Jason started his real estate investing journey, while studying economics at BYU. He chose to buy a Fourplex that he and his wife lived in when he was 24. After that he realized investing in properties could achieve his goals and dreams much quicker than other options. Since then he has pursued investing in good cash flowing properties to maximize his real estate portfolio. He has built a real estate portfolio valued over $23 million with $2.2 million in annual gross scheduled income. Jason's success has come from constantly evolving his own real estate portfolio to maximize his returns in any scenario. Knowing how to treat his real estate as a business, not a passive investment, has been the biggest factor in his success and his ability to grow his portfolio rapidly. Jason is creative in his financing approaches. He didn't let the initial lack of money slow him towards achieving his goal of acquiring more cash flow properties. He started young when he was basically broke, yet he found a way to keep buying through it all. He has bought a large portion of his properties, mainly multifamily units, with very low (10%) down or less. He has had quite a few no money down scenarios in a very competitive real estate market. His strategy involves quickly positioning a property to recapture his initial investment, retain the property and manage it to create healthy cash flow margins and then repeat the process. Jason has a background as a financial advisor and spent 7 years in the financial securities industry. Because of this, he has a unique perspective and view than most in the real estate industry.
The moment he started sharing his investing story, he was asked to be on blogs, podcasts (Bigger Pockets, Cash Flow Forever with Rod Khleif, The Best Ever Real Estate Advice with Joe Fairless, the Apartment Building Investing podcast with Michael Blank to name a few) and to speak on panels at prestigious national real estate conferences. He and his wife, Carrie, were also approached by a production company and now have a pitch into HGTV for a tv show focusing on the renovation strategy of our investing. The massive amounts of emails, phone calls and messages received, not only from Utah residents but from people all over the U.S., was surprising and humbling. It revealed there is a staggering amount of people that desire to jump into real estate but don't know how to start. As a result, he and his wife started hosting real estate investing events and seminars for individuals and companies throughout Utah.
Between 2014 and 2018, Jason and Carrie started 3 real estate companies focused on investments based in Utah county. They founded Harris Investment Group, a private equity firm focusing on value add Multifamily assets, Harris Real Estate, a Real Estate & Property Management Brokerage and Creative Gains, a mentoring & education company. As of January 2019, Jason officially left his full time financial advising practice and now focuses entirely on real estate. Jason is writing a book focusing on his path to financial freedom that includes strategies and investing principles for others to follow that will be released late Fall 2019. Jason is currently focused on commercial development deals, mid to large apartment complex acquisitions and structuring real estate partnership syndication opportunities. Jason offers consulting and strategy sessions to high net worth individuals and companies.