GreyCast: BPN w/ Josh Wilson

Welcome back to season two of Greysteel's GreyCast podcast. In this podcast, TC and Nigel invited Josh Wilson, a former-NFL player who switches into commercial real estate. Josh Wilson recounts his experiences, starting with his time in the NFL and moving on to CRE. He discussed the difficulties he encountered when starting out in real estates, such as obtaining funding and assets to support his business. He also discusses his aspirations for the near future as well as his goals for his business in the future. For fun, they also discussed several NFL-related things and explained how the audience could get involved with WC Investments.

Key Takeaways

How Josh Wilson, an NFL player, entered the commercial real estate industry
The experience working in commercial real estate as a former NFL player
The Challenges and victories Josh faced when he first entered the real estate business
Josh's future goals for his company and his dreams

Quotes

What I’ve learned is that the worst thing people will say is “No”, and you got to ask why they said “No”- Josh Wilson

One thing that I've learned is that real estate, through the test of time, always eventually gains value. - Josh Wilson

One of the things that keep me going with this is realizing that the more we grow, the more minorities we can support. - Josh Wilson

Featured in this Episode

Nigel Crayton
Investments Sales, Greysteel
https://greysteel.com/team/nigel-crayton/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelcrayton/

TC Cosby
Capital Markets, Greysteel
https://greysteel.com/team/tc-cosby/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tc-cosby-90b7485/

Josh Wilson
WC Investments, LLC
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-wilson-58261094

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Introducing our guest
04:29 How Josh gets into commercial real estate
08:12 Finding the right direction after NFL
10:53 The things Josh had to overcome
15:05 Other ways to access capitals
17:36 What will be the next in the future years?
20:39 How does the current environment affect the business on a daily basis?
24:16 Things Josh wants to accomplish in the near future
26:28 How does Josh balance these things?
29:39 Segway questions Josh
36:49 Unforgettable deals
41:13 Talks about NFL
44:50 How to get involved with WC Investments
47:04 Conclusion

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
These podcasts are presented by Gray Stealand Gray Steal's Black Professional Network. Gray
Steel is a national commercial brokerage withtwelve offices across the country and delivered as
our clients and integrated suite of capitalsolutions tailored to the unique needs of each
engagement across asset types and geographies.Gray Steel provides investment sales, capital markets
and JB equity solutions for our clients. These series of podcasts are hosted and

(00:27):
moderated by the leaders of the GraySteal Black Professional Network. The GDPN was
founded to help deliver and drive retentioninternally and accelerate the hiring externally of diverse
talent as we believe that there aremore representative culture can drive impact and real
business results. Each guest interviewed asan industry leader and trailblazer, and we

(00:48):
hope that their stories can help informand drive impact, impactful greater representation in
our industry. Your host will beAaron Edman, co founder of the GBPN
and spearheads our investment sales business inBaltimore and surrounding metros. Also Nigel Creton,
co founder of GPPN and a seniorteam leader of the DC and the

(01:10):
Atlantic Investment Sales Business and TC Cosby, co founder of GBPN and leader of
the National Structure Finance Business. Let'sgo on, everybody. This is Nigel
Creton and we have TC Cosby aswell from Gray Steal. We represent the
Gray Steel Black Professionals Network. It'sa new initiative that we started this year

(01:33):
in essentially which we're looking to promotethe success and rotation of Gray Steel Black
employees through four pillars of work.That's through recruitment, equity, education,
and career development. As part oftoday's podcast, we're joined by a very
special guest today, mister Joshua Wilson. For those who don't know Josh,

(01:57):
he has a pretty d tell biowhich I needed lead. There's so much
to capture. But Josh grew upin a PG County, Maryland. He's
a graduate of the Damata High SchoolCatholic and then went on to the prestigious
University of Maryland where he played ona full football scholarship. At the University

(02:19):
of Maryland, Josh received All acACC Honors, All American Honors Team MVP,
as well as the James Tatum Award, which was awarded to the top
football student athlete in the ACC backin two thousand and six. After graduating
from UMB, Josh went on afterthe illustrious clear career excuse me, to

(02:44):
be selected in the second round ofthe two thousand and seven NFL Draft by
Seattle Seahawks, in which he playedalmost a decade into the NFL. Some
of the places he played including Seattle, Baltimore, the Redskins, Commanders Washington
football team, the Falcons in Atlanta, as well as Detroit during his career.

(03:04):
Josh has a number of stats inwhich he probably can go over,
but two of the things that reallystuck out to me was he led the
NFL in return yards in two thousandand eight and he also won the Walter
Payton the Name of the Year Awardtwo thousand and nine, which is given
to one player in the NFL wherethey're commitment back to the community. After

(03:24):
his retirement from the NFL, Joshwent back to school, receiving a Masters
from both the g W and Georgetownand his life after football, Josh found
his second passion, which is realestate, in which she started a real
estate firm WC Investments, in whichhe now provides the four housing in the

(03:46):
multi family space throughout the Grinter WashingDC area. I love Josh the story.
Obviously he has the NFL background,in the football background and in the
real estate background. But what Ilike about his he started off with the
single duplex click excuse me, andnow it's completed over twenty five million dollars
worth of real estate transactions and whichis now company is a multi hundred apartment

(04:13):
holding here in the Washington C area. Um, Josh, did I miss
anything? I know that's a mouthfuls. No, no, you gotta look
y have to thank you, thankyou for that lestious interest. Yeah,
I don't know if I'm yeah,can I can back that up myself.
I'm gonna bring you on the roadright appreciate of course, of course.

(04:34):
So what we'll do today, We'regonna talk about a number of topics,
real estate, football, Josh,um and just kind of have a good
banter and and and one thing Ido want him note and before we went
live, Josh notice died. Uh. You got t steam Cosby who works
with the firm. Uh. Heis a big Penn State football fan.

(04:56):
He actually played in Pits State fromthe nineties. Um, so the rivalry
already started between Josh and TC beforethe seven kicked off. So yeah,
now all of us could get intoMaryland. Some of us got to go
up north to escape escape the statelines. So so any any b for

(05:17):
hard feelings you guys here, that'sgonna be because of Fenn state of Maryland.
But just starting off here, Imean, Josh, obviously we the
NFL background itself, we can we'lltalk about it, but I think we're
really for the podcast here. Howdid you get into cr E. I
mean obviously after you played, youcould have gotten to anything black commercial real

(05:39):
estate? Well, uh, youknow, my my father in law and
brother in law they're into uh inconstruction, and they've got their own properties
as well that they run and ona smaller scale they had. They had
tried to get me involved for along time, and I told them,
hey man, I played football.You know I'm not. I don't even

(06:00):
even you know, you know,doing anything else. Right now, I'm
gonna stick to this. And mybrother in lawson, man, I'm about
to buy this four unit building offof Eighth Street. Yeah for two hundred
grand, hey man, we couldbuy the whole block. And I told
him, no, there's no wayI'm buying anything. And five years went

(06:21):
by and and um, now comingnear the end of my career, and
I'm looking at his buying saying,man, I wish we brought that whole
block because that worked out really well. Um. And so I started,
you know, I was in myNBA program with my wife at gw UM.

(06:43):
You know, I had a anotherformer player gave me a story about
how rough life was after after retiringand how you had to find another purpose.
And and that's when I really gotinto it and started digging into it.
We brought that duplex and and afour plex right there in that the
eighth Street area, kind of withina month of each other. And funny

(07:08):
story how I got into multi familyin the four bay house and we did
the duplex. We made it intoa single family home. It was beautiful,
it was nice. We did Theydid a great job. I hated
every moment of it. I didn'tlike the flip. I didn't like you
know, you know, just sayingthat, you know, you're there for
a year or so, you're notcollecting anything. You're hoping somebody, you

(07:31):
know, pay. We ended upselling it for per you know, per
square foot. One of the highestin the in the area in that area.
But I didn't care. I didn'tlike it. It made me uncomfortable.
I didn't I didn't like had thefeeling of it. And so I
started digging more into that four endthe building. We had some vagacies when
I got it, and we turnedit over, upgraded it, and I

(07:54):
was intro to n control, whichI would tell any young investor you might
want to find out before you buyit for you in a building, what
rank control it. But I wasintrolled into rank control because we put it
in the LLCUM and I started learningmore and I investigated more kind of what
was going on in affordable housing,and you know, I really started to

(08:16):
enjoy it and enjoy what we weredoing and what we could provide. You
know, uh, from the backgroundthat I had, josh A telful man
Um, I think you know withthe with the leadoff giving your background,
I mean you saw a lot ofsuccess early through um the early days in

(08:39):
college to the NFL. You know, the big part of the GP,
you know, the GBPN is bringingothers along and kind of seeing others that
have had a path of success,right and so you know, I know,
putting back on my football homet alittle bit. You know, obviously
a lot of us in that worldwe don't see clear paths to taking the

(09:00):
next step right, whether it's throughentrepreneurship, starting your own business, um,
finding kind of the next thing,like you were mentioning, could you
give us a little bit more thoughtand then we'll dig into this I'm short
later. How you set yourself upfor success away from just having some of
those conversations, things you were thinkingabout as you were going through your career
to try to take the next step. Anything, any nuggets that you would

(09:20):
point out that certainly help you putit put you on the right directory.
Well, anybody that knows me,you know, I can dig a little
deeper in term of my background.Um, you know, I grew up
in a single family household, asingle mom man and my first five years

(09:41):
of life we lived in five differentplaces. Um, you know, guy
eviction notices several times. And ifit wasn't for the guy's grace and my
grandparents probably wouldn't have had it somewhereto live, staple to live. And
so that always was something that thatmeant something to me and it made me

(10:03):
always conscious of financial decisions. Sowhen I went to college my senior year
and I started, you know,getting the calls that I had an opportunity
to make it to the NFL.I did an internship in Morgan Stanley.
Like, I have no passion forbeing working for Morris Stanley, but I
needed to know if I was able, if I was getting ready to get

(10:24):
drafted and coming into some money,I need to know what to do with
it. And every day I wentaround there and just asked them a bunch
of questions, find out what notto do, what to do. Well,
that turned out to be the greatestlesson of my life because that was
in two thousand and six and thehousing market was at the greatest, you
know, uncontrollable time in the worldat that time, and it was a

(10:48):
lot of people in there saying,man, something's something's not right. You
gotta look at the details. AndI had one gentleman that really dove in
into the details. So because ofthat, um that all that, you
know, kind of spurit my backgroundinto uh, you know, just being
fiscally aware of stuff and knowing that, hey, that time's coming, you

(11:11):
know, I was I was sixyears in the league and you're already passed
the mark of you know, thenormal career. That's time, it's coming.
You need to prepare yourself so thatyour family can survive for years to
come. Yeah, that transition musthave been something man playing football to all
of a sudden. I know we'vetalked about it in the past. But

(11:33):
um, besides kind of the challengeof transition of life outside of football,
I mean, what else did youhave to overcome? Would you say,
when you're first starting out in thebusiness, And this is a two part
question, just overall, and thenalso what was the what did you have
to overcome as a minority to kindof break into the business? Um,
just because obviously, um what Ithink TC two percent of commercial estate positions

(11:56):
they're held by minorities or black people. And in the insture right now,
what are the extra things that youshow that you at you up overcome as
well? Well? I start withthe first question, what I had to
overcome, you know, to startas I knew nothing about being a landlord.
I had no idea what to do. I was not trained in construction.

(12:18):
I didn't understand how much you know. I thought, to be honest,
we were gonna get this for youto build it. I could put
ten thousand dollars in the East unitand it would make me, you know,
millions, and that's not true.And you know, I didn't understand.
This is somebody's house that you canyou know, that you control.

(12:39):
And I would say for anybody startingoff is start small because you're gonna learn
some things and you're gonna make alot of mistakes, and you rather those
mistakes be small, you know,so that you can learn from. This's
the best education is just jumping in. But as far as a minority,
I have a particular story which Istill remember every day and I keep um

(13:05):
a particular local bank as well known. UM. I was going to buy
a six hun a builder and itwas five five forty five forty K and
I'm more than qualified because I wasstill you know, I'm still on it.
It's my last year in the league. Uh and the building more than
cash flow. And so I wentto get financing for it, and they

(13:31):
told me unless I bought every dollarthat I owned until their bank, that
they would not give me a loanfor this building. And I said,
well, what does this have todo with you know, this building,
it's a six unit at cash flowsI'm I'm qualified. You know, why
do I have to bring every dollarthat I own into your bank for you
to give me a loan? Andthey said, and then and this is

(13:54):
an email. I sat the email. This is our own phone. This
is an email. Um, thisis uh, this is you know,
we think at this moment. SoI purchased it all cash and and then
uh, you know it did everythingwe needed. Didn't finance the renovations,
put it all, you know,out of my personal funds um and it's

(14:18):
I was just blessed to have that. What if I what if I didn't
have that? What if I didn'thave all that money to be able to
do that? Now? You know, as crazy as it is beginning this
year, Nigel, you sold thatbuilding and uh, I told you I
bought that building for five or fortyyou know, so for over a million,
So it was definitely worth it.And it's just some of the you

(14:41):
know, access to capital, especiallyearly on, was very hard for me.
And it didn't make sense because theycould see I had, you know,
I could buy these things myself.So you know, that was a
very hard thing to understand. Josh, you hit it, You hit it

(15:01):
right on the head. That wassomething I was going to dive into next.
I mean for black founders, whetherthrough entrepreneurial startups, UM, real
estate companies like your own, findingaccess to capital I think is one of
the main Barri's entry, right,um, for for us to get started.
I mean, your returns could havebeen ten x right if you would
have leveraged that deal used less ofyour equity, the returns would have been

(15:24):
disproportionate to your equity. So UM, I think that's that's a big part
of why we're here, and we'rehappy and glad that that that you're into
space and carving a pass so otherscan come behind you. But it's interesting,
um, and I'll use it asscope. But we saw one founder
and maybe he was the head ofwe work at one point, is able
to kind of go back out andraise substantial capital after having a failed startup.

(15:50):
But I don't names here, Soit just makes me kind of think,
you know, the lack of accesswe have and that some others and
still have substantial access to capital.Can you can you dig more to that
and ways you're getting around that thesedays? Since you have a great track
record, um, your your pedigreeis as as as top right as it
comes. Um, some avenues thatmaybe some others can look at that you've

(16:11):
used in the past, or waysyou're looking to further your capital base as
you move forward. Well, UM, you know my track record has been
the thing that's been the biggest keyto opening doors. Um. And and
honestly, you know, just askingwhat I've learned is the worst thing people
can say is no. And yougot to tell me why you said noo.

(16:37):
Yeah, so yo, I've learned. Um, you know, be
honest. The is another's the greatestdeal US A Southeast particular sixty plusure to
building. That's been the greatest learninglesson of my career. I've lost that
deal twice. And because of thatdeal, I've gotten two otherationships because I

(17:00):
started just asking for different ways toaccess capital. I gotta you know,
um, a minority run uh FreddieMac. You know a provider who is
all about access to capital Basis upin New York, US, actually owned
by African American woman and you knowthey do great work and they're always trying

(17:26):
to work with me. Um.You know we've gotten some Uh you got
the Low Income Investment Fund. I'mworking with their UM on a deal even
now, Um, they've even gotme something that is really going to kind
of help me to next This bill, this business is a line of credit

(17:47):
because they're trying to give African Americansmore access to capital to be able to
do more. Uh So those arejust different things. You gotta knock on
as many doors as possible and notbe afraid that you might get some negative
responses. Well, you get getsome many come back next year. All
right, what time do you wantme to come back next year? Because

(18:08):
I'm gonna come back next year.I love it. I don't have any
problem knocking on the many doors.And so advice for all the listeners out
there, don't take no space value. Make sure you're getting a response on
why they said no. Um.They continue to work away at it,
Um, Josh, I mean sincewe've been beat, you've kind of doubled

(18:30):
and tripled and continued to grow yourportfolio holdings. I mean, what's next?
What what's the five, what's theten? What's the twenty year plan
for you? Look like? Um? Is there a number of view units?
Is it? Is? It?Is it a number of ech when
you're looking to raise What is successof like for you? In the next
five, ten, twenty years.Well, we keep wanting to grow that

(18:52):
initial as crazy as it sounds,when I first got into this, uh,
all I wanted was an extra fivegrand, So it's safe to say
we far exceeded that. Um,but that's all all I wanted. And
we've kept having to change our goal. And you know it's important to me.

(19:14):
I learned as a football player thatyou you always ride a goal that's
obtainable, and then you you revisethat and you keep getting attainable goals,
so you can keep revising it becauseif it's not attainable, if you don't
reach it, yeah, it's allright. You know that was a that
was a crazy goal anyway, butif it's attainable, you keep going after
and you're like, all right,all right, I am right there.

(19:37):
Let's just keep going and want youto do it? All right, Well,
what's the next realistic attainable goal.So we we recently have come up
to, you know, our nextattainable goal was getting over you know that
hundred. We got involved in abig project that that made that easy to
get over is a you know,uh deal over on the Howard campus.

(20:00):
And now you know we're just continuingto go. We're trying to double our
units now, and it really comesto just having that footprint, doing things
the right way, um, andhaving that footprint and good name. Um,
it's more important to me and gettingshort term gains. It's going at
It's real estate. You know,one thing that I've learned is real estate

(20:23):
through the tests of time always eventuallygains value. You know, if you
if you can wait it out,it's eventually going to gain value. And
you just have to be able tohave enough capital to withstand some some storms.
And if you can keep yourself youknow, your liquidity right, you're

(20:44):
always be able to get through thestorms and and get you you know,
get the value on the long term. And so right now, it's just
accumulating and continue to accumulate. Josh, I think you touched on something there.
Um. That's probably important for mostof our listeners. In the current
environment, it's scoped well, rightbecause with rates backing up, a lot

(21:07):
of us, whether through the investmentside or the sales side, what have
you, right, But just generallyin the business, I haven't seen a
higher rate environment. And so whenyou layer that on with being minority business
owner, investor and then into ahigher rate environment. How do you kind
of see the market, the landscapeanyways you're navigating or setting itself up with

(21:27):
success. But I mean, likeI said, you already kind of laid
it out, the long game kindof wins the day. And when you're
not as highly leveraged, you're probablyyou know, you can operate more efficiently
and thoughtfully and you're not up againstit. But you know, we just
love to get your thoughts on kindof how you're looking at the current environment
into a backing up and rate andhow kind of being a minority business owner

(21:47):
and investor, how that infects yourbusiness on a daily basis. Well,
hey, I'm I'm I don't considermyself that old. I'm thirty seven years
old. But I was also blessed, and I guess not blessed to be
drafted. In two thousand and seven, I bought a house. That was
a horrible time to so I boughta house and you know, I mean

(22:14):
we could anybody could go into it. In two thousand and seven, I
put zero down, which I hadno money at the time. I got
a zero down alone. Don't askthe question. I had no credit card
so I had no credit history,like, there's no reason I should have
got a zero down alone, butI did. But my interest rate was
seven percent. I thought I gota deal. I thought I got a

(22:37):
deal at the time. So I, you know, unlike most people by
age because of you know, beingable to get drafted, and I kind
of got a you know, Ihad a big side and BoatUS. I
kind of experienced that high interest ratemarket. So when I see something for
five six percent and I'm like,I bought something seven you know, I

(23:00):
got you know, I think oneof our loans is actually in two percent,
and I'm like, this is Ican't believe that this is actually you
know, legal that you know,we got a loan for two percent.
So your full steam ahead in themarket, you see it. Yes,
interest rates I've gone up a littlebit since the beginning of the year,

(23:21):
but you're still chugging away. Thesedeals still make sense as long as the
numbers makes sense in the back end, and you buy it and goodbye.
It is that kind of yeah,yeah, I mean that's your underwriting.
That's your underwriting. When I wasgetting too next is you know, it's
all in your underwriting. You haveto have a system. You gotta have
a system. You put it inthere no matter what the deal is.
It could be any year. Youknow, if the numbers work out,

(23:44):
if it goes into your underwrite headand it says at this rate, you
know you can afford to pay this, then it doesn't matter what what they
say the loan, is it stilla good deal? That makes sense,
That makes sense. Yeah. Ithink any investor or any buyer he alery
will tell you you make money onthe buy right. Yes, technically sell
you can make whatever capital gain ifit properly appreciates, like you alluded to

(24:08):
earlier. But if you're buying abag deal on the front end, it's
gonna be pretty hard to get outof it on the back end. Yeah,
it doesn't. You know, there'sthere's a lot of ways to make
money and real estate. Whether it'sthe cash flow, it's the appreciation,
it's the tax right all and mostpeople don't realize, for high network people,

(24:30):
they're in it for the tax,right, whether they're in it for
anything else. Um. So youknow a lot of times you have to
know persons or why um and andthat's that's key in raising funds as well.
You have to know and investors why, why do they Why are they
getting into this deal? And ifyou're sitting there telling them about cash flow

(24:52):
and and they're like, hey,man, I need I need a tax
break. You know you're you,You're talking a wrong language to them.
So you always have to know thewhy. And sometimes they're why is different?
Um, Then you know you're awhy and it might not match up.
UM. So we talked about realestate a little bit. We talked
about football outside of CRI. Infootball, what s are the goals are

(25:15):
you setting for yourself? It canbe personal. Is there anything that you're
looking to your thirty seven? Yousaid, is there anything you're looking to
accomplish in the near future, longterm future that we haven't touched on so
far? Uh? No. Youknow what I believe in is um,
I believe everybody's given, you know, blessings we all I've gotten. I've

(25:36):
been blessed in my whole life,and um, you aren't giving blessings to
hold them because if you hold them, then that's the end of it.
It's gone. And you put thatseat in the ground and it didn't it
didn't grow. Uh. And Soevery time you know, I get a
blessing. Every time things work out, I make it a point to bless

(25:56):
someone out and to continue to letthis exponentially just go through when they seed
grow and become something more. SoI'm very big into mentorship. Go back
to my high school at the MATHA, I'm huge, have been for a
while, um, you know,just mentorly being there. I coached there
before the pandemic, giving back therefor free, um um, I don't

(26:21):
even think that. Uh yeah,it was. It was. We didn't
even we barely got lunch. Butyou know, we went back there and
did it, you know, becauseand with their every day for these boys
and helping them get scholarship because that'simportant to the next generation. And I
still have a relationship with those,uh, with those kids to make sure
that they make it through life,whether it's in the NFL or it's it's

(26:45):
you know, being a you know, a dad, you know anything.
I want to help them be successfulin life in general. And and now
I'm heavily involved at the University ofMaryland and the football program and mentorship there.
You know, I'm all about rightnow for outside of you know,
real estate is being a mentor andand helping young men to be able to

(27:08):
have this freedom like I have rightnow, Tom, to do whatever they
want and to be happy where theyare. Like, yeah, Josh,
we can see some of the workyou're doing and it's so important, especially
in our community. Um. Theone thing that I've found too for successful
dudes just listen through some other podcasts. Um. The question I find interesting

(27:33):
to people like yourself that are successful, busy and hitting it on all cylinders
is how do you kind of balanceit? Although right, like, because
you've got people, you've got tenants, you've got young men that look up
to you, how do you findtime for yourself to balance, decompress?
Is it working out still? Liketalk us through because you know we're all
in kind of this similar seats whereit's a little bit of stress and you

(27:56):
want to find that balance so youcan be the kind of best self to
yourself, UM, to community,your family, UM, you know,
your your close relationships. How doyou look at that? How do you
scope that? How you break outthe time and find time for yourself to
can you put continue push forward?As to be honest, Um, I'm
you know, I'm not glad.You know, there's a lot of people

(28:17):
that lost their lives. A lotof things that happened during the pandemic,
but it was the best thing tohappen to me because I was not doing
a good job of being there formy family and and I was dedicating too
much time to even my mentorship atthe MATHA and and the real estate and
so with the you know, pandemicdid it slowed me down. It brought

(28:42):
me home, and it made merealize that, you know, my family
needed me, my kids needing me. They wanted me to be present and
not just a provider. UM.And it allowed me to realign and start
to get a system and see what'sbest works for me, UM, put
in my family first and UM andmaking sure that this entire you know life

(29:07):
is not just about making money orjust about giving back to others. I
got to take care of home firstand and and now you know, I'm
I'm the I'm the team manager ofmy you know, son's travel soccer team.
You know, I'm I'm making sureI'm there. I'm at every practice,
I'm at every you know event,I'm going to be there. Above

(29:30):
all, you know, I hadto get people in place to support our
business, to to make sure thatI'm not trying to do everything. I
can't do everything, no matter howgood I am, I've noticed that I'm
actually not as good as some professionalsto do their job. Um and and
and that is how That's what thepandemic did allowed me to sit back and

(29:51):
reevaluate where I am in in inlife and and and am I dedicating my
time which is valuable, very valuableto the right things. And if I
if I value myself as a youknow, a two K, two thousand
dollars an hour person, but maybeI should stopped doing these ten dollars hour
jobs, you know, and andand and that is where I hired.

(30:17):
Okay, well, I'll hire somebodyfor twenty dollars hour to do the job
in I can go and now makemore money doing something that is going to
be exponentially better for our business,my family, and you know, my
long term happiness. I love that. Um all right, Josh, we
gave you some uh gave you somequestions. It's it's now time to hit

(30:38):
you with some fastball questions, allright. Get to get the people worth
their one all right? Um,So I wrote a couple of questions TC
for free to the jump in aswell. Uh, best quarterback that you've
ever intercepted, Tom Brady, that'sthe great the goat don't matter, that's
I got him. And Time isa great guy. But I got a

(31:02):
story with that. I was withWashington. His quarterback coach was Bill Brian
and and Bill coached me at Marylandand knew me very well and knew that
I like to talk a lot ofyou know, I like to talk a
lot of smack on the football field. And so, uh there's a scene
where him and Time get into iton the sideline about the innsption and I

(31:25):
always that was the greatest feeling inthe world, Like, yeah, I
know Bill was mad to me.I love. So it sounds like my
next question was best player you playedagainst? It sounds like best player you
played with? Best player I playedwith edery Um without a doubt. I

(31:48):
got traded there. They put mylocker right next on And you know,
this is the humblest you know playerthat you're having meet. He's a great
guy. As soon as I metOn, you know, introduced himself,
said hey, you know one thingI can guarantee this funny quote, one
thing I can guarantee you the neverwhile while you're here, and I was

(32:12):
thinking, like, man, thisguy's kind of cocky. I mean,
I know you're Ed Reid, butcome on, man. While I was
there, they never threw a post. Not one time they throw post in
the middle of the fields. Sohe's a he's a character. I can
tell you stories about, oh,you know, and and the times he's
he's done some kind of crazy somethingthe middle of the day, you know,

(32:32):
the middle of the game, likeconstantly. But uh, he's a
greatest player I played with. Bestgame you've been a part of it could
be high school college football, bestgame I was a part of. Man,
that's hard. That is that's hard. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna
cheat him too. I got mybest game I was ever a part of

(32:55):
his at the University in Maryland UMmy sophomore year, first time we beat
Florida State. We had never beaton UM. This crazy story as well.
That was the first game I everstarted in college as well, my
true sophomore year. So they werenumber four team nation and we were.

(33:15):
They had Leon Washington, they had, I mean on defense, they had
I know, they had Cafonso Thwart, they had a bunch of people um,
Lorenzo Booker. It was a lot. I mean, they had some
names. I can't think of thedefensive players, the defense Omari. It's
a little like people don't realize thatwas the Camardi started one game in his

(33:39):
college career and it was versus Maryland. He had to pick six in the
game. But yeah, so theywere they were good number four team.
We beat them right in the end, first time ever in thirteen tries that
Maryland had beat Florida State. Firstgame I started, and I started the
rest of my career. Greatest playI had was that was in the Ravens

(34:00):
over time down in Houston, Texas, Monday night game. We're exhausted.
We've given up probably like four hundredyards in the second half, and and
I looked at Edd on the sidelineand the ends like Lloyd, and I'm
like, man, I don't know, it's about to have him. Um
and um Matt Matt shot throws aThey ran a double out and I totally

(34:25):
left my guy and I just Iwent ever read and picked off the dollar
out he was throwing it to.Um. Oh man, my man ended
up coming the returner from it cameto the Ravens. He was down there.
I can't think of right now,but he was throwing it and Webby
saw me pick it. Ladarius webSoon we pick it and just fell on

(34:47):
the ground because we were exhausted.It was the happiest pick for the whole
defense because we had we had justcame off a two ninety play drives,
so we were, you know,going into overtime like we were all exhausted.
Everybody was this Like I remember Raychased me for like two steps and
then he's like, all right,I'm you're running off. I'm not chasing

(35:10):
it. But greatest player of mycareer. I love it. Which all
right, So today, master boththe NFL and real estate. Would you
rather have a really good NFL seasonor would you rather have that perfect,
that perfect sixty union deal that you'vebeen eying for a long Oh man?
Oh no, well yo, rightnow my body just thinking about playing football

(35:36):
is like no, you're not eventhinking about it. But you know,
um, honestly, you know thelong term that that perfect real estate deal
will probably be a long term moresuccessful for myself and my family. Um,
you know, the NFL. Onething I learned there is you got

(35:57):
paid a lot, but somebody's writingthat check and they make a lot more
than you, So I want youto think about that. And a lot
of those guys are into real estateand so um. You know, getting
that perfect real estate deal is along term more success. But you know
that perfect NFL season on the contracthere, it is pretty pretty successful,

(36:17):
Josh, I might have to cutthat clip and send it to the NFL.
So for the rookie, that planso people know what she's going to.
Hey, hey, I'm I'm afirm believer. I tell them all.
That's actually a great one. Ifyou had to pick a brand that
represents you, what would it be? This could be like a under arm

(36:39):
or Nike. What do you thinkrepresents you? So our viewers and listeners
can get a good idea exactly whomister John Wilson is a brand that represents
me? It is probably little that'sall I wear. But you know the
reason, the reason why is isit's good in any situation. Man.

(37:01):
You can you can wear it towork out, you can wear it to
a business meeting. It just isable to fit into any situation. And
that's what you know. I'm ableto be able to conform over my life
into all these different situations. Nomatter the room, you know, I
step into who's in the room,I can be able to function and you

(37:23):
know, start a conversation and andhopefully make an impact in that room,
no matter the case. So youknow, I like to consider myself,
you know, comparable to Lululemon.It's good in any situation. I got
two more questions for you. Ournext question deal stories. We all we

(37:44):
all got them. What's uh,what's what's what's the craziness or what's interesting
deal story? And I also wantto hear yours too, TC. You
get to hear you after as well, just to kind of get a flavor
for some of the things you see. Could you see a lot of stuff?
And uh, and the industry,what's up? I mean, the

(38:06):
craziest deal story is um honestly,so it's it's a similar um I got.
I was bidding going to a propertyand uh, you know, it
was told that I lost the propertyto another bidder and went and you know,
I was upset, of course,and uh, I was like okay,

(38:27):
and moved on, went got onthe contract on another building, was
actually closing the building, and Igot a call from the realtor and um,
she said, hey, if youcan close this building, um and
a month, I can get youthis deal. But you gotta accept all
these terms and you gotta you knoweverything that we already having places. You

(38:51):
can't negotiate anything. And I said, okay, um, but you know
how I'm not gonna get this financingin a month like this is crazy,
I don't know, but you gottafigure it out. Um. And it
turned out to be, you know, the shadiest deal that I haven't been
presented. And you know, sheoh, also, I'm sorry. Also,

(39:14):
I had been presented that deal bymy realtor M at the time,
and I wasn't allowed to tell myrealtor that I was getting back in the
deal and she had to represent meand the seller. So first thing I
did is I told my realtor becauseI'm like, hey, dude, I'm
not I'm not. I just wantedto know. I gotta this is a

(39:35):
deal yo, that I lost.Story short, I didn't move forward it
because you know, when somebody doessomething that's not right and shady, they
do everything that's not right and shady, and you gotta you gotta realize if
you go and get in the bedwith somebody doing stuff not the right way.
Um, you could be associated withthat person. And and I've learned

(39:57):
over time, your name is worthmore than any property, worth, any
check worth anything is having a positivename and something people could depend on.
Um, It's something I always wantedto keep clean. So I didn't do
that deal. It's turned out tobe a very successful deal. Um.
Um. You know besides the factthat before when I was doing the inspection

(40:21):
that literally had just had an electricalfire in the property. But but the
person that bought it ended up makinga lot of money, but not all
money to good money. You see, what do you got? You got
anything for the for the listeners.Nothing. Nothing's crazy as Josh to your
point, I mean, you know, like your money is your money's at
risk more than ours are. Andwhen we're sitting in the middle and some

(40:44):
of these transactions. But your pointswell taken. Man, like one um,
one large group in Texas that we'redoing an affordable deal, new conversion
structure and so important in today's environment. The seller, Um, you know,
a private investor developer develop the assetout of town. There was someone
like a five pack portfolio. Myclient comes in with the large institutional kind

(41:07):
of New York equity partner. I'mabout to take the deal. We can
pay the highest price because they can, you know, layer in an affordability
kind of standard and increase our NIright. And so the seller comes back
and says, hey, we're notgoing to sell it. We don't like
your number well within their strike price, et cetera. You know, everybody's
kind of confounded by it. Nextthing we know, the broker comes back
to to my buyer and says,oh, hey, you know, they

(41:30):
just really don't want affordable tenants intheir units. Yeah, which is you
know, that's that's the first strike, right. The second strike is we
then come to find out that theseller pulled all the assets and tried to
partner with the housing authority and convertit to affordable in the same structures that
my client was. No. Imean it speaks to it to your point,

(41:52):
I mean, you hit it righton the head. If they're willing
to do one crazy kind of underhandedthing, you know, it tends to
other other other things. Um Andand speaks speaks a lot to kind of
the people you're partnering with, Soreputation matters, um standing up to what
you say you're gonna do matters,and um, yeah, it's the business

(42:13):
can be rough, but you know, guys like you represented well. Good
deal. Stories. Um my lastquestion for you, I need the prediction.
Marilyn plays Penn State this year.What's your score? Gosh, oh,
it's not even clothed. It's noteven clothed. Coming on, man,
we're putting a fifty spot on there. Man, We're not we're not

(42:34):
shaking hands. We're not shaking hands. Is nothing, man, none of
that. This is this is thisa bit funny recorded we're putting someone on
its even we can even throw astate that man is coming down and Josh's
jersey's going. It's coming down,man, It's coming down. Listen,

(43:00):
man. And you know what's crazyis is it's even more because you know,
Franklin coached me at Maryland m sohe was there. I was there
with Loshley. Locksley recruited me.Franklin coached me. Um, I know
a lot of that Penn State staffvery well. And we have the master

(43:20):
players out there. Or they gotkJ Winston who I coached, Um,
because I is there just a starterI coached. We got golden and tumber
there's a lot of the master ofguys. But you know, nothing,
nothing could have me ru for fennstListen, you you're my dad. That's
the problem, right, Like hewas like, I have to drop two

(43:42):
and a half hours to go toyour games. I could have driven me
thirty minutes. I'm like, isthat what it comes down too? I
hear you, man, it was. It was a tough decision. I'm
glad to see Maryland doing well.Man. I love coach locks He recruited
me when he was at Virginia NoMaryland and then he moved out to v
Tech. I think, um anduh, yeah, he's a great man.

(44:04):
I'm hoping you guys continue have success. Um so, but but that
one will not be rooting for y'all. So you can just put that down
now. But we'll have Josh withthis crystal ball. That's right exactly.
You know. You know Locksley isa is a DC native as well.

(44:27):
Man. He grew up in DC. So it's even more to have him.
I mean, it's a having himlead this program is uh, you
know, they'll never have I don'tknow if they can think of a better
person to get you know, forwhat he did for a lot of the
alumni and getting us in there andand and just supporting us through it.
He was still in contact once heleft Maryland. He went down when I

(44:52):
was in and got to Maryland andNo. Three he left him went to
Florida. Still captain contact, captaincontact, you know, all through the
years. Man. So he's agood man, um, not just a
good football coach. So I'm allin and supporting him and everything he's done.
Yeah, I agree, Yeah,he was great. I mean mine

(45:13):
was twenty some years ago now.But yeah, mary he's a good man.
So I'd love to see what thatAnd he's getting into it. He's
getting into real estate, man,guy talking about Yeah, that's what representation
man, there is. Yeah.So we've gotten that deal together and partning
on it, you know, ona on a on a project. So

(45:34):
he's good man. That's awesome,man, that's good. Josh. I'm
trying to invest in WC investments orone of our listeners are trying to invest
in WC investments. How do Ido? How do our listeners support you
on your work? What what doesthat look like? Obviously, Uh,
you're a great avessador for for thecommercial estate, especially in the DC area,

(45:54):
and you're gonna grow even larger.Um, how do the listeners get
involved with you? And and andand what whatever? What does that look
like? Excuse me? Yeah,right now we're we're we're only raising funds
to you know, family and friends, UM, particularly because you know,

(46:15):
I need to get to know people. I got to know people. I
gotta know. You know that Iappreciate. This is a lot of work,
um to go and you know,meet with Nigel, uh and meet
with all these uh these brokers continuouslygo through some some interesting you know uh

(46:36):
projects yall and and properties, andit's a lot of work to do.
It's a lot of it's even morework once you purchased the building to get
it running. And so I wantto make sure that we're working with people
that I'm happy to work for andthat I know that, um, they're
believe in, you know, ourvision one hundred percent. So right now
we're we're all you know, familyand friends and and even then it's really

(47:00):
just particular family and friends that wewant to work with. UM. You
know, supporting us is if youyou know, you got a property that
uh, you know, you thinkwe could be interested in definitely would would
love to to, you know,come check it out and or you know,
somebody just wants to you know,sit down and talk and see how
we can you know, do somethingtogether. I'm always willing for a conversation.

(47:23):
Um. A lot of the buildingsthat we've had in the past,
and including one that you know hopefullyis closing into in the near future.
UM, I wasn't interested in first. I was not interested. I can
even you know, Nigel could tellyou I kind of went by building with

(47:43):
no interest in buying the building,and now I'm all in on it.
Um. So um, you know, I never I never turned down a
conversation. I never turned down youknow, going in and visiting a property
because once you get there, somethingcould change your mind and realize, hey,
this is actually a lot more.This person could could really help you

(48:04):
know, WC investments. This relationshipcould be a very good, you know
relationship for the two of us.So I don't ever turn down an opportunity
to meet somebody or to go somewherebecause you never know what it could mean
to you in the future. That'sgreat. Well that's it for me,
TC, unless you got something thatyou want to throw on there. No,

(48:25):
Now, this is great man,Um, it's it's oppressive. You
know, when we started the networkinternally, right Um, it was it
was very much you know, insularand internal retain talent, retain black talent
um. And as we started tobuild out our kind of framework of how
we wanted to approach the market,approach the space. UM. You know,

(48:47):
immediately Nigal thought of you as someof one of the first people who
want to get in front of rightum, because you know, you have
transitioned, that you've created success.Um, you stayed in the cold.
You're providing kind of pathways via youroutside the business networks and what you're doing
outside of WC investments, but thenalso what you're actually doing and creating safe,

(49:09):
clean places to work where we alllive and we all have our community.
And that's one of the biggest thingswe always talk about. We want
to be community builders, right AndNigel said it very well once, Um,
you said, you know, wewant to go from putting checks in
the mail to receiving checks in themail, right Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So that's that's the biggest thing.We want to transition, you know,

(49:30):
commercial real estate from the sales orthe buy side can be life changing.
And so seeing dudes like you doit well, do it thoughtfully,
do it intentionally and giving up someof your time so kind of graciously to
us. Man, we just reallyappreciate it. And so we're just proud
of what you're doing. We'll continueto support and if we can ever be
more helpful, let us know.Man, we're proud of everything you're doing.

(49:52):
Yeah, I appreciate it, youknow, you guys, I appreciate
this opportunity. And one of thebiggest things about um, you know,
one of the things that me goingwith this is realizing that the more we
grow, the more you know,minorities we can support, you know,
in this business, whether it's youknow, through hiring more employees, whether

(50:14):
it's you know, young you know, brokers, whatever. We're supporting more
you know, minority business as wecontinue to grow, and that continues to
give me a reason to, Hey, keep on at it, don't just
get settled, because you get toa point, you know, and and
we're at a point where, Matt, it's so much cash flow coming in

(50:34):
here. I can support my lifestyleand be fine, but you know,
I got some more people that Ican help out with it. I have
an opportunity, I have access.People talk to me, you know,
because of my formal career a loteasier, they feel a lot more comfortable
because of my formal career. ThenI've got to use that blessing that I

(50:55):
had, you know, afforded tome to help others get in that you
know, a space and get whatthey need to get as well. I
mean I get people to talk tome all the time just to talk about
the NFL, and I'm I'm like, man, I don't even know how
I get this building. Yeah,just going TC. Josh, one hundred
percent appreciate your support of the BlackProfessional Network and for being on this podcast

(51:19):
today. I think our listeners willlearn a lot from you. UM and
again just your successful multifaceted careers.It's it's it's it's outstanding and honestly admirable.
Uh. So, UH look forwardto many deals. Josh and I
in the firm hopefully have a giltclosing in the upcoming weeks. Uh hope
hopefully we can continue that to getto getting more deals as well. So,

(51:44):
UM, that would be great.But Josh DC, this has been
fantastic. Uh, this is agreat call. Looking forward to to the
next one produced by Hardcast Media,