Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Medina Jett. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Medina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I bought my first real estate investment property 31 years ago right after I graduated from law school. Since that time, I have always owned at least one rental property sometimes several at a time while working my regular 9-5 and later while owning my own compliance firm. I have always known that real estate investing was a great way to create generational wealth. The part that I loved most was finding dilapidated houses that no one wanted and rehabbing them into beautiful spaces that new owners or tenants would be proud to call home. Owning real estate made it possible for me to send my kids to private schools, take great vacations and support my community. When I sold my compliance firm in 2020, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do next. Because real estate has always been my passion, I decided it was time to dive into it full time and build out my real estate portfolio.
Lucky for me, my youngest daughter, Sydni Jett, developed an interest in real estate years ago and has participated in several summer programs and internships related to real estate. When we moved to Atlanta 3 years ago, she started helping me out by assessing potential properties and helping to manage my Airbnb. She got her real estate license over a year ago and is now an agent with Keller Williams which enables us to find deals quicker, run comps and keep the real estate commissions earned on our acquisitions in the family. She also is committed to helping others realize their dream of home ownership. Over the past year, I realized what a great team we made working together and I also realized that it was time for us to expand our vision and our impact. That’s how TDS Builders, our real estate development company, was formed.
Medina, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Sydni and I are both a bit unusual in terms of our backgrounds. I have a law degree as well as an MBA. I am a former Fortune 500 executive. After a successful 15-year career in corporate America, I left to form a financial services compliance firm that provided professional services to private equity and real estate funds. I built mythe firm from the ground up into a multi-million dollar international firm before selling it to a competitor in 2020. My training and professional background is in law and making sure investment funds comply with regulatory requirements, but my “hobby” has always been real estate investing. I’m now the founder of a real estate development company. Unusual based on my work experience…but yet, it makes sense.
Sydni, on the other hand, is a college student – she is in her senior year at Spelman College majoring in Economics with a minor in Management & Organization. For her to be a founder at her age is very unusual. However, she grew up learning about real estate from me and she spent her summers during high school and college in programs and internships focused on exposing students of color to the world of real estate investing. She spent the summer of 2020 interning with Artemis, one of the country’s largest women-owned real estate investment funds. She also is a real estate agent with Keller Williams which is known for their great training and mentoring programs. While I have more practical real estate experience, Sydni actually has more formal training. Our skill sets merge beautifully.
Together, we are passionate about developing high quality housing solutions for discerning clients. Whether its building 6000 square feet luxury homes like our current development, transforming blighted buildings into low income housing, or designing town home communities like our next project, our focus is always on high quality, functional living spaces, with attention to details that give our properties that instant wow factor.
Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?
Absolutely! In addition to being passionate about real estate and creating generational wealth for our own family, we are also passionate about teaching other families how to do the same. TDS will offer online real estate courses on real estate investment strategies like Making a Killing Flipping; we will offer monthly subscriptions to follow us in real time on our real estate development journey; and we will provide coaching to others just starting out on their real estate investment journey. Our courses will help others overcome their fears and apprehensions about investing in real estate and create an additional revenue stream for the business – a win-win! To get more information on our courses when they come available, visitors can leave their email address on our website.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Building a business with my youngest daughter requires a lot of unlearning. First and foremost, I need to unlearn thinking of her as my child. There is an obvious back story which made that very difficult to do! Sydni has been well-raised and very well trained, professionally, socially and academically – and not all by me. I am learning to think of her as the professional that she is and to set a high bar for her as I have with all of my prior employees. Sydni helps reinforce the dynamics of our new relationship by her work ethic, her quality work product and her attention to detail. She makes my “unlearning” process much easier.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tdshomebuilders.com
- Instagram: @tdshomebuilders
- Other: TikTok: TDShomebuilders