No Money for Real Estate? 2 Side Hustles You Can Use to Fund Your First Deal

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 294.

Ava:
We were making about 10 grand a month with couch flipping. On average, I would say if you’re like consistent and dedicated, you could do anywhere from 2 to 5 a week.

Josh:
You don’t want to drive 10 miles delivering $20 in food, and you make a $2 tip. There’s DoorDashers making $10 an hour, and then there’s other ones making 40 or 50.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr and I’m here with my co-host, Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast where every week, twice a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. And Rookies, we got a great, great episode for y’all today. We’ve been torn around with this concept in the background for a while now, but one of the biggest obstacles or challenges that we hear from aspiring investors is the capital that’s required to get started. While there are certain types of real estate investing or strategies where you can get in for little to no capital, a lot of times you need some cash to get started. And we thought what better way to overcome that obstacle than bring back some previous guests from the Rookie show and from the Real Estate Podcast who used their side hustles to fund their real estate business. So today we’ve got Ava Yuergens and Josh Janus to come back and talk about their side hustles and how they use that to fuel their real estate business.

Ashley:
Then at the end of the episode, we kind of break down three different criterias that we have set as to how to weigh out these two side hustles. And the first one is upfront capital, income potential, and then passiveness, what is the time commitment. And then we kind of threw in a fourth one there too as to, what is the risk? How much money could you lose on this? So make sure you guys listen all the way through and kind of check these out. Maybe one of these side hustles will be great for you, guys. Make sure to leave a review on YouTube or wherever you may be listening and let us know if you like these Side Hustle episodes. I think they’re great for everyone listening, but also if you have kids and you want them to start making money somehow, this may be a great episode to have them listen to.

Tony:
Yeah. And honestly, that was part of how this whole episode came to be, was because my son’s 15 and he’s trying to save up for his car right now and he’s debating on these different side hustle ideas and we thought it’d be cool to hear firsthand from folks. So maybe we’ll get my son Shawn in one of these episodes in the future as well so he can interview some folks firsthand.
But just a few quick housekeeping things before we jump into Josh and Ava’s episode. If you guys can head over to biggerpockets.com/reply, we’ve got a new landing page up where you can submit your questions for the Real Estate Rookie Reply episodes. We’d love to hear from our Rookie audience. It’s one of our favorite types of episodes to do, is to hear from y’all and answer your questions directly.
And second, I got to give a shout-out to someone by the username of Nico and Casey. They left us a really heartfelt five-star review on Apple Podcasts. The title of their review is My Lighthouse in the Storm. It’s a very deep and touching title, but Nico and Casey say, “There is so much advice out there. Most of it’s contradictory for real estate investing that it feels like you’re being tossed about in the ocean during a storm. There seems to be risk and the potential for losing large sums of money no matter where you decided to go. Worst of all, you feel like you were in it alone. BiggerPockets and particularly the Real Estate Rookie Podcast has been my guiding light. Your advice is sound and the guests you interview remind me that anyone can start this journey. I haven’t closed on my first deal yet, but I’ve been making many connections in and out of state, and it’s only a matter of time. Keep up the great work.”
Nico and Casey, probably one of my favorite reviews I’ve read as of late. We appreciate that. For all of our Rookies that are listening, if you haven’t yet, please do leave us an honest rating review on whatever platform it’s you’re listening to. The more reviews we get, the more folks we can reach. And more folks who reach, more folks we can help.

Ashley:
Ava and Josh, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time today to teach us about your side hustles. I want to start off with you guys telling everyone a little bit about yourself. Ava, we’ve had you before on the Rookie Podcast. Josh, you were on the podcast with David for the BiggerPockets Podcast. So let’s jump in with you. Ava, can you start off with telling us just a little bit about yourself and what side hustle you are going to be teaching us today?

Ava:
Yeah. So hi, my name’s Ava Yuergens. I started a real estate investing company when I was 15 with my now fiance, Ben. We were able to acquire 900K in residential real estate before I graduated high school. And now, basically we were able to acquire a lot of real estate because of this side hustle called couch flipping, which we will talk more about today.

Ashley:
And Josh, what about you?

Josh:
Hey, I’m Josh Janus. I’m 22. I am a real estate agent and investor based in Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio. Basically I was DoorDashing as I’ll talk about later in college, not really knowing what my journey was going to be. I was listening to the BiggerPockets Podcast and listening to all their educational material regarding finances and real estate, and that led into where I am today.

Ashley:
So Ava, you were on episode 271 of the Rookie Podcast and Josh was on episode 749 of the Real Estate Podcast. So thank you guys so much for coming back. We want to break down these side hustles so at the end of this episode, someone listening can go out and replicate what you guys did or maybe something very similar. So Josh, how did you even hear about your side hustle and doing DoorDash?

Josh:
Yeah, I didn’t really want to work a traditional job. I wanted to work a job where I could maybe listen to podcasts or audiobooks or do something while working to try to improve my overall education. So I was just kind of Googling what could you do. I had a car, I had some money saved up, but I didn’t have anything particular. I think some Uber Eats ads popped up. I was like, “Oh, maybe I’ll try that out.”

Tony:
Josh, it’s such a weird world that we live in now. My wife and I, we’re notorious for not cooking. 90% of the food that we eat gets delivered by someone else. So either we’re Instacart-ing from the grocery store or we’re doing DoorDash or all these other things. So it’s cool that there’s side hustles out there that people can use through that kind of stuff. So you hear about DoorDash. I mean, how old were you at the time when you started?

Josh:
18 or 19.

Tony:
I mean, as an 18 or 19 year old, was there any hesitation about driving around your local city delivering food to strangers? I think for a lot of people, that might be part of the hesitation around DoorDash. I might be getting ahead of myself, but just, I don’t know, all the interaction with strangers, was that a concern for you at all?

Josh:
Yeah, I mean a little bit. Just navigating, like figuring out where to go. Some people’s apartment complexes or building arrangements could be complicated to somebody that isn’t experienced to it, I guess. So that might make people nervous.

Tony:
So let me ask this, man. Who do you feel is the ideal person to take up the side hustle? What are some of the skills or traits or tools that someone needs to be successful doing this?

Josh:
I think it’s somebody that’s self-driven because you really only get paid for as much as you work. But at the same time, you can be really flexible with it. You don’t have to do it a set number of hours or set number of days. There’s always those commercials talking about it, but it’s true, you can set your own schedule.

Ashley:
And Josh, what made this a good fit for you? Was it the schedule or was it something else that really enticed you as to this is something you wanted to do?

Josh:
For sure. It was definitely the scheduling because I had classes during the day and I wanted to find something that I could make money with after school or in general, between 5:00 and 9:00. I don’t want to be out too late. And then I also wanted to be able to either listen to books, audiobooks, podcasts, et cetera. And this job allows you to do that almost the entire time.

Ashley:
Josh, can you just explain how it is flexible? How are you setting your own schedule? Is there an app you’re going into and putting in when you’re available to work? Do you have to set it ahead of time? Can you just give us the glimpse as to how exactly you are setting your own schedule?

Josh:
So certain markets, you’ll actually have to set your schedule in advance because it’s competitive. Wherever hours was working, you can just log on and start working and you don’t really have to tell anybody when you’re going to do it. So it’s kind of the ultimate level of freedom.

Tony:
Josh, this isn’t necessarily about the side hustle, but you talked a lot about wanting to have the freedom to listen to podcasts and all this other stuff. Just out of curiosity because you said you were 18, 19 at the time, what sparked that initial interest for you?

Josh:
Yeah, I’ve always been kind of entrepreneurial. I made duct tape wallets, sold shoes, sold virtual currency. I kind of had some money saved up and I didn’t really know where to take that, but I figured if I just kept jamming information in my head, eventually I’d figure something out.

Tony:
I love that, man. We got to have both you and Ava back because I know both of you guys have multiple side houses that you’ve tried. Next question for you, Josh, what was the cost of entry? What were the startup costs for you to get the side hustle rolling?

Josh:
If you have a car that’s within the last 10 years, I believe that’s their guidance. And you have a valid driver’s license and you have enough money to pay for gas in the beginning, that’s really all you need. You can borrow somebody else’s car and rent it, but yeah.

Ashley:
I didn’t realize that you needed to have a car within the past 10 years. Is that just because they want your car to be reliable so that the food is actually getting delivered and there’s less risk of breaking down?

Josh:
Yes.

Ashley:
Okay.

Josh:
Yeah, I had a couple, one or two flat tires they actually would assist in paying for, which is kind of helpful.

Tony:
I was going to ask, because I know I’ve heard Uber, I’ve been in Ubers before where the driver says, “Oh, this isn’t even my car. I’m renting this car from Uber.” And Uber will rent you a car. They take care of all the maintenance and the service. So just for anyone else that’s thinking of… Even if you don’t have a car, some of these gig based things will actually give you a vehicle and then you just have to do the work of actually driving it around.

Ashley:
Yeah. And Josh, you mentioned right there that they helped you with your tires. Did they give you money when you got flat tires? Or how did they assist you with that?

Josh:
I believe they did credit me for a flat tire and they also paid me for what I would’ve made if I completed the delivery. I think it was both. I could be wrong, but…

Ashley:
Oh, that’s interesting. Okay. So Josh, you’ve started your gig. Were there any other kind of startup costs besides having a vehicle and having to spend money on gas?

Josh:
If you buy a magnetic thing to put on your car by your front windshield, that’s very helpful. So you’re not constantly looking down, a good set of headphones, have some snacks, have some water in your car, and just be ready to just live in your car for a couple hours a day.

Tony:
Basically, Josh, it sounds like the startup cost for this are relatively nothing, right? Most people already have a vehicle. Most people already have what they need to get started. So if I wanted to right now, I could probably start making money with this side hustle tonight if I wanted to?

Josh:
Yeah. The actual registration sign up was a couple days.

Ashley:
Okay. And then Josh, once you got going, how long was it? So since that initial day you started the signup process, how long until you actually made your first dollar?

Josh:
I made money on the first delivery. So you make money right away. You get paid out once a week, so you wait a couple days to actually get it. But you need to learn what is a good delivery to take and what isn’t. So making sure people are tipping you and things like that. But really you get paid from day one.

Ashley:
Yeah. How do you tell what is a good delivery or a bad delivery? I didn’t even know that there was actually a difference.

Josh:
Oh, yeah. I mean there’s Door Dashers making $10 an hour and then there’s other ones making 40 or 50 because you have to learn how like… You don’t want to drive 10 miles delivering $20 in food and you make a $2 tip and it takes you an hour round trip. But maybe you drive 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back and you make $9 and you waited five, 10 minutes at the store. That’s a lot better utilization of your time. So I think DoorDash really allows you to learn the value of time as well.

Ashley:
So are you able to see? Like when an order comes in, are you able to see all of that information as to what the tip will be, where the food is that you’re picking up, where you’re dropping off?

Josh:
You’ll see where it is and you’ll see where it’s going. They hide the tips. You can go on Reddit and other forums and figure out how they hide it and learn it. But for the most part, it’s very transparent. And actually, every single delivery is like its own independent contract. So you can either accept it or deny it and get another one presented to you.

Ashley:
Oh, so even after when you accept it, you can see all the information and then you can go back and cancel it and then go and take another one?

Josh:
Yeah.

Ashley:
Oh, okay.

Tony:
Does DoorDash help you optimize your routes as you’re going through this? Because you talked about making sure that you’re getting the best return on your time. Does it have a routing functionality that says, “If you’re picking up multiple deliveries, go here, then here, then drop off in this sequence”? Or do you have to figure that out yourself?

Josh:
It does do that, yeah. If you’re in an area, if you’re in a city or somewhere busy, it works really well. If you’re kind of doing it in the middle of nowhere a little bit I was doing, it’s not as great, but yeah.

Tony:
That’s pretty cool. Ash, I don’t think I’ve ever shared this with you before either, but I have such a colorful history. But when I was in college, me and my friends had a startup and it was called Tumee, T-U-M-E-E. And this was before DoorDash and Uber Eats really blew up. They were just early phase startups and we were trying to essentially be the kayak for deliveries. So if you went to Tumee, you would put in what you wanted and then it would give you the best price between DoorDash, Postmates, and whatever the other apps were at the time. We never really got off the ground. We had a really cool looking app where we couldn’t get funding. But I don’t know, just tidbit for you to know more about Tony’s history.

Ashley:
Yeah, always having you surprise us with all these ventures or jobs or different things you did.

Tony:
All right, Josh, so next question for you here, brother. And this might be a silly question, but how many people are on your team to do this DoorDash thing? Are you always by yourself? Are you tag teaming with a buddy? What does that look like?

Josh:
I had a friend that did it along with me, so we would be on calls sometimes. But the way to that I grew it was I started to use multiple apps at the same time. And then once I got the hang of that, I actually used multiple phones to get different orders. And you try to line everything up. You don’t want to have people wait too long for their food. You got to be strategic with it. But if you do it right, you can do pretty well with it.

Tony:
Wait, so walk me through why you need multiple phones. Why can’t you do it all with one phone?

Josh:
Because you could potentially get two similar delivery requests on two different accounts that maybe one house is two miles away from the other and you wouldn’t necessarily get both of those requests at the same time on the first phone. So you can kind of stack deliveries that way.

Ashley:
So it’s almost like you’re two people then? You’re signed in on under different logins to the app?

Josh:
Yeah, you’re essentially two people. Yep.

Tony:
So what’s the most number of phones you’ve been logged into at one time? You got five phones that you’re running around with doing-

Josh:
No, that that’d be pretty chaotic. Just two. I think I’ve had six different deliveries on my car once. I think that was my max.

Ashley:
Well, all I could think about is that song. I got two phones. One for the [inaudible 00:16:10].

Tony:
Yeah.

Ashley:
Okay. Well awesome, Josh. We just want to kind of dive in and get the background information on DoorDash. And now we’re going to turn it over to Ava. So Ava, how did you hear about the side hustle that you chose?

Ava:
We found couch flipping just because we searched up on YouTube, just side hustle ideas and couch flipping just seemed like the most intriguing one.

Tony:
Just, Ava, I think everyone understands what DoorDash and Postmates are, but for folks that maybe haven’t heard of couch flipping before, can you just even define what that means? What does it mean to flip a couch?

Ava:
Yeah, I’ll just go step by step. So the first step is you go on apps like Facebook Marketplace OfferUp. And then you look for couches that people are selling that are just underpriced or maybe need a clean and you could sell it for higher. But then you basically just make your offer. You can low ball it just like real estate. And you get the couch, you can clean it or if it doesn’t need cleaning, you just leave it as it is. But then you take really good pictures and then you upload it back on those apps for just a higher price.

Tony:
So you’re literally almost like flipping a house, but you’re flipping a couch. You’re flipping furniture that people have. That’s wild. So who is this side hustle for? What are some of the skills or traits you need to be successful with couch flipping?

Ava:
I would say kind of like DoorDash, you figure out what couches are going to be the most profitable and what ones just aren’t worth your time. I would say it’s not necessarily a skill, it’s just something you learn over time. But I would say you do need to have some muscle, have some meat on your bones because couches are really heavy, so you definitely need to be able to lift it up. But I will say you can do it with just one person. You can either get the owner of the couch to help you actually get it into your vehicle. Or there’s a side kind of hack. You just put one end up on like if you have a truck, you put it in the truck bed and then you go around on the other side and lift the other end and just push it in. So it’s possible to do it with just one person, but you just got to be strong.

Tony:
So just on the skill side piece, so Josh talked about how with DoorDash you got to be smart about which deliveries you take and which ones you denied and make sure that you’re maximizing your time and maximizing your revenue. How do you get good at analyzing a couch? How do you know like, “Okay, this is how much this couch is going to make when I resell it on the back end”?

Ava:
Yeah. So over time you’ll realize which couches sell the fastest. Where I live personally, everyone loves a good huge gray sectional. I don’t know what it is, but I mean I guess they’re modern and they’re pretty. So we always know if we can find a gray sectional for 200 bucks, we could probably sell it for 1,200 if it’s good quality, if it’s big. So you will learn over time which couches sell the best. It’s different in each market, but for me personally and for a lot of other different places in the US, gray sectionals do really well. And then you can also look at how far away is this couch. Is it in your city? Is it in the city over? So drive time. I mean, also just if you have to clean up the couch, take that into account because to clean up a couch, it could take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.

Ashley:
For that you know the fact that the gray sectionals go great, in the very beginning, how did you do your market research as to what kind of couches you wanted to buy? Was it trial and error? Were you going up and seeing what things were selling for on Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp? How did you learn what couches go for and what the true value is?

Ava:
Yeah, so like you mentioned, we saw that, for example, gray sectionals, they were selling really fast where we live. And also we watched a lot of YouTube videos and we knew that this one guy who couch flipped a ton, he just did sectionals because they were so good. So we tried to stick to just sectionals. And then also some of it’s just self-explanatory. Obviously, you don’t want to get a leather sectional that’s ripping all over, so that’s something you can’t fix. So I guess it was a lot of trial and error, but also some strategy that you just kind of learn over time.

Ashley:
And when you were watching these YouTube videos and you found this couch flipping online, what made you decide that this was going to be a good fit for you?

Ava:
Mainly just because my fiancee Ben, he had a truck and he’s strong. So yeah, I mean, I won’t take full credit, he was pretty much the whole driver of it. And also just it was very attractive because it could make a lot of money. I mean, you’re making anywhere from on average 200 to $700 an hour. So it’s a great return on time.

Tony:
And then Ava, what’s the cost of entry? If I wanted to get started couch flipping today, what kind of capital do I need to put up to get started?

Ava:
So you can get couches for free or 100 bucks? What we did for our first one is we got it for free and we already had the truck so it didn’t cost anything. But if you don’t have a truck, this is where it can get pricey just because you need to be able to have a car that’s actually going to fit a couch because couches are huge. You got to have some way of transportation. The only way you can work around not having a truck is borrowing someone, like if your grandparents have it, your relatives, any friends or renting one or maybe having the people deliver the couch to you. But I mean there’s a couple ways around it, but I would say having a truck is pretty important.

Tony:
I didn’t even realize. So you’re saying, Ava, that at times you would find couches that people were giving away for free and then clean them up and turn around and sell. So your initial capital investment would be zero on those couches, is that what you’re saying?

Ava:
Yeah. And some people like that we got them for free, they’d be really upset because sometimes people will message you after and they’re like, “This is my couch.” But yeah, you can actually do it and get them for free.

Ashley:
There probably are people though that just want to get rid of it and they’ll give it for free just to have somebody haul it off of their property so they don’t have to dispose of it. Where I live, there’s like a town dump and they have trash day every once in a while where you can bring appliances, things like that, and you have to load up the trailer of all the stuff and then drive it there and take it to the dump. I could see if people don’t have a truck, they don’t have a trailer, they really don’t have any way of getting it there, plus it’s an inconvenience to have to drive there. So I could definitely see the value of finding those people that just don’t want to get rid of the couch themselves, that they’re willing to give it away, just have somebody haul it.

Tony:
I opened up Facebook Marketplace on my phone while you’re talking Ash, and the very first couch that showed up says free. The very first couch on Facebook Marketplace is free. So there you go. I never even would’ve thought of that.

Ava:
Yeah, sometimes they’re free when either they’re just really bad or they need a good clean or maybe they need same day pickup or something like that. And also we’ve been able to get couches for free by… It’s just like real estate. Like a fast close, you can get a discount. Same with couches. You’re like, “Same day pickup? Oh, that’s like a hundred bucks off.” So yeah, it’s literally just like real estate.

Ashley:
Let’s go into the kind of that negotiating a little bit, because with DoorDash you really can’t negotiate. You’re pretty much told what the cost is. But as far as negotiating couches, what are some of your tactics for that?

Ava:
Yeah, so like I just mentioned, same day pickup is huge. People just usually when they post it, they just want to get rid of it. So same day pickup’s a great one, and you can get a couple hundred off for that if you’re lucky. Usually it’s like 50. Also, you can just maybe bid against other people. In the summer is when you’ll usually get in bidding wars because everyone’s looking for new furniture. And obviously, buying a new couch, you’re paying a couple thousand. And then on Facebook Marketplace you can get it for a couple hundred. So a lot of people buy couches on there. Negotiation, there’s some, but it’s pretty much slim to none. But one way you actually can get more money out of people when they’re buying it is offering delivery because again, everyone has a truck, so how are they going to get it to their property? So if we deliver, we’re able to up the purchase price by 50 to 100.

Ashley:
So along with your startup cost, when you take these couches, it’s usually you’re probably not selling them same day. So do you have a storage unit that you’re paying for? Or where do you store the couches until you’re actually able to sell them again?

Ava:
That’s actually a really good question. So since we started this when we were 16, we were still in my parents’ house, so we would just put all the couches in my parking spot and I just park outside. But then my parents just got, they’re like, “I’m tired of these couches in my garage.” Because they also, sometimes, they just have a stench of someone’s home, even if it’s not bad, it’s just… I don’t know. So they wanted them out. So eventually we did get a storage unit. I believe our storage unit is about a hundred something a month. But you can fit a bunch of couches in ours. It’s like ours isn’t very big, but we just stack couches on top of each other.

Ashley:
And then do you offer delivery or do you have people just come right to the storage unit and pick it up?

Ava:
Yeah, so it just depends on how far away they are. If they’re super far away and they ask for delivery an hour away, we usually won’t do it unless we’re actually getting a good price for it. But if they’re close and they really need delivery in order for it to close, then we’ll go ahead and deliver it for them.

Ashley:
So with all of this couch flipping, what was the reason that you wanted to make this extra money anyways?

Ava:
Yeah. So again, since we were making a couple hundred dollars an hour, it was a great way in order for us to make a lot of money as just young people in order to invest in real estate. I talked about this on my episode a little bit, but for our first investment we did a 50/50 partnership split with my parents. And if you add up the down payment, closing costs and then any repair costs, and then you split that in half, my parents paid half and then we paid the other half and then we paid our half with all our couch flip money.

Tony:
Yeah. So you literally use your couch flipping business to fund your first real estate purchase, which is the whole purpose of this episode is to show our listeners what’s possible when you get a decent side hustle so that can generate some revenue. So let’s go back to that first couch, Ava. You said that you got that first couch for free. How long did it take after you purchased that couch to actually get your money back from selling it?

Ava:
So it did sell same day and then we delivered it the day after. But we got it for free. And again, with the skill over time, you realize what you can actually price it, but we just wanted to make sure we sold it. So we put it up for maybe 200. And so on our first one, we got $200.

Tony:
Just transactionally, what are you using to get the money? You just sell Venmo or are you sending PayPal invoices or something?

Ava:
Usually it’s just Venmo and then sometimes just cash.

Ashley:
So when you did that first transaction, how much time did you actually put into it with picking up that free couch, delivering it? Did you have to clean it at all? How much did you make hourly for that first $200?

Ava:
So on our first couch we did clean it. I would say it was about an hour and a half worth of work because it wasn’t too far away. So we just had to pick it up, clean it, take pictures. And then actually something I do want to mention, again, with the skill is over time you’ll realize how to sell it in the description. It’s just a listing for a house. You got to talk about it in the listing, make sure you clarify things like colors. And then also always include measurements like height, width, and length, because people are always going to ask and it’s just a pain to go remeasure it. So always measure it, put those in the description. But I would say all in all, since it was our first one, it took a little longer, so maybe one and a half to two hours.

Tony:
Out of curiosity, Ava, have you found one platform being better than the others to list your couches? Do you get more interest on Facebook Marketplace or are you on OfferUp? What are all the platforms that you’re on and which one has been the best one for you?

Ava:
Yeah, so I always say you can do it on OfferUp and Craigslist as well, but we have only ever used Facebook Marketplace because it’s the best for selling and buying.

Tony:
All right. So last question here before we kind of switch gears. You mentioned you and your fiance, but is there anyone outside of the two of you? How many people do you need to make the side hustle of couch flipping a realistic goal for people?

Ava:
Just for our end, it is just one or two people. But of course you need people who are actually selling their couches. But just to actually do it, you just need yourself. Obviously it’s going to be easier to lift a couch with two people, so keep that in mind. But yeah, you can do it by yourself.

Ashley:
Awesome, Ava, thank you so much for sharing the start of your side hustle. We have some more questions for you, guys. So Josh, let’s go back to you. Can you recount a crazy moment? Maybe it was an interaction with the customer, a big order you had, or maybe something went wrong. Can you kind of give us that entertainment?

Josh:
Yeah, it was… I don’t know. It was 2:00 PM on a Tuesday or something, like middle of a workday, and I was delivering Taco Bell to this house that had a big gate. So I had the code and I got through the gate and it was a quarter mile driveway in this huge house with like… It had a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce in the driveway. It was absurd. I was like, “Why are you guys ordering Taco Bell?” I don’t know. I thought it really funny.

Tony:
You know what you should have did Josh? Have you seen those videos where it’s the people going up to millionaires homes and saying, “Hey, what do you do for a living?” Did you get to ask that question?

Josh:
I wish that was happening when I was doing this because I could have just done that also. And then maybe you had two businesses going.

Tony:
There you go, man. That would’ve been been a really good idea. Oh, I love that. So you never had anyone that was like, I don’t know, belligerent or drunk or just anything crazy like that where you were fearful for where the situation might go?

Josh:
Luckily, the majority of what I was doing was during COVID, so actually I didn’t meet too many people, but I am sure there are some funny stories out there about that.

Tony:
Ava, what about you? Flipping couches, meeting up with people, any crazy stories about either who you sold to, who you bought from, anything in between?

Ava:
Yeah, so there’s the small things where couches have, like we’ve been lifting them and they just fall down the stairs. Or one time, actually a couple weeks ago, we were lifting one and then all of a sudden we were going out the door and their cat just jumped right out of the couch. But there’s this… Yeah, so we almost took their cat. But there was this one time we were going into the city downtown. I don’t know, it was kind of this sketchy area. The neighbor’s house… We were going into the house to get the couch, but then the neighbor, I don’t know what they were doing, but they were on the porch and then all of a sudden we made eye contact and he pulls up his AR, not pointing at me, but he just pulls up and just show it. We just sprinted to the car and left. Honestly, I just couldn’t. But yeah, those are the crazy stories I can think of right off the top of my head.

Tony:
Yeah, I guess getting a gun pulled on you is [inaudible 00:31:27].

Ava:
Yeah.

Ashley:
And that’s the one thing we didn’t talk about with either of them is pulling up to strangers houses. And especially Eva, if you’re going into the houses to get couches, what are some ways to kind of protect yourself? I know at this one property that I’m at right now where I’ve been working a lot, we’ll order groceries here because we have a full kitchen and everything. It’s just this very random dirt road that Josh says goes back a quarter of a mile, but this is all dirt and the property’s overgrown. There’s like a haunted house looking things at the end. You know could tell they’re not sure if they’re in the right place. So how do both of you navigate as to like are there certain areas you won’t deliver to Josh, or Ava you won’t pick up couches from?

Ava:
For me personally, Ben’s… Well, he always says this, Ben’s a really good wrestler, so he is like, “I’ll be fine. I’ll beat him up. Don’t worry.” So I’m always with Ben when I do it. But he went to state every year. He’s good, so I’m okay.

Ashley:
And Josh, what about you?

Tony:
Yeah, is there ever a DoorDash you’re like, “No, I’m not picking that one up. I’m not going there.”

Josh:
I would utilize the tips as a way of judging the area. So if I’m delivering $60 in food and you’re giving me $2, it’s like I’m probably not going to go over there.

Tony:
That’s interesting. I don’t even think I ever noticed what the tip is because DoorDash just has a default tip amount. I don’t think I’ve ever changed that. But now hearing from a DoorDasher, I might need to pay more attention to that to make sure that I’m getting my fruit delivered quickly, right? Because can you change your tip amount on DoorDash after you’ve submitted your order?

Josh:
You can change it after. I’ve had both sometimes like I can’t open up the food, I don’t know actually what’s in there. And people would be like, “Oh, they put onions” or something on the food and then they’d take half their tip away and it’s like, “Dude, I had nothing to do with that.”

Tony:
Wow, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. All right. Let’s go to our next question here. What about longevity, just in terms of how sustainable the side hustle is? So Josh, let’s start with you, man. I mean how sustainable or how… I don’t know, I guess how long do you feel you could keep up doing DoorDash as a side hustle?

Josh:
I think it pairs really well with a W2 job or something where you can work at night or maybe you’ll work on a Tuesday or a Saturday morning. I think it’s sustainable as long as you want to do it.

Ashley:
And Eva, what about you for couch flipping? I would think that maybe lifting couches may take a toll on your back eventually, but what would you say the longevity is for doing couch flipping?

Ava:
Yeah, I would say you can hurt your back, so you got to be careful. But as long as you’re fit enough and you can lift heavy objects. And also, I guess if we’re talking about if you have a job while doing this, a lot of the times the only downside about couch flipping really is it’s not really on your own time. It’s whenever a good couch pops up because they’re not on there 24/7 all the time, because obviously if it’s good, it’s going to go fast. So you have to be constantly looking at your phone, refreshing the page in orders to text the person right away like, “Oh, I want this couch.” So pairing with the W2 job, I mean you can only take so many bathroom breaks, so I don’t know. But I would say it’s good for the weekends and stuff. But yeah, longevity wise, as long as you’re good with lifting heavy objects, you can do it as long as you want.

Ashley:
And Ava, if I remember correctly, you have a bunch of virtual assistants for your other business. But for a side hustle, do you think you could hire a virtual assistant to basically just comb through listings every day or have them set alerts and where you’re not even having to worry about logging in and checking for all these listings?

Ava:
Definitely. I definitely think you can because if you just plug in the location, anyone can do it from anywhere. So for sure.

Tony:
Man, now my head’s spinning. Could I build a couch flipping empire where I have VAs across every single-

Ava:
People do. People have huge warehouses and buy them at wholesale. It’s crazy. You should just look it up on YouTube.

Tony:
Well, I guess that leads into my next question. And Ava, I’ll start with you on this one in terms of consistency of income, because you said people aren’t posting couches all day every day. So I guess how many couches could you flip in a month? What’s the average number that someone could expect to do? Am I flipping a couch every day? Is it once a week? What does that look like?

Ava:
I would say it depends on… Obviously in spring and summer, people are moving, so it’s more common. But on average, I would say if you’re consistent and dedicated, you could do anywhere from two to five a week. So just from a income perspective also you could do less couches, but just raise the price higher, just all that kind of stuff. But we were making about 10 grand a month with couch flipping, especially during the summer when we didn’t have school.

Tony:
Yeah. And gosh, so 10 grand a month, how many couches is that, like ballpark?

Ava:
I’m thinking like 10 to 20. 10 to 20, okay. I’m going to say 10 to 20.

Tony:
Yeah. Wow, that’s a lot of couches in a month. 15 couches a month, that’s like a couch every other day. That’s a lot of volume. I didn’t realize there were that many couches out there. I wonder if it’s somewhat market dependent.

Ava:
It is.

Tony:
Like you probably have to be in a bigger kind of city to get that kind of volume. Whereas if you’re in a more rural or remote area, the volume of couches might be smaller. Like every house in your neighborhood is on acres and acres. So the density just isn’t the same as mine where I can see my neighbor’s house out my window right now. So I wonder what that looks like.

Ava:
Yeah, I agree. It is really market specific because we live right outside Milwaukee, so there’s a lot of couches for sale all the time.

Ashley:
Josh, what does your income look like on a bad month, a good month, and how long are you actually spending time driving and how many deliveries on average would you say?

Josh:
Yeah, when you start out, you need to learn what orders are good to take and what aren’t. So you can probably be around $15 an hour, maybe 20 in the beginning. But as you kind of pick up the pace, you learn when to go. The hotter hour’s during lunch and dinner, especially more on the weekends versus weekdays. I mean, you can push 40 to $50 an hour pretty consistently. Of course it is market dependent. I kind of did it in an area where there were three main shopping centers with five to 10 restaurants at each, and I kind of just cycled through those. But it’s kind of probably averages around 30.

Tony:
So Josh, you said you would cycle through the same restaurants. So were you friends with the people at the local Johnny Carino’s because they saw Josh coming in every other day? Or was it multiple deliveries from the same restaurant on a daily basis? What’s the frequency at one location?

Josh:
Yeah, I mean, you could probably do 10 to 15 at one restaurant and almost just be their delivery person during the entire day. And bonus, you actually, if you start to make friends, they will give you the food that nobody picks up and you can get a bunch of free lunch and dinner. I mean, I had almost every single major meal covered for free.

Ashley:
That’s another cost saving tip there to save money not having to pay for food for your meals. Well, that’s awesome guys. I want to bring you guys both in to do a group discussion here and maybe you guys have questions for each other too on your side hustles. But looking back, is there something you would’ve done differently to make your side hustle maybe more profitable, maybe more passive or efficient? Ava, let’s start with you.

Ava:
Yeah, so I would probably say that now we go… We set a certain profitability goal. For example now, if a couch isn’t going to make us 500 within the hour, we’ll probably not get it just because we have our other businesses now. So yeah, we have a goal. But now on average our couches make anywhere from 500 to 1,000 for every one to two hours because that’s how long it takes to flip a couch.
But I would say I wish sooner I would’ve just gone for the bigger fish because at first when a couch was priced at $400, it would kind of be scary to buy. But now knowing what I know, I wish I would’ve bought some of those couches because if it’s a gray sectional and it’s priced for 400, well you could sell that for over 1,000. So you’re still making a huge chunk of money. But I was just scared because it was just a lot of money when I was used to getting couches for free. So I say something I wish I knew sooner or now I know is just you don’t have to be scared of the bigger price couches just because they’re higher priced. It’s the same as flipping a million-dollar house and selling it for a couple more million.

Tony:
Ava, did you ever lose money on a couch?

Ava:
Yes, we have. We have broken even before. A lot of the times it’s because we were 16 and really nervous. So when the pictures looked really good and we would go to the house, we’d be scared to say, “Oh, nevermind, I won’t want it anymore.” So we would just take it, which eventually we learned to be like, “No.” But yeah, so we have. Those obviously are majority of the times, that’s when we’ve broken even or even lost a hundred dollars or something. But losing money on a couch flip, it’s very rare, but it does happen.

Tony:
Josh, I wonder for you, have you ever lost money on doing DoorDash? If you looked up your week and maybe what you spent on gas, it didn’t equate to what you actually made during the deliveries. Has that ever happened?

Josh:
No, I wouldn’t lose money that way, but sometimes you would be expecting a cash tip. Like this one delivery, I drove almost an hour away from the store and it was catering. It was $350 in food. I went in their house and I put it all… I set it all up for their family, and I didn’t get a single dollar tip and I was really annoyed. So there goes two hours of time for 10 bucks.

Ashley:
Yeah, I guess that’s like how you lose money is that your hourly rate goes down significantly. So it becomes to the point where it’s not worth your time, even though you’re not physically losing money, but you’re losing your time and it’s not worth the value. Okay, so do you guys have any questions for each other before we kind of close this out?

Ava:
I do. Do you have a DoorDash hacker secret that no one else knows that you think it would be interesting to share?

Josh:
They do catering now, so I’m not sure how to sign up. But if you could just deliver catering orders. And I know one guy that does it and he was doing really well. Multiple apps. People don’t really do that very often. And then go on Reddit and try to learn the tips like how they hide their tips. I’m not going to explain it here, but basically you can figure out like, “Ooh, this one’s going to be over $12′ or something like that.

Tony:
Josh, I feel like the two phone thing and being able to be in two phones on multiple apps… Because what? There’s Postmates, there’s DoorDash, there’s Uber Eats, I guess, do you have a favorite between those? Do you prefer DoorDash or have you tried Uber Eats or Postmates?

Josh:
I probably prefer Uber Eats to be honest. It’s so market dependent in the hours if you really get in the weeds on it.

Tony:
Dude, I wonder if you could be an Uber driver who does Uber Eats and Uber at the same time. So you’re picking up people, but then you’re like, ‘Hey, I got to stop by McDonald’s,” pick up this meal and then you drop off the food in and the person. Awesome. Josh, what about you Have any questions for Ava on the couch flipping side?

Josh:
Definitely, yeah. This is like a follow up question after this. How often do you see the same couch or one really similar?

Ava:
When I’m buying them, just how often do I see a repeat couch that I’ve seen before?

Josh:
Yeah, I’m asking because maybe you could take blank or template photos and then almost pre-sell them.

Ava:
We have done that.

Josh:
Nice.

Ava:
We have done that. Oh, we got in trouble though. So one time this one couch, it went up on Facebook Marketplace and it was going crazy. Everyone wanted it, but we got it first and we got it for a couple hundred bucks. We made a thousand dollars on this couch. But before we even got it, we just uploaded the pictures because it looked gray in the pictures, which people like, but it was green in person. This kind of weird soft, green gray. But we put in the description it’s green. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that. But the pictures that she took just looked so much better. So we just uploaded them. Everyone, since it was so popular, people were trying to get it, everyone’s coming like, “Someone already tried to post this for hundreds of dollars less.” And then other people were commenting, “Appreciate the hustle kid.” Yeah, but we have reposted the same pictures, but we haven’t ever used stock photos because usually people think those are scams most of the time.

Tony:
Yeah, I wouldn’t take stock photos either. But yeah, I like the idea of like, “Hey, maybe before you even get it, if it’s the same couch… If there’s an IKEA couch that’s always selling in your neighborhood, then just having those photos might work.”
Well, Josh, Ava, both of you I think have given so much value to the Rookie audience in terms of ways that you can generate some additional capital to fund your real estate business. And like we said at the top of the show, both of you were guests on BiggerPockets Podcast. Ava, you were episode 271. Josh, you were 749 on the Real Estate show. So if anyone listening wants to go back and get their full backstory, check out those episodes.
But one final question before we let y’all go. Josh, we’ll start with you and then Ava, we’ll go to you. But if someone wants to start your side hustle today, give me the 30-second step-by-step game plan of how to get started if I want to do it this afternoon.

Josh:
Make sure you have a car that’s reliable. Good tires. Good brakes. Once you got that, sign up for as many apps as you can. Use an actual address. Use all the real information and map out where you’re going to try to focus on. If you don’t know your local area very well, try to see where all the stores are and hit those areas up. And then maybe even take a day and kind of drive and walk through some of the restaurants and figure out which ones seem to be running efficiently and which ones aren’t. And try to focus on the ones that are quicker and just get going.

Tony:
Ava, how about you?

Ava:
Download Facebook Marketplace. Make sure you have a truck or a truck you can borrow. Start making offers on couches, get an offer accepted, go get the couch and then take pretty pictures and upload it.

Ashley:
Awesome. Thank you, guys. One last question. How has this helped you guys with your real estate investing careers? Have you used money from the side hustle to purchase properties? Have you learned the actual valuable skills that have kind of translated into your real estate business? Ava?

Ava:
Yeah. So I obviously have used couch flipping to not only get my first rental property, but our second property was a short term rental and there’s like 10 grand worth of just mattresses, decorations, just housing supplies that you’d need in an Airbnb. So we saved up 10 grand from couch flipping in order to buy all that stuff. And then also just skills wise, this was our first time ever doing sales and making money and negotiating. I say we learned lot of that. And also me and Ben are both kind of more introverted, so this definitely helped us crack out of our shells and talk to people who we didn’t know, so yeah.

Ashley:
And Josh, what about you?

Josh:
It’s a pretty good way of maybe being eligible for your first house hack if you do it for two years because you can establish two years of tight income and then you can also actually… I’m not a tax advisor, but you rack up a lot of miles and you can write it off and actually not pay that much in tax on the income. But I basically used it to fund a few of my first deals and I was able to listen to a ton of podcasts and books and set myself up a lot better for when I was ready to start making some investments.

Ashley:
Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Josh, can you tell everyone where they can reach out to you and find out some more information?

Josh:
Definitely, yeah. Josh Janus on BiggerPockets. And then Josh Janus on Instagram.

Ashley:
And Ava?

Ava:
Hi, I’m just Ava Yuergens on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and you could just reach out through DMs and then also Ava Yuergens on BiggerPockets.

Tony:
Just really quick, if each of you can spell your last name, just so people know how to find you. Ava, you go first.

Ava:
All right. So it’s Y-U-E-R-G-E-N-S.

Tony:
Cool. And then, Josh?

Josh:
J-A-N-U-S.

Ashley:
You guys can reach out to them to talk about side hustles or even real estate investing. Make sure you go back and listen to their episodes. We had Josh on Real Estate Podcast episode number 749, and Ava on the Rookie Podcast episode number 271. Thank you guys so much for joining us, Ava and Josh, and provided a ton of value today with the side hustles.

Josh:
Thank you.

Ava:
Thanks.

Ashley:
Well, that was really interesting, Tony, learning about those two side hustles. You and I have the worst shiny object syndrome because we both are already thinking, “How can we make these work?”

Tony:
I’m going to have the biggest couch flipping business in America by the end of the year. Yeah, it was really cool. I mean, Ava and Josh, I think both gave different perspectives. I think what’s so cool, Ashley, is that there’s so many different ways you can fund your first deal. So there are literally no excuses around why you can’t get started in real estate investing, because both Josh and Ava approved no matter what your age, no matter where you’re at in your life, with very little resources, you can start generating additional revenue to put towards your first real estate deal.

Ashley:
Yeah. So we thought for this segment we would kind of weigh these side hustles with three different elements. So the first one is, what is the upfront capital? How much money do you need to start the side hustle? What is the income potential? How much can you actually make? And then is it passive or is it going to take up a lot of your time? What does that commitment look like? So as far as the upfront capital, I feel like these were actually very similar, the two side hustles. What I could see is that you needed a vehicle or access to a vehicle being kind of the main priority of these two side hustles.

Tony:
Yeah. And I’d say the majority of folks listening to this podcast already have access to a vehicle. Only caveat is that I guess with DoorDash it can be more than 10 years old. And then with the couch flipping, you probably need a truck or at least maybe like a minivan where you could pop out the seats or something. But neither one required a significant amount of money to get started. So let me just quickly break down how the scoring’s going to work. So 1 would be poor, 2 would be average, and then 3 would be great, okay? So if we give something a 1, it means we’re not super stoked about. If we give something a 3, it means we’re really stoked about it.

Ashley:
So I think for the upfront capital, Tony’s at a 3, I’m at a 2 just because you do need to have that vehicle expense. And with a vehicle comes paying for gas, it has maintenance on the vehicle that you have to maintain.
So our next category is the income potential. So as far as these two different hustles, I honestly think couch flipping has a way greater potential at making money than DoorDash because I feel like DoorDash, you’re kind of limited as to how much you can actually drive. And as Josh talked about, you can get really good at logistics and have two phones and different apps on them and try to coordinate as best as possible, but it’s still you physically having to go around and make these deliveries, where couch flipping, I see it as there’s a part of it where you’re monitoring, you’re negotiating online where it’s not physically having to drive yet to work this business and then you’re going to pick up. And yes, there is a max as to how many couches you can actually pick up in a month. But with the couch flipping, it seemed that per a couch, there was a greater span or greater hourly rate that they were getting compared to doing DoorDash.

Tony:
Yeah, I’d agree with that completely. I think that the upward income potential for the couch flipping… Like Ava says she was making 10 grand a month flipping couches. Not to say that you couldn’t potentially do that with DoorDash and Uber Eats and Postmates, but the time commitment will probably be significantly higher to try and get to that level of income. So yeah, I think I’m going to give couch flipping a 3 when it comes to the income potential. And I’d probably give Uber Eats a 2.

Ashley:
Yeah, I agree with that. I think there’s something else that we could put into this category too as to your risk also. As to DoorDash, there’s not a lot of risk. You’re not really putting up money up front, where with couch flipping, you could be spending $400 to buy this used couch and then you sell it at a loss for 200 and now you’re out $200. Where with DoorDash you may be out a little bit on gas money, but Josh said that’s really never happened where he hasn’t at least made back his gas money. But as far as his time, he might have driven somewhere and ended up being $5 per hour he ended up getting paid and making. So I think that it’s important to weigh that difference too.

Tony:
That’s a great point, Ashley. Yeah, there’s no risk really to DoorDash because again, all you got to do is jump in your car and maybe you spend a little bit of gas, but that’s it.

Ashley:
And also I would say you’re more guaranteed to actually have business where couch flipping it depends on what’s being listed in your market, how well are you at negotiating, how well you know what a couch sells for and what it’s actually worth. So a lot of research and a lot of learning. Where DoorDash, you’re given the business, it’s there and you can take it above and beyond like Josh said and really figure out the tip system. But at least you know you’re going to get paid to something for the standard rate from DoorDash.

Tony:
All right, I guess our last category then is passiveness. This is passiveness/ time commitment. I think both of them kind of have some pluses and minuses to each. Josh with DoorDashing, I think the benefit from a time perspective is that you control when you work and when you don’t. If you just want to do this around your day job and say, “Hey, I’m at work from 9:00 to 5:00 and I’m going to DoorDash every day from 5:00 to 8:00,” then you can commit to that time window and more likely than not, you’re going to be able to generate some revenue. Whereas with the couch flipping, like Ava said, you’ve got to kind of be monitoring that throughout the day because if you’re late on the trigger, you could miss what is a really good deal. So I think from a flexibility standpoint, I do like DoorDashing a little bit more than the couch flipping.

Ashley:
Yeah. I think as far as the research, the analysis, DoorDash is I think a lot easier to like, “Let’s just go and do it” and you’re making money day one. Where couch flipping, you do have to actually learn and do some research on your market onto the value of a couch. And so I think the time commitment of researching couch flipping and really understanding your market definitely can take up a lot of time, especially with just getting experience of buying and selling to get good at it and also negotiating.
So as far as passiveness, I think mentally DoorDash may be more passive. If you have one app, you get the alert. Okay, this is where you have to go pick up the food, then you’re delivering it. Where with couch flipping, you have to really think, “Is this couch worth it? Is it going to be a deal? How far is it going to take me to pick it up?” And all these different things that are kind of aligned with that. So I guess as far as passiveness, as far as time commitment, what do you say your ratings are for that?

Tony:
Yeah, I guess just one last thing to add on to that. I do also like, and we just barely scratched the surface with this, but there is the ability with couch flipping to hire virtual assistants that can kind of reduce that time commitment yourself. So if you have a VA that’s oversees and their whole job is to go through all of the Facebook Marketplace listings, all of the OfferUp listings, whatever the little platform you can think of and they’re just monitoring that, looking for couches that fit your criteria, and then once they find something, it’s all through the messaging apps anyway, so if they’re just in that app and they’re messaging for you and then when they lock something in, then you’re just going out there and picking it up and validating all that stuff.
So obviously that’s a little bit more involved. But I would say if we exclude the virtual assistant thing, I would probably give the couch flipping a 1 just because I think that there’s a little bit more friction there. And I would give DoorDashing a 2 only because it is always tied to your own time. So I give couch flipping a 1, DoorDashing a 2.

Ashley:
And with the couch flipping too, cleaning. That is your time cleaning. First of all, lifting the couches is physical labor, cleaning the couches is the actual labor you’re having to physically do yourself. I mean, with couch flipping, I think you could hire everything out and still make a little bit of profit at the end of it, but I think the people that are probably working for you are probably going to catch on like, “Why am I going and picking up these couches for somebody else? I can do this myself.”

Tony:
“I can do it myself.” Yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah. But so thankful to have these two guests on today to talk about side hustles. Before we close out today, I do want to give a shout-out to a real estate Rookie, gfrproperties19 on Instagram. He used the hashtag #realestaterookiepodcast and I saw his post where he actually used the BiggerPockets calculator reports on biggerpockets.com and he showed us a sample of an analysis he did on a property recently. And he said, “As the market has been evolving, we have had to evolve our approach to find our next property. We are now looking for a small multifamily property to house hack as our loan terms will be more favorable as interest rates continue to go up.” Then he asked for other people to comment as to different ways they’re having to evolve or pivot their strategy and how they are analyzing deals. So go follow @gfrproperties19.
And if you guys want to submit a question, make sure you guys go to biggerpockets.com/reply and submit your question or submit your side hustle so we can have you as a guest on the show. As always, thank you for listening. I’m Ashley, @wealthfromrentals, and he’s Tony, @tonyjrobinson, and we will be back on Wednesday with a guest.