Jon and Alex started Brotherly Love Real Estate, a professional home buying company that started in Pennsylvania and recently expanded to California. This real estate duo started buying houses for themselves in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Now, they’ve expanded their business model to also renovating and remodeling homes in San Diego, CA, then eventually putting them up for sale on the market. If you have wondered how to sell a house in San Diego when the real estate market begins to slow down, these real estate entrepreneurs have figured out a way to do it. However, it didn’t happen overnight.
In general, California has forced Brotherly Love Real Estate to face many challenges. Their primary real estate market of San Diego is extremely competitive, and values are beginning to stymie. These co-founders’ competitive advantage has always been speed. They can close within 21 days when buying a house if the title report on a property is clearable. Their selling process is also extremely fast. Brotherly Love Real Estate offloads their properties through investor networks that they have built up as well as marketing them on the MLS.
Pros of Selling Houses with Your Best Friend
Obviously, working with your best friend comes with several perks. You can undoubtedly put full trust in your business partner that they will do what they say and get the job done to the best of their ability. Jon and Alex of Brotherly Love Real Estate own 13 units and 2 vacant lots together as joint partners. They built up this small real estate portfolio as their trust grew within their friendship. Sharing real estate, bank accounts, profits, losses, and taxes became the norm for these real estate co-founders that are also best friends.
Cons of Selling Houses with Your Best Friend
Taking time off is easy to request when your co-founder is your best friend. It takes the pressure off feeling like you need to be doing something at all times. However, it can also make goal setting fall to the wayside. Co-founders that are also best friends sometimes don’t hold each other as accountable as they should. For example, co-founders can let things slide if goals are not met and come off as being ‘too easy’ on the other person. This is not saying that there should be anger, frustration, or attitude expressed between each other to get a point across. However, it does mean that there needs to be accountability between partners when goals are not met.
Tips for Co-Founders that Are Also Best Friends
Jon and Alex have been running Brotherly Love Real Estate since 2018. The business has taken on many forms but is arguably the most streamlined that it’s ever been before. Communication is absolutely vital in order for co-founders to continue working together as best friends. If you are not on the same page, expectations may be set improperly or simply not met. It’s important to talk about everything, including items that aren’t listed on your KPI sheets, like emotions, roles, sense of fulfillment, and overall happiness in the day-to-day work. By keeping the lines of communication open, you allow your business to prosper and grow in the direction that both co-founders envision it to go.
