From Ministry to Real Estate: Justin Campbell’s Inspiring Journey

Based in Great Falls, Montana, determined real estate investor Justin Campbell and the CEO of REsimpli Sharad Mehta were recently featured on the REsimpli Podcast. Campbell spoke about the incredible journey he took from pastoralism to full-time real estate investment. Justin and his wife boldly chose to join the real estate market sixteen years into their ministry. Their emergency reserves amounted to only six months’ worth, and they greatly valued their talents.

Justin’s real estate firm began really well in July 21 after his first successful flip deal, which brought him $28,000 overall. Turns that brought in $20,000 and an incredible $70,000 practically straight after following this first success. Currently operating a profitable property management business with more than 300 units, he has amazing ideas to increase that total to 800 not too far off. Justin stresses most the cornerstone of his success—coaching, well defined procedures, and effective systems.

Justin understands how vitally crucial it is when he considers his perspective from being a preacher to an investor. Their financial situation was unstable; hence, he and his wife had to rely on hope. Knowing their circumstances made this turning point more significant, as it inspired his wife to believe they might make success in the real estate market.

Justin emphasizes how important his personal contacts were in securing new contracts; much of his early success can be credited to word-of-mouth and networking. His network was developed in part by his relationships with lenders, banks, title firms, and realtors. Initially, he lacked an orderly pipeline or customer relationship management system.

Growing customer demand led Justin to decide strategically to go from home flipping to a property management firm. Justin embraced the learning process to build a great brand in the extremely cutthroat property management market. This was true even if juggling renters and owners presented particular difficulties by itself.

Justin values the chance to share his road with others and exhorts everyone in attendance to act and eliminate obstacles blocking their road to success. He invites contacts via his Instagram account, @RedDoorProperties, for everyone drawn in by his experiences.

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Transcript: 

Sharad Mehta  0:06  

Hey guys. This is Sharad with resimpli, host of the resimpli podcast, bringing you another very special guest, Justin Campbell, on this podcast. Justin, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Justin Cambell  0:17  

Sharad, I’m awesome, and thanks for the honor.

Sharad Mehta  0:20  

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for jumping on the podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where do you live? What kind of investing do you do? How long have you been investing for?

Justin Cambell  0:30  

Yeah, absolutely. So I’m coming from Great Falls, Montana. We’re just about 100 miles west of the dead center of the state. So beautiful this time of year. Asked me six months ago, not so beautiful, yeah. So Great Falls, Montana. Invest in long term holds. We’ve got some short term we own a property management company, handyman company. Obviously, we flip houses also. So lots in the real estate world.

Sharad Mehta  0:58  

How long have you been investing for Yeah? So

Justin Cambell  1:01  

we’ve been investing full time for about three years. So this is a second career for me, but three years into, into the full dive.

Sharad Mehta  1:10  

Nice, awesome. Yeah, tell me like, I’m always curious. How did you get started in real estate? What were you doing before and how? What did the transition to real estate look like for you? Yeah,

Justin Cambell  1:20  

yeah. Look like a sharp right turn for us. We we were pastors for 16 years, full time. And after, after that season ended, we had pastored a church in Boston and also in LA so coast to coast. And after that season ended, we moved back to Montana, which is where I’m from. I did not have a resume that would really give me opportunities to to have a job that provide, would provide for my family. So we thought we would try real estate investing. We had about six months of emergency funds saved up, and thought, well, let’s we’re going to give this a shot and see how it goes. If we can, if we can make it happen within six months, that’d be fantastic. But if not, then I’m going to go job hunting. And so we started thing in real estate. Really had a necessity, like, there’s not a lot of other opportunities. Did you

Sharad Mehta  2:11  

always have a little bit of inkling towards real estate? Or is that something like, once you move to Montana, like, okay, let’s figure it out. You know, I don’t have a resume. Like, how do I start making money? I start providing for the family? Yeah.

Justin Cambell  2:23  

I mean, so as a full time pastor, we didn’t have a lot of time to to invest in other ways, our energies in other ways, but my dad and mom had had bought rental properties, so I was, I was familiar with it. But really, I mean, when we moved up here, I read some books, listened to some podcasts, and decided, yeah, I think I can do that. And just wow, went full send.

Sharad Mehta  2:49  

That is incredible. So you have six months of emergency funds when you move to Montana. Yep, I’m really curious. Like, in that back against the wall. Like, what’s your mindset? Like, okay, I have six months. What do you do next? Like, how do you go about? Like, you’ve been doing it for full time three years, but how do you go about starting a real estate investing business?

Justin Cambell  3:07  

Yeah, I mean, as far as mindset, you probably understand, and probably most of your listeners would understand, when you’re in that kind of situation, you’re battling fear and insecurity with hope and faith. Especially my wife, she had a lot of financial insecurity. And truthfully, I think that financial insecurity could rob a lot of people out of their best decisions. And I think that was the threat that we were facing is, you know, if we’re going to live in that space of insecurity, then I think the outcomes are going to follow that kind of mindset. And I remember my wife had this kind of definitive moment where she was like, I recognize that, that I’m full of fear right now, and she’s a phenomenal lady, so she recognized that, and she really trusted, or chose to trust, that we’re in the season of of what could be insecurity, but I’m going to choose to trust God that he’s going to provide and and Honestly, it was huge for both of us, this idea, you know, that we serve a God of abundance and not scarcity, and so that we could step out in faith, knowing that, you know, from our perspective, our background, man, God is going to take care of us. And it was so cool because she decided, in that moment to solidify that action, we were going to give a bunch of the money that we had saved away, and it almost became like this declaration of faith that we refuse to be held by, you know, fear or insecurity. And so I think once we decided to give money away, we’re like, This is it? We’re going to make this happen. There’s no, they’re out. And,

Sharad Mehta  4:39  

yeah, go ahead. No, it’s good. That’s That’s incredible. Just to, like, Have the faith and mindset to just like, I’m going to put faith in it, and you know, God’s going to take care of it. That’s so inspiring.

Justin Cambell  4:51  

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. So we moved up in June 2021 and we had our first flip under contract in July of 2020. One, I ended up doing a lot of the work myself. My parents helped. My oldest son helped. I hired some family and I learned a ton, mostly developing a process for rehabbing homes, especially homes with foundation issues, with which is a huge issue in in our in our area, learn never do electrical myself. That’s a terrible idea,

Sharad Mehta  5:21  

right? How did you go about? You know? So once you made a decision, okay, I’m going to go into real estate. Flipping is not the easiest niche in real estate to start with, like wholesaling rate. You could get a contract and assign it. That’s a little bit different from like actually buying a property, like, you’re putting money into it. Now, you cannot go back with the wholesale contract. You can go back. You can walk away from it. How did you run your numbers? Like, where did you get the confidence? Of, like, this is making sense. The numbers make sense. Like, how did you go about that? Did you have a partner? Were you going to local RIA meetings, talking to other investors to make sure that, you know, I mean, it was like, this is july 2021, in the middle of the covid, very competitive market. How do you get the, you know, the confidence to move forward with it? You know,

Justin Cambell  6:13  

I’ve always kind of had the mindset where, if you’re 80% certain something’s going to work, you just go for it. You’re never going to be 100% confident in the decision. I mean, truthfully, I had read a couple of books, I had listened to a bunch of podcasts, and I think you eventually get this critical mass of information where you just like, hey, everybody else is doing it. People are doing this. So why? Why can’t I do this? And I had the bigger pockets calculator. So ran my numbers based off of that, and yeah, 80% certain. And it just pulled the pulled the trigger. I would run my numbers differently. Now, super strong ARV to start with. I didn’t run my my rehab budget. It was just basically, just, let’s just go for

Sharad Mehta  7:01  

it, like best case scenarios and everything. Yeah, no, I love that. I think I talked to so many people on the podcast, I have the fortune of talking to like investors here, like yourself. And I think one thing I noticed, what really separates successful investors from the one that are struggling a little bit is their action taking ability. You know, I can talk to so many investors like, okay, let’s just like you say 80% confidence, good enough. I just go ahead, take action. We’ll figure it out. If Mistakes happen, they happen, but at least I don’t have the regret of being on the sideline and not making that decision. So I appreciate you sharing that. How did the first deal go? Did you make money on it? Did it, you know, I’m sure you ran into a bunch of Bishop like the electrical and other things. But did you end up making money on that deal? Yeah,

Justin Cambell  7:50  

so, so we on that first deal, we made about, I think we made $28,000 nice. And I finished that and thought, oh my goodness, I almost just replaced my salary as a pastor. Wow, yeah, we actually, so we finished that one and a couple weeks later, a realtor that, that we knew, said, Hey, I’m I would like to sell my house, and, you know, are you interested in it? So we, we ended up buying that. We flipped that, and it took us 10 days to renovate it, and we made $20,000

Sharad Mehta  8:25  

and wow. And like, wow, this is amazing, yeah. And then, so what happens after that? Like, this is like, you know, second half of 2021, you flip top oil properties made about roughly 50,000 Yeah. Where do you go from there?

Justin Cambell  8:40  

We kept networking. And it was interesting, because from the very beginning, it was, we would get a flip, we would get all the way done with it, we would sell it. And it was, I remember having this thought, will we ever get another opportunity to flip another house? We had no CRM, we had no pipeline. We were doing, you know, no postcards, nothing. It was just all word of mouth. And so it was always, you know, are we ever going to get this opportunity again? And no joke, like every two weeks after we would sell one, we would get another opportunity. And so the first house we flipped was in our neighborhood, and it was such a piece of crap house, and we revitalized it to such an extent that that first house really kind of gave us a reputation in the area. So neighbors told us about this third house that we flipped. I found the the sellers on Facebook, contacted them, made them an offer. They accepted it, and we did that one. It took us, you know, four or five weeks, and I think we made 70 grand off of that one. Oh, my God, this is just and so that’s just kind of how it worked. We just rolled one into the next, into the next. And, you know, been intentional with growing our network in the area. You know, our lenders, the banks, title companies, realtors and so. Just trying to get on everybody’s radar. And as we’ve done that, people just end up sending, sending stuff to us.

Sharad Mehta  10:06  

So at this point, you guys are doing property management also, right? How did that happen? Are you guys still flipping, or you guys have kind of transitioned into property management side,

Justin Cambell  10:19  

so we’re still flipping. We’re, we’re, I think we’ve done, I think we’re on project 10 this year or so. So not, not huge scale, but it’s, I would say we’re probably the largest in our area. So as we flipped, we were able to buy more. As we were buying more, people kept asking me to to manage their own, manage their properties. And honestly, for a long time, I said, you know, I don’t want to manage anybody else’s stuff. This is going to be a distraction to my own goal, to generating passive income. I don’t want to manage other people’s stuff. It was so interesting, though, because my wife, she was the one that said, Hey, I think you’re missing an opportunity here. And when I look back on it. It’s almost like, like, the the distraction that I dismissed was actually the direction that I needed for my own development. Like, I didn’t know that I needed property management to grow as a leader. I didn’t know I needed property management to step into the next phase of my calling.

Sharad Mehta  11:15  

Talk a little bit about that. Like, how do you see that property management business? I own a property management. It’s a very, very difficult business, at least in the market that we invest in. You know, it’s not, it’s not like a neighborhood. I’m not sure what neighborhoods you’re managing. It’s a very difficult business. What was that transition like, and looking back like, what are some of the things or challenges that you ran into as a leader, you know, like, just talk about that, please.

Justin Cambell  11:42  

Yeah, yeah. Well, as as you know property management, you know, you’re dealing with tenants, you’re dealing with owners. Property management companies usually have a really bad reputation, so you’re kind of fighting an uphill battle, fighting against a reputation that you didn’t create in the first place. And so for me, as a pastor, like I was in the people business. And you know, when, when you lead a business with people in mind First, it creates a level of trust that I think you can’t gain when you’re profit first. And so I tried to really develop relationships. And, you know, it’s, it was interesting because, you know, property management and building some of these other businesses that we’ve done, my role as a pastor really uniquely positioned me for the opportunity, because of my commitment to the last opportunity. And so, like building a team, you know, property management, you you don’t want to be an owner operator, that’s a terrible position to be in, absolutely and so building a team, you know, it’s way easier to build a team when you can pay them than when you’re running a team of volunteers. As like I was as a pastor, yeah, I feel

Sharad Mehta  12:51  

like in property, man, I was talking to my property manager, I feel like it’s one of those businesses where you’re serving two parties, the tenants and owners, and they’re both upset with you. I feel like all the time, who’s just upset with you? One thing, you’re charging too much rent. The other thing, you’re not charging enough. There’s always that tension. So it’s a very interesting business. And then how big is your property management company?

Justin Cambell  13:16  

How many units? Just over 300 units. Now, 300

Sharad Mehta  13:19  

units? Oh, how did you scale so quickly to 300 unit and are these residential apartment complexes a

Justin Cambell  13:26  

little mix of both? Yeah. So we don’t do any, we don’t do anything like 100 plus, where we’ve got an on site manager, so I don’t think we have anything over 30 units right now. So, and it’s just been, been word of mouth, so we haven’t done

Sharad Mehta  13:42  

so you’re not doing any paid advertising, nothing. Just prefer word of mouth, yeah, and all in this same area that you’re in, yeah, that’s right, yeah, right. And then what’s your, what’s your goal? Like, like, three to three, five years down the road, like, kind of are you see yourself scaling your property management business, scaling your flipping business, yeah, we want

Justin Cambell  14:04  

to get out of flipping as soon as possible. There. I think as soon as I mean taxes are high, liability is high, stress is high with flipping. So I think as soon as we have flipping is always been designed to help us buy more properties once we have the properties that we want, once we have the reserves that we need, I think we’ll probably pivot to more, more of a lending side,

Sharad Mehta  14:29  

okay? Like lending, private money lending, that’s right, okay, when you look back three years ago, when you started thinking about investing, and you look back and like, how far you’ve come. Like, what are some of the things that you look back in terms of, like, mindset that you need it? Like, okay, I’m glad I had that mindset, because a lot of people that listen to the podcast, you know their newbie investor, sometimes they’re struggling to get their first deal, and you’ve done incredibly well over. Three years, you know, flipping consistently, and have 300 units under management looking to do lending, like, what? What’s that like? Looking back, the mindset that you like, you look back and like, Man, I’m so glad that I had that mindset and I did that. That’s

Justin Cambell  15:14  

a great question. Yeah, I think one of the postures that I’ve had is, is I’ve always, I’ve always assumed I’m not the smartest person in any room, and so I’ve always tried to invest in my own development, and finding people that are much more successful than I am. Is that I believe that you’re only successful when you’re pulled up. And so having people ahead of you that can, that can pull you up, that can, you know, shortcut the learning curve, and so I invested in coaches and mentors pretty early. That would be certainly one. I think the other one is, and we talked about it just a little bit too, is I was absolutely certain that if somebody else has done it, then I can probably do it also. I’m definitely not the smartest person or the most talented, but most people that are very successful, they’ve got the same, same models. They’ve got the same, you know, whatever it is. And so if you can learn from other people’s models, generally speaking, you can have similar results. And so some of what what led to the confidence to move forward?

Sharad Mehta  16:19  

Yeah, I think it’s right. I mean, I’m so happy to hear that it’s about investing in coaches, systems and processes. It’s like the boring part of the business, right? Nobody thinks about systems and processes until they get to the point where things are falling apart and and then, like, they start questioning, okay, why is this happening? Why is that happening? And it’s too late sometimes. But if you start investing in systems and processes upfront, it makes the business so much easier. It makes such a big difference, that’s right. And coaching is one thing that I wish if I could go back, that’s one thing I would change, is start investing in coaching and mentorship programs a lot earlier in my investing career than I’m doing now. It just helps you with the learning curve. It you’re learning from other people, from their experiences, picking up on their systems and processes that you can immediately implement so you don’t have to start from scratch. So I’m so happy to hear that you were doing that, and especially like, I’m still amazed that you had, like, six months of savings, and you had this faith that this thing was going to work out. And I loved such a simple mindset that was so powerful. If other people have done it, why can’t I do it? You know, it’s it’s amazing. And how do you see yourself? Like, how have you changed as a leader from the time you started three years ago to the time you see now? So I want to that’s part one of the questions. And where do you see the gaps are from where you are right now to, let’s say, three years ahead? Like, where do you see the leadership gaps are right now that you need to grow. Yeah,

Justin Cambell  18:01  

that’s a great question. Well, probably the way, way I’ve developed the most is, you know, I stopped thinking one for one. So I never want to be in the place where, if I stop a task, I stop making money for that task. So I want to invest in in businesses and teams and processes so that, if I step away, the money continues to generate. And so I would say that’s definitely the biggest one is,

Sharad Mehta  18:28  

can you give me an example of that? Like, what would that look like in your business now?

Justin Cambell  18:32  

Yeah, yeah. So I mean if, if we just take property management for an example, when I was in the owner operator role, I answer the phone. I met with potential owners, and if I didn’t do that, we stopped in Korea, you know, improving and adding unit counts to our property management. But by investing in an operations manager, they continue that process, and I can step away from it. So no longer am I investing in it, just this one for one. I’m investing in a team or in a process. That’d be an example. Okay?

Sharad Mehta  19:08  

And where you are right now, you know, with the incredible business that you build, and you look ahead like three, five years down the road, where do you see you need to grow as a person, as a leader, in order for your business to get to that point,

Justin Cambell  19:24  

probably the biggest thing, and probably for a lot of people that are in kind of MySpace right now where, you know, we’ve, we’ve developed a certain level of wealth and passive income and everything like that, in order to move to that, that next kind of echelon, I feel like a lot of It is limiting, limiting beliefs. I could just not believing that. Yeah, I’ve never seen it happen before. Not a lot of people are talking about this, this space, and so it’s tough to see myself scaling to having a property management of of 5000 units. It’s a completely different beast than a property management of three to 800 So just a limiting belief of, you know, am I really capable of leading an organization of that size?

Sharad Mehta  20:06  

And how do you, how do you manage that? Yeah, keep, keep

Justin Cambell  20:10  

surrounding myself with with people that are in that space. I think a lot of it comes down to being certain that I actually want to be in that space and to run a company that size. I think if you surround yourself with people that are successful, you know, they’re just, even if they’re not directly mentoring or coaching, you’re just going to rise to the level of of the people that you’re hanging out with. So, you know, getting in the space of people that have grown companies to that size is probably the biggest, you know, the biggest action step for me. And

Sharad Mehta  20:39  

I think Jim Rohn said it you’re the average of five people that you spend the most time with in your personal life, business life, and that’s like, so great to hear that from you. I 100% believe that, you know, in my business, if I’m hanging out with the five people that are motivated, like 10 step ahead of me, they’re going to pull me up or, you know, I’m just going to be so motivated to get to that point. And one thing I want to, like, point out that you mentioned, this is something I struggled with. Also, I’m working with a business coach, you know, we set a goal of, like, what I want to do with my company. Any question me, like, why do you want that? Like, is that something you want for yourself, or is that something like a vanity number that you want to be able to prove to other people is that something, you know, you mentioned that you’ve had this question, like, Do I even want to be at that level? Like, how have you, like, tackled that question for yourself?

Justin Cambell  21:32  

Yeah, I think a lot of it come comes down to, you know, what do you really want? I don’t think anybody really wants to have a large business with all of these employees, just for the sake of it. It has to do with, you know, the revenue that you’re generating from having that size and so for my wife and I, we’ve, we’ve got some giving goals that we would like to hit on an annual basis. And in order to hit those giving goals, we’ve got three buckets, you know, we need to grow property management to 800 units. We need to have 100 units personally owned, and we need to flip 20 houses a year. Like having those three buckets enables us to generate this amount of income so that we can achieve this, this giving goal. And so do we need a property management company of 5000 we don’t, but I’m not certain I don’t want that once I hit the 800 mark,

Sharad Mehta  22:21  

right? That is so I love how specific your goals are, right? 800 units we want to have, you know, flip 20 houses over here have 100 of our own unit. Is that your biggest why in life right now? Is that, like everything is driven by, you know, the how much you want to give? Is that, like, when you get up, you know? I mean, I’m sure everyone has those days where you question, like, why am I doing this? Like, you know, I could be doing something. It’s like, how do you like, do you focus on the why behind what you’re doing? Yeah,

Justin Cambell  22:54  

I’m, truthfully, I don’t have a lot of those days where I wake up and think, man, I just don’t want to do this anymore. Now that I’m out of the owner operator role, I had those days a lot as the owner, but once I’m out of that, since being out of that role, I don’t, don’t have a lot of those days. And so it’s much more about am I running businesses that give me a quality of life, where I’m able to make an impact on people give generously and have a lot of fun, and as long as I’m hitting those three buckets, yeah, I don’t think having a crystal clear why that’s, you know, myopic on this one thing is, is critical.

Sharad Mehta  23:36  

Yeah, I love that. Justin, this has been absolutely incredible. A couple of other questions you ask you, what do you do for fun?

Justin Cambell  23:43  

Yeah, I love to have fun. I think one of the benefits of being an only child and growing up having to entertain myself is I have fun everywhere. But yeah, I love traveling with my wife. I love, you know, playing with my kids, whatever they’re whatever they’re into. Love getting out in nature, trail running, backpacking, play guitar, so try to have in a lot of capacities,

Sharad Mehta  24:07  

curious. What’s the most memorable place you’ve traveled to? Ooh, you know, basically we’re going to go back again. Yeah, yeah,

Justin Cambell  24:14  

one of my favorite places, and we’d actually like to buy property here is, is Kosovo. It’s

Sharad Mehta  24:20  

in Montana. Completely stunning. Yeah, as you said, in Montana.

Justin Cambell  24:25  

Oh no, Kosovo in in Central Europe. So, okay, okay, Kosovo, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s a it’s a mountainous region. It’s beautiful. It actually looks a lot like Montana, but you can build a property, a decent property for 50,000 bucks there. Oh, wow, it’s cost of living is is cheap? The people are great and beautiful area.

Sharad Mehta  24:51  

You said when you started in real estate. You’ve got a couple of books, one podcast. What’s the one book that you look back and say? Bought this book had the biggest impact on my life. It could be a personal book. It could be a business book or one of each,

Justin Cambell  25:05  

yeah, as far as growing business, ooh, most of the books are, they’re so stacked upon each other, like they’re, you know, you read Cash Flow Quadrant, and your mind just explodes about this idea of, you know, having passive income, or Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It’s, it’s hard to put a finger on, on one book that was the most transformative. I would just say, I read so many real estate books, and I think I’m stacked upon, yep. That’s kind of,

Sharad Mehta  25:38  

you learn one thing and they’re like, Oh, I gotta find out about that. Like, wow, this book is so good. And they’re like, just, it’s like, keep going from one step to another. Now I appreciate

Justin Cambell  25:47  

that. If I had to pick one book, it would probably be Chad Carson coach. Carson, okay, he’s got a book. One of them’s the small but mighty investor that was the prequel to that. I can’t remember what it is, but, but Chad Carson had a book, and it was about about financial independence through real estate. And that was probably that was one of the biggest epiphanies,

Sharad Mehta  26:10  

absolutely, yeah, I’ll check it out. Alright. Final question, if you could spend a day with anyone, dead or alive, who would you want to spend the day with? And why?

Justin Cambell  26:24  

I mean, the obvious answer would, would probably be Jesus, the historical figure. But if I’m going to pick pick somebody, like modern day, I’d pick Bob Goff. I don’t know if you’ve heard it. He’s author of Love. Does Okay? Guy knows how to have fun. And he and, oh yeah, his family. I actually have a picture of him in my office, just as a reminder to have fun and love awesome.

Sharad Mehta  26:45  

Oh, that is so awesome. I love that. I love that. Justin, if someone wants to connect with you, learn more about your journey, what’s the best way for them to do that? Yeah, probably

Justin Cambell  26:55  

Instagram, on Instagram at Red Door properties, and a period between each word, Red Door properties, that’s a great way to connect with me.

Sharad Mehta  27:05  

Perfect. We’ll put that in the show notes. Justin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your journey. I appreciate it so much.

Justin Cambell  27:12  

Sharad, thanks for the great questions and for the conversation.

Sharad Mehta  27:15  

Thank you. Applause.