Offerin' Real Estate Insights

Tired of Inconsistent Income? Here's a Smarter Wealth Plan for Real Estate Agents

• OfferIn.io • Episode 13

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Most real estate agents are taught to hustle harder, sell more homes, and chase the next commission.
But what if that’s exactly what’s holding you back?

In this episode of The OfferIn Real Estate Insights Podcast, we sit down with real estate investor and agent Justin Aikens to break down how smart agents build real, long-term wealth in real estate—beyond just commissions.

You’ll learn:
- Why commission-only income creates volatility and burnout
- The biggest mistake agents make when they try to “scale” their business
- How investing, deal control, and multiple income streams change the game
- The difference between passive income and residual income
- How agents can use real estate sales as fuel for wealth—not the finish line

Justin shares real numbers, real mistakes, and real strategies from building over 100+ rental units, while still actively selling homes. This episode is for agents who want stability, leverage, and freedom—not just another busy year.

If you’ve ever wondered how top agents stop trading time for money and start building something that lasts, this conversation is for you.


👉 Discover how Offerin helps agents win more deals, save time, and look like heroes to their clients. Visit Offerin.io to learn more or schedule a demo today.

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Darrin Grella: Welcome to yet another great episode of The Offerin Podcast, where we offer real advice around the world of real estate. I'm actually really pumped for our guest today, Justin Aikens. We're going to dive into how to make money in real estate. That's a lot different than what you might think. This is not your traditional running buyers around.

That is a way to make money, but we're going to dive into actually like, a system, a process on how to generate real wealth in the world of real estate. Justin, thanks for being here on the show.

Justin Aikens: Thanks for having me.

Darrin Grella: Yeah, really excited about this conversation. This is something that I've actually thought about a lot. You know, you look at the statistics, statistics show that 75% of real estate agents sell five or less houses a year, and then of those 75%, 40 some percent, I think it was about 49, 50% of them sell zero houses.

So if I'm gonna be a real estate agent and I have this big dream of making money, as a real estate agent, because people think they make a lot of money, and at times they can. Right. We're going to dive into, like, what that actually looks like. But, the average income for most real estate agents across state of Ohio is about $90,000, $85 to $90,000.

And that's traditionally running buyers around, listing a few houses and that's hustling, you know, to make that much money. But yeah, tell me, how long have you been doing real estate, first off?

Justin Aikens: Well, I feel like I've been doing real estate my whole life.

Darrin Grella: Okay. Why is that?

Justin Aikens: My dad has been a real estate agent his entire career. Got licensed six months before I was born. So growing up, you had to learn how to take a message the right way. And if you're not, you know, we had a conversation about that. But, I did get licensed in 2010, but, I started off part time, and then I've been full time for 11 years.

Darrin Grella: Okay. So when did you always know this is what I'm doing?

Justin Aikens: No. Okay. No, I, I wanted to work for a professional sports team. I thought I could either be in the front office or in marketing and business and a professional sports team, but that's what I initially wanted to do. And then I quickly realized that a lot of other people, and they didn't pay all that well. So then I, kind of adjusted my expectations on, on doing something else.

Darrin Grella: Was it the, you know, family business? Was there a resentment towards it or were you like actually saying, okay, great. This is a good backup if the sports gig doesn't work. Or did you resent that a little bit.

Justin Aikens: And it wasn't resent or resentment. Growing up, my just the simple nature of the business was there wasn't minimal technology. So he was gone. Often. The internet, you know, even the pictures that were available weren't very good. So you had to be at houses a lot, showing houses a lot. You had to be at open houses a lot.

And oh, by the way, then when you had a contract or a listing or you couldn't send it through DocuSign or Dotloop, you had to be in person to sign and, you know, three copies, one white, one yellow, one pink, like that was my he had like, you know, briefcase of papers that he carried around. That's right. So no, I like it. It was a lot. He was he worked very differently than I work now.

Darrin Grella: So it's interesting how time changes things. Technology changes the industry. When you started in real estate, what was your outlook on it? We talked about, like, how would you go make money as a real estate agent? Like, what was your initial thoughts?

Justin Aikens: Well, when I first started, I was licensed in 2010. So the great financial crisis was pretty much, you know, in the bottom just, you know, everything was there was a lot of homes for sale, was definitely a buyer's market. So how do I get started? Is is simply hustling, meeting as many buyers as possible, trying to have as many realistic conversations as possible, either at open houses, with strangers or with friends and family and people who were starting to help out who would trust a brand new agent. So that's really how things got started.

Darrin Grella: Which is the traditional way that everybody kind of starts just hustling, maybe pounding the phones, hitting that. Your personal network. Was there something where you realized like is this sustainable. Did you ever ask yourself that question like, hey, can I do this the rest of my life? Was there.

Justin Aikens: Was there? I think once I actually had a, I had a opportunity to make that decision, which I think was, a blessing. And also at the time, pretty nerve wracking. And that was, is that I got fired for my full time job. So I was licensed. I was working for a healthcare IT consulting company.

Previously I had worked at a different one and did well, but that company had sold, consolidation to happen in. And I chose to go work at a different company. Meanwhile, those 4 or 5 years, I was still learning how to sell real estate. I was licensed agents, you know, had started helping buyers and, you know, not really listing all that much, but working open houses, meeting people.

But I was learning the process of having, of of learning how to sell real estate, learning the market, learning the MLS, learning the transactions without having to sell real estate. So that certainly brought a lot of stress off of my, my start. But five years into my full time career, switching companies, I completely over promised I underdelivered and rightfully so.

They fired me. Yeah. So I, I buy at that. At that time, I had known that I was I really wanted to do more real estate, but, by them firing me, I was, I look, I was married. My wife was a nurse. I knew we weren't going to starve. And, I had six months of unemployment to ramp up my real estate career.

Yeah. So, I joke that $300 a week allowed me to get started at full time real estate. Yeah, and that's how it works. Yeah.

Darrin Grella: That's awesome. Yeah. So then you're thrown in the fire and you had to succeed. Was, Did you did you ever see, like, because we talked a little bit ahead of time and prep for this and you're like, hey, listen, I'm really passionate about helping educate agents on.

You know, growing a business where there's a lot of income. And it's not just from the traditional, you know, buying and selling houses or representing buyers and sellers. So was there a moment where you're like, hey, this, this buying and selling of, of real estate or, you know, representing, representing clients was, is there has a limit to it? Did you, was there like a time in your history where you're like, oh, wow, this might not work.

Justin Aikens: There was a it was intentional where my career kind of took and navigated towards working with a lot of investors.

Darrin Grella: Okay. And why is that what was there?

Justin Aikens: Because I am an investor. Okay. So that's I, I can speak investor, I think like an investor. I can all because I can also speak and think like retail, but traditional home buying, home selling. But, I did navigate towards more of an investor friendly model, because it really does kind of work with how I, I think about things.

I think, what that what having that full time job allowed me to do is begin my investing career. And that was, you know, at the time, I was living in my parents basement. All I know is story. Yeah. Classic story. Graduated college. Working and living on my parent's was. But. But because I had a full time job, the bank said I was finance school.

So what I knew is that I wanted to move out, and I wanted to pay as little as possible. So what I did is I bought a duplex and that was the, the beginning of, of my investing is living in the one side. And then I rent it to my friends who were still in college, and they lived next door.

So they paid the 90% of my mortgage. So that allowed me the opportunity to learn how to be a homeowner and an investor all at the same time, while having them supplement the majority of my living expenses.

Darrin Grella: Great. You mentioned something. I want to jump back to you know, the the retail side of real estate and the investor side of real estate. Should every retail real estate agent be an investor?

Justin Aikens: No.

Darrin Grella: Okay. What's the limiting factor? Why not?

Justin Aikens: I don't know if it's limiting. The limiting, it just. It's how they're how they're wired, how they see the the properties. It's what's where they see opportunity and value. It's it's a the time that it takes to be an investor and the time that it takes to educate yourself and also have the resources, not only the financial resources, but the resources as far as contractors and and knowing how to get stuff done without paying retail pricing and adding value that way is super important.

So it's there's from a from a retail agent. It's sometimes they're just better off being really good at what they do which is focusing client. The, you know, carrying on their clients throughout the transactions. But not necessarily taking their focus away from what they do best and, and doing something like such as investing.

Darrin Grella: It's interesting because, you know, I know that agents work so hard, so hard and so in so many hours. So like sacrificing nights, weekends. And when I said earlier like you're only making $85 to $90,000, that's actually a pretty fantastic income. For many folks. But also in the same thing, it takes so many hours. So the probably per hour rate is pretty low.

For a normal retail, agent like that one.

Justin Aikens: That isn't guaranteed. True. But, I mean, so it's. Yes, it's it could be a decent income for for people, but the volatility of it certainly doesn't feel like it's a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks for the same amount. You can structure your life, your spending, all based on that. That's not guaranteed. So that's where the volatility really stresses a lot of folks out. And then try to maintain your income with your lifestyle. It's also a big challenge for quite a few people. Yeah. Yeah.

Darrin Grella: So how do you make money as a real estate agent with investing?

Justin Aikens: So when I started and this is it's always a slow process. I knew I wanted to have my living expenses. Living expenses supplemented. Yeah. And how I did that is I had a more I knew I had a mortgage, I knew I wanted income. My second property. I was fortunate that my dad agreed to, partner with me and fund, but I didn't know.

What I didn't know. I just knew I wanted to take advantage. I knew the money because I had been license. I was studying the market, knew and recognized where there was, you know, it could be an added value. So we flipped the house and we were able to buy a house for my. So I still remember the deal.

It was $38,000. We were all into it for 13,000. So $51,000. We listed it for 89 nine. It sold for 87. Wow. And so I think we ended up splitting after commissions and fees and and what, $27,000. So I remember like, oh, I was excited about that. But I didn't take I did not allow that money to affect my lifestyle.

I took that $13,000 and bought another rental with it. That was the down payment for my second property. So to your question is how can we make additional money? Is recognize an opportunity? Take advantage of that opportunity and then roll it into adding for me what it was was now I could itemize another living expense out of my personal budget.

And to me, that was, you know, I think, I now I was full, I was full on my living. I was living for free. I was on the plus side of it because now I had another rental property. I had the duplex, and between both rents I was living for free. And the utilities were not paid for because the cash flow from those equaled out to be enough.

That covered my portion of my mortgage and my utilities. Yeah. So one day I was tell folks, one deal isn't going to change your life for one. One stream of cash flow won't. But if you slowly responsibly compound those and stack them, you start your snowball. And the snowball can grow into something much more meaningful. It's great. So.

Darrin Grella: You mention it's a long game. Many people are impatient, especially in this world. How do you, like, stay focused on the long term goal and not increase your lifestyle like crazy? Because some people could look at you and be like, oh, you're a real estate, but yet are you make any money like, you know what I'm saying? There is this image that you have to for the some people believe you have to uphold.

Justin Aikens: Well, it's it we're in the social media culture where it's comparison culture where everybody sees that how it what somebody else has, and then they compare it to themselves internally, which is is very important and very hard to not continue to, to, to do that. So.

So it's, it's to build it long term is to know what your goals are and slowly chip away at those, you know, to accomplish those goals.

Darrin Grella: So you shared a little bit about your early investing days, kind of how you approach this. Okay. I want to cover my living expenses by this property and stacking those. Has your strategy changed at all over time?

Justin Aikens: It has.

Darrin Grella: Certainly has. So how how has it changed.

Justin Aikens: So I, I let the deal. Can I listen to the deal. Okay. What's that mean. Right. Yeah.

Darrin Grella: Okay.

Justin Aikens: How's that deal. So there's a deal hierarchy. Kind of. Because the most important part of the deal is having control of the deal. Okay. So that means having it under contract. Okay. So then there's. So if you have control of the opportunity, you can decide what makes the most sense for what I'm trying to accomplish. Is it to add additional cash flow on a monthly basis.

You know, can I turn this into a rental property? Is there is there another investor I know that would be willing to pay me a certain amount of money just to take new control of the deal so I could wholesale it to where I could then. Or does this House need some, you know, some work, some rehab work.

Okay. And then into what level does that going to take me as far as not only financially, but how much time is that going to take for me to do this? Okay. So if you decide that this is something that you're comfortable taking on now, we could, you know, rehab and flip the property for a big profit. Or if, so you have you can run it wholesale it you can flip it or if it's the my favorite deal right now is I buy it, I clean it and then call wholesaling.

I buy it, I clean it, I just put it for sale. Okay. It's the least amount of time, but also likely the most, the biggest spread for you to generate the biggest cash flow or the biggest piece of cash right now.

Darrin Grella: Why is that? Because, yeah. Just cleaning it. You think you can't.

Justin Aikens: So so it's it's really difficult. And in this market because of the popularity of investing to get really good deals. So being able to, to buy a property that's in good enough shape at a good enough price, that there's so many more, opportunities for somebody else to take advantage of it. So if I just walk the property today where if I could buy it at the right price, I know it would be a perfect first time home buyer house that they could add sweat equity, but if I could buy it at the right price mark, you know, and increase and increase the, the purchase price for somebody else, I can make a spread.

Yeah, I could, but then I also know I could keep this as a rental because it's in a great market. It's in where I could cash flow. Well, I could be all into a property for, you know, significantly less than what I believe the ARV, the, the retail value would be. And then I can still cash flow and make monthly income off of that if I, I have three young kids, I have a seven, five and two year older now.

So I don't necessarily have a lot of time. So I tend to not do as many full rehabs right now because I don't have the time to focus on the rehabs. But if somebody if I, if I could or I mean, I don't, I, I absolutely could do that for the, for a property and then you know, make a bigger hunk on the back end.

But I right now where I am in my phase of my career, in my personal life, my biggest challenge is my availability. Because I do have the young children. I do have, you know, a wife. I do have, you know, so many other, you know, things that are demanding of my time. And I also I want to be involved with with those other things that are demanding my time.

So I'm trying to focus on what's the best use of my time and then also controlling the deal and where it falls in that deal hierarchy.

Darrin Grella: So initially, early on, I sounded like money was your greatest asset. You know, you know, use that money to leverage to the next property. Maybe now a little further in your career is time is your greatest asset. That's interesting. So here's the other thing. How do you know which property you mentioned. Very competitive market. Right. Investors are savvy.

They're kind of there's more of them. So, you know, there's a little bit more blood in the water. How do you find the right property and how do you know it's right.

Justin Aikens: So there's we certainly can spend, spend the money on on the marketing to market direct to sellers, which is takes a lot of guts, so to speak. Takes money, takes a lot of money. Does, whether it's through direct mail marketing, you could call have cold callers that, you know, through, a VA in a Philippines or Egypt or, you know, whatever country that has these, these VA, these VA offerings or, or do, online like price per click marketing where it's, you're on the Google top of the Google when they say, I want to sell my house for cash.

So there's that way. I do a little bit of, of the price per click marketing. It's that's very expensive and takes a lot of time because Google's very good at what they do, and you kind of have a presence and a consistency to continually be at the top of that. So.

Darrin Grella: So let me dive into that real quick. Like how much money you like, what would somebody need to spend? I think obviously probably depends on the market, but are we talking like 100 bucks a month or is 1000 or $10,000 a month like, how much are you with somebody you need to spend to get a lead?

Justin Aikens: So I, I, along with a partner, we hire a company to manage that. So I understand that there is an opportunity for somebody to do this on their own. We're not good enough. Smart enough to do that. So we pay $2,000 a month for the management, and then we probably pay another 3 to $3000 a month in our marketing.

So about five grand right now, a month. And I know people who spend significantly more. I don't think it's probably a good use of your time, your money, if you spend less.

Darrin Grella: Okay, so maybe five grand. And then how many leads does that generate?

Justin Aikens: Probably 8 to 10 a month.

Darrin Grella: 8 to 10 a month. That's not very good. Oh. It's not, that's not I.

Justin Aikens: I don't think that's very good because the leads aren't necessarily quality. It's you're all you're doing is trying to get the clicks. So somebody may want to essentially have a cash sale for essentially the, you know, the what their net would be net of real estate fees. So if we have a $200,000 house and they want to sell their house for 190, doesn't make any sense for you to buy it, right?

So margin, no margin or in an area where I have no interest in even driving through. Right. So that's and that's in the 8 to 10 per month. So to quantify what we've done, let's just call it six months. We've gotten two transactions completed. We actually close on one next week. The first two was an absolute we were lucky to kind of break even.

So because these guys are distressed sellers for the most part. So, we thought we were gonna make about $10,000. Turns out they had about $9,000 lean. That was in a second position that nobody knew about. So they say. And, we ended up making a, I think, $650 on that deal. So we spent 5000 to make 650.

Yeah, yeah. Don't do those deals. Yeah. Deal two we, we bought back to the the whole tailing. We bought a property for 75,000. We listed on the MLS for 100,000. We got an offer closed probably about 16. And this one that we're buying, next week is going to be, I think we're going to do well now.

So.

Darrin Grella: Yeah. So a couple things I heard in there when you're looking at evaluating a property, if it's good. You mentioned margins, you mentioned location. Anything else that stands out that would be a good investment property.

Justin Aikens: So I think you have to understand what your buy box criteria is important. Yeah. There's a lot of different ways to make this make make money in real estate. If you are strictly cash flow, you want to buy a property, have it rented. Not necessarily concerned about in which neighborhood that it is or what profile of tenant that is you're running to, but you know that they're going to pay rent, whether it's be subsidized or not.

You know, you could absolutely make cash flow, but you have to get properties out, really good deals to make the numbers really work out, because you're not going to have appreciation necessarily on the back end. Or on the far on the opposite side of that, you got to go. There's people who can do it super high end and have a super high end clientele who are, in my opinion, just as much as of a headache for different reasons, because they're incredibly demanding.

They try to be outsmart you, try to outsmart you, or try to play more games. And they could that could, you know, not end up well as well. But you actually have a lot more, liability in that, in that respect. What I focus on is trying to find in an area where you can be all into a property, you know, C plus to A minus area where, there's multiple different types of people who could be looking at to either buy or rent from you, whether you're at, you know, early stage, first time homebuyer, first time renter, or, you know, later in life, and you just want to rent a property or buy a smaller home because you're downsizing from whatever life's circumstances could be.

But most importantly, where I focus on is having multiple exits if you need to. When you buy a property as being onto a property under what the, retail value is. So you're protected with added equity on the back end at a minimum, I would true for 10%, what I really shoot for is at least 20% of additional equity that you're all into a property for, your cash flowing off of what your investment is.

Okay. So if you're, let's let's just do a hypothetical situation. If you're all into a property for 200. I'm sorry, but the property's worth $200,000, and you're all into the property for $1500. I'm sorry, $150,000. You need at least $1,500 in rent. So those numbers would be it hit the 1% rule, meaning 1% of the gross rent does cover your 1% of the investment.

You'll be able to cash flow off of that. You have the protection of the added equity. So that's actually 25%. So you'd have 50,000 of equity. So if you had to get out of it quickly, you know, you could sell it for under what the value is going to be able to take out rather quickly and get all your money back and hopefully make a little bit, but mostly most important is like, you can hold this in an area that you're comfortable with owning for as long as you choose.

Yeah. And then let real estate do what the, you know, is either is appreciate and value and amortize I amateur's eyes the loan over the course of the loan period and you build wealth on both ends and that's the best part. You can cash flow in the middle and build wealth long term wealth with the amortization and appreciation. Yep.

Darrin Grella: So do you believe in financing most of your properties or do you believe in.

Justin Aikens: I think that's you know, I, when you're starting off. So, you know, when you're starting, you have three and there's a, there's time, talent and treasure. When you're starting, you usually don't you don't have the treasure because you're just getting started. But you might have more time. And if you have a skill set of talent, you usually at some point in your real estate career, you can have two, but you can't have all three.

So when I got started, I didn't have any money. I had nothing but time, and I didn't necessarily have talent, but I was willing to try to learn. And, you know, with my time, you know, focus on that. So in the course of your career that does evolve. So to your so I financed everything starting. I like I take as much then there's people and this is all a personal decision. Okay.

It can't be like I can't state that more clearly. Some I know very wealthy people who hate that. They could they could, but they're that debt feels heavy to them. I know people who might not be able to make a payment if it doesn't come in. Right. The they both probably sleep just as well because they're comfortable with that.

So I think you have to be comfortable with what you choose. And there's no right or wrong because it is your decision. So for now, when I got started, I put responsible leverage on responsible debt, which is incredibly important.

Darrin Grella: What is is there a indicator like is there like a percentage of responsible debt. So you owe, you know, you loan maybe 60% and then you have equity 40%. Or is there some kind of equation behind responsible?

Justin Aikens: I think responsible is understanding what your full financial picture is, which is incredibly important because if if rent doesn't come in and not mortgage, still do you better know how to you're going to make that payment. Okay. Responsible can be, you know, for somebody who's a certain, you know, super high income earner and they take as much debt out as possible because they're they're comfortable with that.

So what I've I'm, I don't like with financing is how people minimize the cost of financing the strategy of the borrower, the buy, rehab, rent, refinance, then repeat. I actually I've never done that. Okay. Because people minimize the amount that it actually cost to go refinance the property. So you you actually incurred two closing costs. Like I've no interest in funding more bank fees, title fees unnecessarily.

Right. So I think it's important to if you can put good financing on upfront, invest some of your own capital or into the property, and then really just add the sweat equity into it and add value that way.

Darrin Grella: So, how do you know when to hold a property versus sell it versus know wholesale it or whole tail it? Like how do you determine that? And do you in your mind, do you have a percentage of saying, hey, I'm going to keep this many rentals, I'm going to keep this much cash flow. Like what? What's your approach towards inventory?

Justin Aikens: I've defined my my hold box where I'm, where I want to keep property for for the foreseeable future, with foreseeable future, with no plans to sell. I've defined that. And that's an, you know, B to A minus areas. And I still will let the other if I get a deal that doesn't fit those and close by. I have a mentor of mine.

He says if you can't get to a property in 20 minutes, you shouldn't hold it. Yeah.

Darrin Grella: That's that's it's farther out. You can buy it, you can sell it, you can move it. But just to keep it, you're saying not exactly.

Justin Aikens: So without if you can't get to within 20 minutes, you can't get there in an emergency and has to respect. I also understand like different markets have different criteria, but if if I can't get there within 20 minutes, I don't want to have to go there to maintain or I'm sorry to manage a turnover to to show it, to rent, to check on something.

You know, if that's not my my normal zone, I don't want to hold that long term. Okay. So I'll listen to the deal. So deal. I'm I closed a couple weeks ago that we made the 16,000 on. That was 50 minutes away. I went there twice. Okay. So I can go there to get the deal, to manage it, to sell it, to capitalize on it.

But I knew I didn't want to hold that so I wouldn't have bought that if I didn't have a very high level of confidence in that. I was able to get out of it without having to hold it for a long time. Same thing with the deal that we're going to close on next week. It's about 40 minutes away.

We're going to sell that property again quickly, but I'm going to take advantage of an opportunity and let the deal determine for me what I'm going to do with that deal.

Darrin Grella: All right. So you stay in the driver's seat on these. Doesn't sound like these deals are pushing you around necessarily. You have a nice criteria. How many units are you holding right now? How many doors do you have?

Justin Aikens: So I have collectively have 135 doors right now. I do have a few partnerships. I've got, property at University of Akron. I'm actually selling those, but there are 17 doors there. My partner, my wife and I, we have good friends. They decided, not decided, but they he took a job in Florida.

But, she was managing for them. I don't have I'm not going to manage student rentals just in my phase of life. Okay? It's a good. Everything's happy, everyone's great. It's just. It's not something that I want to do long term. So we're under contract to. So. So I have a 19 unit, with another partner. He manages those.

Okay. That's, 16 unit building with three townhomes all in one parcel. So it's 19 apartments, and then I have 38 apartments, with another partner and, the reason that partnership worked out so great is because he's got a completely different, skill set than I do. Okay. My skill set is the management. The marketing part of it.

And, you know, kind of running the finances. He owned, construction company. And this property needed completely renovated. So we were a great partnership. We've bought it a little. I say, stabilization. That's, code for. Get all the idiots out of there. All right? And then, stabilized it, and then, we completely renovated construction loan, you name it.

We did it at this property. I'd say we're probably 80, 90%, 85% done. That's in a much better spot. Stabilized as far as with the tenant profile that we want the condition that we like. And, that's actually going really well, too. So then. And then my wife and I, we have, I think whatever, somebody will do the math out there, but roughly 60 properties that we hold together.

So yeah.

Darrin Grella: When do you bring in a management company? Sounds like you've been able to diversify a little bit with partnerships and people managing, but is there a number that if somebody out there managing it themselves that they needed like start maybe not a management company, but think about bringing in other people to help them manage it.

Justin Aikens: So this is, a conversation. I have a lot with investors. I don't know, a good property manager I'm sure you're out there for. Please reach out to me. They're there. They serve property managers. It's it's, the high noise, low margin job, and nobody's going to care about your property the way you do. Okay? So that's why I've never outsourced property manager.

So what? I've sold through our partnerships, we've had management agreements like they're, you know, she's in charge of this. He's in charge of this. I'm in charge of those. So and that's all kind of through the partnership that we've had. And we have I have three great partnerships. I, I think the management is the most a key and most important part of being a successful long term landlord.

So again, not focus, not again. I don't know a good long or good property manager that is going to manage for somebody else. And I say that because I'm pretty particular about how I like to keep the condition of my property. I expect rent to be paid. And I'm not saying rent has to be paid on the first because stuff happens in everybody's lives.

But be reasonable, have a dialog, have communication. Understand that people do care about that. You care about their property is. But in the same respect you ask for that, you know, respect back. So that's kind of how I've approached it. Yeah.

Darrin Grella: So in a tight.

Justin Aikens: Ship or being, being an active landlord. So whenever people use the word passive and the in the realm of investing, I don't believe there is passive and passive rental income. That word passive, I feel that that's a trigger word for me.

Darrin Grella: Is there another word that you prefer or that that's more realistic?

Justin Aikens: It's residual. It comes every month. Yep. Should. But the active management is is very important. It's great.

Darrin Grella: So it's not passive income. It's residual income.

Justin Aikens: It's residual income.

Darrin Grella: Yeah. So you've built a great business since 2010 when you started out part time. You're running I'm sure, running a bunch of buyers around town on the phones. And then all of a sudden it's like, hey, hold on, this investment strategy has something to it. So now you built a beautiful business. Are there other ways to make money as a real estate agent outside of investing? So let's pretend I'm not an investor type. Yeah. Now what? What do I do? Do I.

Justin Aikens: Quit? No, no, that's the most I still run a lot of. I work with a lot of clients. I won't say run. All right? That's not. I'm sorry.

Darrin Grella: That's a bad word. That's. Yeah, that's another trigger word for you know.

Justin Aikens: But you run buyers. I ran the crap out of buyers when I was getting so I. My business is evolved in that as you stay in the business longer, your business does evolve to being more listing heavy. And that's the desire for majority of real estate agents. You put the house for sale, they come to you, you don't go to them, but you list the large list to last right?

So, so my majority of my business is listings now. I still work with buyers. I still have, you know, a decent retail business, the highest dollar per hour that I do is sell real estate. So I still active. Like this year. I sell 80 homes. All right. Some some are higher. Lower. I don't discriminate against pay check.

So, other ways to make money. So that is the highest. That is my fuel. My real estate income is my fuel for investing. There's been a point where now I probably focus, you know, 60% on my real estate producing activity and 40% on my, on my management of my real estate. Other ways. I, I have an affiliate business agreement with the title company that actually is truly passive, which I, that's by providing, you know, sending the business to them, collect quarterly checks.

So that's I'm not going to do anything different, but I'm going to, you know, monetize that. Other ways if you do have, you know, I mentioned the time, talent, treasure, if you have good money and you can get into real estate, into lending for, for, real estate investing, which I've started to do now too. And that's, that's actually been another source of income for me this year.

That's great. Yeah.

Darrin Grella: So, you you typically people look at real estate agent and think like, oh, that's what they're doing, you know, the retail real estate. But there's so much more to it. It sounds like, there's a tremendous amount of opportunity that, you know, people should be encouraged to get in a real estate.

Justin Aikens: And, I know that a lot of people.

Darrin Grella: Attempt it and can't quite get over that hump. Is there anything specific to help that person that is like, hey, I really want to do this, but like, how do you get over that hurdle and make it.

Justin Aikens: For for a new agent? Nobody wakes up in the morning and cares about your job. Real estate's a really lonely business. Nobody actually talks a lot about that because we're all independent contractors and we're all. And you could you could have a team leader that does care about your success, but ultimately your success is on you. Okay. So what the expectation is you're going to go from brand new to, you know, a very successful agent, and you know, a short amount of time is unrealistic expectation.

So I think having a realistic, realistic expectation is I'm going to hustle, I'm going to sacrifice, and I'm going to do what it takes to get there, what the right guidance is incredibly important to have that mindset. It's there's a I mean, there's a lot of frustration in this business. But being over to understand where where you are in the process and get over a lot of that frustration, is incredibly important.

And, you know, again, I can't emphasize enough the hustle and the sacrifice that you need to make, especially early on on your careers to just be present is incredibly important. Because if if nobody knows your real estate agent, they're not going to ask you about it. You don't know where you're going to have these real estate conversations. You need to put yourself in position without being annoying, but to have real estate conversations.

So and there's, you know, take a batch. So that's why I did so many open houses when I was starting out. I need to just be comfortable with how to talk to people about a home, how to talk to people, how to introduce myself without having them give me a cold shoulder and walk out the door. It's building reports.

It's establishing these muscles that you need to have to have, you know, these to be a successful real estate, and you need to sacrifice to put yourself in these positions and take a lot of that. So, right.

Darrin Grella: How about a couple things on timing before we wrap up here. So like how long does that take. Like when you're getting started like can you do it in a year. Is it six months. Is a five years. Like what's the time to get ramped up and take off?

Justin Aikens: I think the reality of it is if if you want to be called a have confidence and build some level level of comfort, the reality is at least three years minimum, and even then you're not going to be comfortable. I joke with my buddy who's, you know, super successful as well. I say, I still don't feel like I'm going to be have the next deal coming.

And I so I've, I've sold 80 more in 80 houses for the last seven years consecutively. I've sold home. My best year is 112 houses, but I still don't feel like I'm gonna get the next deal. That's crazy. But that that's the mindset you have to have. If you start being arrogant about this. This business doesn't care about you like you think it might.

You have to show up every day, you know, build the client relationships, do a good job, and then come back and continue to do it and then and maintain those relationships, which is incredibly important. The hardest part about getting like you have to get the business. So, so many people don't focus on continuing that dialog, continuing that relationship.

The hardest part was establishing it. And then you'd give them the keys and then you don't talk to them for forever, you know? No. Maintain it. It doesn't mean annoy them. It just let them know that you're still doing it. So focus like focus on that as well.

Darrin Grella: Yeah. Is there like 1 or 2 things specifically that you do to maintain relationships?

Justin Aikens: I, a friend of mine who's, who's been doing this for about 40 years, he's like, you have to communicate directly with them. If you're a phone call or you have to call him, you have to talk to them on the phone once or twice a year. I'm not a phone caller. I think of the more and more you know where we are getting to a digital like I text, I it's in my calendar text past clients.

So I text my past clients at least twice a year. Okay, I put them on the emails whether they unsubscribe or not. That's fine. But you know, that's not an aggressive touch. A text is a direct touch. You know, you can have these passive touches through emails. I text them at least twice a year. I'm actually this coming weekend, we're having a client event.

I've mentioned my kids, I used to do at a bar, but I don't think anyone bringing their kids to a bar anymore. That's right. It's probably not appropriate. But you could. Do I have friends who do hand out pies. So it's around the holidays. Can we get a pie? Thank you all. You need to just put a name to a face again.

How are you doing? Maintain the relationship. I'm doing a, pictures with Santa at an alpaca farm. So bring your kids, say hi, get donuts, coffee, hot chocolate, paint. Your face picture. Nice to see. You know, remember me when you need to buy, sell or invest in real estate? Like, that's kind of the, you know, it's providing some something, some activity that my network, my primary network is, is involved with and can utilize is what I've decided to do.

Yeah. This is what I do. But people tease me about it, but I do billboards. It's in Cuyahoga Falls, the city where I live, where my kids go to school, where a lot of my rental properties are, where my dad and I have been the number one agent in sales team for the last five years, I do I typically try to have a billboard up somewhere in the city every month, and that's not to be didn't necessarily get new business.

It just so when you're driving by, you see my face, you can make fun of me, which is fine. But at least I know you saw it. So they're just again trying to be present without having to, you know, be in someone's face or hard touch and be annoyed. It just that's, you know.

Darrin Grella: So I look at a billboard story that driving my kids to school over there in Cuyahoga Falls. I saw your picture up on the billboard. I think I may have, you know, sent you a picture and say, hey, look at you. And, you know, the question is, did it work? Did the billboard work?

And it's interesting because there is a house, the billboards here at a corner, and there was probably a house, that yellow house that maybe like 300 or 500 feet away.

And I'm like, like it was a couple weeks after I saw your sign go up in the yard and then a sold sign, and I'm like, did the billboard work? The question was just answered that I would say potentially, yes. That was a direct correlation to the fact that your face was 500 feet away from this, this house, and they saw your billboard and potentially there was a connection.

So their dinner didn't directly. I, I put that together.

Justin Aikens: I want to say that it did so I can you know, so like I can tell myself to keep buying.

Darrin Grella: That's right. Justify the cost. Right. Awesome. So, okay. Great. This has been fantastic. I think, I think this is, super valuable. Do you believe the retail market, the way to earn commissions for an agent is outdated?

Justin Aikens: It's outdated. No, It works. It absolutely works.

Darrin Grella: But you need to.

Justin Aikens: You need to adjust a mindset that it's not going to. You're not going to be the top agent. You're one year two. But it's building the consistency, building the long game. Back to what I mentioned earlier, our society is is an instant gratification comparison society. So everybody wants to see what somebody gets as far as a big check or have that car that house, that whatever you want to, you know, itemize in that respect.

And also they don't want to do the hard work that it's going to take to the builders, successful career in this. But I think it is. I think you absolutely can, I don't think, there's going to be some change in our business, but I still think people want to use real estate agents. We do.

I think the opportunity as far as, like, an eye buyer program that some of these, you know, other markets have tried, I don't know, a whole lot of people who would, feel confident in allowing a stranger to come to your house unrepresented or unsupervised without somebody else, at least a documented licensed agent. I think the commission is going to continue to evolve.

I think that this is there's there's a lot of, there's a lot of unknown right now. And what's happened with the NAR lawsuit in the last, you know, 12, 18 months, how long it's been to now? I think that's going to be a big. I think that's going to be changing here.

Darrin Grella: In what way? How might that change. From your perspective?

Justin Aikens: I, I actually think this might not be a popular thing to say. I think that lawsuit has actually hurt the consumer more. I think more commission is being paid than it's ever been. I think prices are higher than they've ever been. And I think by forcing and then and having, enforcing buyer representation agreements, your almost making agents ask for a higher percentage from the buyer consumer.

So, I don't think I, you know, there's, there's some brokerages that charge flat fees for sellers. I still think they the majority I know the majority of the businesses is commission ers, percentage based. And I think, I think in a listing agreement or in a listing presentation, getting the seller to agree to a smaller upfront commission is a lot easier.

So but then also telling the listing or telling the sellers that the expectation is still to pay a buyer's agent. So when I show you a listing agreement, you know, instead of seeing 6%, you see a two and a half to three, 3.5%, that six doesn't feel or that three doesn't feel like a six. Yeah. But on the back side of it, and you got to come with another 2 to 3% to pay the buyer's agent.

And then having a buyer's agent potentially charge the buyer even more out of pocket because of Davis agreed to a predetermined amount. I think that's going to continue to. I think over time there's going to be some inflection point where I think the market's going to speak up.

Darrin Grella: Interesting. We'll have to stay tuned for that one. That'll be good. We can probably talk for hours on all this stuff. I could definitely hear more. This has been super helpful. So I want to end on a quick, lightning round. Okay. How about a book you'd recommend to.

Justin Aikens: To.

Darrin Grella: An agent.

Justin Aikens: An agent. Maybe they're not necessarily an agent. Psychology of Money is an incredibly important book. Okay. By Morgan Housel. I think he is the most important personal finance author of our generation. I think he is the most, tangible as far as what he writes. To apply to day to day living is the most applicable. I think his he's very in tune with what's going on in our generation.

Awesome. Do you have a quote or.

Darrin Grella: Mantra that you live by?

Justin Aikens: No. That's okay. No, I, I've taken up the thing where I make my most decisions right now are based on my time. It's not based on my money. That's most my time is the most important thing to me. Not my. Not the overall income. You reach a point. You can't be happier than happy. There you go. There's my quote. Can't be happier to be.

Darrin Grella: Happy than great.

Justin Aikens: There's there's a lot of comparison. There's a lot of, you can always have more, do more, want more, but you can't be happier than happy. So, you know, I try to remind myself of that a lot. I think it's important to have, you know, a good, self-reflection and, you know, understand, you know, your where your blessings are, you know, where you can work, but position some.

You know, God has put you in other people's lives as well and kind of that responsibility. But, you know, ultimately, if you can't be happier and happy, but trying to be aware of of that throughout your day to day is pretty important.

Darrin Grella: Great. Coke or Pepsi?

Justin Aikens: Diet Coke. Oh. So diet.

Darrin Grella: Okay. Go on. Diet or.

Justin Aikens: Pepsi? Mac Max.

Darrin Grella: Oh, I can't do Pepsi. Yeah. The right answer is Coke.

Justin Aikens: Diet coke.

Darrin Grella: Okay. Diet Coke. Yeah. And then puppies or kittens?

Justin Aikens: Neither. I'm out on pets, though. Unpopular opinion I will never have a pet. I love it. Okay, never. Okay, I, I will never own a pet.

Darrin Grella: We're dog less, cat less, pet less at the moment. And it's it's freeing. Actually. It's interesting. Yeah.

Justin Aikens: Nobody likes you. No hair, no food, no poop on it. You don't have to do anything. Yeah. So. Yeah.

Darrin Grella: Awesome. Well, you been, a great, great guests. Super, appreciative every time. And, I definitely learned a lot. Hopefully our viewers were cool. Thanks. Thanks.

Justin Aikens: Thanks.