A 24-year-old learned about real estate investing on TikTok. Now he plans to convert a $2 million motel into apartments.
Courtesy of Corvon Burgess
- Real estate investor Corvon Burgess started his business after seeing a TikTok video two years ago.
- He is now looking for backers to fund his conversion of a South Carolina hotel into apartments.
- Burgess turned back to TikTok to help raise money to renovate the motel while keeping rents low.
Corvon Burgess first learned about real-estate investing on TikTok.
In 2023, he came across videos about wholesaling, a real-estate investing strategy in which people act as scouts for other investors. They search out under-the-radar properties, secure a contract with the seller, and then resell that contract to another buyer for a profit.
Burgess started out finding a home listed for auction on Zillow in Clinton, South Carolina, a small town of 7,700 an hour north of Columbia. He sold the contract to the home to another buyer through Facebook Marketplace, making a $5,000 profit.
That first deal opened Burgess' eyes to the potential of a career in real estate. At the time, he was enrolled at Francis Marion University and working at Waffle House.
"You can truly learn about building wealth and how opportunities can open up to you," Burgess, now 24, told Business Insider.
So far, Burgess has sold 10 contracts. His investment firm, Burgess Legacy Investments, also runs short-term rentals and invests in local businesses, including restaurants. Now, he's gearing up for his biggest project yet: buying a rundown motel and turning the rooms into affordably priced studio apartments.
The hotel conversion plan includes keeping rents low
Burgess launched what he's calling the Affordable Housing Project Initiative this year with the intention of buying an 80-room motel in his hometown of Manning, South Carolina, about an hour and a half south of Columbia.
He plans to turn it into 40 studios with rents under $950 a month, utilities included. Zillow only shows one home currently for rent in Manning, a four-bedroom house asking $1,700 a month.
"If we're seeing this need within the place that we grew up in, we've got to do something," Burgess said.
Burgess specifically searched for motels that appeared to be neglected by their owners, looking for outdated, spam-filled websites and non-working telephone numbers.
He found a 1980s-built hotel that was originally a Howard Johnson's before its previous owners took it independent. Burgess said that the building is showing signs of distress; photos from online hotel reviews show a rusty fence and dirty pool.
Currently, he's under contract for the property at $2.45 million, with a down payment of $300,000 set aside from his other investing streams, according to a November 2024 contract Burgess shared with Business Insider. He told BI that he has since negotiated the terms down to a $2.3 million purchase price and a $150,000 down payment, and that his expected monthly payment on the debt is $18,500.
Burgess is seeking additional funds for the hotel conversion
First, Burgess is asking local religious groups that have set aside money to support affordable housing to help fund the motel renovation.
Burgess also reached out to Peyton Vanest, a 26-year-old content creator based in Pittsburgh who has over 700,000 followers on TikTok. Vanest, whose content mostly centers on progressive politics, has urged his followers to donate as little as 50 cents or $1 to GoFundMe he set up if they support Burgess' vision.
Burgess launched a GoFundMe on March 19 with a goal of $500,000 to raise money for the motel renovation. Vanest than shared that link with his followers and, as of May 8, it had raised $345,329.
Vanest said some of his followers have reached out with plans to replicate Burgess' model in their states.