86 – Landscaping and Hardscaping with Jerson Ramirez

This transcript was generated automatically with Otter, there may be some grammatical errors.

Sean  0:16

This is the everything real estate investing show with Sean. We interview local real estate investors, and professionals to go over tips, tricks, and investing strategies to help you learn about the business and to enable you to achieve your financial goals. And now, welcome to the show. Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The everything real estate investing show with Sean pan. Today, we have Jason Ramirez. Jason is a land and heart scraper in the Bay Area, and has worked on my own projects in the past. And this episode, Jason will let us know what it costs to rebuild a driveway and what to do you’re trying to sell your home on a budget. If you enjoy this episode, subscribe to the show and leave a review. We release episodes every Wednesday and Sunday. The show notes on our site, everything Rei com. Enjoy. Thanks for coming on the show today. Go ahead and tell us who you are. And what do you do.

Jerson  1:08

So my name is Jason, Jason Ramirez and my company basically does a lot of landscape a lot of all heart scape. Outside of house, we focus on front and backyards, kind of like any ideas that a homeowner has. We have to bring them to life.

Sean  1:23

And who are your typical clients

Jerson  1:24

get a lot of people who fix houses, like yourself, they like to buy them, fix them and put them on the market. But we also get a lot of people who have owned a house for a couple years and they look at the yard and they want to do something new. So basically, every everybody out there, we focus a lot of residential, rather than do a lot of commercials. So a lot of people who own houses are the ones that always the tenants to call us.

Sean  1:50

And what kind of landscaping Do you guys typically do under houses,

Jerson  1:53

we focus on everything we like to do a lot of like driveways, a lot of landscape, a lot of our irrigation we do anything from drip system from grass, normal grass, artificial grass, we do fences, we do into from driveway, walkways, Porsches, and anything else to do like with the outside, we also do like fully cleanups, if somebody doesn’t want to spend too much money, but they just want to have their yard cleanup, we also do that as well.

Sean  2:20

And so what kind of work is involved in let’s say, someone has a really bad driveway, they want to replace it? How do you go about fixing the driveway.

Jerson  2:29

So the first thing I like to ask the people, the homeowners are exactly what they want to have done. Because there’s a lot of things that come into when you want to build it in the driveway, either you want to have it from a made from asphalt, you want to have a concrete, you want to do pavers, or you want to do stem concrete. So all that comes to mind. And also like how much they want to spend in it, and how they want it to make, you know, to look at it, like what’s the look that they’re looking to achieve. So when it comes to that, I give them options. But you know, a lot of people really don’t like concrete. So and that’s what a lot of people have nowadays. So everybody’s trying to kind of like upgrade to pavers, or stamped concrete, it’s very similar to pavers. And we just go from there, which is asked them the ideas that they have, sometimes they they want us to give them ideas, but they’re not sure they’re not sure on the prices. So I kind of like like when they told me that they’re not sure on price would like to ask them what’s like a budget that they want to keep it in that way I can I can recommend them what type of material they should be, you know, that they should be using for that type of work they want to do.

Sean  3:31

So what’s the typical timeline for job,

Jerson  3:33

small and big jobs? He varies. We normally like if it’s just a simple driveway in a walkway takes us up to two weeks, two or three weeks probably taking mind that we have to before anything in there needs to be occurred like we called a one one you say that they come in and mark all the utilities and after three days that they mark the whole areas, then we begin our job. So that’s all we we kind of gave it and we always like to give a little bit of more more time. You can take us out to two weeks but I like to say two weeks and a half or three weeks that we don’t feel pressured or or you know, some materials delayed was to have those more days to play with.

Sean  4:10

So what is the timeline? Like? How many days for demolition? How many days for construction and how many days for actually finishing it all up with the finishing touches

Jerson  4:17

demolition, it should be the fastest thing that we need to do. So the machine should take us no more than four days. Okay, that means you know, breaking everything in hauling everything away having our foundation in having everything just kind of cleared out for materials to be installed for installation usually depends on on how big the job site is. But you know, my crew King gave 1000 square feet down probably in about I’ll say probably in this in a week, then you have a lot of like, you know, the cuts that you need to make on the borders and stuff like that. So I think installation in general will take us probably a little bit over a week.

Sean  4:53

How do you guys go about installing your pavers or your concrete or asphalt

Jerson  4:58

everything has like a different process or when it comes to any demolition needs to be done for our driveway. Because of the all the traffic that goes in and our cars, we need to you know, to the demolition, approximate nine or 10 inches and concrete and asphalt and also as pavers they have the similar Foundation which is our base rock compact that we level that we created and make sure that the water flow goes away from the house. And then it just varies on whether they want concrete with two or three bars. And you know, we skip the the bedding process which is like a top center we do underneath pavers, it’s kind of a smooth, smooth bedding that we use. It just depends on what what they want to do.

Sean  5:35

All right, let’s talk about specific case because I don’t know what bass rock is. I don’t know what rebar is. Go ahead and tell me this thing’s as if I’m you know, like a fifth grade.

Jerson  5:44

Yeah, okay, so a second base rock is just it’s kind of like recycled concrete crushed with a lot of like you know sand and rocks and they just mix it out together. So that’s like our main foundation that’s what we use all the time when we do anything you know from from as far from concrete or pavers

Sean  6:01

so wait so basically first thing you do is you come in you demolition the whole driveway right with like a jackhammer or something and you take out all that junk so now it’s just dirt I guess right?

Unknown Speaker  6:11

Yeah, so that was

Jerson  6:12

just third at that time we we make sure that we have that that we have those nine or 10 inches after that we would like to start a fabric underneath because we don’t want the soil and our foundation of MCs also this fabric helps us helps the weeds prevent the weeds from coming out. And you also from how it helps us like from preventing the papers from sinking later on the future. So it’s

Sean  6:35

like a plastic a kind of fabric like a tarp.

Jerson  6:38

Yeah, it’s kind of like a tarp cornucopia tremble a lot of water to go down you know it’s really it’s a really strong fabric. So we like to install that all the time either when we do artificial grass when we do that as in pavers concrete or asphalt would like to do that. Um after that is we we do bring in our base rock our new Foundation, which better all around so like I like I mentioned that just crushed concrete with with rocks and sand we leveled out the whole thing making sure that we still have those the space for the pavers and for the concrete after that after we grade eight we level they were great and make sure all the levels are right we start compact in it make sure that a foundation very steady very strong on that is set in then for doing concrete we start doing reverse rebar helps the concrete to be more stable and also to not crack in the future. Now we can’t guarantee that he won’t crack because any type of concrete and cracking the next day couple months years weeks and so I’m going to crack I’ve seen some houses that have concrete for over like 40 years and in very good conditions.

Sean  7:45

What is rebar,

Jerson  7:46

rebar is just just like a bar made out of metal it comes from different places depending on what we do when we do porches or when we do bigger things and involved more more concrete in a we do stronger rebar but usually for for driveways and walkways rebar that we use is like three and a quarter. So is

Sean  8:03

that basically like just reinforced concrete

bars. Yeah, I see just

Jerson  8:09

helps helps the concrete is reinforced concrete. Like I said he kind of prevents it from cracking but not 100%.

Sean  8:16

And what do you guys do to compact the what’s called the base rock

Jerson  8:20

jumping jack Are we just use our machine to come back there when we use the jumping jack when it comes to like walkways when are our compactor doesn’t fade on it. So we use that we probably do it around two to three times to make sure that everything’s really steady. Once we come back to it brings it down a little bit. So we’ll make sure that you know we fill it out, making sure that those levels are still good ones that he’s Welcome back to it and if we’re doing favors, we bring in a half an inch of a Thompson we spread it out, level it smooth. still keeping in mind that you know that grading that slope to allow the water to go away from the house. And after that, you know for papers is much simpler process would just make sure that the homeowner picks out the the pattern the colors for the border for the inside. And we go from there we start like I start placing it into the pattern.

Sean  9:11

Right and just like one square at a time for papers, right

Jerson  9:14

papers Yeah, my guys uh you know, the book is that we provide for the collect the catalogs, he already has kind of like the patterns that we that we work with. So they just start placing a pattern they follow that pattern consistently.

Sean  9:26

And then what are you guys put in between each paper so that they all stick together.

Jerson  9:31

So that’s like at the end of the process. So what we do is that for the for the inside and outside is different and for the inside, we just start placing the main on top of that bedding I called and after that is done we start doing all the border the border we make it out of concrete footing so it’s like four four driveways about nine to 10 inches. Mix it I was a man all that bass rock all the top sin and we mix it all with you man. And we just makes the whole thing out we smooth it out and we place in the the new papers in there. Now it’s not finished yet until you know we add Apollo Merrick said it’s just a standard goes in between all those drawings, he hardens the papers, keeps him in place and just gives you that finish look. He acts like a glue because once you mix it with water, well we we spread it all into all the joints, we broom the whole driveway the whole patio, he goes all in between the joints, we come back the pavers again. That way he moves the papers a little bit along and all that sensical all the way down fills up all the joints we watched the whole driveway the whole patio the walkway and the water just soaks in with the with the sand and hardens it and acts like a like a glue. So now it’s hard for us to even pull out a brick.

Sean  10:45

What are the different costs between asphalt concrete and pavers? How do you usually budget

Jerson  10:50

for square feet but everything changes that the question that I get a lot is that people call me up and they want to get a price per square feet because they want to see what come How much do they charge each company so then sometimes like homeowners already measure out their area and they just want to get a square footage price that way they know how you know they don’t have to make meetings to have companies take a look at it they just you know go from there and now I don’t really like to do that because I’ve done it in the past and it’s not the same as giving a price off on the fog on the phone then you know seeing it because you never know what’s on that side lean on that house. Sometimes the levels are not right so you have to do demolition, more demolition then then normally you have to take out more sand you have to take on more occur and two Holloway 30 is even more expensive than concrete. The thing is, I can make an appointment and I used to go from there but typically as far as much cheaper than concrete. concrete is much cheaper than pavers. But once you start getting into that that standard concrete or color concrete then you know the price goes up like if you were doing favor so I always recommend to do just pavers because like I said concrete in my crack in the future and as Fallout I’m not really a big fan of it you know homeowners if they were last fall will give them what they want.

Sean  12:02

As far as time very pretty I don’t think people usually get that nowadays anyways for as well.

Jerson  12:07

Yeah, yeah, I’ve a lot of people who have asked for right now that you’re starting to kind of you know, take all that away and just do like conquer or pavers Yeah, as far as not not so popular as papers are right now.

Sean  12:21

So imagine like a flat house Okay, there’s no crazy leveling needed. A typical driveway the 1000 square feet

Jerson  12:28

1000 square feet if you’re looking about probably concrete normal concrete that’s a 1000 square feet demolition normal as well you’re looking about 12,000 into like 13,000 now if you’re doing with pavers, you’re looking at into it from 15 to even 20 or $23,000 you all depends on what type of papers they choose as well there’s papers are, you know, probably $7 a square fee and then there’s other ones that are like $3 per square feet. So it all depends on material they use the you know things are coming to mind as well is that the patterns, the sizes of the papers all that so so that’s why he varies with concrete. It’s you know, typically around that that area from total 13,000 4000 square feet of our area, normal area demolition, no extra hauling away anything like that.

Sean  13:21

So besides driveways, you guys who do like landscaping parts as well, I saw scape. So tell me about that, what are the typical patterns that people usually doing now in the Bay Area,

Jerson  13:30

there was a whole thing going on with you know, like that drought that we couldn’t be using too much water. So a lot of people started taking all the grass and just putting drought resistant plants putting you know more ground cover rocks, things like that, every time I come in to look at a job and I see you know, they want to do a new driveway, a new patio, but then their their yard is kind of messy as well I give them an option and start giving them some some samples, some pictures that make it look nice. I mean, they end up spending a little more money but it’s not a crazy amount of money just it just makes the whole the whole job the whole project look nicer. You know, I’ve had some people to some fences are brand new, some are really old, they do you know, some hot half of the fans, they do it on you know the one that keep it old and at the end of the you know the job, they look at it and they want to do the whole thing because it doesn’t look good. So that’s what I feel like when I do on you dry away and their front yard is all messed up all full of weeds grass is dead and no plants are you know just they’re all dead irrigation is not working. So I always give them that option you know and once we’re there I always try to work out a price if we get the project I will try to work at a price that way they you know they get the whole the whole year complete by um I love doing autumn like ground covers a lot of most with you know, green plants and just like small little plants not too crazy. Over looks good and house

Sean  14:50

so much is basically just bark, right? What is what is much exactly

Jerson  14:53

molten bark, a lot of people get that mixed up. It’s like technically the same thing. Probably a lot of people know more jazz, like I kind of like the shredded pieces of like trees, like you just shredded and he just makes a lot of dust. When it rains, he gets really soggy, it gets really messy. So I really personally I don’t like I don’t like most as much as a bark. He just like I said, kinda like wood chips shopped around, but from the trees, they have, they come in different colors, you’re looking at some red ones, wine color, black, brown, things like that.

Sean  15:25

So you prefer to use bark on your projects.

Jerson  15:28

Yeah, I love to use bark, it’s it’s simple, it’s something easy to do. It’s not heavy, something that you can do really, really quick. We like to plant all the plans that need to be planted right away and after the last step will be doing the part just to fill in the hole areas. And before that, we also do install over wi fabric with staples to make sure that the weeds don’t come out. Now again, we can’t guarantee it because you know, birds and the wind always flies out a little seeds on it. So eventually, you know, in a couple weeks months, a little bit like some weeds start coming out. But not as much as you know, they usually do this, we don’t want to play that we fabric. And what I always tell the guys are the homeowners is just just start pulling, if you see a way to just pull it out, making sure that you know you’re taking care of it. If your gardener see they should be putting that out. That way doesn’t take control the whole garden.

Sean  16:16

So where the price for dry landscaping,

Jerson  16:18

I can say varies depending on a lot of people have areas where it’s too big, we have to follow a lot of dirt. Usually for Barack, we’re probably pricing it out like 152, even possibly $200 a yard that includes the material, and us picking it up and spreading it. We also start charging around 50 cents to $1 per square foot when we blow with fabric. And we also do for irrigation for valves. For balls, we’re looking at about 150 to $250 per valve that includes the valve itself, the wiring, and the connection, the drip lines as well, all the sprinklers that go to the plants and then plants he shows you were looking for one gallon, five gallons for 15 gallons, we kind of price it out from there as well.

Sean  17:05

So then how do you even how do you even create an irrigation drip system? Like what does that require?

Jerson  17:11

So it just a lot of people want to do drip lines. Rather than having sprinklers just you know, spraying all around. So we give them that option. It’s just, it’s just a black pipe, we connect to them involved. And we just want to pipe all around the system like all the wrong with the plants are. And out of that, you know, we just kind of like pop a little hole on it, and we connect to a small sprinkler next to the plant where it’s going to be watering it. So what that does is just you waters that only only water is only one plant at a time. I know it can be watering 20 plants, but you don’t see the water being you know, spread out everywhere. And you can just like we are just a handful waters that only plan that you place it in. The bad thing about that is it’s very sensible. Like some somebody could just come up with a knife. Or you know, you can some people you know, some kids, when they see something like that they start pulling it. If you have dogs, you know they can mess it up as well. So a lot of people don’t like that. I prefer doing that instead of just having sprinklers popping out as well, because he just waters a lot of things. And remember, if he’s watering a lot of things, a lot of like the whole area where there’s no plants, which are going to come out. Hmm, yeah, so and I think having a drip line is just more kind of like a more clean look. Because you don’t see it, we try to hide it under with some staples, we staple it down. After we do the wheat fabric, we stay for the the the whole black holes. And then on top of that we had the ground cover. But the drip line goes all the way to the bow. We connected there. And that’s what we do it

Sean  18:49

would even go throw away some of the stuff you said it costs more money to throw away dirt than my concrete. Why is that?

Jerson  18:55

Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know why it’s just, it just does. A lot of people get this a lot, you know, when when I do a backyard, a lot of people want us to give them a lot of discount because they don’t have concrete but they have a lot of dirt. And and they think that you know, it’s it’s easier because we have to break anything. But I was telling them you know, I can’t provide a lot of discount, because even even dirty, it’s more expensive than just you know, hauling away concrete. And the thing about it is that a lot of people don’t know, and they don’t take this in mind is that, you know, when when you have a level of they’re just just sitting there and you start you know, escalating around and you start pulling out there that there starts getting crazy. So let’s say they in your mind your calculator on two yards of dirt that you’re gonna haul away. Once you start digging and digging, instead of those two yards, you’re gonna start you know, you get like an extra yard because the dirty small compact data wants to start dating, you just get you know, it’s just spreads gets crazy. So you gotta kind of like know exactly what you’re looking at in terms of prices, as well, you can be, you know, providing a lot of discount just because it’s there. And you know, you don’t have to break anything, you know, and we just go to regular dumpsters, wherever we’re close by, we don’t like to waste too much time. Some dumpsters charged more than others. But all the time to get every dumpster dirt is more expensive to haul away. I think just because, you know, they can use it as much. The like I said, with concrete, when we dump it, you know, they have big machines, and they just crush the whole thing. And they make a shark out of it. So they’re making money out of it again, you know, we would pay them to dump it there. And then they make a whole new thing. And then they get more money out of it. So I think that, you know, that’s what they charge less to dump concrete and then soil.

Sean  20:37

good business model.

Jerson  20:38

It is Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of you know, a lot of minds of just a lot of accumulator base rock and a lot of truck just come in and just taking a lot, you know, because like I said, concrete pavers, and that’s how you use that foundation so that he used a lot and their issues, you know, they just dump it out there. And I don’t know exactly what they do with it.

Sean  20:59

So what’s the biggest job you’ve ever done?

Jerson  21:01

Currently, I’m I’m doing that job right now. Actually, when I started, it was like about a year, a year, year and a half ago, I got into high school. And I started getting into my dad’s business. And I started talking to clients, my third month into the company. I landed a job. I was I was working at a job I was doing some some sort some normal grass was like 200 square feet. I remember that day, the guy called me he said, hey, look, I found your website, come take a look at this job. And he said it’s pretty big, you know, and I have a lot of ideas. And that job was around 60,000 saw was impressed it was only my third month into the company had just landed that job. And I was really excited. And then recently I’ve been getting a lot of calls and a lot of the the prices that I send out, come out to like from 50 to 60. And not too long ago, I just landed a job that was around 51,000 I started selling a little bit more things to the guy he I saw a new fans, right? No added a fans, I saw that he needed he wanted to. He wasn’t sure if you wanted to do a patio now or just wait a couple more months. And I kind of convinced him to do and now neither were there. And then he wants a new retaining wall. So at the end, I did the whole call everything came out to 68,000. And we started working in that one product around three weeks ago. So we’re we’re still in that one. So I think that’s been the biggest one that we’ve gotten so far. I know I sent out a quote, a week ago for a job that it was 19 97,000 you know, after 10 I didn’t end up getting it. I did not end up getting it. But that’s been the biggest job that I’ve given a bit. Yeah, it was a huge ass.

Sean  22:42

I’m sure. Atherton. I mean, and they probably don’t care as much, right? I know someone and they spend I think was 900 bucks a month just on lawn maintenance. Because they do twice a week. They want a lawn like a golf course.

Jerson  22:56

100 a month? Well,

Sean  22:57

I think so. I’m not entirely sure. It’s like I heard from somewhere else. Right? Yeah.

Jerson  23:02

You know, if you hit Atherton, it’s where the kinda you know, big buck is a lot of a lot of people with a lot of money there. So yeah, I mean, one thing when the guy told me he’s like, Oh, I live in at their channel. I just built this new house and we’re not finished yet. But what I want to get a price. I just knew right away that he was going to be 50,000 Plus, you know, job. I was like, there’s no way it can be less than that. He said, he told me over the phone is a new driveway, all the way to the back. He said new lawn, trees, fences, everything. And I was like, you know, it’s after 10 he’s gotta gotta be at least 50 and up. So I caught him around a five grand. I think another company got it. I drove by a couple days ago. And they still haven’t started anything there. But yeah, the guy told me that he went with another party. But, I mean, sometimes jobs are just not for you. You know, sometimes, you know, jobs come and go. And some jobs that are meant for you. They’re meant for you. Some are not. But right now I’m super busy. So if I would have got into a job, I wouldn’t be able to start it for like a month from now. Maybe Jeez.

Sean  24:01

So I guess that’s good. You know, business good

Jerson  24:03

business. Good. Yeah. But I just I just love to get more guys, you know, I like to have jobs kind of lined up, making sure that my guys are you know, are busy making sure that we’re busy, that we have somewhere to go. As soon as we finish one, we got another place to go. So I like that, you know, I like that feeling. I like that feeling that I get when when I get a text message or call or an email saying, okay, you know, we like we like to go with you. We’re ready to you know, proceed. What’s the next step? So I just I like that feeling. You know, I like to celebrate it to myself sometimes when I get there. I don’t know, just a good feeling. And then when they told me, you know, we like to go with another party. It gets me a little bit sad. But then I start thinking I’m like, okay, maybe you just you just wasn’t for me, you know?

Sean  24:43

That’s right. I mean, there’s only gonna be there’s always going to be next deals. Yeah.

Jerson  24:46

Yeah, you got to learn how to take in all those times, you know, you got to take those. Those losses, you know, some jobs are for you, some jobs are not and my dad always tells me, you know, their job wasn’t for you, maybe you weren’t going to make enough money, maybe you were going to know have a headache throughout the whole job because maybe the homeowner was complicated. And then God you didn’t get it, right. So kind of like that positive attitude the whole time. It’s just that positive vibe all the time, just being really positive, not worrying about stuff too much. And I like to stay that way too. But like I said, I get really happy when I get that call and they tell me you know, you got it. So

Sean  25:20

So what is the most difficult part of your of your job?

Jerson  25:25

The most difficult part of my job, I think I have a lot of areas that I you know, that are very hard for me. So technically, I don’t I don’t really stay at a job site for more than 30 minutes or an hour. I think the most high standard job sites probably 3030 minutes are on there. Because I have to go somewhere I have to go to another I have to go to a meeting or I have to go to another job site. I have to go get materials have to go meet up my dad I have to go you know do some paperwork. Or my dad you know something he’s busy he gives me a call He wants me to go to appointment that he’s you know, he’s going to run day to so things like that homeowners job though we’re at right now home, where do they call it the want to talk to all the the one add new teams are gonna want to take things out from from the original contracts or out to be available all the time. So I think I think about like, the hardest thing about my, my job is probably the timing, the you know, I have I wake up and I got to make sure that the guys are, you know, they need what they have what they need, I got to make sure that you know where they go, they have everything there have to mature the job, the where right now they’re covered, have people there, to make sure that the guys get there on time, have to make sure that you know, all the materials arrive on time. And I just keep track on all the calls that I sent, you know, if I don’t hear back from our homeowner, in the next two days, I give them a text and I just tell them hey, you know, I’m just wondering if you’re still interested in that, you know, quota we send over, and some get back to me some don’t. So it’s just I think that that management, I think that’s the business the business stems from, you have to manage the whole company. And my dad right now what he does, he just, he just goes to the job sites as well, he just takes a look at AE, runs errands and stuff like that. But now he wants me to kind of like start taking charge of all that. And I tell him, you know, it’s good that he’s been doing this for more than more than 17 years. So I think he should kind of like, take some time off, just relax a little bit not put too much pressure on it. But now all that pressure is going on to me. So I think that management, is that the hardest part for me to do it, especially at a young age?

Sean  27:22

Sure. And is there something that you wish your clients knew that they often don’t know?

Jerson  27:27

You know, I get a lot of, yeah, you know, I get a lot of clients that they want to add small things to, to their, to their job. And they think you know, because it’s such a small thing, it’s shouldn’t be too expensive, we should be you know, sometimes throwing for free. And it’s hard to to let them know, you know, that time is money, it’s hard to let them know that you know, the time that I waste to get the materials that I need for that small area, my gas, you know, my time the meetings that I have to postpone or the meetings, I have to you know, tell them I’m I’ll be running late, because you know how to do something knows all that, you know, they don’t take all that in mind. So I have some people just you know, they want to do like a new, small, small retaining wall, probably like 10 feet long, and probably a foot high in the thing, you know, I charge them, I charge them, you know, not not so much but not you know, enough to cover my time my labor and materials. And when they see the area, and they’re like, Oh, it’s so small, you know, it shouldn’t be that much, they don’t take in mind that my guys have to take half of the day to work on that, you know, and then they lose, you know, the other half. And they have to do that they have to run to the store, get those materials, I have to you know, go over here make the paperwork for a change order. I like to have everything in contract, I like to have everything on paper signed by them, making sure that you know, later on, they told me you know, the sign the paper that they’re going to pay me that the that area cuz I have some clients at the end, you know, they kind of don’t want to pay more or they think that you know, small things like that should be kind of thrown in for free. So I think that for my clients, something that I would like them to know is just that know, even the smallest things, you know, cost a lot of money not probably just not because like you know, the way it looks, but the time the effort that we have to put in and things like that.

Sean  29:11

Very good point. So what’s next for you and your company,

Jerson  29:14

I have a lot of ideas, I have a lot of ideas, I’ve you know, how vision I was told my dad, I don’t want to just own you know, this company I kind of want to have more things out there. I want to I want to kind of like have our company known not only in the landscaping area but also kind of like you know, making houses we that’s been a dream of mine I would like to later on build a house for for my family for myself and the way I want it and do the landscape the one the one the way I want it, you know so me doing the business that I do I now have a lot of contacts and a lot of people who do roofing general contractors, you know, people that do the same job as I do sometime when I’m really really busy and you know, I give it to them a little small profit, you know, and they take charge of that. But I told my dad you know, I don’t want to just have CFPB and I don’t just want to have that company I kind of want to have something else you know I’m looking forward to kind of expand this company into something big you know, also as well kinda like invest in houses and you know, like just say that you know CFPB did this house or you know, we build this whole house or we’re investing in other other companies as well making small companies grow you know, so kind of partner up with other companies as well just I think that that’s my my my biggest vision right now is just kind of expanding it not only into the landscape in harsh scape but to other areas as well

Sean  30:39

give me tips what’s the most effective use of someone’s money if they want to present their driveway for when they’re going to put on the market

Jerson  30:46

so I think it’s just you know, the tip is like if you’re looking to kind of like just sell the house and make some profit out of it make it look nice you don’t have to go super fancy or anything like that you know just something smaller you do a house he increases the value you know if you ever turn off fans and you make that fans whole new you know brings couple cousins out up to the valley for the house you know a lot of people they like to stay simple and all nice colors really nice they don’t like to go to too bad so no jobs like that. I like to job like that I like you know when somebody comes and tells me you know I want $10,000 worth of job I want 20,000 30,000 or now they they they told me a budget already have in mind and I kind of like design them an idea and I tell them you know this is going to look nice is going to increase your value and things like that. So you don’t have to go crazy all the time you don’t have to like make the whole thing look you know astonish put lights in a coup I mean, we can do lighting, we can do lights on the borders for the driveway for walkways. Makes it look really nice but it’s while you’re spending a lot of money when when you do that. So I think just that tip is that you know you have to go crazy in order to kind of add value to your house or something smaller you do you know he’s making the lawn you know, new irrigation plans, things like that.

Sean  31:58

And like yeah, it doesn’t cause like $10,000 to like kind of work right? I mean,

Jerson  32:02

if you’re looking just to kind of do normal grass probably two 300 square feet of normal grass, you know, small plants around you’re probably looking at about 3000 you know 3500 keeping it under those like $5,000 range that’s that I think that’s a reasonable amount of spending a front yard with all new plants you know, some fruit trees and some some mulch, some ground cover and all new irrigation things like that some stepping stone so you can you know walk around there Yeah, we can keep it under like five grand

Sean  32:34

yeah and it makes such a huge difference right that curb appeal so worth it

Jerson  32:37

you know, you have a lot of weeks and then all of a sudden we take all that out and we just you know do that landscape ground cover small plans really colorful plans make make the house look really nice. We kind of like like to combine the ground cover which is like bark or pebbles or pea gravel close to the color of the house or or to the driveway or things that that’s what makes it look nice. And just small things like that make a huge difference and a huge impact on the value of the house.

Sean  33:05

So where do you guys usually service

Jerson  33:06

so we service everywhere in all the area I’ll have some people you know like they like to buy houses and flip them but they don’t do too many here in this area and I always tell them if the price is good. And you accept you accept the price. We’re willing to go even a Santa Rosa, we go to Tracy Livermore we go everywhere you know having Bay we right now I’m currently a lot of in the Peters in Los Altos, San Jose, I’m in I’m in Mountain View in Sunnyvale. And in those areas right now, but no, my dad has done houses over there in Santa Rosa, you know. And like I said, if the job is right, you know the job, he’s gonna leave with enough profit to travel that distance. Were able to take it on.

Sean  33:49

Is there any final words like to say before we end the show today?

Jerson  33:53

Yeah, I want to say thank you for having me here on the show. You know, I hope that we can work on the future for more houses and you know, any anybody out there listening and investors who want to do something smaller power something big, they want to sell their house don’t want to do any cleanup, you know, you know, they can contact us CRPV No job is too small or too big for us. You know, we like to take out any jobs. I like to see the happiness on people when they see their yards just already knew the DC the yard on you and everything. And I’ve got some people telling me that they haven’t used a whole backyard in months because it’s been a disaster. And we come in and then their kids are out there playing and everything. So we like to see the happiness. We like to bring things out to life.

Sean  34:35

I mean, that’s my backyard. You just see my house house. Oh, it’s a mess. Dude, I just had a mastermind at my house today with a bunch of people we all came through. And then they looked at my backyard. They’re like, hey, Sean, would you like a cash offer for your home? Like

Jerson  34:52

it’s really crazy. Cuz, you know, my dad always tells me in this house, we you know, a lot of gardeners live here because I’m myself. I also have like a, like around 30 houses that I have a crew that cleans it on Friday and Saturdays, we do regular maintenance. So I have all those machinery, you know, law, Moore’s leaf blowers have everything. Um, and our front and backyard. It’s also you know, full of weeds disaster, you know, so my dad tells me, landscapers live in this house and look at our house. And you know, we keep we keep all the houses really, really nice, beautiful looking. And our house is all a mess, you know? So I tell them that I’m too tired to be keeping my house, since I want to go out and look for a gardener to complete my house. And then I’m just like, Man, I’m a gardener myself. So it’s crazy. It’s crazy. Because I mean, we get too busy. And like, like you said, sometimes we don’t you know, I don’t take care of my yard. And it’s just it’s a mess here. But when we go to the houses, I want everything to look really nice. No weeds anywhere. I come home a lot of times again next week. Maybe I’ll clean that out next week. And it goes on and off.

Sean  35:54

Yeah, that’s just how it is like I’m a house flipper. My house is I flipped really great, right? My own house is so crappy. It’s so odd. Yeah, it is. Alright, cool. So how can people get in contact with you.

Jerson  36:09

So I’m recently actually just made a wall just made an Instagram page not too long ago, like two days ago, you guys can check out I’m gonna be posting a lot of videos and a lot of pictures there of like, before and after. That’s something I really like to do with something. And I’d also have I’m an idea guy, I told my dad you know what, I’m gonna go to BestBuy buy a drone, I bought a drone. And I like to take pictures of houses before we started them after and throughout the process. So we start making it I start making a catalog, put the address and when people ask me, you know, have you done, you know, a wall, have you done privately say this, you know, I can look back through those catalogs and tell them this, I look, this I looks now. So let’s take pictures. So that’s what I’m gonna be doing right now about our professional cameras, water, take pictures, so I can upload them on my new Instagram page. We also have one our website create a couple years ago. It’s a car payment and landscaping calm phone number as well, you can either contact me or my dad, my phone number is just 650-861-9067. And we also have a Facebook page, car paving, and Yellow Page car paving and landscaping perfect.

Sean  37:15

I think that’s really smart idea, like getting more content out there showing your videos of before and after the can see your work, they can know who you are, if you’re talking about oh, this is the kind of job we did, yeah, and post them on YouTube or post on Instagram. You can also write blog posts to I would say, Oh, you know, top 10 ways to keep your garden fresh or like here the top ways to make your garden wireless or whatever here the top 10 paper patterns, etc, etc,

Jerson  37:39

I was thinking about that i was i was going on YouTube the other day, and I was just you know, kind of checking out like, you know, what I want new ideas on, you know, yards, how people are doing that, right now how people are maintaining or how they’re updating their yards. And, and I start seeing a lot of companies or start, you know, this whole $20,000 job looks like. And then you know, they they record from day one today, you know, to the last day. And they do like a time lapse, he goes wrong really fast. But it just is really nice. You know how they work how the whole process, a lot of people go on there and they see it. And I think that’s that’s a good way to kind of put your company out there. So the things that I got to take in mind, just like, like I mentioned earlier in the video, I have to kind of manage my time, make sure that I have all that time to, you know, to add those more things. But like right now, I just created that instrument page. I’m hoping to get a lot of followers or people who own houses who like to invest in houses as yourself and they see the jobs that we do and start you know, contact us from there. So I like to have my name out there. My dad is just, you know, he’s like I said, He’s like a calm guy. We get a lot of jobs from you know, references out of friends and colleagues. You know, sometimes it’s crazy because I got I did a job a couple months ago in San Bruno, a lady in the hospital. She works at Stanford, and then we just did one here by my house. And one this lady said Oh, I’m I’m looking forward to have a gardener and then this guy herder. He’s like, Oh, you should contact you know, Jerseyans, you’re paving and she’s like, Oh, you know he does my gardening right now. He’s you know, so I was doing two guys at that same job and you know, it’s a small world a lot of people sometimes people here you know, other people want to do their yards and we work with them in the past and they recommend is a lot so right now the a lot of jobs that we’re doing our recommendations, a lot of family members, friends, and something that I also started doing not too long ago is that I tell the homeowners if you have friends who want to do a yard to clean up pavers whatever, we are starting to do a little bonus you know depending on how big the job is we give you you know, we come in, we sign off we sign a contract with your friend or with your family member we let you know and we also come and drop off like a small you know cashier’s check of a small bonus you know it can be anything from 152 like $600 $700 yes for giving us the you know that contact information wind up signing a job. We I just I just signed a job as a 59,000 in San Jose Cagni Peters area. It was from a friend You know, he went to his backyard he saw he he told us you know, I want you guys to do our our job. And he’s found was talking about a good things about us. So he’s friend give me a call like two weeks ago, he said, You know, I’m ready, come give me a quote. My goal was a little higher than the rest of the other companies. And he told me in he said, but he already seen your job already seen how you work. So I wanted to put in that extra little, you know, more money into it. Because, you know, I already saw the job that you did for my friend. So I signed a contract with them. And I gave his his friend a small, small bonus for for doing that. So a lot of people out there, you know, if you guys just want to make a small little profit, you know, 200 $600 just, you know, tell your friends that we’re out here that you know, we’re willing to do yours pretty good. You try always make them on you. And yeah, that’s that’s some way you can get a little bit more money.

Sean  40:56

Nice. I mean, without even asking for referral bonus, you know, I’m sure I’m here today, because you guys have did my projects on Newhall Street and on some Miguel. So if anyone who’s listening now they can go check out my website, everything. Rei. com slash projects. And you can check out some of my projects on Johan Sebago and see their work for my driveways. That’s right, yeah,

Jerson  41:16

their job came out pretty good. I wish we could have done the whole, you know, the whole driveway. But I can say, you know, you were trying to sell the house, we kept it into that budget. But

Sean  41:26

I know if we did the whole thing, it would have been even better. And But hey, man, that’s what was what our budgets were right?

Jerson  41:33

You have a budget of working, I respect that. I mean, we still did a lot of things there was still you know, we still gotta you know, I drive by there, I actually have one of your neighbors. Well, one of the guys who lived around the corner, he he gave me a call last week told me he wanted to call for a new driveway. So I gave him a call. I gotta check up with him again. I gotta ask him if he’s still interested, he want to do is drive away exactly the way you do yours. So some people drive by in the car job and they you know, I like it. I want to I want to get a quote from you guys and 5050 sometimes we get it sometime without you know.

Sean  42:07

Sorry, man. But you guys keep doing good job, you’re gonna get more referrals, and it’s gonna be all good. In the end.

Jerson  42:12

Yeah, no, I also, you know, I always thank God for everything that he’s done. I’m a young guy, you know, I’m a young parent, and I’m over here, you know, just been very successful in life. blessed to have what I have blessed to have. My dad started this company, letting me take over me and my brother, my brother doesn’t really do much except for designing and contracts. He, he’s a very shy person, he doesn’t like to go and talk to homeowners. So it’s always me, you know, and I love to do that. So I think loving to do what you you know, like a job that you love to do. It’s a job that you’re going to do good in, you know, in the future, in the long run, it’s a job that you’re going to succeed in. Because if you love to do what you’re doing right now, you know, you should just keep keep doing it, no matter what people tell, you know, I mean, I didn’t I didn’t finish college, I’m thinking about going to college. But it just is too much time that this company is taking over for me right now. But I just love it. I just love to do what I’m doing right now. And the money that I make, I think it’s enough for me to, you know, support my family and pay for everything that I’m paying for giving myself some luxurious things. You know, treat yourself, you know, you gotta treat yourself all the time. And every time I learned the contract, I go to the store. I buy just stupid. Yeah, you gotta you gotta know how to treat yourself. You know, all that money that you make hard effort, hard, you know, hard work. You gotta go out and kind of enjoy it as well.

Sean  43:32

Oh, yeah. Work hard. Play hard. Yeah. Alright, very cool, man. So thanks a lot for all your help today, or thanks a lot for all the tips you gave today about, you know, telling us about landscaping and housekeeping. And, you know, looking forward to work with you again in the future.

Jerson  43:46

Oh, yeah, totally meet you. You know, I really, like I said, I want to get in that world I invest in I want to invest in houses. So you know, you can learn a lot from us. I’m pretty sure we’re going to learn a lot from you. And you know, other other friends that you have a lot of investors. Yeah, so like I said, you know, if you’re a new investor who’s just starting up, bought our first house, don’t want to spend too much money is by doing something small in your front yard can increase the value of the house, you don’t have to go crazy, you know.

Sean  44:13

Alright, man. So thank you again. And I’ll see you around next time. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Here are some of the key takeaways from this episode. concrete and asphalt are the cheapest ways to redo your driveway. But asphalt doesn’t look good. And concrete cracks relatively quickly. Jason recommends his buyers to use pavers because they look better, they last longer, and they’re only moderately more expensive. When it comes to prices and quotes. It’s not about just getting $1 per square foot price. These prices can vary depending on what the landscape looks like. So make sure the contractor actually gets a walk the job before giving you a bit. If you’re interested in working with Jason’s team, give them a call. You can find more information in the show notes on our site. Everything rei.com hope you learned a lot. Thanks and have a great day. This was another episode of The everything real estate investing show. Sean Did you enjoy the show? Give us a five star rating will take less than a second and they’ll help a lot. You can contact me at sean penn realty at GO. com. That’s svanpanraotyigo.com Thanks. Have a great day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai