In this episode, I’m taking you all the way back to the beginning—before flips, rentals, and lending businesses, and when real estate wasn’t a career, it was a mission. I break down how a single-wide trailer, a piece of advice from my grandmother, and a relentless desire to own land in my hometown sparked a journey that would lead to building our dream home, stacking equity, and eventually going all in on real estate.
This isn’t a story of fast cash or flipping empires, it’s about rolling equity forward, staying consistent through chaos, and learning to leverage every move for long-term gain. If you’re just getting started or feel stuck, I hope this shows you that you don’t need a perfect plan, just a relentless one.
Key Talking Points of the Episode
00:00 Introduction
03:00 JJ’s Joke of the Week
04:02 My earliest exposure to real estate through my grandmother
06:02 Growing my goal from just coming back home to building a future
07:30 Renting a trailer near the marina and my first owner-financed deal
10:31 Learning the power of equity and building my first house
13:19 Meeting Katie and convincing her to live in an unfinished house
16:56 How an unexpected inheritance sale led to my first major rehab
20:56 Flipping our new house before we even settled in
24:00 Using an FHA loan and creative financing to keep momentum
26:56 Moving back and building more equity
28:52 Finding our dream property through a handwritten letter strategy
32:13 A handshake deal tested by a higher offer and why character matters
36:08 Finally buying the land and designing our dream home
38:53 Why I walked away from real estate (briefly) after hitting my goal
41:08 How that experience planted the seed for a full-time investing career
43:00 The MVP of the story: my wife, Katie
Quotables
“I wasn’t trying to start a business. I was just trying to figure out how to buy a farm and build a house in my hometown.”
“Every house we moved into, we built equity. Every deal got us one step closer.”
“That piece of land was my number one target. And thanks to a handshake and a man of his word, we closed it—despite a double offer.”
Links
608B Capital
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