Terry Hammons’ HomeStretch Success: Helping Real Estate Agents Sell Homes Faster for Top Dollar

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspote and today’s guest is Terry Hammons owner of homestretch franchises in Cleveland, Washington DC and Phoenix. They help homeowners and real estate professionals get properties market ready.

by handling tasks like clearing out old items, painting, and repairs. They also handle landscaping and move out cleaning, ensuring that each home stands out in a competitive market. Terry has a long background in corporate finance law, having directed multi-billion dollar litigation cases and ensuring compliance in high level roles. After two decades in the legal sector, he transitioned into the real estate market

to streamline how homes are prepared for sale. His team’s commitment to quality has positioned HomeStretch as a one-stop solution for improving property value and expediting sales. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line.

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All right, back to our guest today, franchise owner of Homestretch in Cleveland, DC and Phoenix, Terry Hammons. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Terry Hammons (01:59)
Awesome, Anthony, my pleasure. Glad to be here.

Anthony Codispoti (02:02)
So Terry, before we get into homestretch, you became general counsel of a publicly traded company at the age of 45, which was your career ambition. How did that feel?

Terry Hammons (02:16)
⁓ Ironically, ⁓ it happened to come at a time where I was in basically the deepest depression of my life. At the time, I didn’t know it, but I ⁓ suffered from bipolar disorder. so ⁓ this ambition, career aspiration that I had was somewhat of an arbitrary goal that I had set for myself ⁓ early in my ⁓ legal practice career.

And I latched on to it and, you know, basically went about achieving that goal just like I did everything else up until that point in time. That was all I knew. Just put your head down.

⁓ work your ass off and the result will get there. And ⁓ that’s what I did. And so that’s how I spent my entire working life ⁓ following the path that I had laid before myself, the thing that allowed me to be not only successful,

in my academic life, but also my athletic life and everything that had got me to that point. so unfortunately, I did not know that ⁓ sort of the arbitrariness of it. And I never really ⁓ thought about, you know, setting goals for myself of just sort of being and just sort of. ⁓

⁓ going on a journey, so to speak. And it was my life, was built around doing things and achieving this arbitrary title. And so when I finally got it, ⁓ it was actually, it was quite dissatisfying. ⁓ And it wasn’t.

Anthony Codispoti (03:58)
Cause you think once

you get to the, the quote unquote finish line that you know, there’s going to be a ticker tape parade and you know, you will finally feel fulfilled and whole and all that good stuff. And then you get there and it feels empty.

Terry Hammons (04:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it feels so empty. One of my ⁓ good friends ⁓ who I practiced with early in my career, he described it ⁓ one way analogy. He said, it’s like a pie eating contest. And when you win, they give you more pie. So it was just sort of like, ⁓ this is it. And so it was the first time, I didn’t really think about it this way, but it was the first time it started hitting me that like,

success is it’s this temporary thing. And it’s not really, ⁓ I mean, it simply is. That’s what it is. It’s a temporary ⁓ state of being. then so as soon as you get it, if you are like I am, or like I was anyway, you’re always looking for, now what’s the next thing? I had put this goal out there and when I got it, ⁓ yeah, I had it and it was just so like, well.

this sucks, now I just, I gotta move the goalposts again. it was one of those situations where probably 15 or 20 years earlier, my brother had been visiting me, I was living in London at the time and he was visiting me. And I had told him about this goal of being a general counsel by the age of 45, which again, it’s completely arbitrary. I don’t even know how I came up with that age. and,

Anthony Codispoti (05:14)
Now I gotta move the goalposts.

Terry Hammons (05:40)
He didn’t tell me at that time, but subsequently he told me that when I had mentioned that to him, he thought to himself, I wonder what’s going to happen to Terry when he gets that. Because he said, you always got exactly what you wanted. But it is like when you get that, which is going to be your life’s work, he was wondering then how that was going to feel to me. And it turned out it wasn’t so great.

Anthony Codispoti (06:08)
Not so great. And then in

the summer of 2023, you experienced something very troubling. Can you tell us about that?

Terry Hammons (06:15)
Yeah, so that was when I subsequently learned that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. so ⁓ unfortunately, the way I found out, and this was approximately a year or so after I had retired from practicing law, ⁓ I discovered it because I went through a very traumatic ⁓ psychotic break. ⁓

and I was moments away from harming myself ⁓ and ⁓ I had to be subdued. Actually, I ended up being subdued by my brother and my nephew. My brother is an Iraq War veteran who knows like three martial arts. My nephew was a heavyweight state wrestler, state wrestling champ. ⁓ And so it took both of them and like…

three police officers to subdue me. That’s sort of the state that I had worked myself up in into. It was a manic state that I had worked myself into over that course of that week leading up to it. ⁓ thankfully, they, even though they both, ⁓ including my sister, were in different places. I was in Charlotte at the time. ⁓ My ⁓ brother was in Cleveland. My sister and nephew were in Atlanta, but

The way I unraveled that week, they knew I was in distress and they came. ⁓ ultimately they were there when I just completely implode. ⁓ Just because of I was, the things I was talking about. was actually, I was hallucinating. I was seeing and hearing things that didn’t exist. ⁓ And I was just, I was talking in a way that

Anthony Codispoti (07:52)
What were the signs? How did they know?

Terry Hammons (08:12)
They just couldn’t, they knew something was wrong. And so, you know, throughout my life, was apparently, again, this diagnosis came at the age of, I think I was 50 at the time. ⁓ I learned from my doctors that diagnosed me that most people learn that they’re bipolar, bipolar one, which is what I have, in their early, in their late teens or early 20s.

And so, yeah, I’m in the like whatever, one, two, three percentile who doesn’t figure it out until later, partly because I was a very high functioning ⁓ bipolar person. ⁓ And ⁓ the manic side of bipolar disorder actually helped me be as successful as I was. I could…

Anthony Codispoti (09:04)
Okay, that got you like hyper focused on your work, go, go,

go.

Terry Hammons (09:08)
I could work sort of my calling card, my hallmark throughout my career, even starting from when I was a kid, was that I outwork everybody. You can’t outwork Terry, you know? And I think I’m above average intelligence. I think I’m a above average athlete, but there’s no way that I would have done the things I’ve done academically, athletically, and business-wise, career-wise.

⁓ without my work ethic. literally days, especially earlier in my legal career, I could work for like three days solid without sleeping, literally. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (09:39)
Yeah.

⁓ geez. So.

When you look back now, aside from those manic episodes where you’re working for three days at a time, can you see what now appear to be warning signs? Like, like I had a big dip there or something like that.

Terry Hammons (10:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s

the manic stuff. ⁓ Again, the manic stuff, I didn’t start to, as I look back now, it only becomes really apparent to me sort of later in my life, probably in my 40s. started to, there was this, there was more anxiety with it than when I was younger. And so when I look back,

at those times it sort of were some of the warning signs. And my ex-wife, actually, after I was diagnosed, she was sort of like, yeah, there were some times when you would, especially whenever I was dealing with challenges, whether it be professional or personal, I would get very, very animated and very intense.

Anthony Codispoti (10:48)
Man.

Terry Hammons (11:04)
in my need to be confrontational and leaning into that side of it. ⁓ When I was younger, I couldn’t really see it. And again, when I talk to friends about this, they say, yeah, especially some of my fraternity brothers who I would call them at 10 o’clock at night after being up for three days. And I’d be at my office.

And I’d be like, what are you guys doing at work? You guys need to go home, be with your families. And they’re like, what are you doing? what, you’re, what are they, and so when we would talk, when I talked about them afterwards, they would say, yeah, we can, like you were, you were like really doing some, we thought you were like Superman. Like we couldn’t get it. So there was some of that. On the depressive side, I really didn’t, ⁓ the depressions became longer.

as I got older and as I experienced it sort of the hardest whenever I went to, ⁓ when I got my career aspiration. And then I could really feel, began isolating. ⁓ I began ⁓ just experiencing some really dark times, which I just sort of, I kept it all to myself, because that’s how, that’s just how I’ve always operated. So.

So yeah, not a lot I can see. Again, I was so high functioning. I think people were actually afraid to, even if they did see things, it would be hard for them to like say, hey dude, you need to chill or, because I was always so successful. And so it was sort of a double edged sword for me.

Anthony Codispoti (12:39)
Hmm.

Was there something that triggered that psychotic break that eventually led to your diagnosis?

Terry Hammons (12:49)
⁓ There’s not one particular event. There was a number of things that happened. One of the things that my doctors ⁓ believe that was sort of ⁓ a seminal event was when I actually retired ⁓ from practicing law sort of the year before because it was at that point that I lost a lot of my sort of life structure.

And a lot of like where I could normally point either my, you know, depression or my, my manic side of it, particularly the manic side. Like I could fuel, I could use that as fuel for work. Whenever I stepped away from practicing law, I lost that thing that, you know, again, from the time I was a child, there was always something that I was gunning for.

you know, and.

Anthony Codispoti (13:46)
was grades,

was athletics, and it was law school and then the career.

Terry Hammons (13:50)
Yeah,

the thing where I could, especially on the manic side, where I could put my, that manic energy in that was constructive for me, it became destructive when I didn’t have something around me to pour it into, you know? And so I think that was one of the big things. I had also in that, ⁓

leading up to that event as well, had been going through a lot, personally, my marriage dissolved, and again, in part because of some of the emotional stuff and mental health stuff that I was going through that I wasn’t aware of, but all of that was as well, ⁓ I lost my grandmother basically a year before.

It was somebody very important in my life. lost both my grandmothers in that same year. So that happened. And then to some people who aren’t dog people, this will sound silly, but just like a month before I lost my dog, who was literally my best friend. so ⁓ yeah, there were these events that were happening.

Anthony Codispoti (14:55)
Big deal. That’s a big deal.

Terry Hammons (15:04)
And I was not good at ever reaching out for help or the way I dealt with things my whole life was.

Anthony Codispoti (15:09)
Why? Why

was it so hard for you to raise your hand and say I need some help?

Terry Hammons (15:17)
⁓ It was just how I operated. I never, don’t recall asking for help for anything really. I’ve always just figured stuff out. I never really had a mentor in the legal practice. never, like, you know, again, I would learn from people, but from observing. I’m an introvert naturally. ⁓

And so, and that’s how I did, my, even like growing up, my parents talk about how, you know, I never asked my parents for help with homework. I never got anything but A’s from sixth grade through the end of high school. I was a valedictorian in my high school. I never, I would come home, do my homework, go hang out with my friends or watch TV. Like I didn’t, I didn’t ask for help, you know.

Anthony Codispoti (16:11)
Do you

think this was compounded by the fact that you’re a guy? Was it harder as a guy to ask for help? Was it harder as an African-American male to ask for help?

Terry Hammons (16:17)
Ugh.

⁓ I think both. think the way that I was socialized, and again, nobody ever, I always felt beyond loved and supported by every one of my family, right? And so, and I think a lot of it comes from, you know, being a man, being a black man, watching my dad, who is the quintessential, ⁓ whatever you want to call it, American dream.

you know, story of pulling himself up by his bootstraps. The oldest boy of eight kids growing up on welfare with a single mother. He was put out of the house when he was 16 because my grandmother couldn’t feed him anymore. He was the first person in his family to go to college. He went to college on a football scholarship, started out as a teacher, couldn’t feed us. So he decided he’s going to go into sales. And so, and just, you know, there, and I saw how my dad

took care of his extended family, doing what he did. I saw how my dad sacrificed, and my mom too, to get us, moving us out of a ⁓ low income ⁓ housing development area, living beyond their means so that we could go to better schools.

And I don’t know that that ⁓ I think it’s just sort of seeing that and seeing how my dad did. I never saw my dad cry or complain. And he would tell us some things that definitely marked me and and ⁓ sort of framed my the way I saw the world. And I tell him, well, he doesn’t remember some of the things he said to me. But as a kid, I would I was that way. He would tell me things.

and I would latch onto them. ⁓ I’ll, the most, there were two things that were, ⁓ I guess, most, made the most impact on me. The first one was, ⁓ well, I think I was like 10 years old, 10 or 11, whenever Top Gun came out. I told my dad, after we watched a movie, I basically wanted to be Maverick. And so I didn’t realize that.

Anthony Codispoti (18:07)
Like what’s one of those things you remember?

Terry Hammons (18:31)
Yeah, I told him, and so I asked my dad, we’re leaving the movie theater. I’m like, dad, how do I get to be a Navy aviator? How do I get to fly jets? I want to fly jets. My dad says, ⁓ he had no idea. So he said, go to the Naval Academy. I said, ⁓ okay, great. How do I go to the Naval Academy? He said, get all A’s.

But so I got all A’s. Literally from that point, never got anything, never considered getting anything other than an A from that point forward. ⁓ Ultimately got my appointment to the Naval Academy, decided not to go. anyway, but that he just, like he would say these things and it was very, for me, it was like he said it, this is, and so I go and do it. The other thing was ⁓ when we first moved from basically an all black part of town to

predominantly white, all white, we were one of the first families to, black families to move to this, where I eventually went to high school. Again, it was a public school, but it’s still one of the best one or two public high schools in Pittsburgh, right, in the state of Pennsylvania. And my parents specifically moved there for the purpose of making sure that we were able to go to the best possible schools, give us the best opportunity. Well, the first time my dad took me to

Like in our household, like you couldn’t play sports unless you had grades. Like that was first and foremost. But it was sort of, there were some conversations my parents had with us that, you know, all black parents have with, I don’t want to say all, a lot of black parents have one, especially when you’re moving your family into a new all white area. There were things that happened as our house was being constructed that my parents didn’t tell us about until we were much older.

⁓ things that are beyond the pale. ⁓ And my sister and brother and I, we were in fights constantly because people would say things. But ⁓ one of the things that my dad ⁓ told me, ⁓ this is probably the most impactful thing that he ever said to me in my entire life, sort of framed my life is,

when he was signing me up for, think it was either football or baseball. I can’t remember which one, but he told me, and geez, I’m almost getting choked up when I think about this now, but he told me that no matter what I did, he’s like, can’t just be good.

you

He said, ⁓

said, you have to be great.

said you have to be great or they won’t let you play. ⁓ And…

And ⁓ he said, he said, because if you’re just as good as the other guy, the other guy’s going to blame you.

Hmm

Jeez.

Anthony Codispoti (22:02)
there was a different yardstick for you because you’re black.

Terry Hammons (22:04)
⁓ yeah.

yeah. Yeah. And you know, yes. And so my whatever it was, eight or nine year old mine took that and it became like, that’s life. wasn’t just like literally. my dad wasn’t saying it, I mean, he was saying it out of love, obviously. And…

And there would be examples of when that would, where it would actually play out. You know, where even if I was, there would be a reason for me not to, you know, get, and there were examples. My dad would sit, there would be times when in, you know, life where my dad, in his professional life.

where he would hit the proverbial glass ceiling. He was in sales, first with Xerox and digital and some microsystems, and then he finished his career at FedEx. there would be times he would come home and tell us how.

How, I’m sorry. Geez. You know, he’d work. They’d give him the worst territory.

and he’d work his butt off, he’d build it up, he’d make presidents’ And the next year, they’d hand that off to somebody else and let them enjoy the spoils of what he had built. And there was only so far that he would be able to advance. And so, was sort of reinforcing a lot of the stuff.

Some of those things that he would say to us and again I could I I’ve told this story my dad about the can’t be good You have to be great thing You know, he doesn’t remember saying that he also didn’t say it to my younger brother or older sister. So That’s what I found out ⁓ and so But again it for in my mind just the way and I’m not sure that they would have reacted in the same way or would have the same Impact on them. It’s you know, some of it is just who I am

Anthony Codispoti (24:33)
Yeah. As parents,

sometimes you recognize that you have to parent each kid a little bit differently, but that’s what a powerful and painful message to be receiving and having reinforced as you’re a kid. Now, Terry, I want to make sure that we leave enough time to talk about homestretch, but before we get there, you had another health scare.

Terry Hammons (24:37)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah,

⁓ yeah, so just this past summer, I actually had to have an emergency surgery. took about almost seven hours to remove some blood clots, some blockages in my stomach veins. I have a pretty, probably extremely high pain threshold. So I had been dealing with lot of pain in my abdomen region for a while and I can’t even remember it.

Anthony Codispoti (24:55)
What happened there?

Terry Hammons (25:22)
a while, many months. I exercise every day, usually very vigorously. So, and it was just sort of part of it. I’ve dealt with playing college football, being five foot nothing, a hundred nothing, sort of pain is sort of like, yeah, that’s part of it. And so, there came a point this past summer where I was taking a lot of stomach meds and all kinds of stuff and…

And one day, thankfully, my sister lives just a few doors down from me. ⁓ I had to literally call her and have her taken to the emergency room because like the stomach, abdomen pain was just so severe. So when I got to the hospital, they did a bunch of testing on me and found out that I had these blockages, ⁓ these blood clots. ⁓ And so ultimately, it was.

you know, they still haven’t pinpointed it exactly. Part of the reason that these, I do have some family history of blood clotting, but having them in stomach veins is not normal. ⁓ Part of it they think was accelerated by, I take lithium because I have bipolar disorder.

I take lithium, makes sure that the electrical, your brain runs on electrical pulses or whatever. So that makes it, those all things, all those things work properly. So they think that accelerated some of it. And then the other piece of it is they believe some of it was like induced by stress. And that’s where I buried a lot of my stress. So it was those who, and they had noticed that based on the way some of the veins ⁓ were bending,

that they had been there for prolonged period of time. so again, they’ll probably never know exactly what sort of caused the initial bleeding, but that’s what happened. So yes, and it was the surgery again, it six and a half hours of surgery, very delicate. if it would have been done 15 years ago,

Anthony Codispoti (27:05)
Yeah.

Terry Hammons (27:29)
my likelihood of survival would have been very different because the procedure that the way they did it is ⁓ it’s a miracle of modern medicine is all I’ll say.

Anthony Codispoti (27:40)
So just in the last couple of years, you’ve stared down the barrel of death twice.

Terry Hammons (27:47)
You can say that? You can say that? Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (27:49)
How does that impact

the way that you look at life and business today?

Terry Hammons (27:56)
I think it’s made me a lot more, I’ll say, short-sighted, ⁓ which is what I needed. Again, since I was very young, ⁓ and even more so as I, you know, when I began my work life,

after law school and, you know, I had a family, I became more and more ⁓ sort of focused on longer, like being able to do things and see and control what happened, you know, going forward. ⁓ And a lot of time spent regretting.

maybe things that I hadn’t done perfectly or the way that I would have wanted them to go. I was, ⁓ guess the short way of putting it is I’ve become much more present in what I do and try to as much as I can deal with things, you know, sort of day to day and there are going to be ups and downs and I can’t, I’ve tried to give up as much as I can trying to not only control other people,

by hook or by either convincing them or whatever it is. And more so just focused on being in the moment, being present, dealing with what comes my way, having as few expectations about other people and what they’re gonna do and how they’re gonna do it. And yeah, just trying to get into the moment and enjoying whatever it is the hell is on my plate right now.

Anthony Codispoti (29:43)
Are you better at asking for help now or is this still Terry Hammond’s doing it mostly on his own?

Terry Hammons (29:50)
I think I’m a lot better at asking for help. One of the things that I am, ⁓ I think it’s helped me do sort of having these both the, you know, being diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well as having these physical, ⁓ the, latest health issue is that I am, I’m very transparent. I don’t care to be the best.

at everything or anything really. ⁓ yeah, just because, I think because one, want to share my experiences. So that’s why it’s easy. I remember the first time we talked, you were mentioning just how like vulnerable you thought it. It didn’t occur to me that that’s what that was because now, and again, 10 years ago, I wouldn’t talk about anything.

Anthony Codispoti (30:22)
How did you let that go? That’s not easy to do.

Terry Hammons (30:50)
that in my life that was going on, that was like a ⁓ quote unquote negative thing. Like now I’m happy to talk about my bipolar, I’m happy to talk about my blood clots and how that came about and even things like, fact that I’m divorced and my marriage fell apart again. So, but that’s just life, that’s part of my journey. ⁓

And so I think I’m like, yeah, I don’t, I’m not as concerned, very little concerned about what other people think. Because again, I’m trying to be present and my journey is my journey. Everybody has, know, again, everybody’s story isn’t my story, but everybody’s got something. I don’t care who you are. doesn’t matter what you have, you’ve got something. So.

Anthony Codispoti (31:31)
Yeah.

It’s, and

it sounds like this sort of dissolving of your armor has been really helpful for you. And in that process, I believe a hundred percent that you’ve been able to help other people with their stuff when they can see a strong, you know, type a driven personality, drop their, their cloak of armor and

Terry Hammons (31:51)
Mm.

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (32:13)
to hey, here’s me, here’s my underbelly, here’s all the stuff I’m dealing with. They’re like, okay, I can talk about my stuff too. Have you seen that? Have you noticed that in just your personal interactions?

Terry Hammons (32:16)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. mean, I don’t, I definitely, and I’ve had the opportunity to speak, ⁓ do some, ⁓ it’s public speaking, I guess, and some other opportunities to just to share stuff. And even with my friends and family, ⁓ my, it’s funny, cause my family is less, ⁓ maybe understandably, like they don’t talk about. ⁓

It’s sort of my issues, issues at home, as much as, as freely as I do. Right. And, but me, I just honestly, I just don’t care. If you like, get into like people have all, a lot of times people I’ll say, ⁓ I’ll tell people that I’m bipolar or whatever. It’ll be like, you know, they’ll like clutch their pearls or whatever. You know, I’m just sort of like, yeah, dude. Yeah. So is Kanye West. I just take my medicine, you know, you know, it’s, you know, but everybody’s got something, you know. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (33:19)
Yeah. Well,

Terry Hammons (33:20)
But I do, hope

Anthony Codispoti (33:20)
thanks for.

Terry Hammons (33:21)
it does help people. I actually do want to, at some point in time here, I want to intentionally develop some type of public speaking ⁓ presentation focused on men, black men as well in particular. I do think we struggle with reaching out for help and.

Especially around mental health stuff and even just having a therapist and all these things that everybody should be doing So I want to talk about that and encourage people to do that And I think by sharing my story I think I can hopefully help more people to do that to open up about it because it’s just you know Everybody’s got a little bit of something going on that they can use some help with

Anthony Codispoti (34:10)
Well, and I appreciate you sharing some of your stuff,

because that’s going to help other people address theirs. OK, now I want to get to how did the opportunity with HomeStretch come about?

Terry Hammons (34:16)
Hmm.

Yeah, ⁓ so HomeStretch had been, it started out ⁓ as a two-man operation, the two founders of the company there, ⁓ Derek Shewmon and Nick Lobert, they’re based out of Cincinnati. These guys came up with this great idea ⁓ to focus on, there’s a bit of a niche in the real estate. ⁓

real estate market and sort of home preparation market where there’s this area where the jobs are too small for like big contractors, ⁓ but a little too big for just like a handyman. so they, so HomeStretch was really designed to

focus on helping real estate agents resolve a lot of their pain points that they experience in trying to get the services that they need in order to get houses ⁓ ready for listing quickly for high value ⁓ and for high quality work. And so ⁓ I think it’s genius. We came across it. These guys, Derek and Nick, they started the company in Cincinnati in 2019. ⁓ They didn’t start sort of franchising.

branching out until 2023, the end of 2023. It was at this point in time where I had been sort of fully leaning into the real estate side of things. I had stepped away from practicing law. I had, I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I had probably since 2009, I bought my first property and that was sort of…

That was something I was doing on the side while I was practicing law. I sort of backwards in a sort of unintentional way. When I moved to London, I sold my house in Pennsylvania and then I bought a condo in Miami because my wife and I at the time, thought, we’ll fly back and forth to Miami because we like to hang out in Miami and it would be great to have this condo there.

Well, we ended up having our daughter in London, so we never came back to Miami. But anyway, it was my first property and I sold it five years after that. Because you recall back in 2008, market crashes, we buy this cheap condo in Miami and five years later, we sold it for twice. So following on that, was all along, I would buy properties here and there. ⁓ I leaned into that.

once ⁓ in 2022, ⁓ I guess it was when I walked away from practicing law. And at that time I had a portfolio of six or seven properties in a few different states. And as my brother and I, who was partnering with me then, he came on board as basically my property manager for my various properties.

And we were sort of struggling with turning over or doing make-readies on our units, on our duplexes and triplexes that we had to sort of get the units ready for our next tenants. And if we wanted to do flips of properties, you know, was just take it, was hard to get consistently reliable contractors to do work for us. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (37:38)
You got to come in and fix stuff. You got to clean it up. Get ready for the next

tenant. Yeah.

Terry Hammons (37:42)
Well,

just the basic stuff, nothing to, but again, especially if you’ve got a unit that you’ve got to turn over and get somebody in, every day that goes by that that unit is vacant, you’re losing money. You’re literally losing money. So if you don’t have somebody who’s gonna be consistent and they’re gonna be fast about it, ⁓ even whenever you’re flipping a house, ⁓ that’s a problem. Well, at this same time, I’m getting, ⁓

Various this is in 2023. I’m getting emails every once in a while from folks who are ⁓ There are these sort of like franchise consultants and they’re reaching out and they’re Reaching out to me say hey with this, you know lace on your background looks like you might be a fit for going this ABC XYZ So I started to listen because I really didn’t have anything else to do didn’t have any other ideas and

I started working with a couple different guys and they started presenting me specific ideas and then like home stretch appeared. Yeah, everything was lining up because the opportunity, it was sort of fit this pain point that we were experiencing on the real estate investment side and everything that he talked about was sort of like, wow.

Anthony Codispoti (38:45)
There’s something about this one that stuck out to you. What was it?

Terry Hammons (39:03)
Shit, we could use that. And then we were thinking, we’re like, wow, this has to work. This is something that’s gonna work. so I was the number seven, and there’s now, I think there’s close to 100 of these locations around the country. ⁓ Our Cleveland operation was the number seven franchise. And if you know anything about franchising, ⁓ so if you’re gonna buy into a franchise, they have this thing that’s called an FDD, Fair Disclosure Document. ⁓

the franchisor has to basically present all this financial information to show you sort of what you’re getting into. Well, at the time that we were signing up to do this, ⁓ there was really no financial information. It was the financial information that the founders had for their business, which had been ongoing already for four or five years. So that wasn’t gonna be where we were starting out. so… ⁓

So it was a bit of a flyer, but we had such faith when we went to do the, they call it a discovery day. You know, we were just, we were convinced by, it was the energy, the passion, the, it was Nick and Derek, you know, and ⁓ those guys just sort of, they ultimately made me believe because believe me, it was a struggle to write that check.

you know, for the franchise fee and without really, you know, having any real, you know, firm financial data to say, hey, if you do, you know, do something like this, this is what you’re going to end up with. There really wasn’t that. And so, but we knew like the business model, it all made sense. And we knew from our experience that it was going to work.

Anthony Codispoti (40:47)
So yeah, so

they explain the business model in a bit more detail. I’m selling a house. I want it to go for top dollar. I want it to look good. I don’t know about the walls are dinged up. The paint, my kid’s fingerprints are on it. And my furniture is all ratty. so you guys come in and you do what?

Terry Hammons (40:52)
Ye- ⁓

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah. So there’s a number of things that are different. So what we do at Homestretch is there’s nothing new about it. Sort of what we actually do. We, like you say, we do clear outs, we paint, we floor, landscaping, handyman, and cleaning. That’s basically what we do. All of that stuff, there are millions of people, contractors who do all of those things all the time. The thing about the Homestretch business model,

that makes it so different and makes it unique. Even in the office presentation we did today for Fo, they’re like, there’s nothing like this. Nobody does all these things. And it’s how we do it, right? So the basic thing that we do, the part of that is that we market not to the individual homeowner, we market to the real estate agents. Because whenever somebody’s going to sell their home, they’re typically looking at the real estate agent

to tell them what they need to do to do this. And so in real estate agents, while they can do it, they don’t wanna do it. Why? Because they don’t get paid to do that. And it just sucks up their time. Real estate agents wanna sell houses. And so our business model is based on marketing to the real estate agents who if we build a relationship with them, then they’ll not only bring us that listing that they have today, but…

Anthony Codispoti (42:03)
That’s the expert.

Terry Hammons (42:31)
when they next get a listing that needs some work, and then the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one. Whereas if you’re marketing to a homeowner, it’s a one and done deal.

Anthony Codispoti (42:39)
one

and done and I may not even understand that I need your service. Maybe I don’t recognize that. ⁓ this is my house. It’s beautiful. I’ve lived here for a long time. I think it’s great. Yeah.

Terry Hammons (42:43)
Good.

Most people don’t. We

go into houses all the time. People have red, pink, or blue kitchens. And they’ll be like, oh, it’s beautiful. And we’re like, nobody’s going to buy that.

Anthony Codispoti (42:56)
So you develop a relationship with the realtor because that’s an ongoing thing and they recognize the value in it. And like you said, they don’t want to put the effort into it because they’re not getting paid any extra for that. They’re busy with everything else.

Terry Hammons (42:59)
Yeah.

No, they don’t get paid anything out.

Absolutely. And so that’s the key, the cornerstone, I think to the business model is that it’s designed, yes, we’re ultimately helping the homeowner sell their home for the highest dollar, but what we’re really doing is all of the project management that goes on that the realtor is going to be stuck with, it’s basically resolving the pain points that the realtor has.

whenever they’re ⁓ trying to sell a home. And the other issue that the realtors have is that when they recommend somebody, and this is the real challenge for the real estate agent is that when they recommend somebody and then that somebody screws up, the client’s mad at them. The client’s mad at them. And so our business model, have at a base level, we have three service level agreements that we have with each of our clients. And that is one, you give us a call,

Anthony Codispoti (43:54)
Mm-hmm.

Terry Hammons (44:04)
and we’ll be out there within 24 hours to do the consultation. Right? Yeah. So you look at your face there, you’re like, who does that? Home stretch does that. Name that, you know, Joe the painter, he’s not climbing down off of the ladder to come do a consultation on job. He may or may not get any time soon. He’ll be a couple of weeks. He’ll come out. We get out there because we have people dedicated to doing that. We’re out there same day, something you call us up.

Anthony Codispoti (44:11)
Wow, that’s fast.

Terry Hammons (44:29)
We might come out there, when we do cold calls to agents, we’re like, hey, what projects do you have going on that we can help you out with? And they’re like, I’ve got one. What time can we meet you? We’ll do the consult. This afternoon, can you meet us there? Right, so nobody does that. That’s the first thing. Second one is ⁓ 24 hours after we do the consultation, we’ll send you a quote. Who doesn’t like that? And it is the most professional.

Anthony Codispoti (44:50)
Again, fast turnaround, yep.

Terry Hammons (44:54)
We use all the technology, all the things, right? So we’re gonna get you a quote within 24 hours. And then the third surface level agreement we have is we’re gonna start the job within three to five business days after you sign the contract. Again, agents, what we talk about with agents all the time, time kills deals. That’s what any agent’s gonna tell you. So, longer you wait, and they need to plan out things too. The agent needs to figure out, okay, when am I gonna schedule listing photos? When am I gonna schedule this? When am I?

Anthony Codispoti (45:07)
Okay.

Hmm.

Terry Hammons (45:24)
They can’t do the, if you’re trying to manage a project of any size or scope and you got to manage three or four different contractors and try to just getting them to come out and do the, give you an estimate. You’re not planning, you know, to do listing photos, get the, it’ll be three four months before you can do that. Most of our jobs, even if we got to do four or five of the services, most of our jobs from the time we start,

⁓ I mean, even from the time that you give us a call, assuming things go well and we get things signed up in an expeditious manner, we’re going to be done in two to three weeks, tops. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (46:03)
That’s fast. Is

there any data Terry that exists that shows somebody who uses your service is going to sell their house faster or for more money? Is there any way to extrapolate that?

Terry Hammons (46:18)
Well, actually, it’s one of my slides in my presentation. it’s not necessarily our data or for our specific projects, but there’s tons of data out there. real estate agents have access to it as well. But ⁓ that shows that

as you invest in your home, there’s going to be an increase in the value, right? And so now some people don’t necessarily make an investment in the things that are going to create the most value. And that’s the things that we focus on, those cosmetic things where you don’t have to necessarily break the bank, but you can do an eight to 10 to $15,000 project and then get a return of, you know, 50, 60, $70,000. I mean, I have examples in my office presentation today where we did a $20,000

project. We did all of the services. It took us just two weeks to do that project and the family ended up selling the home. They listed it for $100,000 over what they were planning to list it for when they were going to sell the home as is. And they got their asking price within two days of listing it. And so yes, there’s tons of data out there. I wish I could

I wish I had it memorized, but there’s three data points on exactly that thing.

Anthony Codispoti (47:39)
Is there

a price range of home in which your services tend to make the most sense? You know, maybe somebody who’s got, you know, ⁓ a different part of town or a smaller home selling for $100,000. Maybe it’s hard to get the return on your service.

Terry Hammons (47:58)
I don’t necessarily know that ⁓ there is a range. Now we’ve done from the, I mean we’ve done hundred thousand dollar condos all the way up to like, you know, one and a half million dollar projects. ⁓ It’s more, it’s more a matter of…

Anthony Codispoti (48:13)
Okay, that’s a good range.

Terry Hammons (48:19)
identifying the fixes that are necessary to increase value. everybody knows, well, I think everybody knows, but most people know that it’s the greatest, the biggest bang for your buck is gonna be in kitchens and bathrooms, right? ⁓ And in any amount, usually the thing that’s gonna create the most value for someone when they’re trying to sell their home, it’s gonna be all about just neutralizing your home.

Anthony Codispoti (48:35)
Hmm.

Terry Hammons (48:47)
Like you were talking earlier about, know, everybody thinks that, oh, mom, this is beautiful. Who wouldn’t love, you know, blue or red walls? they’re living, you know, and so when we go in there, we make everything as easy as possible for the clients because we put together color palettes and they’re all just sort of neutral colors. We got paint, flooring, all the stuff that you’re, basic stuff that you’re gonna need. And agents love it too because agents, we speak the same language as the agents. The agents know that,

I mean, can spend $2,000 painting the cabinets and the walls, doing some new tiles, some LVP in the kitchen, and guess what? I’m gonna get basically $15,000 to $20,000 of value for doing that little bit of work. I mean, that’s easy.

Anthony Codispoti (49:33)
Is that what you would think

is maybe the lowest hanging fruit, like the biggest ROI lever that you can pull?

Terry Hammons (49:41)
Absolutely. So it’s definitely, it starts up kitchens and bathrooms ⁓ and then it’s just painting and flooring. Like you do that stuff, you make it nice and neutral so people can walk into the home and visualize what it’s going to look like. If you’ve got like, again, if you’ve got these…

I don’t call them crazy colors, but you got these different non-neutral colors in there. It’s just hard for people to imagine it. And what the other thing that happens is, and this is what agents are mostly, when agents come into a home, they’re looking at it and they’re telling their clients, like, look, yeah, it might be nice for you. And it might even be like a fresh coat of green paint in your living room. It might be beautifully done, right? The problem is that the person buying it,

they’re gonna start deducting what they’re gonna pay you for the house because they’re gonna paint it. They don’t care that you just painted it whatever color you paint. They’re gonna paint it. If they come in and they see white or some light gray, light blue, something like that, that…

never enters their mind that, I gotta paint this room. ⁓ I gotta redo this carpet. I gotta, you see what I’m saying? So at the end of the day, when somebody’s looking at it, or at least the way the agents a lot of times are thinking about it is they’re counseling their clients. like, yeah, that’s fine. Yeah, it’s great. It looks great. The problem is you’re gonna ask for this?

and people are going to be looking at your asking price and all these things, these cosmetic things that you have going on that aren’t really neutral, they’re going to start deducting from that. So you’re really, losing money. And so just by putting in, adding a little bit of money to paint all of the rooms or to put some new carpet down, you’re increasing the likelihood that you’re going to get over your asking price.

Anthony Codispoti (51:35)
What’s the craziest thing that you’ve seen going into a house that you guys had to fix?

Terry Hammons (51:40)
⁓ my gosh, I remember the very first consultation my brother and I did in Cleveland. And it’s a story that will go down in infamy. We should, I ⁓ don’t have enough time to tell you about this, but we go to this house and I think the house, I can’t remember what it was being listed for. It might’ve been a hundred thousand or so. So it is in a pretty tough part of East Cleveland, if anybody knows anything about Cleveland.

pretty tough part of town. ⁓ literally saw, as we’re around the corner, we’re next to a Dollar we’re driving to the house, there’s a Dollar General store on the corner there, and we’re at the stoplight, and we’re literally watching the Dollar General get robbed. We’re seeing guys run out, so, and we’re like, and I’m thinking to myself, what have I done to my life? I am questioning every life decision I’ve ever made. I’m like, what are we doing? Anyway, we get to the house.

And it’s from the outside, it’s not, mean, again, it’s a tough part of town, it’s not that great. But anyway, no big deal. I literally did not know that people lived like these people live. Like the amount of, it was just, I was being harsh, but yes, like there was just, I mean, all of the silverware in the kitchen was out on the counter and.

Anthony Codispoti (52:57)
We’re talking about like garbage, like filth. Yeah.

Terry Hammons (53:06)
everything was in disarray. were, I mean, mattresses on the floor and in the bedroom. mean, it was quite like, I’m literally, and we, at this point, this is our very first consultation. We didn’t have those little booties that we now had. I mean, I walk into the house.

Anthony Codispoti (53:22)
You wanted those more

to protect you from the house rather than the other way around.

Terry Hammons (53:26)
⁓ 100%.

I wanted a whole hazmat suit whenever we went into this house. it was just, I mean, this is the thing, like we’ve we’ve seen the hoarder situations. Like again, I can’t figure out how people actually live in these. Now, by the way, I love a hoarder situation from a business standpoint, because now I don’t do any of the work. That’s the primary reason. I have guys that do the work for me, but…

It’s, those are probably our most profitable projects. There’s very few people want to do it, can do it effectively, but we know how to do it ⁓ very well. But hoarder situations, we’ve seen all kinds. We had a couple of homes, we had one home in particular where the, ⁓ was an investor home. They hadn’t had a tenant for probably six, seven months. A raccoon had gotten into the house. yeah. ⁓ just imagine. I mean,

Anthony Codispoti (53:59)
Mmm.

Cheers.

Terry Hammons (54:25)
Ugh, it was, it was horrific.

Anthony Codispoti (54:26)
You know, my

sister used to have a business on the side where she would help people organize their homes, their closets, and she ran into some folks that were full on hoarders. And she made a good point. She’s like, you know, ⁓ oftentimes there’s a mental health issue going on there. They are so depressed, they’re so overwhelmed that they don’t even know where to start. They can’t even look at it.

Terry Hammons (54:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yet more shorter. 100%.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah, they don’t see it and they feel like it’s like, lot of they become attached to it. You know, again, it’s not, it’s not rational. ⁓ But, ⁓ but yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (54:55)
or they didn’t live they look past it. Yeah.

Yeah.

So your growth is dependent upon making more relationships with more real estate agents, more realtors. And how are you doing that? What is your mechanism for connecting with them? I think I heard you mention cold calling.

Terry Hammons (55:16)
Effectively, yeah. Yep.

Yeah, I mean, that’s how that’s at the heart of it. Cold calling. ⁓ And then from the cold calls, the goal is to not only call the agents themselves, but to call office managers. That’s the most effective way, because if you can get an office manager to invite you into their office, do an office presentation, then you can really, you have the time and the ability to really help the agents to help it click for them.

Anthony Codispoti (55:26)
That’s it. That’s what you do.

Terry Hammons (55:53)
There is not an agent with, you know, even a decent agent who understands their business, has any understanding of their business that won’t absolutely fall in love with what we present to them. that’s, it’s an easy sell. If you give us the, if you can listen to us, and again, our pitch, if you listen to the, if an agent listens to us when we do a cold call, if they listen to the first 20 seconds, they will.

Anthony Codispoti (56:07)
It’s a pretty easy sell for you.

Terry Hammons (56:22)
They will be interested. ⁓ Hello, Bob. How are you? Hey, this is Terry from HomeStretch. We just wanted to reach out to you, let you know about this great service that we’re offering. We help real estate professionals like yourself get your homes ready to list. We do clear outs, we painting, flooring, handyman, landscaping, and clean house, and home cleaning. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (56:23)
What’s that first 20 seconds sound like?

Terry Hammons (56:51)
Why don’t you tell me what you do to get your houses ready to list? And so it’s just that. mean, there’s, if you listen to like, if, now again, some of them are, they’re just too busy. Some of them hate, now we get hung up on occasionally because they just don’t want to hear a cold call. But if they get, if they take half a set to like think about that question and answer it, that question is going to lead to.

Anthony Codispoti (56:54)
Hmm.

Terry Hammons (57:20)
I’ve got a whole list of other questions that are going to come after that. Because what that agent is going to begin to talk about when I ask them, what do you do to get your houses ready to list? They’re going to start talking about their pain points. And they’re going to say, they’re going to say, they may even say, you know, I’ve got a guy. And I was like, ⁓ you’ve got a guy. what does he, whenever you call, when your clients call him, how quickly does he get out there to give them a quote? How quickly? ⁓ really? Can he offer you financing options?

does your client, we have pay at close options where your client doesn’t have to pay anything until they see.

Anthony Codispoti (57:56)
Holy cow,

that’s brilliant. Because I mean, some of these projects you’re talking about, they’re thousands of dollars, and the seller is not going to be cash rich for a lot of them until they move that home. And so you guys sort of carry the note on that.

Terry Hammons (58:02)
absolutely.

yeah, yeah, yeah,

Absolutely, we’ve ⁓ got four different financing options now. We’re about to have a fifth one. But we work with, our premier ⁓ finance, it’s really, we call it pay it close financing, but we have a strategic partnership with Notable, who does ⁓ basically pay it close financing for professionals, ⁓ home professionals, home service professionals like us. have our own, HomeStretch has our own partnership with them though.

Our project, our partnership gives up to $50,000 of funds to do projects. And the cool thing about Notable is that they are able to use that 50,000 to do anything that’s related to the sale of the home. So let’s say our project is 20,000.

but they need to get their HVAC prepared or they have moving costs or they have you name it if it’s related to the home, they can draw down from that 50,000 and they don’t pay anything out of pocket. It’s all paid out of their closing proceeds. So yeah, that’s and this is again, this is probably this is the third or fourth thing about us that makes us completely different than any of your just sort of, you know, run of the mill.

Contract, general contract. And we, by the way, we don’t even refer to ourselves. We’re not contractors. We are the go-to company for all of your ⁓ home preparation. That’s it. That’s it.

Anthony Codispoti (59:33)
Yeah.

You’re like a full solution provider, yeah. So I imagine

that you will answer this question a bit differently today than you would have just a few years ago, but what’s your superpower, Terry?

Terry Hammons (59:49)
Yeah.

Mmmmm.

wow, I haven’t thought about that in while. ⁓ yes, it definitely is different now. I would say…

Wow. I would say it is, I’m able to see the bigger, the big picture. I’ve always been somewhat of a ⁓ global strategic thinker. ⁓ Notwithstanding the fact that I’m a lawyer by training, I’m not the most like detail oriented guy. ⁓

I probably should be, but that’s not my real strength. My real strength is seeing how the pieces fit together, seeing how the parts work. Even when I was practicing, as I began to, in my career, I was noted for being a strategic thinker, but also a team builder.

So because a lot of the, mean, literally my first job as a GC, I built the law department. It was a company that had been publicly traded for 25 years. had no in-house legal capacity. So I became, I like built the law department. But before that, my job as a deputy general counsel was building out a global team of lawyers to support our growth around the globe. But

But it’s being able to see the big picture. A lot of that, I think, comes from practicing law, working on, you know, multi-billion dollar transactions, and basically quarterbacking these big deals, which is basically, which is what I did. I can, I think that’s my super strength, or my, yeah, my superpower, and that I see the big picture. I’m never gonna be the master of all of the…

the things that, I know how to pull people in, see, you know, and get the folks in the right place and see the bigger vision as things are, as they’re coming together.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:04)
Terry, I’ve just got one more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to do three things. First of all, if you want to get in touch with Terry, you have two options. He’s given us his cell phone number 216-367-7609. We’ll put it in the show notes. But again, it’s 216-367-7609. Also, his email address is terry.hammons at home dash stretch dot com. And Hammons is spelled H-A-M.

o n s so terry.hammons at home dash stretch.com and again we’ll put that in the show notes also as a reminder if you want to get your employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company reach out to me at addbackbenefits.com finally if you want to take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app we will be forever grateful so last question for you terry you and i reconnect one year from today and you are celebrating something big

What do you hope to be celebrating one year from now?

Terry Hammons (1:03:05)
Hmm That we are on pace for doing a million dollars of business in Cleveland that Yeah, just yeah, just in Cleveland. So Yeah, Phoenix and DC we’re still you know, we’re those are newer opportunities the the market opportunity in Phoenix and Cleveland is probably

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:18)
Justin Cleveland.

Terry Hammons (1:03:34)
three or four, excuse me, in Phoenix and DC is significantly bigger than what it is in Cleveland. So, but we’ll eventually get there in those places, but Cleveland, ⁓ we need to be tracking for that million dollar mark this time next year. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:49)
Well, Terry

Hammons from Homestretch, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Terry Hammons (1:03:58)
My pleasure, Anthony. This has been awesome. I really appreciate you and ⁓ this opportunity. I had a lot of fun.

Anthony Codispoti (1:04:04)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.