The Alimond Show
Welcome to The Alimond Show --join us as we share our entrepreneurial guests' stories, uncover their secrets to success, and explore the unique paths they've taken to build thriving businesses in our community.
In each episode, our host, Aliyah Dastour, sits down with a diverse group of local business owners, from the corner cafe to the boutique shop, from tech startups to family-run enterprises. We peel back the curtain to reveal the trials, triumphs, and transformational moments that have shaped their entrepreneurial journey.
Discover the passion, perseverance, and innovative thinking that fuels these businesses, as well as the challenges they've overcome along the way. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur seeking inspiration or simply a curious listener interested in the stories behind your favorite local spots, The Alimond Show has something for everyone.
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Join us every week as we celebrate the unsung heroes of our local business community and explore the vibrant tapestry of entrepreneurship in our area. Tune in to The Alimond Show and get ready to be inspired, informed, and motivated to support and nurture the businesses that make our community thrive.
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The Alimond Show
Joshua (Josh) Beall - From Homebuyer to Broker: Building Wealth and Community Through Unique Marketing and Real Estate Wisdom
Ever wondered how a simple property purchase can turn into a rewarding career in real estate? Join us as we chat with Joshua (Josh) Beall of Atoka Properties, who went from buying his first home in 2010 to becoming a licensed broker by 2017. Josh's story is not just about transactions; it's about building wealth and creating meaningful community connections. Discover his unique approach to marketing that eschews high-tech methods for good old-fashioned personal engagement through events like roller skating parties and ice cream socials. Plus, learn his top tips for using social media and video content to expand your reach.
Thinking about buying a fixer-upper? Josh breaks down the nitty-gritty of renovation financing, providing invaluable advice on managing costs and navigating the bureaucratic maze. From budgeting for unexpected expenses to the stress of submitting renovation plans, we cover it all. He'll also share a slice of his personal life, balancing renovation projects with raising six kids, and the importance of making lasting family memories amidst the chaos.
Reflect on the importance of understanding clients’ unspoken needs in real estate, and how building trust is key to successful transactions. Plus, meet Josh's intern and get a glimpse into the dynamics of his real estate team. All this, wrapped in his guiding principle: "Have courage, be kind, and love others." This episode is packed with real estate wisdom, family stories, and practical advice you're sure to find invaluable.
So my name is Josh Beal. I'm with the Beal team at Atuka Properties and we help buyers and sellers navigate that entire process. So if you want a coach and a mentor to help you negotiate through, get the best possible deal. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome. And do you specialize in any particular form of real estate?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we mostly do residential, for people that are buying and selling residences. We do have some kind of a commercial wing, but our niche really is residential and we are located in Charlestown. We are five minutes from the Virginia state line 10, 15 minutes from the Maryland state line, so we help in all of those jurisdictions but Charlestown is kind of the epicenter of where we work and it's sort of our specialty, the Charlestown area.
Speaker 2:Very nice, and talk to me a little bit about your journey, about how you got into the real estate industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it was kind of a long and meandering route to where I am now. When I say we, I mean my family and I. In 2010, we bought something in Charlestown and it's kind of a wild story. So this is the beginning of the or, I guess, the end of that real estate bubble that we went through and we purchased an old fixer-upper property for $135,000, which is kind of an astonishing number with all the numbers we have now, but it was still even then. It was kind of an astonishing number with all the numbers we have now, but it was still even then. It was kind of a good deal and the prior owners had paid 735 for it. So that was for us to live in. That wasn't an investment, but we purchased it. We did a bunch of renovations and then, when we got out the other side of that, I realized, you know what? There's real opportunity to build wealth in real estate. We had an appraisal done as part of that whole process and we saw that we invested some money and it had gone up significantly more in value than what we'd invested and that kind of got me started.
Speaker 1:That was 15 years ago. I was starting to think well, what does it look like to have a business in real estate and to help other people be successful in real estate. We tried a number of things rental, property acquisition, land buying and selling, land, subdivisions, house flipping. And along the way I was buying and selling property and I thought you know what I really need to get into the brokerage side of things because I'm buying and selling a significant amount, I really need to get my license and already doing a lot of those things, I can assist other people as well and initially my thought was this is primarily going to be just for friends, family, but after I got licensed, the first year I got licensed, that was in 2017.
Speaker 1:I think I did seven or eight transactions that year, mostly just for friends and family, and I thought you know what. I actually enjoy this more than I thought and I'm better at this than I thought. I think if I really studied this craft, I could be pretty good at this and really turn this into something bigger. So that was 2017. Fast forward to today. I'm the broker for Atoka Properties in West Virginia. So Atoka Properties and McInerney have, I think, 400 agents throughout the DC metro area and I kind of head up the West Virginia side of the business. Cool.
Speaker 2:I love how you were. Just like I just do this. Help some friends and family like wait a minute, I actually love this. Let me make a career out of this. That's great. I love how people stumble upon their journeys and that way by accident or like they got laid off or they end up going some completely different route, and then it leads to like your future careers. I think that's so great and that's how you discover and learn more about yourself yeah, you want to do.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:As far as marketing goes for your business, how are you guys marketing the services that you provide?
Speaker 1:So most of our business comes from really low-tech stuff. We host events that we invite past clients to people that are in our network, events that we invite past clients to people that are in our network, and we're constantly looking for opportunities and ways to reach out to and serve people that are in our sphere of influence and that's kind of just works. That's what's worked best for us. We have experimented with social media, you know, newspaper advertisements and so forth. We would love to find a better way to connect with new people. That works, but at least for us what we found working works is um events, uh, one-on-one meetings, so like, for instance, this year we we hosted. It's often just things that are just for fun. I mean, we need to stay in relationship with past clients and with our sphere of influence, even when they don't need us necessarily professionally, but we need to keep that relationship going.
Speaker 1:So this year we have done a roller skating party. We've hosted three investor meetups for people that are talking about real estate investing. We have another one coming up in October. We did an ice cream social. We're going to have a pumpkin patch thing. So it's kind of a mixture of things that are. Some of the things are just for fun. Some of them do have a kind of professional angle, like let's talk about the investing process or what does it look like to build a new house, yeah, so we try and do a mixture of those things and then just invite. We start by inviting our community, the people that we've worked with in the past or that we know professionally, and then we invite them to invite people that they know. So you know, we get introduced to new people, so that's what's worked best for us. You got any advice for us.
Speaker 2:You're in the photography. You know media business. Um, if you are currently not in social media right now, like Instagram or YouTube, I definitely would delve into that making video content, because that is currently very popular I would do, maybe mix it up with some humor but also educational. If that's something that you want to do Cause I know some people are not very like social media savvy but something that maybe you're passionate about, like maybe you like you want to do, because I know some people are not very like social media savvy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but something that maybe you're passionate about, like maybe you like let's see motorcycles, Maybe you can be on a motorcycle riding and talking about, like hey, look at this house here. I don't know Something that you want to add, like maybe authenticity to it, but also something that you want to add like maybe authenticity to it but also something that you like.
Speaker 2:So when you do it, it's something you enjoy and it's not so much of like an extra uh task for you to do. Yeah I would say that and the the number one thing that I hear other people talk about is um, you just gotta start, you gotta just hit record some people don't like how they sound or look.
Speaker 2:I'm one of those people. I'm like oh, I hate hearing my voice, but now I'm used to it after hearing it so much. I'm just like oh, I don't care, but I was always like I sound like a chipmunk but that's fine, Um just getting over that even yeah, yeah, it's better to produce content and get better at it than yeah, and as you do it you learn, like what's working, what's not working and what you like, yeah, that would be my advice yeah, yeah, that makes sense and that's that's good advice.
Speaker 1:It kind of reminds me, um I forget who exactly I heard say this, but his advice was um, be strict about showing up and gracious about what you produce, because if you are strict about okay, I'm going to do this once a week or whatever skill it is you're trying to get better at, you know, just be consistent. You got to keep at it, that's right.
Speaker 2:So what are your thoughts on social media Like what do you currently do with that?
Speaker 1:Yep, so we are on social media. I definitely think I should be more, maybe, aggressive or consistent about producing videos. I, we do. My goal is to do about one a week. I kind of just got so busy that for most of this year, we I really didn't produce one video a week. Year we I really didn't produce one video a week. I would love to get better at video, so it's good, good that I'm here having this experience and generally what's. The kind of videos that I've been doing are just really low key. Here's what's happening in the market. Here's, you know, local, local, yeah, local new construction stuff, et cetera. We don't have a fancy studio like this.
Speaker 1:So they're, they're they're pretty simple, you know cell phone videos and so forth. We also do infographics and things like that, yeah, so just kind of basic, pretty basic stuff, but it does. It does help get our name out there, absolutely yes, where?
Speaker 2:do you hope to see yourself and your business in the next five years? Where do you hope to see yourself and your business in the next five years?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we would love to kind of move to the next level. So, in terms of numbers, for us for the past three years we've been kind of at about the same, doing about 60 transactions a year, and then we've had, you know, each year there's been some kind of additional thing that we're doing. And from an investment perspective, like we built two houses, we flipped one house in the last year, we've got a subdivision which we're wrapping up right now. So where I see myself in, did you say five years? Yeah, so I'd like to be at about double the transaction volume, you know, so 100 to 130-ish transactions. I think we've got the processes and systems in place to support that.
Speaker 1:And then I would love to be doing more on the new construction side. It would be great if we had lots of options for clients that come to us. Well, we can help you broker a deal with something that's on the market. We have five or six new construction homes that we can get you in on early if they look like a good fit for you. We have a couple of flips, renovation projects we're working on. I would love to have sort of that whole sort of one-stop shop opportunity for buyers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:I have a question about what the difference would be. I mean, there's some obvious differences, but between buying a fixer-upper and just buying a new home can you share what that would entail and maybe why one is better than the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, for people that are looking for the best value, that want to minimize what they're spending in contrast to what they're getting, fixer-uppers are the way to go because you are competing with fewer people. We see this all the time with buyers a house and if it's got problems, there's a whole pool of buyers that are going to say I'm not interested in this house because of the headache that goes along with it. No-transcript. And if you but if you're, if you're one of those people that's willing to kind of have the vision to look past the problems, then you're competing with fewer people. You're going to be able to get a better deal. But you also have to recognize you're there's going to be some headache associated with that. So there are there's more cash that you're going to need because you're going to purchase the house and then you're going to have all these projects to do need because you're going to purchase the house and then you're going to have all these projects to do, whereas if you buy the house and it's more or less ready to go, you've got your down payment, you have your loan and that's kind of all the cash that you're going to need to put out One way or another. When you're buying a fixer-upper, there's going to be cash after the fact that you're going to have to put out. Now there are some ways to wrap that into your loan.
Speaker 1:So there's what they call renovation financing, which is where, like let's say just to make the numbers easy let's say you're looking at a house that's $400,000 and you're going to spend $50,000 to get it where you want it to be. So your total project is $450,000. So there are some lenders that will say okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to treat this like it's a $450,000 house and then you're going to make your down payment just like you would on a $450,000 house. So if it's 10% down, you pay $45,000. And then now you have two buckets of money. One is for the purchase and the other is money that you can draw on for your renovation. One is for the purchase and the other is money that you can draw on for your renovation, so you don't have any extra cash out of pocket. It's kind of wrapped into your whole purchase. So they call it renovation financing.
Speaker 1:There's red tape associated with that, and by that I mean that the lender wants to know they're giving you this money to fix the house up and they don't want you to go spend it on fireworks and candy, so they're not going to give it to you all at once. They're going to say, okay, give us your plan. What are you going to do? They're going to look at it and scrutinize it and tell you if they're okay with it, and then they're going to give it to you a piece at a time. They're going to say, okay, you need to do these things and then we're going to make earlier. We did that and it took quite a long time to kind of work through all of that red tape.
Speaker 1:If I had known how difficult it was, I don't know if I would have been as excited about it at the beginning, but at the end I'm very pleased with how it worked out. It was a lot of headache and running around and meeting with contractors and getting paperwork done, but if you're willing to so I guess a summary is a fixer-upper is a great opportunity if you have the time to invest in it and even if you're paying other people, there's going to be a significant amount of extra time just managing all the work and kind of the time and the headache and mental space that's going to be required. So don't underestimate that. That would be. My advice for buyers is, if you think you want to fix her up, or just make sure that your life is going to accommodate that, um yeah.
Speaker 2:I know we had. It happened during COVID. Uh, my parents-in-law, they had like some construction going on and it was just like a little thing in the kitchen and we had to replace like the oven or something some at some point. And it was just like a little thing in the kitchen and we had to replace like the oven or something some at some point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was a bit crazy because it was like everything takes longer and you had to walk around the other way or way and it I'm sure, like I can't imagine a fixer-upper like the time and patience you need like yeah okay, everybody, this side of the house is under construction. We're gonna try to move the microwave here, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it looks exciting. On HGTV, of course they get it done in 30 minutes with time for commercial breaks, you know. So in real life it always takes longer than you expect and costs a little bit more than you expect. I mean, you should really go in. You set your budget and you'd say okay, I'm going to set aside at least another 10%. You know, for that $50,000 hypothetical, make sure you got 55 and hopefully you don't have to spend it. Probably you will. Yeah, probably you will, cause something will come up, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and when you're not delving into the real estate world with putting things out on social media?
Speaker 1:and helping clients.
Speaker 2:What do you like to do to unwind and relax?
Speaker 1:Sure, well, I got six kids, so they take up a significant amount of time. Yeah, it's a party at our house all the time, and the oldest is 17. The youngest is 10. So we kind of got a wide range. The oldest is 17. College is just around the corner. She's in her senior year this year. She's actually started to take a few college classes a dual enrollment thing.
Speaker 1:So the stuff that I'm trying to do to unwind and have fun as I'm thinking about oh, I've got a kid that's going to be leaving soon I better make sure I'm investing in these kids' lives and you know that's right and you know I want them to kind of be launched in the world and have good memories of, you know, time at home with dad. So I'm trying to figure out things to do with the kids that they enjoy. Some of them everybody's got different interests. This summer we've got plans to take everybody snowboarding. I took one. I took my son Peter snowboarding and he really enjoyed it, and we're in the process over the summer of accumulating lots of used, inexpensive snowboarding equipment. I got five. In the last two weeks I picked up five snowboards off Facebook Marketplace. You are going to be so ready when the time comes.
Speaker 2:I love that. Is everybody down for the snowboarding? Is someone like?
Speaker 1:nervously got to go skiing. No, everybody wants to do it. So yeah, and actually we actually already went out and bought. If at the end of the prior season you buy lift tickets for the upcoming season, they'll give you the best possible deal. So we got a bunch of lift tickets without days selected, they're just prepaid. So we've got that. I, a bunch of lift tickets, you know, without days selected, they're just prepaid. So we've got that. I love to travel, you know I. I love just going places. Um, so anytime I can take one, take one of the kids, and say, hey, let's go, let's go to this place, Even if it's just a day trip or an afternoon trip.
Speaker 2:You know, I, I, I enjoy that. So what are some places that you guys have gone that you're like wow, this is awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is two years ago now that we took actually it was three years ago, man time flies. Three years ago, as a family, we took a round-the-country road trip. I want to do this. Yeah, 6,400 miles, 6,000 and some change. Maybe it was 6,200 miles, 6,000 and some change. Maybe it was 6,200 miles and Grand Canyon, the Badlands and Colorado.
Speaker 1:So, probably my favorite in that particular trip, we went to Estes Park, which is in the Colorado Rockies, and that was really cool. We stayed in just a cabin that somebody had and were able to hike up into the Rockies. It's a cabin that somebody had and we're able to hike up into the Rockies and there was this really beautiful lake at the top of that particular hike, you know mountaintop lake. That was kind of fun and you go from the other thing that was wild about that. This is the middle of the summer. Oh, it was hot. Yeah, it was hot at the base of the mountain, yeah, and then as you go up and up and up, it starts to get colder and then there's snow and you're like what is going on?
Speaker 1:Did I just experience the whole scene in a couple hours? That's right. Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2:Were you guys a lot on the open roads Like in the movie. Every time I'm like the open road when you go cross-country on a trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a lot of open road actually. So we were driving a Suburban, pulling a little trailer with all the you know we're all packed into the vehicle. And then we got a little box trailer with all the. Everybody got a bin, you know, like one of those Rubbermaid bins. It's like, okay, if you can fit, that's the big ones, right? It's like, okay, kids, whatever you can fit in this bin, that's what you're going to have for the next three weeks. So everybody gets a bin. Yeah, and we were on the open road. Anyway, that was a really fun experience.
Speaker 1:I'd love to be able to do it again. It was tough to get away for three weeks. I am blessed. Oh, three weeks, yeah. So I am grateful for the team that I work with that while I was away, they were able to handle things on the ground and then basically, what would happen is we were stopping every night somewhere and I could debrief with the team and if there's anything I needed, like a call, I needed to hop onto with a client or something like that. So maybe Sunday we'll be able to do that again. That was a pretty big undertaking and maybe next time it won't be three full weeks, but we could drive out somewhere Exactly, make it happen somehow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talk to me about your team. How many people do you work with and what's the work?
Speaker 1:environment like yeah, so I work very closely with another agent, jess Durr, and she and I work full-time in real estate. This is how we put food on the table and we also have a number of other kind of part-time and contract people. We have a transaction coordinator who helps us with all the admin stuff associated with our files. We do have an intern right now who is thinking about. He's a young guy just out of high school and he's kind of exploring different career options and real estate is one of the possibilities possibility. So he helps us with well, he's he's learning and kind of shadowing us on all the negotiation and paperwork and logistics type stuff and and then we'll also bring him to some of the just sometimes there's there's stuff that's like oh, that's kind of gross, but we got to do that. You know we're going to clean this house out. We had one listing where we had guano bat guano in the attic and poop bat poop. Guano is what they call bird and bat feces. Yeah, it's got its own name. I did not know that.
Speaker 1:Is that what Guantanamo Bay is? It's just like a bay full of that's a good question. That's a good question. That just came like a baby. That's a good question. That's a good question. Yeah, I think. Is it? Yeah, is it spelled the same? It might be G U A N? O is how you spell guano, but uh, anyway, hey, I didn't know I'd be talking about that on the spot. Yeah, so anyway, we've. Anytime there's something like that, I'll say hey, carter, help me. We got to move these logs or we got to, um, clean this thing up, and that was probably the worst, but he was a good sport about it. He was like, okay, this is what we're doing, let's do it, it's getting done, let's get it cleaned up.
Speaker 2:That's how you learn right.
Speaker 1:Once you get through this, the rest hopefully you're going to say maybe I know with real estate.
Speaker 2:it's different every time. So even if you to, if she hears this, I don't want her to feel left out. I'm so sorry that was my fault.
Speaker 1:Please. And then we have an agent who is our showing assistant so she can help us. Often there's just so much going on. We've got a buyer that's interested in getting into something. It can be time-sensitive, so we brought on a showing assistant that if we need help getting into a property where Jess and I are busy, we can still make it happen with whatever schedules we've got going on. So it's myself and Jess and then three others that are kind of part-time and I would love it. I mean, if we hit 120 transactions, we're definitely going to have to grow a little bit, but it's important to us to figure out what's the right way to scale so that everybody is being utilized correctly. In other words, what are you good at? Let's make sure you can focus on that and not just grow just because, well, we're kind of feeling busy and we want to add some bodies. Make sure we add the right people in the right roles. I like that. That's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah is make sure we had the right people in the right roles. I like that. That's good, yeah. What are some good characteristics that you think a real estate agent should have?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I know it's different for everyone, but I want to know your personal take on it.
Speaker 1:Sure, so I think you need to be a gracious, thoughtful person, which maybe is a little bit different than I. Don't know if other people would say the same thing, but in my opinion, a good real estate agent really is a coach. It was a couple of things it's a negotiator, advocate for their client and also a coach about what the whole process looks like. And in order to be a good coach, in my opinion you need to be a good listener and you need to understand what your client is looking for, and you've got to be thoughtful about that. So you don't want to be a type A personality that just kind of has a process and you're just railroading the client through that. You need to be listening, you need to be looking for what your client is saying. I guess you're listening, not looking, although some of that body language will tell you a lot. You need to be listening to what your client is saying and understanding what their goals are.
Speaker 1:And sometimes so what I've found is people let's take buyers, for example they don't necessarily articulate or even recognize themselves exactly what it is that that is the solution, and here's what I mean by that. So they're naturally going to tell you things like well, I'd like a house of this size and I'd like a yard of this size and this many square footage and this kind of area. But as you start to talk to them, you may discover that there's other things that are important to them, related to you know, whether it's location or maybe amenities that are nearby. Sometimes there are other things like that that they don't actually surface automatically. But as you start to ask questions, they'll say, oh, I really need to be close to a pool or something like that, or there needs to be a dog park or something like that, and so you need to ask kind of those probing questions and just listen and keep those things in mind as you're helping them to search.
Speaker 2:And I like that you also said like not just listen, but but look, because body language is very important, because I could be saying yes, but maybe I'm like yeah yeah you know. So I think that's really important to also look out for those key factors of like how a person is, like the tone of their voice. Yeah, gesture, all that. So I think that's great that you take that into consideration.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and while I have you here, have I touched on everything that maybe you'd like to share with the audience? Is there something, maybe, that I have not touched on, that you would like to highlight?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think when you are interviewing a real estate agent, you should make sure that you are a good fit for them and they are a good fit for you. There needs to be, you need to be able to trust your agent. I think trust is really important in any kind of a professional relationship, but the clients that we have been able to win the biggest for are the ones that we have a high level of trust with both ways. You know we trust them and they trust us.
Speaker 1:So if you feel like some people are, you know trust needs to be built. For sure and that's true with everybody, not just some people but we definitely have had circumstances where maybe the clients are feeling a little bit more nervous and if they don't share with us and aren't willing to kind of go a little bit deeper with what it is that they're looking for, sometimes we find that we aren't able to negotiate for them as effectively because we don't quite know what they want and we don't quite know what's best for them. So I guess that would be something I would share is build a relationship with your agent, whoever that is, and make sure it's someone that you can trust and that they trust you, and that's how you're going to have the most successful relationship with a broker that's trying to advocate for you All right.
Speaker 2:My final question now is do you have maybe a mantra that you like to live your life by or that inspires you, and if you do, could you share that with the audience?
Speaker 1:Yes, so our we actually got T-shirts for our family that say that that have kind of a you know, I don't know if mantra is the right word, but yeah so and they say have courage, be kind and love others.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think that's, I think that's a mantra yeah, if you tell yourself that, look in the mirror and try to live by that, I think that's a good one and the fact that you have T-shirts for that with your family. That is so cute. I think you should post a picture of you all wearing it on your story or something that would be cute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you.