a bunch of used condoms and bait pens in the wall and we’re like, I’m dumbfounded by, I’m like, who the heck would put those in there? First of all, why is there a hole in the wall? Second of all, why are you not going to the trash can and throwing it away?

Ashley:
Wait to recap this, is your childhood home still correct? Yes. And who’s bathroom was this?

Tyler :
So because we found vape pens in there, we were able to claim, we were able to prove that it was my youngest brother Ryan, because he used to be a vape pen dealer in high school. So it couldn’t be anyone else.

Tony:
Wait, I got to ask Tyler, did you guys ever get to the bottom of why he was storing them inside the walls? What was the reason behind that?

Tyler :
Because guys are disgusting and guys would rather just go into the wall, I guess, and throw away the used condom or throw away the bait pen than walking 10 more feet and going to the bathroom or going to the garbage can. Oh my God, my poor mother, my poor mother, she had to deal with not only me and my three brothers, but my dad too in that little house.

Ashley:
I don’t know what’s worse is going into a house you just bought and finding a stranger’s condoms or going into a home and knowing that it’s your brother’s condoms. I’m not really sure which is worse than that situation.

Tyler :
I think it’s worth, it’s your brothers because you’re like, shame on you. You could have done so much better than that. The strangers you don’t really know anything about. So they could be whatever, but I’m like my brother, I’m like, how low life are you, man? You can’t just go throw it out in the trash can.

Ashley:
So Tyler, we’re off to a great start here with definitely an interesting story, but overall today, what does your portfolio look like?

Tyler :
Alright, so I’m learning guys. I’m putting the rookie in rookie investing right now. So I have two properties that are short-term rentals. I have one long-term rental property that I just acquired that I renovated and now I got to get on the market, but it’s in Jacksonville. And then I have another house in Jacksonville that we’re flipping. I have a house that’s a spec home that we did for sale in Jupiter, and then I’m in the process of possibly purchasing two lots right now to build two more short-term rentals in my town of Jupiter.

Tony:
Tyler, I just want to say, man, you put this big disclaimer, I’m a rookie. I’m a rookie, and then you said I got two long-term rentals, one short-term, a flip a spec home, two lots. It’s like you’re doing a lot, man. And I want to call that out because I think for a lot of new investors, sometimes we discount the hard work that we’ve done to get to where we are. But I’ll tell you the difference between the person who’s at zero deals and the person who’s at one is way bigger than the person who’s at one and the person who’s at five.

Tyler :
It’s intimidating, it’s scary. To go from zero to one is massive. It’s a big step. One to two is a lot easier than zero to one. But I think for me, the hardest part is, so a little bit more background. My dad’s a builder and he was trying to become a developer. He was doing really, really well before the oh eight crash. And my dad went from being worth probably 5 million at the time to losing it all to having nothing. And literally that’s how we ended up back in my childhood home because we lived on a better house on the water on the same street, we all had to go back to the little house that we owned. So my father, my person I looked to for advice became very conservative, very trigger shy. And so I learned really right before the pandemic, there was a house a lot for sale on the water in my street and it was a lot for $625,000 I remember.

Tyler :
And I could have bought it, but it would’ve been all of my marbles. And I’m also like, well, what’s this pandemic? Am I going to make any money during the pandemic? I’m not in showbiz anymore. How’s this money going to come in because the whole world’s stopping. So I didn’t do it. Someone else bought it, built a big two story house, it’s now worth three and a half million dollars. I’m like, damn, I missed. And so then I became quick Draw McGraw and just started firing at everything I saw, which so far has been pretty good to me. I started buying some land, we turned it into spec homes and the land has doubled from places I bought it three years later. So far it’s been good, but the biggest lesson was not pulling the trigger and letting someone sway you from pulling it because of their own past. And that was probably my biggest lesson and I’m sure I’ll take a lesson soon when I should have bought some.

Ashley:
Tyler. How long ago was it that you actually made or did the first property and then what is your portfolio valued at today in that timeframe?

Tyler :
Oh man, I haven’t really thought about those numbers. Let’s see. So the first property I bought and built on was probably in 2021. I bought all a piece of Fer 1 75. We probably put 900,000 into the builds and we sold it for 1.45. And then we did another house, the same house, but we priced it higher because the market’s still higher. And right now we’re kind of sitting on it. So we’re probably going to keep coming down in price here. But portfolio wise, I have, let’s say probably around 3 million worth of real estate.

Ashley:
That’s amazing. In what, three years?

Tyler :
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ashley:
That’s awesome.

Tyler :
So it’s been good. I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve been able to take the money I’ve made from show business and I literally just funnel that right into real estate. And now what I’ve learned too is I can do real estate content that helps build my portfolio and people love it.

Ashley:
And it’s creating content for the show business

Tyler :
Too. Exactly. So now it’s all kind of working together, which is great. So it’s a lot easier to do.

Ashley:
Well, we’re going to take a quick break and I want to touch more on that, but also let’s get into some mistakes and hard lessons that you have learned while building this portfolio and also running various other businesses. Don’t forget to check out our show sponsors as we take this quick break. Okay, everyone, welcome back. We are here with Tyler. We are going to get into his market and what strategies are working. But first, Tyler, how do you manage being a public figure? And you see this online verse reality, how does that differ?

Tyler :
Yeah, it’s tough. It tough. We takes some growing up and taking your lumps and building up thicker skin. Luckily for me, I was a really bad quarterback in high school and college, so I grew thick skin by throwing a lot of interceptions. So I was able to kind of adjust more now in the light. But it definitely, you got to learn how to take your phone, put it away. You’re going to have 90% of your comments are always going to be good comments. 10% are always going to be someone trying to bash you, and why would you give the 10% the energy? So it’s things that I’ve learned throughout the way, but online or reality are definitely two different stories. And so it’s definitely, you got to find a way to balance it.

Ashley:
So you’re not usually walking around shirtless dancing on a truck, swinging a hammer, anything?

Tyler :
Oh no. I’m definitely walking around shirtless and dancing around. That is some reality to it. If you’re going to be working, you better make it fun. My neighbors get a show, I guess.

Tyler :
And the one thing I’ve always saw on the internet is everyone wants to be so perfect and everyone wants to be a hundred percent correct. And then there’s also people who are commenting too when you’re posting stuff about construction and whatnot that they don’t want to rip you apart. You don’t know how to do this, you’re doing this wrong, blah, blah, blah. I think an approach I’ve taken has also helped me is I am no knowit all. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, but I’m learning. I’ve been learning every day since for the last two years since I’ve been really dedicated to this industry and this business, and I have my GC license, but I wasn’t building all the time. The GC license just says I not really knowing to how to build a house. So I’ve been able to invite the commenters and invite the people who give me the harsh responses because I want to learn. I have no problem being the village idiot sometimes and not knowing what’s going on.

Tony:
I appreciate you sharing that, Tyler, because again, for a lot of new investors, we have that fear of asking the question for fear of looking dumb. And a mentor told me this, I think it actually might’ve been one of my teachers when I was younger, but it just always stuck with me and he was like, Tony, you can either be fearful of looking dumb by asking the question or you can actually be dumb by not asking the question. And it’s like, what’s more important to you? So I’ve always kind of taken that with me and I’m the first guy to raise my hand and say, I don’t know what that means. And there’s been a lot of times even on this show estoppel agreement, Ash, and I always laugh about that, but there’s things that I learned as the host, I’m like, man, I’ve never heard that before. So I think having the humility to admit when you don’t know something is what allows you to really keep that growth and take it to the next level.

Tyler :
Yeah, because I mean for sure, and you don’t want to learn the hard way because the hard way is usually painful or expensive, and if you’re humble enough to ask the questions and go through it that way you can save yourself a lot of pain and money and issues going forward.

Ashley:
I think too, also being able to receive the constructive criticism. I’ve been in the same position where I’ve posted something and someone’s called it out, it probably shouldn’t have been done that way. It should have been done this way or that’s wrong or whatever. And being able to say, you know what? Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time to inform me of this instead of trying to defend yourself and feeling attacked, being able to be perceptive as to taking other people’s constructive criticism that are genuinely trying to help you. Even though it may seem there are some people that are just trying to call you out and prove you wrong, but just kill them with kindness.

Tyler :
Exactly, exactly. I’ve noticed that it’s usually the men in the industry who are on commenting the craziest stuff, but the women so nice in the industry, they’re the best.

Tony:
Tyler, you mentioned not asking those questions can lead to more time, more pain, more mistakes, really. And even if we ask the right questions, a lot of times becoming a real estate investor, you do find yourself making some mistakes along the way. So I guess maybe share some of the mistakes you’ve made so far in your journey and what are some of the lessons you’ve learned from that?

Tyler :
Yeah, I think definitely the biggest mistake I’m experiencing right now and something that I’m learning is that pre-planning is so important, really going through that house, living in it maybe for a little bit and really figuring out what you’re going to do before just kind of shooting from the hip as you go. And luckily, I’ve been able to piece things together pretty good right now. I’m renovating my house right now, and then we did my short-term rental on the TV show I just came out with and a lot of that stuff we were just shooting as we go, but when you don’t have a plan, it’s so easy to add on something else. It’s so easy to just blow past that budget because you’re not thinking about all the things that could have happened and then you start ripping it away. And I dunno, I just learned that when I walk into a project and we have the whole blueprint, the whole list of bullets that we want to knock out and achieve in this project, it goes so much smoother. It goes closer to budget or even under budget where if you’re just kind of ripping and going and just figuring out along the way, it gets expensive because you start piecemealing everything.

Tony:
We interviewed our good friend James Dard, who’s also the host of the BiggerPockets on the Market podcast, and it was episode 3 87. We’ve had James on a few times, but episode 3 87 specifically, he talked about his process for creating his scope of work and he’s got a really, really involved process that he walks through where he’s actually getting his realtors involved at the beginning of his flips to say, Hey, what kind of flooring should I be choosing? What finishes should I be adding here? What do you think about this floor plan that way before he even closes on the deal, he’s got someone who knows what the property will resell for that’s giving him that input.

Tyler :
Oh, for sure. Because I mean, for instance, another mistake like the short-term rental we did on the show, the designers, we went over budget by a lot and we gold plated that house. I’ll probably never make what I put into that house if I were to sell it now because I’m short term renting it, I’m probably going to be able to recoup it in some years, but because we gold plated it, it’ll never sell for the value that we could have put in a nicer home essentially. So I mean that’s important. So you got to know what type of material you’re going to put. Are you going to do LVT? Are you going to do engineer hardwood? Are you going to porcelain tile? Whatcha going to do? So that’s definitely an important step knowing the price points that you’re going to try and hit when you try to sell or try to flip it.

Ashley:
Do you think that’s also one of the lessons you have learned as far as how much you’re spending on the project?

Tyler :
Another big lesson I’ve learned too is you get what you pay for in this industry. I had a project manager that I hired and it was kind of when I was running this show, I just needed more bodies. I needed people to run material and do all these things and he wasn’t really on all the subs he should have been. And now I’m going back sometimes and fixing things two or three times because of him. And that’s when you start really losing money too, is you got to keep coming back, keep making fixes on the punch outs and all that. And then you also got to realize too certain subs are for certain price points when renovating or when building a house, when you have a higher end finish, you got to go pay the pretty dollar to go get the right guys to do the high end finishes. If you got a guy who’s a sloppy tile in a multimillion dollar house, that’s not going to look good for you and that’s not going to help you sell. So those are some big lessons I’ve learned. And also some issues that I’ve had been working with my dad is I’m trying to do some higher end stuff and he’s sold more like the 400, $500,000 price point range and I’m trying to sell ’em to 1.5, 1.7 million price point range. Those are different finishers.

Tyler :
And I’ve had to point things out and show, and my dad’s been in this game for 30 years and he always tells me I’ve forgotten more than, and I’m like, well thanks. But I can tell you when the tile lines are not looking good. So that’s definitely something I also learned. I spoke earlier about not pulling the trigger and letting people talk you out of things. You got to trust your gut, you got to trust your numbers and everyone’s going to talk you out of things because they all want you to be safe, especially your family. They all want you to protect you. And if it was up to my dad, I would just put my money away and never spend it ever again. But I can’t live life that way. I want to go learn, I want to grow, I want to keep building and improving myself.

Tony:
I want to ask one follow up question on that because I think the not pulling the trigger when maybe the people in your circle are not as supportive as you want them to be, that’s a universal problem for people looking to get started in real estate. So how are you finding the courage? Like you said, your dad has decades of experience in this space, so he probably does have a little bit of an idea of what works and how are you finding the courage to still move forward at the pace with the goals that you have for yourself?

Tyler :
I think if you truly believe in something and you can see, I think you got to do the research one, you know what I mean? And you got to find numbers and things that back you up. You don’t want to just go into something and not knowing it, pulling the trigger. That’s how you get yourself into a big issue. But research is important, but also I feel like with my father, he’s gotten burned. So his whole thing is I don’t want you to get burned, but if I do get burned, I’m young enough to know that I’ll recoup my money. I’ll find another way to make it and I will learn from it. And I think right now I’m 31, the best thing I have on my side is time. And I can make mistakes right now and I can learn, I can go. But if you keep listening to someone and wants talk to you away from doing something, I’m a firm believer you just got to go for it.

Tyler :
People have talked me out of trying to do the bachelorette. I went and did. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. If you have that gut and the intuition that you can go make it happen and it’s something that you truly want to do, you’re going to find a way to make it work. And to me, it’s just been something that I’ve had to deal with with my father and it’s been tough. We definitely disagree, but then once I start proving a concept to him, then he wants to hop on board. I’m like, ha, I told you I got, but you just got to really believe in what you want to do and don’t let people get in your head. If you have done the research, you believe in yourself. Anything’s possible. I look at people that I want to be and I see them pulling the triggers on everything. I’m like, if you don’t get in the game, you’re never going to be in the game. So you just got to dive in and go for it.

Tony:
I love that you prefaced it though, Tyler, with educating yourself because I do think that’s an important foundation to lay. But there’s also the flip side of that where people can sometimes overeducate. And what I like to share with Ricky is that if you get to the point where you’re listening to the podcast, you’re watching the YouTube videos, you’re reading the books, and a lot of the information starts to sound familiar, it’s things you’ve already heard before, that’s probably the sign that it’s time for you to take action and stop with the consumption and move over to action.

Tyler :
And honestly, you can read and you can do all these things, but the best way to learn is to get in that fire is to get in there, start ripping walls out, start really putting it together, starting to see what it costs to see, to get bids from people, to see what a good drywall guy is, to see what a bad drywall guy is. You got to get in the fire to learn all these things and start building out your team. And if you just, I would say my dad’s got the worst case of analysis of paralysis or paralysis of analysis whichever way, but that has always kind of slowed him down from making things happen. And then in the moment, we’ll come and leave you.

Ashley:
Okay. Tyler, we’ve gone over a couple or several mistakes and lessons that have you learned. What about on the operations side for your short-term rentals? Is there any lessons that you have learned there?

Tyler :
Definitely. I’m in the short-term rental business. I also have a few restaurants and what I’ve learned from there is the customer is always right and short-term rental, you’re like, God, you’re going back and forth on the messages with them on host away and you’re like, God, this person is such a pain in my ass. But then you’re like, you know what? Just go do it. Go get it done. And then you meet ’em in person. They’re very, very nice. They just dunno how to come across in a message. A lot of times, like an older lady or older couple who doesn’t know how to text in the beginning of my short term rentals, they’re like, oh, I need beach chairs. Oh, I need a baby crib. Oh, I need this, I need that. And I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to say yes and get these people everything because eventually I’ll have enough stuff that I’ll never have to get anything anymore. And I think when you do the short-term rental, you usually can get a little bit of enough spread to where a hundred bucks here or 200 bucks there to get someone to make someone’s experience better and happier. It’s huge, huge. I pride ourselves. I think we’ve had all but one five star reviews so far on both properties, and I think that’s because we’re trying to overdeliver to our customers want to make sure they have everything they have and if they need something, we go get it.

Ashley:
Tony, I want to ask if you have that you share that same opinion because I’ve seen the Instagram reel of somebody trying to say that they slipped and fell on the property and it was actually them drinking wine out back again, Paul. So what is your opinion on Tyler’s statement there? That the customer is always right?

Tony:
Yeah, we definitely believe that giving a small refund is better than a terrible review because over the long run, the bad reviews stack up, but we also at times want to, depending on what the guest is saying, kind of verify. So what Ashley was referencing, we had a guest one time, Tyler, who said they slipped and fell in our backyard, and that’s a big concern of my back’s hurting me, this, that and the other. And we ended up pulling up the camera footage from the backyard. We have cameras back there and she had been drinking and she went to go sit down in her seat and she just missed the seat. So imagine if we would’ve just said, yeah, the customer’s always, right now we’re potentially opening ourselves up to litigation or liability. So we always want to make sure that if there’s proof that we lean back on that proof first.

Tyler :
Tony, do you have cameras in your backyards at all your places?

Tony:
All the ones that have big enough backyards? Yeah, so majority we have exterior cameras at the front and the back

Tyler :
Because that’s something I’m always like, is that invading on the customer? But I guess it protects you in the end

Tony:
1000%. We’ve had some guests, we’ve had a lot of guests at our properties over the years. We’ve had some guests that have said like, Hey, we don’t like the cameras back there. And we say, Hey, look, this is for your safety and for hours. It’s not pointing anywhere that’s invading your privacy. Just know we’re only going to reference it if there’s an issue. But yeah, we like to put cameras on all the exteriors of our properties.

Tyler :
That’s something I might have to add.

Ashley:
Yeah, because Tony constantly yells at me. I have one property where they actually have the option to turn it off so there’s a switch activated to it, so it’s on the cleaner, turns it on, so when they check in, we can see the camera and then we have them turn it back on when they leave. So it’s only on when nobody’s there and then they can turn it off if they want, but I’ll have to get that rewired sometimes. So they

Tony:
Can’t do that

Ashley:
Because Tony keeps hounding me.

Tyler :
No, no. I mean it’s smart. It makes sense. And like you said, it protects you legally too in a sense. So yeah, you don’t want those issues.

Ashley:
Okay, so we’re going to take another short break and we come back, we’re going to talk about the market. So it’s Tyler, thanks so much for sharing some of your lessons learned, and we’ll be right back after this. Okay. Welcome back everyone. We just learned about Tyler’s lessons and some of the mistakes he’s made over the years to help you guys as rookies get through some of those same situations. But let’s talk more about your portfolio and some of the missed opportunities that you have had throughout your time investing.

Tyler :
Yep, definitely. Definitely. The misses I spoke about earlier was not investing in that one property on the water. I’ve had a mentor of mine who his thing is you can’t buy more water there is there. So if you ever get a chance to get your piece, get your piece. And I missed my opportunity,

Ashley:
Tyler, I have to say I’m so happy you said that because just this morning I got under contract a lake property and I’ve been so nervous. This is like a leap for me, but solidifying that there’s right, there’s no more water, it’s going to be okay.

Tyler :
Yeah, I mean, isn’t nowhere to go with it. So I miss my piece and I drive by every day now and I just kick myself in the ass and I’m like, well, don’t do that. Get an idiot. But sometimes the scariest risks are the biggest lessons and then they become the most exciting things. Opportunities.

Ashley:
Tony and I were just talking about that. We do this episode where it’s like a horror episode where somebody comes on and tells something that went really bad, whether it was a tenant or property damage, whatever, but most of them, pretty much all of them have. It ended up being okay in the long run. The property ended up appreciating or they ended up being cashflow after they got through that hump, that wall they overcame. It ended up being fine,

Tony:
Except for my property in Shreveport. Every other property we’ve talked about before story wise had a good ending. I had a property, a long-term rental, and there was no happy ending to that. It was just a bad ending altogether. We lost a lot of money on that one. But even there, you still learned something from it.

Tyler :
Right, exactly. I think you can look back on it 10 years. See that taught me something, at least sometimes education expensive.

Ashley:
This waterfront property was this in Jupiter, Florida, then where you’re from? And maybe tell us a little bit about that market.

Tyler :
Yeah, yeah. So my market, Jupiter, Florida is an exploding market because Covid was a huge part of it. But now, I mean so many people from New York, from la, a lot of snowbirds, mainly Connecticut, all that New York, jersey, they all come down and buy. They were all buying their second homes down here. Not a lot of them are just living down here. It’s the tax benefits, it’s all the good things. Jupiter is a luxurious boat town, golf town. It used to be a little blue collar town, and now it has really become kind of a very, very wealthy place for people to live to experience the water. We have the best waterways besides, I think it’s Miami and us when it comes to waterways.

Tyler :
The market has, when I was buying houses for $500,000, now they’re $650,000. It’s just gotten more expensive. It’s painful to see. I’m like, oh man, how am I going to get this next one and have a spread? But we’ve been lucky. We’ve bought a couple pieces of property back in the day, probably three or four years ago that have appreciated and we’re going to build houses on those and turn ’em into rentals. But it’s a tough market now. It’s very competitive. There was a house on my street, I don’t know how this happened, guys, you might have to tell me, but there was a house on my street. I was going to turn into a short-term rental. It was a complete gut. It could be a tear down if someone wanted to do that. I started my first bid at four 30 and then I ended up bidding five 30 because it got crazy. Apparently I was the highest bidder because it sold for five 15. I’m like, how did this person get it for five 15? And I bid five 30. So that was frustrating.

Ashley:
Was it an all cash offer?

Tyler :
It could have been. I was going to be all cash too, but I don’t know. I don’t know how that happened, but anytime there’s a property that’s distressed and at a lower price point, it just gets bid up like crazy.

Ashley:
But you know what? Maybe something happened where they did bid more than you and then they negotiated once it was under contract, they found something wrong or whatever. And then renegotiated, there was this house I looked at that sold for $200,000 less than what it had been listed at. And we had put an offer on it. A lot of people put offers in and it ended up, there must have been some big huge issue with it or whatever. And I think it was because you didn’t actually own the land. You were just buying the property and then leasing the land and nobody really knew that. And then that was all found out during doing the title work and stuff, but it could have been something like that.

Tony:
Tyler, one thing that jumps out to me is you’re talking a lot about the build process and it’s slightly different building than rehabbing. I guess, what are maybe some of the benefits you’re seeing of doing the ground up builds versus rehabbing properties?

Tyler :
So I think when you do a rehab, it’s like an onion. We always compare it to an onion. Every time you peel back a layer, you find something else and then you peel back another layer and you find something else. And when you do new construction, you literally know where every wire’s going, where all the walls are going, what pipes are on white, what walls and whatnot. I also think too, you get the biggest return on new builds when you go to refinance it. For instance, we’re going to build this house into choa, which is like a village in Jupiter. And when we build this house, we bought the land for like 2 25. It’s probably around 3 50, 400 now with appreciation since we bought it, we’re going to put probably 700 into it. And then so now we’re probably at a million. We’re talking about equity wise. And then, I mean, it’ll probably be more than that once we’re all said and done with the value of the house, and we’ll be able to refinance that, pull a bunch of money out, probably make money on what we pulled out hopefully, and then turn to the next project. But I just feel like you get more money if you’re trying to stay to do the burn method or whatever, you’re going to get more money with a new build, I feel like, than you would with a renovation.

Tony:
Tyler, what’s the typical timeframe on a new build? We just renovated a 13 unit motel outside of Zion in Utah. And our team, 13 weeks from start to finish, they were done.

Tyler :
Tony, you did a motel in Zion?

Tony:
We did, man, it’s on the other side of Zion, so it’s not as busy as the Springdale side. But yeah, it’s about 30 minutes outside of Zion. That’s

Tyler :
So cool. One, I love Zion too. I would love to do a boutique motel one time. That’s sick. That’s very cool. I mean, a new build, you’re probably looking at five to six months with my dad. It could be a year, but yeah, it should be in the six month range.

Ashley:
So let’s talk about your TV show a little bit here and tell us more about how this came about.

Tyler :
Yeah. Well, it’s been a long process. The show’s called Going Home with Tyler Cameron. It’s right now it’s out on Prime Video. You can binge all eight episodes. It’s been a process to make the show happen. We were trying to start, we were trying to film the sizzle reel back in February, 2020, right before Covid happened. We had some unfortunate things happen and we had covid happen, so it pushed back everything and pushed back the show. So four years later, we finally got this show. It’s finally out. It’s my baby. It’s cool. And it’s kind of like a lot like what we’re talking about here. You guys see me grow from episode one to episode eight. You see me make mistakes, you see me learn from them, you see me get better at it. I told production, I was like, guys, we’re starting a construction company from Ground Zero.

Tyler :
I want people to know what’s starting from ground zero and learn and be a part of the growth with us. And it’s been an awesome response. People, they’re like, oh, we learned so much. I love how you’re able to share your mistakes and whatnot. And it’s actually been a very emotional show for people. A lot of people have hit me back like We’ve cried. I didn’t think I was going to cry in so many episodes. So it’s been a great response. It’s been an amazing show. But home rental shows, people in that industry who do that. It’s the hardest thing ever because I mean, if you think about you guys, we have a construction team, we have a design team, we have a production team, we have the clients, we have the talent that we have to work with. So to try and maneuver all those people and plan, it’s a nightmare.

Ashley:
It’s hard enough just to schedule contractors, my own production crew.

Tyler :
And then you’re kind of paying a little bit more for your contractors and usually because guys, I need you to focus on these projects and help me get through this. And even then, it’s still a fight.

Ashley:
Tyler, what are some of the things that maybe a viewer can learn from watching your show besides just seeing your transformation? What are some of the takeaways that they can benefit by watching?

Tyler :
Yeah, I think you see some of the mistakes. I make simple construction mistakes, turn off the damn water main,

Ashley:
Know where the shut off switch is.

Tyler :
Yeah, know where it is. Yeah, I mean, I did that in a condo and couldn’t find it. And so I’m holding this bucket as it keeps overflowing and finding another bucket. It was so bad. And then we had to call someone. They took their sweet time to get up there, and of course it was hidden in the back behind the AC unit. It was just a nightmare. So I broke my three water mains on the show.

Tyler :
Yeah, yeah. Another big thing we had to learn was how to meet these timelines. And these timelines aren’t your typical, oh, you can push it another weekend in real world construction or two weeks and then it becomes a month or whatever. But when you are doing a TV show, every time you’re delaying, you’re paying for the whole production team, you’re paying for all these people that can’t do anything, can’t film anything. So I mean, it ended up being like 4:00 AM nights, 5:00 AM nights, just to try and get these houses done on time to get these people in their homes so we could shoot it. And it was just a beast. So I mean, the major lessons is just time management, organizing, knowing how to delegate. All those things have been big lessons for me.

Ashley:
Well, thank you so much, Tyler, for coming on, and I hope everyone takes the opportunity to check out your show on Prime. And it is called Going Home with Tyler Cameron. And if you want to learn more about Tyler, you can go to our show notes on your favorite podcast platform or in the description in YouTube.

Tyler :
Awesome. I appreciate you guys. Y’all have a good one.

Ashley:
I’m Ashley. And he’s Tony. Thank you guys so much for joining us, and we’ll see you on the next episode.