In this episode, Brandon Moore-Johnson and I delve into the dynamic evolution of the real estate industry, propelled by the integration of podcasts and video content, redefining client engagement and marketing paradigms. From cultivating strong relationships and seizing opportunities to embracing continuous learning and adaptability, we explore the core principles underpinning successful real estate ventures.

Additionally, we tackle the intricacies of leadership, nurturing positive workplace cultures, and mastering the art of managing difficult conversations essential for navigating the complexities of the real estate realm with finesse and efficacy.

Listen to the podcast episode here!

We are back with another episode and this time we are sitting down with my good friend Brandon Moore Johnson, who is a realtor out of our Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Lakeland office, Brandon and I both have a similar approach to real estate and we want to help improve people’s lives through real estate. Brandon’s motto is enhanced living with real estate. 

And that’s the theme that he and I both have. And, that’s why we’ve been able to connect through real estate and just have some great conversations. So we wanted to record one for you and kind of give you a little insight into some of the things that we talked about some of the things that we think about when we are helping others do real estate, helping others build their life, build their dream life and everything that goes in with that. 

So I hope you enjoy it. I know I enjoyed it. It’s a great conversation. I hope you get some valuable tips and insights out of it. And please let me know. 

Give us some feedback. If you do it, we’d love to hear from you. Either way. Have a great one How are you? 

I’m great.  No, but I’m excited. We’re going to sit down and have a chat.

I’ve been waiting for this moment. For a long time. I just see yourself. And I felt we were so far apart.  we’re doing similar things. So  I have always wanted the opportunity to sit down and chat with you. So this whole weekend, being able to hang out with me has been cool.

Same thing, and vice versa, man.  it’s been. It’s cool to see. I think  we talked about the first night, we’re in a similar space,  with our business actually how,

It’s eerie how close- mindset-wise,  all of that kind of there. So I agree,  this has been, it’s been cool, to be able to,  spend some time, not in the real estate. World and just be able to catch up, and see what’s going on.

So we’ve talked about a little bit, but what’s been the struggle for you trying to have a more modern approach in your business with video, and trying to push out podcasts and trying to create leads that way, with the juxtaposition of traditional building your business and so what’s been the struggle and What have you been learning through that process?

There’s a lot, I think,  big picture, it’s not, it’s not having someone to look up to almost and say oh that’s how they’re doing it.  That’s how I want my business to be. I feel there are other examples of online social media,  you can find little bits and pieces of that, but you don’t get the full picture of how do I how do I grow a podcast and and generate leads generate business from other people, other agents doing podcasts. 

But the details, the nitty-gritty of how are you positioning that to help you grow your business? So, that’s been an I’m gonna be doing the podcast now for three years. And it’s just now, really starting to pay off. It’s paid off,  here and there.  I find that if you look at all the podcasters all the people who are doing it, you think Casey Neistat, you think of  Peter McKinnon if they talk about their foundations are we did it for years. years. For pops off. So I mean, kudos to you. Because I feel  I’m I would have given up sooner than that. 

Oh, I mean, there are many times where, where I was, I don’t know it’s not working. And I would just have commerce. I think it’s, I think having, the people around you to lean on,  in those times,  when those question marks come up and I doing the thing, I got into podcasting because I had a mentor, a friend, who was Hey, you got to do this, you’d be good at this.  a lot of your business is coming from your sphere,  this is a great way to expand on that. And I pushed back for a little bit but eventually,  leaned into it, and that got me through I would say the first year and then I would kind of recalibrate and think, is this working? Am I doing the thing?

Did you have that in the year to have somebody being, I know it doesn’t feel it but keep pushing. 

So again,  the person, Ben Spears who was, Hey, you got to do this. And he believed in it. He believed in me and started this podcast, and then he connected me with somebody else who had been doing a podcast and had started a networking business. 

And so I ended up setting up a Zoom call with him. And he, he was kind of it, I think it was just perfect timing. And that’s, that’s the only Zoom call I’ve ever had with this with this guy. But um, he, he has he has had a podcast and he was on, 1500 episodes or something ridiculous. 

And he was I’ve had those thoughts too but you just got to persevere. Keep doing it stick with it.  it’ll pay off. It works. So having that conversation has rejuvenated me and was, okay, let’s just keep it going. And now I think I’m at a point where I’m enjoying it more so than I ever have before. And just going to have conversations and connect with people.

Which I mean, is we’re all a relational business. So, I feel that comes naturally because it’d be cool watching some of your content and how natural you are you’re just a good conversation so saying before that  I guess you’re a good listener you ask me questions,  you can tell me you just very hone in you very much hone in on the conversation you’re having. There are a lot of people we know who you can tell that their minds elsewhere in a lot of conversations, but any conversation I’ve ever had with you it’s always been a very you’re in the moment person. 

So that’s cool. I appreciate you saying that. I think it’s a learned trait, a learned habit. What about you, so? Flip that question on you, the way you’ve grown your business. And how have you grown your business?

So that’s an interesting question. When I look back at it, I feel it’s been all over the place because I get new agents in the office. After all, I’m now kind of one of the top agents in the office was, How’d you grow your business? 

Well, when I started, I got on the leads team, in the release team is all about taking realtor.com leads,  in their company leads. So there are 45% splits on top of our company split. And I went in with the mentality of, I have no business so what’s the quickest way I can get business and I because I didn’t have a sphere? 

With what hours I had just got out of college. But when you’re in college and a bubble, a lot of them are my age and are buying homes. So getting on the Ely seems a way for me to get leads. And then I just realized if I can build relationships with people, and take these leads, the leads that I get from those people that I got that lead from is no longer a fee to do it. So it becomes they become my clients. I took one lead was a $25,000 land deal, made $750 on it, and that land deal turned into me relisting that land, and I charged them $3,000 To release to relist the land, and they needed to buy something. 

And there’s a lot next to it that I call the owner and I sold that lot. So I ended up turning that into three cells. Then a year later, the seller of the vacant lot called me to list his house. And so that kind of opened up my eyes, Oh, you don’t just work for the one-to-one deal. 

There are multiple transactions after that. So actually, I forego the first deal. And this is just an entry point into our relationship.  you have a you have a whole bunch of people that I don’t know, you have other family members, aunts, uncles, and friends. And so I just started thinking that way in my approach to how I’m building my business, and then being relational. So I’m a big opportunist. And so it feels like I’m jumping around a bunch of different areas.

Coming off of the elite team, I decided to step off the elite team so I could focus on building the foundations of my business. I feel if you’re an agent and all of your business is just coming from company leads, and you don’t know how to fish your leads, then are you building a sustainable business and my goal is to have a sustainable business? So I stepped away from that to build the foundations. 

And then COVID Hit  COVID Hit, it was my worst year. But I honed in I started focusing on connecting with my sphere. During this whole time, I was posting on social media I was going to new home construction I was posting every single day about homes being active, my sphere of friends was starting to engage with my social media and kind of started building up that way of just building the brand abandoned brand and amongst my sphere.

So now at three years in or Oh Brandon is doing business. He has done stuff connected with lenders who were doing ads so we split costs and I got a couple of deals from that. And then one of my biggest builders Business Builders was just being in the office all the time. And an agent who had been in the business for 40-plus years came up to me. 

How would you do 50-50 on all my listings, because I don’t wanna do paperwork anymore. And she was in her 90s. I met her when she was 89. Honestly, that was, I think, the biggest blessing to my business. Because it’s the reason part of the reason why did 7.8 million in volume, I took over everything for her. 

So listing stuff, she’s, Brandon, we got another one, I’d go out there and take photos, I do all the paperwork, and just have that as an opportunity. So I got connected with her sphere. So now I’m working with people, she passed away this last year. 

And so now’s that, that blessing that how she lived her life was just a gift to other people. And so now and then financially, how she lived her life, she built half of Lakeland and I have a client now who she held the mortgage for this person. And when she passed, she cleaned, she wiped the debt away. 

Wow, seeing their house, and it’s another family that she’s getting to help. And I was telling her granddaughters.

I hope to be able to live the life that she makes available to give to people. So how I built my business has just been what’s the opportunity that I’m in? What’s the opportunity that I have in the moment that’s gonna get me to, the goals that I have? 

And then what people don’t realize is how you live your life, what you do, how you interact, if you’re, if you’re doing the steps every single day, there’s gonna be an agent in the office watching you, who said, 

Hey, how about you come to work with me? Or how about I help you this way? It’s gonna be somebody who’s going to be seamless Monica Smith at the time, say, hey see something in you. How about you come and join my team? I would love to have you on my team. And that was just having the dedication to my industry wanting to learn wanting to grow. 

And just being a person, I was telling you before, of being able to say yes, and not being forced to say no. And if I would the kind of codify, what I’ve done for my whole business is having that mentality. , I want to set myself up to say yes to opportunity, and not be forced to say no it’s just kind of taking those incremental steps.

So go back to what you said about showing up, because I think that’s, that’s a big step too. And in our office Age,  that was always big. For me, it was showing up. And, when I remember,  when I first started in real estate, there would Lorna short, short, our current broker,  she, she was an agent at the time, and she was she had started, I forget what it was, but it was a little mastermind group of, learning stuff, And it was very early on, there was only a couple of agents involved. 

And we were doing script practice and practicing different conversations that are gonna happen in real estate. And it was every Wednesday, and there were times when I just didn’t want to show I’m, This is gonna be uncomfortable, awkward. I’m not great at it. So I don’t want to show up. But then I would just, I would just now I have to show up. 

And then I would do that. And then I would be and then I would learn something that was,  an aha moment? And then I would have, oh if I just showed up. I’m not going to those moments that don’t show up.

So showing up was a big part of I think some of my success in real estate, and I carried that with me into this day with other podcasts. And, I don’t want to do it. Now you still gotta show up you scheduled it.

I love that. You say that. It reminds me of a little bit of my journey, in the sense now that I’m doing more social media content on a scale that I’ve never done before. Now that I’m building out systems for my business, now that I’m having to do kind of really mundane things that are just not fun, I have that constant thing of.

If I just have to show up and just do the work. And what I didn’t realize is what I would learn along the journey. And now I realize, Oh,  this is why you show up, you show up one because having that discipline to do so. But you never know. What’s going to happen along the way, that’s going to be a defining moment of learning and education to get you to where you need to be. And it’s, the whole,  you’re walking on a dark path. 

And the only thing you can see is the step in front of you. All the stuff that you’re supposed to be learning is gonna be along the way. And then the learning aspect is the journey. It’s not the end product, because you never really know what the end product gonna look like when that journey is the defining moment throughout that so the idea of showing up to me is that outline.

Do you see a lot of agents, I think, post-COVID where it’s, hey, we can work from home? I feel that makes it even more difficult to be successful in real estate. 

And I feel certain people can do that. , there’s an agent in my office who I’ve never seen once. Her name keeps popping up. She closes at least five to 6 million every single year without fail. seen her once in five years. Newer Adrian is no she has been an agent for a long time. But everything she does is at home. 

She’s always at home. She says, there’s that level of things. Depends on, what you’re looking for in business. But I think yes, I don’t. I think it’s very difficult to build this. Out for me, I came every day when I could, and the reason why I did it is I would sit in what we call the bullpen, and they had all the producing agents, they had offices. So I was in the bullpen, and there was one agent who came in his name Randy Benton was doing anywhere from 10 to 15 million a year. 

And he was he’s, Hey, Brandon, have you ever written a contract before? No, I haven’t. He’s, hey, come to my office. I would have never had the opportunity to learn. If I was in a contract, and I always came in, I’d get a call from a client, hey, Brandon.

I need to know, this thing was, oh can you hold on one second? And I put it down? And Trevor’s office is there. My broker. I was hey, Trevor, here’s this question. What do I do? And he’d answer it, and I get on the phone. He’s, Oh that’s what I do. And he would answer and I say this is what you do? And the client says, Oh, thank you so much. I hadn’t had any idea that I didn’t know the answer at all. And that would have never happened. 

So when COVID happened, we couldn’t come into the office. . And then now I’m one of the few agencies maybe three other agents that come in every single day. And it’s the ones that are doing the business when they come in every single day. 

To me, it’s a no-brainer. , I enjoy it the same thing the countryside office,  you just hear all those conversations, you hear what other people are going through. And you’re, okay can do this.

Or you’re not alone. , to see people producing at a higher level than you. , you’re, there’s another level to get to. And then it’s just support. What I  about our offices, and I’m sure it’s the same as yours, is there’s a level of support that you get, that doesn’t feel you get in a lot of places, because I hear a lot of other brokerages where it’s very competitive. 

Other agents won’t help each other out. There was an agent in my office, she’s going out, I think out of the country for a wee  And she’s, Heywho’s a new agent that you think I could pay to help me with this? 

And I looked at her, I’ll just help you. if you just need help’ll help you. take phone calls for you. I get on. And she’s, Oh, thank you so much. And, that’s just the atmosphere that we have. , I don’t think there are a lot of replacements. 

Honestly,  that shocked me when I got into real estate because Berkshire Hathaway is the first company I joined and I was expecting this competitive cutthroat,  every agent is going to be competing even in the same office. And then to learn that,  Berkshire Hathaway is the complete opposite. It’s a big family. It’s cool.

I say that’s kudos to the Florida Properties Group Fam. Casey, Dewey, Allen, and especially just learning about building culture and building businesses. Everything stems from the leadership truthfully. And so when you have conversations with KC, do it and Alan, it’s, they make you feel family. , they make you feel they care about what you’re doing. 

Casey is always looking at what’s not only benefit what’s the benefit of the company but also how is this affecting our agents. And how can we support them? So shout out to you guys, because I think that company culture is a game changer, which is the reason why, I can’t imagine me leaving the company. I can’t see any other. 

If I have conversations with other agents, and I see the stuff that’s out there. , I’m in leadership with our association. So I see a lot of things. I’m, I just can’t, what’s the greatest? 

And you can have honest conversations. I remember talking to Casey just feeling this way. And here’s why. And you can be upset, you can have conversations, and they process through that. And they’ll make changes necessary to make sure that that stuff doesn’t happen, or they’ll talk you through whether you’re you’re or wrong, and have a very professional conversation about that. So they’ll play hard with you if they need to. 

Well, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows all the time. But, I think it’s taught me how to have tough conversations while maintaining a professional relationship and a friendship.

Is that a challenge for you to have those difficult conversations? Are you just you’re you’re comfortable with that? 

I hate it.  I sort of why is how do you get comfortable? I’m learning my wife has helped me a ton. With she’s okay with it. She’ll go at it. She’s headfirst into the conversation. I can’t win on debates.  we’re having a conversation even if I  later on to figure it out later on. 

Granted, you’re never but I just don’t argue that way. I process really, it takes me a lot of time. But what I’ve realized in those moments is it’s not it’s not or wrong.  situation. And so if I come into these conversations with just facts and try to leave my emotions out of it, which is incredibly difficult to do, I can at least say my piece about it and, and,  work through that, but it’s very new. 

My flight  I’d rather shut down, walk away. , get away from it was that same year, but learning in leadership and taking leadership classes, has helped a ton,  doing leadership books, being in a leadership position where there’s a lot of, back and forth, some people have very differing opinions. 

And so it’s, it’s taught me that at the end of the day, I don’t ever think of you less. And I think we’ve been getting these conversations of difficult conversations, you take it as a personal attack. And sometimes you feel personally attacked, or sometimes you feel you’re attacking that person.

Or you’re not, it’s the situation, that is the issue. So it’s laying it out,  we have to deal with the situation. But, even after we deal with it, the outcome is not me,  thinking of your last year changing our relationship from that. So I think it’s just shaping my mindset around me. That’s how I have done it. 

What about you? How have you how do you handle difficult conversations?

That’s a good question. I think I just, I think you, for me, it’s, I haven’t thought that much about it. It’s just, I know, I need to have to have this conversation so it’s, and so it’s just you just have to do it. It’s good. 

I wish I was that.

And so, specifically, in real estate, it’s been this is gonna be just going into it, this is gonna be uncomfortable for me,  just knowing that. But just to have, Okay, here’s the game plan, here’s what I want, to articulate or say in this conversation. 

And just try to be understanding of, how they may respond to it, and what they’re going through. I think it’s a big part of that, too.

And I think a lot of that is having surety, and who you are what you’re, what your job is, is there to do. And I’ve had to think about that. Because there are times when things kind of get really difficult. Usually, the times when it’s most difficult for me, are when I have a sense of either self-doubt, or, is there is partially my fault and, or I haven’t done a good enough job of communicating. 

And so then because of my error, something happened and that’s when most of it was pushed back for a day. 

So owning up to that and being, it’s my fault.  I take responsibility for it. It’s a lot easier for me if it’s if it’s not something that happened because of me. It’s, this is just a situation that we have to deal with. I think that it probably is it for most people if it is something because it was your fault. It’s really hard to, swallow your pride. Oh, no, I didn’t mess up. That is my fault. And then so here’s how it is.

And for me it’s just, it’s just picking up the phone and making the phone call, And even so, a thing I’ve always done to is, during COVID, when your multiple offers and stuff,  I would try to call,  every single agent and tell them,  on the phone with the seller didn’t accept your offer or whatever, instead of just,  send out a text or an email, or just not respond.  So just I think that’s helped me.  with those situations, too, is just being able to do more of it.

I would love to circle back. And I would love to know how you built your business. One how-to, why did you get into real estate?  What was that process? And then how did you build your business into where you’re at now? 

So I got into real estate, I have a degree in biology. And I was looking, I was looking I got a degree in biology because I was going to be, I wanted to be a physical therapist or physician’s assistant. And the idea with that is.

Okay, that’s a good career. 

I had no, coming out of out of out of high school. I never had a direction, I’m super passionate about doing this. I played sports, I played baseball, and that was something I always seemed to enjoy doing. 

I was gonna go to college or reasonable. That’s what I wanted to do. But I never had the work ethic or understood what, what it took to be successful in that at that point. And so our mindset at that point was I just need a good solid career, that’s a nine to five, I can work and it’s going to be successful. And I can have a family and all that kind of stuff. 

And so I got my degree in biology, started a master’s program online, and six months, and I’m done with this. I’m done with school, I’m not enjoying it. And I needed to figure out what I was going to do in the next chapter. So I took a job as a data entry job at a, actually a title Clearing Company. So a little bit of an introduction to real estate. 

But at that time I had a really good friend of mine, who was looking at getting into it, he had a finance degree and was looking at getting into commercial real estate. And so that opened my mind to oh, maybe real estate could be a career path. And then for I don’t know,  what,  what put me over the edge was reading a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I don’t remember why I decided to look for something to some avenue into real estate. It was It wasn’t real estate. It was personal development.  

I wanted the book that was to help me grow. And I remember to the library at this time, because it was for Amazon was huge, whatever. So I went to Barnes and Noble. I’m looking through all the books and personal development sections. I was choosing between a few different books, and I ended up settling on Rich Dad, and  Poor Dad. 

That was the first book that I read as this is something I want to read and learn from this fascinating. And that changes mindset that. I was, oh, so there is a different way of having a life and a career besides nine to five, save for retirement. And then you have this happy retired life.  the rich dad mindset. 

So reading that book,  opened up my mind to a different way of thinking and then I  really dove heavily into personal development, and then real estate, it was okay, Ib couldn’t be an investor in real estate.

And that’s what I want to do. So I got my real estate license. My goal was to my plan at that, at that time, was to learn the business for two years, and then to be an investor after that and start buying properties and renting them out. 

Then I fell in love with the residential sales and people and, and all that kind of stuff and kind of stuck with it. And so and then the second part of that question is, how I grew my business was, I tried different things,  I tried it for sale by owners, expired listings, open houses, I did a lot of that early on. 

So I tried a lot of a lot of the traditional stuff. I was involved in,  a big development project for a short period that didn’t pan out the way we thought it was I learned a ton there, and then kind of had to recalibrate after that of okay, how am I gonna? How am I gonna grow my grow my business? 

And that’s, kind of where the podcast came in. And then and then it’s been, just building your network. From there. It’s good.

You said something earlier. I just found it. I find it fascinating how our lives parallel,  each other. Via very fascinating. Because even want you to go to Barnes and Noble because I just want to better myself.

So, I need a personal, development book.  the amount of times I’ve sought out stuff, I just constantly want to be better. the next day. And whatever I need to get my hands on or who do I need to meet? 

Or what do I need to do to be better? So just seeing thinking having the mindset of, oh, I want to get better. So let me go to Barnes and Nobles and find a book. That’s gonna help me. I didn’t that route. I did more of the podcast. 

So for self-development,  I was okay. A lot of podcasts. So I got into BiggerPockets podcasts. This is when I became an agent and every book that was mentioned in that podcast I would read Rich Dad Poor Dad was the one that kept coming up all the time for the support I changed my life report I changed my life. 

So is this a joke on the podcast that investor every person in whatever is reading Rich Dad Poor Dad? And so I bought Rich Dad Poor Dad. It freakin changed my life.  It changed my mindset changed,  how I looked at finances, and that was a trigger for me, the financial journey of wealth building.

Yes, it really can be. And then study we reve to be in real estate. But that drive of personal development has always been a big thing. So why do you think that’s been for you? Has I just always been kind of something that’s just been an underlining, nothing? 

I don’t know where that came from. I think it was. I think it was just, gotten to a point in my life where I didn’t. I don’t know. I don’t  I that’s what when you asked I was trying to figure out. Why did I go to the? 

Why did I seek out a personal development book? I don’t even know why that became a thing. I am not just ingrained in you to do so maybe it was cause I was seeking something a career or something that I could, that I was passionate about. 

And maybe it was diving, and I can’t remember, what happened first, I was seeking the personal development piece first. Or was it real estate that led me to you need to be a better person to be a successful real estate agent? 

I don’t remember I don’t remember what happened first. But I did. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I think that led me to bigger pockets too. So I had that data entry job for a year, and I was doing a bunch of research. And that Job was that entry. So I was able to have headphones in. And that’s what I would listen to all day. 

It was  BiggerPockets Podcast, and and did that for a year. And it was just listening to a podcast about investing in real estate. And so that’s why I circle back to, I wanted to be an investor.

And then now you’re in sales. But you’ve done some investment stuff.

I have, we bought our first Airbnb, Airbnb two years ago. And we are now selling it under contract to close and move on from it. So it’ll make money from it. We did make a decent amount. , it was successful. We learned a lot about the Airbnb business.

 It’s completely different than anything I thought about before. So I’m more involved than I anticipated. And I probably drove my wife crazy. She was pregnant with our second at the time that we were hitting it set up  It was a month before,  we launched  a month before she gave birth to her second baby, and probably drove her crazy, 

So just my curiosity.  what are the numbers on that deal?  If you feel comfortable sharing two by four. What did you do for, either renovations or getting it ready for an Airbnb? How much did you make on it? or monthly for Airbnb? What was your exit on it?

We bought it for 395 it in. So funny story about that great thing about being in real estate is you can see some of these deals before they even hit the mark or whatever. So it was it was a client of mine. She had bought the home a year before. 

And when we’re touring, this is a rool property that would make for a great investment. So I commented. Hey, if you don’t buy this now, I might buy it. So she bought it, lived in it, did some renovations, whatever for a year. And then she came to me and said, Hey, we’re thinking about selling.  great. Well, we might we’d be interested in buying that. 

So timing just kind of worked out perfectly. So we bought it for 395. We probably spent we didn’t have a ton of renovations to deal with a lot of paint they did inside and outside. Out of the furniture. We bought some of the furniture that she had. 

Okay, so that helped out a lot. But we probably spent I think it was  30 grand, we invested into getting it ready for the market, buying utility or sheets and all that stuff. We would rent it out for it was anywhere from  200 to 350 $400 a night depending on the season. And so  I think the first year we did 42,000 That’s pretty good. 

Not that was that was before expenses for expenses, but 40,000 the first year that was that was the end of March through the end of the year. So we launched in March, 2 year we did 45. So a little bit better. But also more time,  that we had, but I would say we on average there’s Airbnb, there’s seasonality and stuff.

So the Snowbird season was the test time of the year, and then some slower months and stuff. So, so 45 The second year, and we’re selling that now we’re still under contract, but, we’ll close around 510 

Wow. Great investment. , it worked out. It’s a little it’s a little scary. The first one’s always a little scary. Sure. But it’s Cool. I’m thankful and glad it worked out the way it did. We learned a ton along the way. I learned I don’t property management side.

The stress of, having attention on Airbnb. , there’s, there’s a lot. There’s a lot I’d rather do in the long term. , I think our next one will be loan term rental. And we’ll just stick with that and hire a property manager. Okay. Well.

We cover all that area. Go that’s awesome. A lot of the conversation I have with with owners is , do you want to be hands-on on do you want just a turnkey? experience? So there’s no wrong answer to this? What’s your personal preference?

What about your have you? Have you purchased a long-term short-term rental before?

I haven’t? So you want to? And you want to be you and you want to be hands-on? I’m assuming? Me personally. Yes.

So I always think big picture, I probably self-manage most of all my stuff. And because I do property management. My goal is to, I want to be hands-on so I can learn. And that’s always a recommendation for people who are investing in doing long-term buy-and-buy-and-hold investments. 

Hey, do your first 234 hold on to them for a little bit, learn what it feels like to manage the property to know the whole experience, and then hand it off to somebody else. So you’re at least knowledgeable about what to look for in a property management company. 

Because most property management companies, they’ll say they won’t manage it as much. So it’s rending somebody that you feel old and has the experiences with their own. So that’s why, I’m getting into property management. 

So I can do the other side of, really learn the in the depth of property management without owning a home and have that system to where, when I’d self manage all my stuff, I want to hire somebody on my team to self manage it, but I can train them I can,  I have that experience to guide them through that process. 

And that’s just my mentality is, I’d rather self-manager be able to put the system and the team in place to manage it without me. , and I think there’s a better financial gain there than just speaking honestly about hiring it to property management. If you can keep those expenses in-house. And then it just gets to neutral depending on what skill you’re at.

And so I would agree with that. You can save as far as managing yourself. For me, it was the the ultimate decision why we decided to sell I felt the highest and best use of time was more on the central sales side versus Airbnb which was making a few dollars, in the day. 

So that’s kind of will lead us to selling and I think that’s my mindset moving forward would be next time we underwrite a deal. It’s just gonna have to work with a property manager in place, especially in your situation you went to the hardest of the buy and holds – off the bat. 

Because there’s there are so many moving parts oh my god, short-term side of things having to turn over the property. So one that considers more medium term. So you get similar as a short term in terms of income without the headache of the constant turnaround time, but, I think that’s if you want property management to be hands-off experience it.

I think you underwriting it with the numbers in mind. makes sense. So kudos to you for getting here.

Your first one and what and what’s crazy is the reason my mindset was always long-term. No, I wanted a long-term rental. 

But again, I had some other friends and clients that they ended up buying I helped them connect with an agent that they bought a short-term rental in West Virginia. And they had some success with it in the first couple months or whatever and I think we could do this you back when you bought the Airbnb if the Airbnb craze was, yes so it was everybody was jumping on the Airbnb wagon. 

Is there so much money you can do all this, that gets amazing, and then now that it’s come down a lot the super successful Airbnb are the very niche Airbnb’s who are making the really good money. 

I’m so glad you said that because that’s that’s exactly what I’ve learned too and we love staying in Airbnb if we’re recording this in an Airbnb. Which is awesome. ,  this old building in New Orleans. , the brick wall behind us.  But it is those super unique properties that just crushed it. 

And I thought we were getting that and the home and Crystal beBeachBut I don’t think the location was unique enough or it was just oversaturated because of the Airbnb craze. 

Are you getting a situation like this one? Where it’s a full apartment building? And the company owns the full apartment building. So I’m at the Pelican which is a block over. They own the whole it’s the Pelican by host diva host divas, the big Airbnb company where they probably own a bunch of either built them. But they have these now they’re on their own. It’s multifamily level Airbnb, which is very different. 

And they’re next to the convention center, and all these different things. So they’re a little cheaper actually than the hotel so they’re getting a lot of people that come to they’re constantly being booked up. So if you’re going to be in that situation, are you going to be in a single off  the DC very nice experience is incredibly important,

I just had that thought, Do you think that’s the new but these corporations or a larger investment company,  owning a building that, instead of buying a hotel now they just buy a hotel?  

If you think about it, just a different way of marketing it? , so there’s  Airbnb people are following on YouTube. And they’re going more towards the small beach resorts in Costa Rica. About a 15. Little hotel,  the nice hotels. There’s a hotel back of my mind in my hometown, Prescott, Arizona. It’s known to be, haunted, but it’s a very small 15-room.  

I forget what they call it. It’s not a nice hotel or motel. No,  boutique, okay?  it’s a boutique hotel. But everything’s, it’s all run off of Airbnb versus it being a hotel so it’s, they’re the same. So I don’t I wouldn’t say it’s new. But I think these private owners are moving into this more unique space of of the hotel industry. 

If you own an Airbnb, that’s where I have to think of it if you own an Airbnb, it’s service its hotel, it’s closer to hotel than it is just regular residential, which is a very different experience. So we’re seeing this kind of stuff pop up, a lot in Nashville. We went and stayed all brand new construction. 

The company that runs it is located in California in Florida, different areas. They’re building this new construction-specific for specific for Airbnb, and some of them are renovated townhomes.

They just turn them in, they just buy a bunch and they renovate them and their Airbnb is, in a lot of them not big companies. It could be a person that can mean you and we just have a big portfolio. Of stuff. They just brand that,  their company is host diva. 

And it’s maybe one or two people or maybe they have a syndication, which is a whole other conversation.  And they said they have a syndication of having all these investors. So there’s one or two people managing that with a bunch of people investing into it. 

And that’s another form of investment. Syndication looking at that. It’s a better experience in my opinion, than the hotel.  This has been I’ve been floored actually by mine. , you go to the hotels as a hotel it’s all the same. 

If you come here this is an exposed brick wall, I get this experience with my kitchen.   next,   down below a restaurant, but this is where I need to be as beautiful. And it’s cheaper than the hotel which is crazy because they have 1000s of units of rooms. 

And that’s not the case for everybody. I feel if you go to Nashville these bigger ones usually the Airbnbs are way more expensive in  the hot part of New Orleans if you stay in New Orleans. , you’re in the weld Paquette.

I don’t know the name of this building. broker is the restaurant downstairs.

So this building is some people live here. Oh, really? So it’s not completely rental.

So this one probably is just somebody who has it but they I know. They have a few units in this building. That’s cool. It looks like this is the building it looks it’s been recently renovated inside. , so might have been recently converted. 

What are your What are your plans for the next three to five years? , how do you want to grow your business?

So I mean, honestly, my next 10 year my 10-year goal is I want to be more fully in investment, and even more so I want to be more fully into development, real estate development in my area. , where I’m at, we’re just starting,  the development phase of our city. And, there’s a lot of, of the old guarda lot of the people that have just been here for a very long time, you see that kind of transition of wealth happening. 

Their kids are taking it up,  there’s new blood kind of coming in. So I see the opportunity there. And I see the scale of having a real estate team that can service that and being a part of that upper echelon-whatever.  

However, you want to call it. So, I would love to do that. And I want to build a team that services,  investors, and people who want to enhance their lives by with real estate by building wealth, whatever that looks. 

So if you want to do a buy and hold and want to be known you have to go talk to Brandon, resources, hence why I’m getting into property management. Now to learn that site as a resource. , if you want to do a fixin’ flip, got to talk to Brandon, he knows how to source deals, and he knows how to get you the crews that you need. 

And then for a big skill development,  if you have 20 30 40 100 acres, it’s gotta talk to Brandon, he has the resources to know how to get that land and title, what the zoning is. There are other development partners that we have connections with local builders, and then I have a sales team who can dispo or who can sell that product. , as well. 

So that is my it’s a big 10-year goal. It is a lot. But that’s the trajectory that I’m going in. So for the next two to five years, it’s me building up property management. And getting that to a point where I have a portfolio where I can hand that off to somebody to manage it. But I have that as a resource for my investor clients. 

It’s doing fixes and flips and helping sourcing off-market deals. And then of course’s still helping friends and family and helping people who want to buy and sell real estate, if you want to,  enhance your life with real estate, in some way, shape, or form.  

I have the team and the resources to be able to do that. So I still have people who want, who need that service. So I don’t want to neglect them either. And that, again, is a part of that team mentality of having people there who,  want to help with those businesses. 

So now I’m doing it all. So it’s a lot. But that’s kind of where my 2,3,45-year goal is and then my 10-year goal is ultimately to not necessarily be selling but just be more full investment,  high skill, I want to be a part of the community, I want to own a business in the community.

So there’s a business event space kind of stuff now is what I’m looking at. I want to I want to own content. Content Studio. , in the area, just to be a part of the local community because Lakeland specifically in  Polk County, they’re very big on Moms and Pop local people reuring in pouring back into that community. , and, unfortunately, they don’t necessarily think of real estate agents as small business owners, even though we are small business owners but if you have a way of really bringing back into the community, a lot of the local businesses too. 

So if I can have a local business, that brings value to the community, which is why event spaces more specifically, for business owners and people who need to meet meeting space, or the nonprofits or other agents and lenders or businesses who me to get in the more modern space of marketing, I want to be able to provide a space,  for them to be able to do that and provide services for them to be able to do that. 

So it gets me, in front of a lot of these people, but it also gets me too well, I have something that I feel’ll bring value to you. It’s  I want to see your business thrive. Because then Lakeland thrives, my business thrives because people are moving here to, buy and sell houses. And so it’s just that reciprocal relationship. So and then selfishly too. I’ve had conversations with my wife, because of her degree in event coordinating, getting her to transition into maybe something as well. And she’s been, she’s always said No, at first, but we had a conversation recently where that might be a viable thing, because she’s kind of, she’s been teaching for 12 years now. 

Or maybe 13. She might not have enough time,  left and so now it’s something that she and I can potentially on together, which would be amazing. So I’ve told him before that feel my role as a husband is to help create the space for my wife and my daughter to have the space and freedom to fully live who they are and explore those options.

So from a personal standpoint, and a business standpoint, that’s kind of the trajectory that I’m in, what about you? 

I love that. I think it’s similar to what we talked about this weekend,?  the the mindset of, helping people build wealth through real estate, and people who have that growth mindset are a big part of that. And so I want to do that in Palm Harbor, and just plant my roots in, in that city and in similar have, I don’t have concrete plans, but I have some ideas about.

Getting a space in downtown Palm Harbor for the podcast for content creation stuff and being able to share that with the community too. So I think I think the five-year plan is, is to,  build out a team, and be able to step out of the production role, and just be able to grow a team that is, is just helping the community build wealth in real estate. 

And I want to focus on it’s hard because I want to do some of the investment stuff. I want to get into, the investment side myself. , I want to help people get in the investment side, but also just,  making smart decisions,  you’ve talked about,  when they’re buying and selling their residential home that they’re gonna live in, making smart decisions with that, because that’s a big part of it. Because if it can’t do that, then you’re not gonna be able to do the investment.  piece of that.o it’s a whole picture. , it’s a lot. There’s a lot that goes into it.

Sometimes it’s overwhelming. My wife tells me you put too much stuff on your plate, you gotta calm down. She shot down an idea that I had some put in the event space on hold, because she’s, No, . , it’s not time. And she is, has become a sounding board. For me, even though I feel it at the moment. She’s one day, you’re not gonna go, as somebody else. , because I asked my real estate coach, kind of the same question. 

And he had the same responses or she was, wonder you’re just gonna do it. Listen to me when I tell you. Not the time for that. And she’s. It wasn’t the time to, really implement, the event space kind of thing. It’s hard to do that with your spouse when they’re shooting down an idea or she said, she’s, I can tell you are upset, sorry for, what she was, I was sucking, but, I get it.

My wife and I, went through that with, buying our investment property. there was, originally, it was, No, absolutely not. , we’re not doing that. But and it’s, no, look, no, look at the numbers. , let’s, I’ve gone through this look at this,  it works. It’ll work,? It was it was stressful and all that stuff. But at the end of the day,  work trust factor. . .

I love that. That’s good, man. Sweet, man. Thanks. I’m glad. , I’m glad for your business. , I’m glad for wise, everything that you stand for as a person,  you have a good heart and seeing you interact with everybody around you and seeing the videos and what you do. It’s cool to see you just kind of pour into that and to be consistent because seeing you be consistent has been, encouragement from afar of me being consistent in even video production and all that kind of stuff.

CONNECT WITH BRANDON: 

• Website: www.bhhs.com/florida-properties-group-fl302/lakeland/brandon-moore-johnson/cid-1108465
• Phone number:   (863) 944-0682
• Email: bmj@bhhsflpg.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brandonmoorejohnson/

CONNECT WITH DONNIE: 

• Follow Donnie: @donnie.hathaway
• Follow Palm Harbor Local: @PalmHarborLocal
• For more real estate information – www.thehathaway.group

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