Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Jackson.
Hi Christopher, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I often say my journey into business began the moment I packed up my life in Atlanta, Ga and drove to Houston at the end of 2019 to begin my career post-college. I had just graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, stepping into my first role within Rockwell Automation back in August of 2019, with Houston, Texas being slated as my new permanent home by January of the following year. Between the constant travel for technical training and the uncertainty of the pandemic, I found myself craving stability—something I hadn’t experienced much growing up. That desire pushed me into homeownership far earlier than I expected. By December 2020, after months of house searching while in between job-training rotations in Milwaukee, WI and Mayfield Heights, Ohio as an engineer, I closed on my first home in Katy, Texas. I didn’t know it back then, but that decision would become the foundation of everything I’ve built since in the realm of my businesses.
As the equity in my primary home grew, so did my curiosity. By early 2022, I had more than $100,000 in equity—an eye‑opening realization for someone only a couple of years into their career. Conversations with a close friend of mine, Tre Kinney, who was expanding his Airbnb portfolio sparked something in me, and I started exploring how to leverage the equity I had unintentionally built in my primary home after that. After a string of bank rejections on business loans and much self‑education and perseverance, I secured a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) through Frost Bank and began searching for my first investment property by February 2022. I targeted multifamily-unit house deals across Texas, placing eight properties under contract between February to August 2022 in a hot seller’s market, and backed out of all of them through the months for varying reasons. Instead, I pivoted to a single‑family home investment property and rooms-for-rent rental strategy while launching my real estate company, Dwellinghouse Investments, LLC by September 2022. Through managing that first investment property approximately 4 miles from my primary home, I learned the many realities of being a landlord for strategies involving rooms-for-rent, mid‑term rental and professional stays, Houston Housing Authorities-Section 8 tenants, and much more across the entire housing spectrum. Moreover, it also revealed a hard truth to me by 2023: single‑family rentals concentrate all their risk in one place. One vacancy meant zero income if unoccupied. That realization pushed me to think bigger.
By 2023, that mindset shift led me into expanding into commercial real estate. I wanted scale, diversification, and the ability to build something that operated like a true business—not just a rental in an over-saturated market. By June of 2023, I acquired a distressed self‑storage facility in Webster, Texas, now renovated and rebranded into Ready Lock Go Self Storage, and took on a full rehab and operational overhaul. I was balancing my full‑time job at Microsoft, planning a wedding, and recovering from a ruptured Achilles, all while navigating a tightening lending environment at that time. By the time several commercial lenders began pulling back due to rising interest rates, inflationary cost, and economic pressures, I pivoted my lending-audience base to the Small Business Administration (SBA). After a four‑month underwriting process after months of construction and renovations, I secured SBA-7a long‑term financing that stabilized the asset and strengthened my relationship with my lenders. That trust opened the door to my next acquisition: an eight‑bay self‑serve car wash, Flying Bubbles Car Wash dba Flying Frog Car Wash in Missouri City, Texas which I closed on in May of 2024 and refinanced with SBA 504 by 2025. Within that same year, by August of 2025, I acquired my third commercial facility, Flying Bubbles Car Wash-Kuykendahl, in Spring Texas, placing my real estate portfolio over $2MM in commercial real estate.
Today, I’m leading a growing team across all three properties, continuing to scale with the same mantra that has guided me from the beginning: if opportunity doesn’t knock, I’ll build the door myself.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road at all, however, there have been so many gained experiences and knowledge along the way, that I have learned how to pave smoother roads moving forward. This held true over the years especially in tightening markets, U.S political shifts that impacted even the SBA, lending and credit restrictions from banks, layoffs multiple times every year at Microsoft since 2023, job changes, my wife heading back to school for 2 years with no income, natural disasters impacting Houston, employee management and turnover, facility equipment breakdowns, management of public perception for all properties, and so much more. Though the adversities varied and differentiated at scale, what held constant was my faith, tenacity to keep moving things forward, and just a sprinkle of grace as I built along the way! I realized that over the years, my focus shifted more on becoming the qualities of success versus the outcome itself. That change in concept allowed me to carry success into multiple streams vs. it being tied to just one avenue and historical point in time. With that being said, to me, that makes the past and current struggles along the way, very much so worth it. Struggle is the oil that keeps the engine of knowledge running that allows the destination of success to be reached every time.
We’ve been impressed with Dwellinghouse Investments LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
As there are multiple businesses here, I will break down your question into a list:
1.) Dwellinghouse Investments LLC operates passively as a real estate parent holding company, but actively operates as both an owner-occupied self-storage facility, Ready Lock Go Self Storage, as well as consultation firm specializing in simple to advanced real estate acquisitions, commercial development and business strategy, and even reels back down in to direct consumer inquiries for those who are just looking to acquire their first home or place of residence and have questions about it. On the consultation front, we pride ourselves in leading by example through our own investments and real estate portfolio to gain trust and establish credibility, and not just lip-service, to our clients who are practicing within the same spaces that we operate within daily.
From a self-storage front, Ready Lock Go Self Storage is a modernized, Houston, locally-ran 81-unit commercial self-storage facility located at 150 North Live Oak Street in Webster, Texas 77598. We offer a variety of storage solutions to meet the diverse needs of both our commercial and residential customers through providing a secure, clean, and easily accessible limited 24/7 access self-storage space offering ranging various sizes. Our primary service offerings include rental of units that are 5’x10’, 10’x10’, 10’x20′, 20’x20′ and parking sizes of 10’x8’ and 10’x15’, with the ability to create larger spaces if the use-case calls for it.
2.) The Flying Frog Car Wash off of 15165 Fondren Rd, Missouri City, Texas has a business model focus of providing high-quality, efficient, and convenient car washing services to both individual and commercial fleet vehicles. These services are done via self-serve washing for our customers within the 8-13+ feet high bays of the real estate infrastructure.
Currently, the facility provides self-serve washing options in all 8 bays with car wash functions such as high pressure rinse, high pressure soap, high pressure wax and clear coat sealant, pre-soaks, bug-offs, tire and wheel cleaner/degreasers, low-pressure spot-free rinses, turbo air dryers, triple foam conditioning, and a few other features for cars, trucks, RVs, commercial 18-wheelers, dirt-bikes, ATV’s, and various other vehicles at an affordable rate for a facility that runs 24 hours/ 7 days per week and offers free vacuum use to all customers in the area.
3.) Flying Bubbles Car Wash-Kuykendahl, LLC dba Flying Bubbles Car Wash is a subsidiary car wash operating company of parent-company, Dwellinghouse Investments LLC within its real estate portfolio expansion. Similar to other assets within Dwellinghouse Investments commercial portfolio like Flying Bubbles Car Wash dba Flying Frog Car Wash in Missouri City, Texas, Flying Bubbles Car Wash-Kuykendahl is part of a growing chain of car wash assets in the Houston community to which operational excellence is standardized in the self-serve and flex-serve car wash space.
Flying Bubbles Car Wash off of 17307 Kuykendahl Road, Spring, Texas operates its business model just like that of Flying Frog Car Wash, with a focus of providing high-quality, efficient, and convenient car wash services to both individual and commercial fleet vehicles. These services are done via flex service through a 6-bay self-serve and 1 in-bay automatic system (IBAS) car wash system for our customers within the 3, 178 square-feet of building real estate and 26,050 square-feet of land that the asset fixed upon.
Additionally, current auxiliary services such as offering usage of our 9-canopy power vacuums for interior cleaning; sale of auxiliary goods like air fresheners, micro-fiber towels, and tire-shines; as well as future full-service car wash detailing with proper staffing, will be included on the facility grounds to peak, maintain interest, and continue the value and trend that the facility has to offer.
Our Spring facility provides self-serve washing options in 6- 12+ foot service bays, for functions such as high pressure rinse, high pressure soaps, high pressure wax and clear coat sealant, pre-soaks, bug-offs, tire and wheel cleaner/degreasers, spot free rinses, foam brushing, and much more for vehicles of all shapes and sizes at an affordable rate running at the facility 24 hours/ 7 days per week. This is in addition to 3 automatic touch free service offerings from the in-bay automatic system that includes high pressure and ceramic services for customers looking for speed and top convenience to finish a wash on the go.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters the most to me currently is having the true freedom to complete work on items of interest to me out of desire and not necessity. The power of choice has resonated strongly with me over the last several years where I have both experienced and witnessed choice removed in different capacities in lieu of shifting prioritizations, power-plays, utilization of leverages, foul play and bad business practice, mismanaged budgeting, ill-advisories from unstable leadership, lack of transparent leadership in corporate settings, gas-lighting employee and customer feedback, and more, all for the quickest monetary gain or security of one’s own employment.
Fear of negative consequences with critical effect to one’s livelihood for making the choice to disagree with the direction of a company’s leadership, should create feedback and discussion from what is being observed, not removal of choice outright to disagree. I have noticed with even how I treat my direct employees under my leadership in my company, I listen from the bottom-up, not the top-down, as I have to be in both a position to learn from their feedback as the active “boots on the ground”, as well as be able properly adapt my leadership direction for better efficiencies and company culture.
This has grounded my belief that building wealth in a morally conflicting way will lead only to faster unsustainable consequences, as opposed to long-term growth. One should have the choice within due reason, and not fear, to discerningly make decisions that they can live with on their terms, without hypotheticals or playing neutral stances to avoid consequences where their viewpoints are of value.
Pricing:
- Dwellinghouse Investments, LLC Consultations: First-Time and Personal Residential Home-Owners: $75/hr
- Dwellinghouse Investments, LLC Consultations: Single Family and Multi-Family Investors: $110/hr
- Dwellinghouse Investments, LLC Consultations: Commercial Business and Real Estate Investments: $150/hr
- Note: For Ready Lock Go Self-Storage Pricing, please reference: ReadyLockGoSelfStorage.com
- Note: For Flying Frog Car Wash and Flying Bubbles Car Wash- Kuykendahl, please reference facility pricing per subject location
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dwellinghouseinvestments.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_onlythat1/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChrisxMichaelJackson/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-jackson-36085076/
- Other: https://readylockgoselfstorage.com
Image Credits
Image Credit for Tesla Car Wash Professional Photo to: Ray and Marissa of Raymar Photo and Films
