Jacob Skinner is a Real Estate Investor born and raised in Charleston, WV so it only makes sense that he invested in the town he grew up in. He grew up on Charleston’s westside (not the greatest of places especially at the time) where he lived well under the poverty line. This was only motivation to him to become something and not to be a product of his environment, something we see happen all too much these days.
Jacob graduated with honors from South Charleston High School and attended West Virginia State University. During and after college Jacob worked in environmental construction. After his stent in that he began what is still to this day his other job, a career in the automobile industry. For over eight years Jacob has worked and sold cars for Moses Autogroup (the largest volume dealer in the state of WV). Jacob loves his job at Moses and has met hundreds of contacts and made just as many friends along the way, but he has always wanted more.
In 2017 Jacob had an epiphany and wanted to start his own company doing real estate. Exactly what type of real estate was yet to be determined. We have all watched HGTV and Flip This House. One could only assume he was hook, line, and sinker on it too! The problem he faced was time. Working his full-time-job and a family at home, he would never be able to do this on his own. Jacob reached out to his long-time friend and schoolmate, Jordan Crist and asked him if it would be something he would be interested in doing. He was not interested at the time but would soon come around. Several months later they joined forces and have not stopped since! The birth of BUILDING APPALACHIA
This residential redevelopment company is Charleston premier real estate solutions company. They are responsible for helping dozens of people trying to sell their homes across West Virginia (primarily Kanawha and Putnam Counties). Building Appalachia specializes in buying homes of people in need. Those facing structural damages, fire, mold, negative equity, facing foreclosure, tired of being a landlord and more.
It is no wonder Building Appalachia has done over 50 real estate transaction in the last 3 years! This company is doing its part in bettering our neighborhoods one house at a time by taking mostly distressed houses and making them new. This helps the neighbors from having to look at eye sores, generates taxes that are paid to the county and state, provides local jobs to its employees and local contractors and helps bring life back into the areas they love the most.
On March 8, 2021 Jacob was invited to be featured on the Ready. Set. Go. Real Estate Investing Podcast with Brandon Elliott to discuss his journey in Real Estate. It has been a long journey with many obstacles to overcome, but as the owners of Building Appalachia complete more and more transactions, they have been able to learn creative ways to continue adding properties to their growing portfolio. In this episode Jacob and Brandon talk about starting a career in sales, they both sold vacuums door to door before they got into Real Estate! Jacob then transitioned into car sales after college, so he has a ton of experience talking to people and completing sales, which is a huge part of part of Real Estate Investing. Jacob and his business partner, Jordan Crist, started their Real Estate company in 2017 with a combination of Jacob’s sales and negotiation skills paired with Jordan’s systems and engineering skills. Their strengths and weaknesses compliment each other which is why they make a great team.
Real Estate education was a huge part to their growth as a company. After their first flip was unsuccessful, they kept trying and got two more properties under contract, which they planned to flip. During the renovation of these two properties, they found an educational platform called Fortune Builders Mastery, which is well know for their processes and systems. Learning the correct processes combined with the right tools and resources, the next two flips were very successful, and the company was off and running. Building Appalachia successfully bought and sold four properties in 2017, another four properties in 2018. They stumbled at the end of 2018 and got into a massive renovation that cost over $220,000 to rehab a 4 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom, 4000 square foot home at 5 Dreamview Drive, Charleston, WV. This project took a full 18 months from start to finish and was a bit of a setback through 2019 and into the early months of 2020. In 2020 COVID hit America and Building Appalachia decided to slow down their purchases after the sale of 5 Dreamview. Still yet the company purchased a single-family rental and a property that had a small house and duplex in 2020. The single family was a brick 2 story home at 936 6th St, Charleston, WV that was purchased for $42,000 then appraised for $69,000 after a light renovation.
Now that 2020 is behind and the COVID craze has slowed down, Building Appalachia has started 2021 off with a bang! To this point they have closed on 5 new properties with a total of 12 units. This has been the best year yet and they are moving full steam ahead! Watch the full episode between Jacob and Brandon to learn more about how you can get started investing in Real Estate. They talk about everything from how to negotiate with sellers, the systems that are behind the company, what type of deals they get in their market of Charleston.
