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Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. I don't
Music 0:15
dance now. I make money. Move. Say I don't gotta dance. I make money. Move.
Lamont Harris 0:32
All right, all right. Happy Sunday, Las Vegas. How's everybody out there doing this Sunday morning? I'm super, super excited. It's the first Sunday of 2025 I hope that you guys had an amazing holiday. I know for my family and I, we had a absolute blast. Ton of family and friends coming in, visiting from Chicago and all over the US, and we just had a time. I'm super excited because today I have in the studio with me, Mandisa Barnett, not only an amazing friend, but just a rock star, entrepreneur in the studio with us today, Mandisa, before we start talking, before we get into like, the nitty gritty of why you're here today, and I really got to take like, five seconds to just talk to you about the holidays, right? Because I know you just had a baby, a new baby, right, last year, right? And so I'm super excited to kind of hear from you about, like, what was this break like for the holidays? How was it? It was so good.
Mandisa Barnett 1:47
The baby turned one, and so I'm just very big on making sure that he has a separate birthday outside of Christmas, separate wrap and paper, separate everything. He loved it. He's able to eat everything. Now he's like, my little, my little fat boy loves Kit Kats and Reese's. I love it. And it was, it was just a beautiful time with my family. And, you know, I'm a California girl at heart, and I go back home every year, and these were the last two years that we didn't and so just celebrating with my immediate family was just everything,
Lamont Harris 2:18
that's awesome, that's awesome. So So baby, just turn one right. What's his name? Kingston. Kingston, and Kingston is one of one of five, one of five. Mandisa, you are busy. I am. So you've got five. Kingston is the youngest. Your oldest is. How old? 18? 1819, in February. Awesome, awesome, awesome. And so, like, you got five kids, right? You're married you, so you're always on the go, right? So, Mom duties, wife duties, and then you're, you're an amazing entrepreneur, which is how you and I got originally introduced to it to each other a little bit more than a year and a half ago, right? So, Tom really, really flies and and look right we fast forward. You guys got a new introduction to the family. Now we're coming off an amazing holiday. What are you most excited about in 2025
Mandisa Barnett 3:13
I am excited just to be here in Vegas. I think Vegas is truly like the land of opportunity, and in this just investor community. We are so fortunate to be able to be with each other without, you know that hassle of the traffic you can be at a networking event every single month, if that's or every single day of the week, that's what you want, absolutely right? We don't have that. And we're so close knit, and we're so tight here that there's always an opportunity and someone's always willing to help. And I just see that going forward in 2020, okay,
Lamont Harris 3:41
so Mandisa is kind of letting the cat out of the bag. She she talked about investor community, right? And so, so everybody that knows a little bit about me, they know this. They know I'm always looking right, like the title of the show, right? I'm always looking to make money moves, right? And so the way you and I were introduced was an opportunity for us to put together some money moves over a year and a half ago, and that's going to kind of bring me to where we are today, which is why we have you on the air to tell our amazing listeners about these money moves that are being made all across the country. But now it's really, really, it's changing the investor game here at home in the valley, and so we're going to talk about that today. So Mandisa, if you don't mind, for the listening audience, for those that don't know who you are, tell us your first your last name and the company that you represent today. So
Mandisa Barnett 4:39
my name is Mandisa Barnett, and I am representing pod split. It's the largest co living company that there is helping people just afford to live.
Lamont Harris 4:49
CO living, we're going to talk about CO living in just a second, right? So, so obviously, everybody knows that I am in the mortgage space, right? I'm Lamont Harris. I'm the president, CEO of. HARRIS capital Mortgage Group, and we're one of the fastest growing mortgage companies here in the valley. We partnered up with pad split back in 2023 and Mandisa and I, we took a trip out to Pontiac, Michigan, right? I was going to say Detroit. I had to stop myself for a second. We talked about that before we jumped on the air that we were in Pontiac. Man, DISA what was that experience like when you and I went to Pontiac? How was that? Oh
Mandisa Barnett 5:25
my gosh. That was amazing. Thank you again for just including me in on that. Just being able to be there eight o'clock in the morning at UW M, just facility, I want to say it's a campus. It's huge. It's
Lamont Harris 5:38
huge. A million square foot, it's huge. A million square foot energy
Mandisa Barnett 5:42
in there, and just the people and, like, I'm a sports mom, like, I love basketball, just every single reference that they were making as to, we are a team, and we are doing this for the betterment of the team. And no one's better than the team. And everybody has their their way to play, and everybody is a winner. It, you know? It was amazing, yeah. And
Lamont Harris 6:00
so speaking of team, right? We talk about Harris capitals team over at hcmg, and we talk about how that that team has partnered with pad split with you, in particular, here in the Las Vegas market, to really focus and in on the opportunity that exists for investors here in our market. And so a lot of people always have that question about, like, how do I become a real estate investor, right? Like, you know, what's my niche? How do I know what to do? How to do it? And you guys came up with something that was pretty impressive. And I gotta say, when I saw your model, I was really, really impressed, because it's one thing to have this model you run a trial run. I think you guys started out in Atlanta. Is that right? So you started this trial run in Atlanta. And when did you guys start that trial run in Atlanta? Six years ago. Now, six years ago. So you started this trial run in Atlanta, Georgia. And now you guys are like, where are you now? What markets are you in. We're
Mandisa Barnett 7:00
in 17 different markets now, so we have kind of taken over the East Coast. Okay, okay, everywhere you can think of in Florida, pretty much everywhere you can or in Atlanta. And then you move over to Texas, and there's a few markets there, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, places like that. And then we're here in Vegas. We're here in Phoenix, and then we're growing just rapidly. We're trying to break into LA, which anybody knows that's gonna be hard and tricky, but there's such a huge need for it, and we're doing it. We're not scared to just go out there and be like, Hey, let's make this work.
Lamont Harris 7:32
So we're gonna talk about PASS split just a second for those listeners that are listening that don't really know what it is, how it works, how it could benefit our guys that are in this market, our guys and girls that are in this market, in the investor community, we'll talk specifically about it. But before we do that, I just got to ask you, like, I mean, you're here, you're a West Coast girl, you've been in Vegas now for how long? Three years. Three years, right? Three years. So, so, so you come from Southern California, and now you're in the Vegas market. Why Las Vegas for PAD split? Why is Vegas so important?
Mandisa Barnett 8:07
Vegas is very transient, as when it comes to the people that are here and the people that live here, grew up here, did all of that. They don't earn a livable income. So that's why Vegas is so important when it comes to the pad split model, because the wages don't keep up with the housing prices. Me being from California, I you know you thought about Vegas, you thought about the strip, or you thought about cheaper living. When you thought about cheaper living, it was a $700.03 bedroom townhouse. Those days are gone. Now we no longer have that, but now you can have a pad split, and you can live there, safely and affordable place to live for that amount. And there's not a lot of places outside of Vegas that are that are still like that. So I think that's why Vegas is super important for PAD split, so
Lamont Harris 8:53
that that's that you bring up so many good points about the real estate market here in Vegas and how it's just evolving. Let's talk specifically. Before we go in more detail about the market per se, let's talk specifically about your business model. What is pad split? Pad
Mandisa Barnett 9:10
split is a way that you're taking a single family home and you're converting it to a multi family home, right or not? Multi family, multi person, I should say, because it's a single person, one heartbeat in each room, you're taking a single family house, you're making a bunch of different bedrooms, so that people who are making 30 to $60,000 a year can actually afford a safe, clean and affordable place to live. And that's what pad split is.
Lamont Harris 9:35
Wow. And so with that, I guess that kind of brings me into my next question, which is like, who's your target?
Mandisa Barnett 9:43
It's the person at the gas station that you know you paid and got your snacks from. It's the butcher that you're in Albertsons and go see. It's people who are working at our casinos. It's people who are teachers, truck drivers, the military people, the people who are. Living or Amazon packages. Our target demographic is people who are literally just a little bit less fortunate than you and I, someone who doesn't have as much money saved, someone who doesn't have a high credit score, someone who just needs a safe, clean and affordable place to say. And I know I stay, I keep coming back to that, sure, sure, sure. But that's literally just what it is. It's just giving people dignity back in their housing, because nobody wants to live in one of those. What are those things called? Those weekly motels? They're not safe. Single suites. Yeah, they're not safe. There's all these things happening there. So nothing against
Lamont Harris 10:32
single suites, by the way, right? Nothing against single suites, but, but at the end of the day, what you what you guys, are doing, is you're providing an alternative, right? Absolutely. And so. So that brings me to this, which is, like, you know, what makes you guys different? Because I've heard the comparison in terms of, I've heard consumers compare you to, like an Airbnb, yeah, what's different between pad split versus Airbnb? What separates the two? What makes them so different. I love
Mandisa Barnett 11:00
this question. So pad split and Airbnb, inherently, are very, very similar. However, the key differences between a pad split and an Airbnb. In an Airbnb, you're usually going to one of those for what an experience. You're coming into Vegas for the Super Bowl, which was last year. You're coming in for a show. You're coming in for something, a pod split the people who are working those experiences that you're having, they're living there for nine, eight to nine months on average,
Lamont Harris 11:27
okay? And so, so that's the main difference, is those persons become more like a resident, absolutely. And so I guess, like for me, I'm a real estate investor. We talk about opportunities of getting involved in real estate. And one of the things that I saw with you guys as business model is there was an opportunity for people to get involved in becoming a real estate investor, specifically individuals that were looking to kind of break in into that multi family market, but they didn't really have the means to break into that multi family market. This provides a huge opportunity tell our listeners how, like, like, like, how does it work? And where you guys are able to take a single family and then provide a opportunity for an investor to kind of have, like, a little bit of that multi family money coming in, if that, if that makes sense, right? Absolutely,
Mandisa Barnett 12:22
it's a single family house with multi family returns. So in a co living setting, it's basically like an adult dorm, right? And so you have the single family house, it's typically a four bedroom, you turn it into a seven bedroom, and then you're making money on each of those rooms. Okay,
Lamont Harris 12:38
so Wait, I gotta stop you, because, like, you just said something that just like it raised an eyebrow, right? You said, taking a four bedroom home and converting it into a seven unit in that single family. How do you do that? Well,
Mandisa Barnett 12:53
you're going to work with your local contractors. You're going to work with the the laws that are wherever you're picking up these houses, and you're going to just create, instead of having a bet, a living room, you're going to turn that into a bedroom. You're going to throw up walls, you're going to move windows, electricity, different things like that. And so I would just suggest that you work with a contractor, a licensed contractor permits, and do all that type of stuff. But that's how you're doing it, and how involved are you guys in that process. So I can introduce you to contractors. I'm not a licensed contractor. I have been known to go into like, a property walk, and they'll be like, Mindy. So what do you think we can do here? And I'm like, Oh, we could just take that wall down. And then a contractor is like, That's a load bearing wall. Please stop telling people things. You know, I I am as involved as you want me to be. I can hold your hand throughout the process. Again, I'm not a contractor. I, you know, I can put on a door handle for you. I'll introduce you to contractors. I can introduce you to places to buy the furniture. I can do all of that type of stuff, right? We're, we're working together as much as you want to. Or if you're just an investor, who you're like, Hey, I've done it 800 flips, right? You pretty much have your people. And you know what you need to do. And I'm just here to tell you, hey, I want to bed here. I want this here. I want that here, to keep you adhering to the Padlet guidelines, Understood,
Lamont Harris 14:07
understood. And so I guess that kind of brings me to the next point, which is like, I mean, you guys are, you're, you've made a lot of strides right in six years. I gotta say you're in 17 markets, and I look at some of the markets that you're in right now, we're talking major US markets right talk about some of those markets that you guys are in right now. What other cities are you in besides Atlanta, in Las Vegas?
Mandisa Barnett 14:31
So Atlanta is huge, and I just want to say we started in Atlanta, and we have over 5000 bedrooms there. We're pretty much a household name in Vegas when I started two and a half years ago. Now we had 14 doors, which are bedrooms, and now we have over 600 so we're also in Phoenix, which is my sister market, and I love them there. We're in Virginia. We're in Florida. We have just expanded in Florida, because the cost of living is huge. I mean, we are in. Miami. And if you look at the cost to acquire a home out there, and then you look at the rent, you can, you can 110%
Lamont Harris 15:07
see why. And so like on the average, right, I know the numbers could vary right from market to market, but like in this Vegas market, we talk about post COVID, we talk about the rising cost of rents, right? And in the market of Vegas on average, like, let's say, you know, I don't know. I drive Uber, I drive Lyft. I'm somebody that my wages primarily are tips. What could I expect if I were to try to rent from Pat split on average? What could I expect, from a standpoint of, I don't know, average cost of rent, like, yeah, what am I expecting?
Mandisa Barnett 15:45
So that's a great question. And you're going to pay about $800 and that $800 is all inclusive. You get the Wi Fi, you get all the bills, water, trash, gas, all of that type of stuff. And then we set you up for success. We don't let you book a room that you're not able to afford, so you have a secure credit limit that you're able to just go, hey, I can book a room $150 a week to this much a week. We are taking the payments once you're getting paid. So you set your own pace schedule, your credit score is able to improve. You have free telehealth, and we're helping you build credit along the
Lamont Harris 16:17
way. Wow. So I mean, you guys are really going all in, right? Free telehealth. So for those individuals that that might be that independent Uber driver or Lyft driver, maybe they don't have health benefits, but you guys are providing telehealth for them as well, which is, like, absolutely amazing. But I gotta ask you, like, we talk about all the positives, right? I know there's got to be some baby negatives here. What? Like, you know, I can only imagine if it were me and I had to rent from a company like pad split. I think one of my biggest concerns would be safety, right? So how do you address individuals that might be concerned with how safe is this? For
Mandisa Barnett 16:54
the investor, you have to think about the fact that 95% of the time damage safety issues and incidents come from families. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad fight. Kids are messy. People have pets, so we're taking all of that out of the equation. These are seven strangers who are coming together because they have really no other alternative, or they may have an alternative, but this gives them the ability to be on their own, as opposed to sleeping on your cousin's couch or living closer to work or something like that, right? So with the people who are like, Oh my gosh, these safety issues, we don't really have that there? Have there been some? Yes, we have over 17,000 rooms on our platform, and I can't background check for, you know, humans just being crazy humans, right? We do background checks, and we do all of that type of stuff, but you have a support team in place that's going to address any of those concerns. And you guys kind of govern yourself throughout this pad split, because I'm not there. I don't see all of
Lamont Harris 17:54
them. So pad split, if I understand this correctly from listening to you, pad split, more or less, is the platform? Yeah, so, so, you know, listeners, if we were using Uber for an example, as a platform, but the service that we provide is that that we're drivers, right? We're drivers. We have the ability to take person from A to B and get them to their destination. That's a service that we provide, but we're using this platform to provide this service. The only thing that's changed here is the service. And the service that we're providing right now through pad split is housing, right? People need a place to sleep, right? And so I could definitely see how this could be beneficial. I see how you guys are just it's just taking over, and you're in 17 markets now in six years, and I could only see sky's the limit for something like pad split. I got to ask you brought something up a moment ago about individuals qualifying for certain amounts in terms of what they could afford, and what that affordability looks like. I assume that you guys have some type of process in which you pre approve or approve folks for for getting these these rooms when an individual is to to sign on with pad split like, how much time are they paying in advance? I know most of the concerns that I hear when I hear people going into rentals before they come in is, hey, how much is my security deposit? Right? That's a big question, right? I get it all the time in the mortgage space, right? The big question that everybody wants to know is, well, how much money do I have to pay to get into that house, right? So how does that work for you guys?
Mandisa Barnett 19:36
So pad split is very, very unique in the way that we are making that we're meeting you where you are. So if you're paid every single week, you're paying your rent every single week. And in terms of a security deposit, we don't have those, we have a non refundable move in fee that's set by the host, the owner of the home. And you have the ability to choose and sort through each of the houses. So if you don't have the extra funds to pay, guess what? There's four other houses down the. Street that you can choose from, and maybe one of them has a lower one. I
Lamont Harris 20:03
love that. I love that. So you make it simple and easy, yes, it's not complex. So so I you know that that's pretty cool. So I definitely would would say that this is something that I see really, really growing in a market like Vegas, and I could see how you'd want to take this to Los Angeles and really go next level with Los Angeles. Right? Tell folks at home. How could an individual get a hold of you if they wanted to reach out, or if they wanted to learn more about pad split? Would they reach out to you directly? What would they do? Yeah,
Mandisa Barnett 20:37
if you're here in Vegas, you can always just give me a call on my cell phone, 951-232-7787,
Lamont Harris 20:44
yeah. Say that number one more time for us and slow down a little bit for us. Yeah. Say that
Mandisa Barnett 20:47
one more time. 951-232-7787,
Lamont Harris 20:52
okay. So so folks can reach out directly to you, and you can kind of point them in a direction in terms of where to go, absolutely okay. And so and so. That brings me to this for my investors that are at home, listening, if you're an investor and you're thinking about buying property here in Vegas, consider the pad split model is what I would tell you to do before you jump out there. You may decide, hey, this model is a really great model. It could work within my portfolio. You may decide, hey, it's not for me. I'd say, if you decide that it possibly could be for you, Harris capital has partnered with pad split to make sure that we could get you not only pre approved, but get you all the way to the finish line. And we're ecstatic about doing that, right? So I got to get into the market here for you, because you started out in California. And I think one of the things that you know you and I really hit it off, because we both come from the mortgage space. You were in California, out in that world. I've been here in Vegas now for 10 years, since coming from the Washington, DC area, I got to ask you, man DISA, man DISA, you brought up at the beginning the fact that you've got five kids at home, right? And you're busy, busy, busy. You know, I think folks at home are wanting to know, how do you balance the two?
Mandisa Barnett 22:20
Honestly, with my 18 year old and my two of my kids are older, so they're easy. It's just the three, the three little ones doing everything and constantly growing and learning. They're at school for a long time. I can get my work done there, and it's really about like just managing your time, which admittedly, I do very badly. But we try, we try. So,
Lamont Harris 22:44
all right, all right, all right. And so I think you're doing a heck of a job, right? I mean, you're doing a heck of a job. I you know, we talk about that work life balance, we talk about this market. But before you leave the day, I got to ask you, like, if I'm if I'm an investor, we we really have horn home on the fact that pad split is working well in other cities. We think Vegas is going to be a thriving market. I'm so focused, though, on the fact that you told me how many units you guys have just in Atlanta. And man, with this being as a transient town as any I can only imagine that sky's the limit. Have you seen any challenges with the number of units available in the market? And the reason I asked that question, I talked to a lot of realtors, and one of the things that we notice is we noticed that post COVID, there was an inventory shortage, right? That's no so. So what I'm wondering is, have you guys experienced similarities in in what you're doing?
Mandisa Barnett 23:55
Absolutely, we're just like any other facet of real estate. So in, it catches on, and then it goes off, right? Yeah. So when I got here in Vegas, investors would look at me like, yeah, no, we're not doing that. Now there's so many investors who are like, Hey, this isn't working. This isn't working. This isn't working. Let's try this. That we have a ton of inventory, but don't have the marketing there quite yet. So every single market that we're in has experienced that, but once we realize, hey, people are catching on to this, we're able to turn it on, build relationships with different people and make it work.
Lamont Harris 24:28
Yeah. So the reason I asked that question, not to throw you off, but like, when I think, like, I think agents talking shortage, right? What? What happens when there's a shortage of inventory? Right? We have to create the inventory, and inventory is created one of two ways, either we're going to build more units, or we're going to get out here and work our butts off and try to get people to list their homes for sale, right? And so for for somebody like you guys, what do you do is, Are you doing anything different or like what's your approach to the whole. Idea of guys. We've got a shortage of units in this market. How do we fix that? Just
Mandisa Barnett 25:06
talking to my investors. Hey, show me your portfolio. If you're somebody who is just a first time investor, okay, give me what you need to get your first house, and then we're gonna go build out the new units that we need to investors who have an existing portfolio, it's like, okay, whose lease is coming up and they're not renewing, let's turn this into a pad split. And once you have your first one, you get your second one, your third one, and you're just off to the races. Awesome.
Lamont Harris 25:31
And so, I guess Mandy, so the reason I ask you that question, I started two seconds ago, right before I got sidetracked. I started two seconds ago talking about the start of the evolution of how you started in a mortgage and you ended up here. You got to take us and tell us how you got to where you're at.
Mandisa Barnett 25:49
I just have a huge passion for mortgages. More specifically, I want people I'm 34 so I want people to understand that it's attainable to own a house. It's not just some cosmic luck, because I'm a Leo and the star is all aligned, no preparation and planning, that's all it takes. And so when I heard about pad split, I had a misconception. I thought it was kind of like that, and it wasn't. And then after that, I just fell in love with the company. Housing is just a right? Everybody should have, and that's literally how I got here. I'm like, I want this job. I'm going to get this job. And I did, wow.
Lamont Harris 26:27
And so like, and I hear your passion, I see your passion, right? You know, being around you for in a year and a half plus now, and just watching you do what you do, and it's got me excited, right? And so I guess you know, in closing here, if you were out there, because I know, for me, when I first got started in this space of being in the mortgage industry, I actually learned about the mortgage industry on accident, right? It's not like I was at school and like, Oh my God, I want to study finance so I can learn all things mortgage the mortgage industry is something that just kind of like got introduced to me by accident. How did you learn about the real estate and or mortgage industry? How are you introduced to it?
Mandisa Barnett 27:12
Every salesperson always does the I don't want to be in sales anymore thing. So I was a marketing manager and one of my favorite client out of Alberta. He was like, hey, you'd be a really great account executive at a wholesale mortgage company. Here's five companies. I set you up with interviews. Leave this and go apply. And I'm like, No, and I did. Ended up working at Sunwest mortgage, and it just it was off to the races from there. So
Lamont Harris 27:38
you started at Sunwest, and now you're at pad split, and you're doing amazing things. I've really got to thank you so much for taking time to jump on today and be a part of this show, making money moves. That's what you're doing, and you're helping investors do the exact same thing. So we just are so appreciative of you in the mortgage and investor community for all that you do. I wish you a ton of success in 2025 Mandisa, thanks so much for joining us today, folks. That's about it for us today. We're gonna go ahead and wrap it up on making money moves with Lamont. I appreciate you once again. Mandisa Barnett from pad split you guys have an amazing rest of your Sunday and I will see you guys again real soon. Money,
Music 28:22
it don't grow on a tree. Brains about to go broke. Someone Throw me the greenbacks. Money, yeah, you put it where your mouth is looking for it. Underneath the cushion on the couch is money. We can all use a little more to move around from the mall to the liquor store. Money, they say it's equal to time the fees and the Bible keep you in line. It's called money the way it goes.
Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're buzzing. When you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you're going to be up again. You.