Dirt to Dollars: Justin Bosak's Blueprint for Land Development

Welcome to The Real Estate Underground Show #118!

Join us on The Real Estate Underground Show as we welcome Justin Bosak of RE/MAX Revolution for an insightful exploration of land development and real estate investment strategies!

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Unearthing hidden gems: Learn to assess undeveloped land and spot the potential hiding in plain sight (think single-family homes with hidden value!) 
• Financing wizardry: Discover creative strategies that'll fuel your investments without breaking the bank. 
• Zoning decoded: Forget permit purgatory! Master zoning regulations and become a negotiation ninja. 
• The "Sub2" Method UNLEASHED: Unlock this game-changing tactic savvy investors swear by. 
• Land subdivision mastery: Learn how to maximize the value of your property by carving it up like a real estate pro. 
• Building local empires: Discover the power of partnerships and dominating dynamic markets like Atlanta and Tampa.

Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable insights to elevate your real estate knowledge and unlock new opportunities. 

Resources: 

Justin Bosak's Website: justinbosak.com

Elevista - Speed as a Service™
Elevista Connect is the first AI-powered lead conversion system built for real estate investors.

Heads up: If you find this week's book intriguing and you buy using our link, we receive a small commission that helps support the show. Thank you!

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Additional Resources:

• Clark St Capital -> Passive real estate investments for busy business owners and executives
• Elevista -> AI SaaS for real estate investors
• Clark St Academy on YouTube -> Learn how to invest in real estate

Social Media:

• LinkedIn -> Ed Mathews (President at Clark St and Elevista)

Transcript

Ed Mathews: Greetings and salutations, Real Estate Undergrounders. This is Ed Mathews with The Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today is a little bit of a different show. I'm always interested in experts in various markets, especially when they speak in real estate investor, and they've got their hands in a whole bunch of different markets that we're paying attention to because.

Um, frankly, I like to learn how their brains work and what they look for and maybe learn from them. So I'm hoping you learn too. So just Justin Bosak, uh, welcome to the show. You're with a RE/MAX Revolution down in New Jersey and on the Jersey Shore. As I promised, I would not make any, uh, Jersey Shore comments, but, uh, feel free, we can talk about that.

Um, so welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us and let's get into it. So for, for those of us who don't know who you are, why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your firm and what you focus on? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. So I've been in real estate for 21 years. Uh, started out on the phones, just cold calling all day, every day for about two years.

And I wanted to learn more about the business, went into outside sales from there. I had to kind of beg to get, get out. I was, I was good at it. So they didn't want me to leave and really never looked back. You know, I started with a company called, uh, Foxton's hybrid low discount, you know, brokerage, but very cutting edge.

Uh, but they just kind of faced, uh, the 2008, you know, meltdown financial meltdown. They couldn't hang, went out of business. And, uh, formulated a team, you know, because I was, uh, focused just on buyers at that point. So I knew, like, I didn't know where I was gonna get my buyers from. So I needed my buddy who was a listing agent to come along and jaoin me and my other buddies that were making cold calls all day to come and join me.

So we kind of band together. Uh, when teams really weren't even a thing, you know, brokerages didn't know what to do with us at that point. And, uh, you know, from the team, you know, we, uh, outgrew our brokerage, you know, our brokers didn't know what to do with us either, you know, because we were growing pretty quick and wanting to add all these different services and they weren't sure because they couldn't offer to their other agents.

So started we our own thing. And, uh, five years later, you know, we went from Uh, just a team, you know, of like, you know, 18 people at that point to now 150 agents spread across three offices and opening a fourth very soon. 

Ed Mathews: Wow, man. Congratulations. Good for you. That's awesome. And in a really good set of markets, right?

I mean, the South Jersey is Top 10 market in the country. I would imagine still, right. It always has been as far as I'm still…

Justin Bosak: Hot prices, not dropped out here at all whatsoever. You know, it's, uh, it's crazy. The construction that's happening down here. Just a lot of people from New York and North Jersey just continue to move down in this area.

Another hot market is New York Jersey. So it is a driver. You know, we are considered a suburb of New York city because we're still within an hour, hour and a half travel time, depending where you're at in the counties. So, uh, yeah, we're, we're doing great.

Ed Mathews: That's good. Congrats. So in terms of the types of deals you're doing, I know you're, you're predominantly focused on, on single family, which I'm always fascinated by, but you're also a real estate investor.

We're going to get into that in a second. But one thing you mentioned when we were, we were talking before I hit the record button was about land development. And so I'm curious about what you're seeing and, you know, frankly, when you're bringing a deal to a, you know, a developer or an investor like, like me, what are you looking for?

Like, what are you paying attention to? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. A lot of times you're looking for, you know, obviously what's the upside with the property or maybe what people aren't seeing, you know, why hasn't this been developed yet? You know, there's a lot of due diligence with, with land, you know, sometimes as far as utility connections and things, people tend to over, overlook that a lot.

Yeah, there's a lot of research with, you know, depending on what zone you're in, you know, in New Jersey, we have to deal with something called Kaffir and Pinelands areas and, you know, sewer service districts that that are problematic. So, you know, a lot of what we do is really do the legwork up front, you know, to figure out, you know, what can be done here.

You know, I have no problem, you know, sitting down and figuring out the regulations for kind of carving it up, figuring out where the street would go and, and, and making sure that it's, uh, you know, the highest and best use is actually, uh, you know, to build a build a street, you know, sometimes it doesn't make sense, you know, the cost of a street and all those improvements that come along with it, you know, if it's only for four or five houses in their own one side of the street doesn't always make sense.

You know, a lot of people just they look at it and they're like, Oh, but I can build all these houses. But, you know, you've got to factor in obviously all your all your costs. So, you know, we, we've got the calculators to kind of figure that out. And, uh, We've really made it easy, I think, for, for some of the builders that, that we work with, um, to be able to kind of present them with a project, present them with an idea, present them with some costs, you know, obviously the costs keep changing, but, you know, we've got enough, you know, to kind of give an idea on, on, on what a projection would be on a piece of raw land and, and versus just sending out a four-acre piece of land, you know, that has wetlands on it, you know what I mean?

And, and the builder figuring it out, you know, he doesn't have time to figure this stuff out sometimes. 

Ed Mathews: You know, man, I got a, I got to tell you, I love that approach, right? You know, because I, you know, coming from sales myself, uh, you know, different sales, right? I was a technology and software geek and all that, but, you know, selling something, selling somebody, you know, trying to hammer them and, and get them to do something is so much harder than just making it easy for them to buy and helping them buy, right?

You know, understanding your customer and saying, okay, here's your buy box. I understand what you're always looking for. And I found three or four different properties. And I think this one is. You know, when we look at it from a highest and best use perspective, you know, this one seems to fit the bill. We kind of did a preliminary look on it and, uh, and scoped it out.

What do you think? Right. I'll spend half an hour to an hour on that from a guy I trust like you all day, every day. Right. As opposed to the brokers who send me, you know, a list of here are the 14 lots that are available in your target area. Let me know if one of them is, is interesting to you. I, I. Don't even go 

Justin Bosak:  you go do all the work and research.

So you can make a name on that's kind of the mindset of a broker, 

Ed Mathews: but I got to hire somebody else to then go do that work and, uh, or I gotta do it myself. And I, I, I don't have time, right? 

Justin Bosak:  Thousand percent. And that's the thing I want to, I want to position it so that it's just a yes or no. 

Ed Mathews: Yeah. 

Justin Bosak: It doesn't make sense.

Doesn't, doesn't not make sense, right? If, if the numbers make sense and the concept makes sense. Then we can move forward and proceed, you know, one of the benefits is one of my biggest builders is actually also an engineer. So the good thing is I have kind of quick access to engineers when I need to ask them a question and stuff like that, you know, because they'll still do the engineering for other builders as well.

Ed Mathews: And you serve them. So they trust you and you trust them. So they'll pick up the phone. I mean, and so if you're out there listening to this, you know, one of the things I want to drive home here that Justin has figured out obviously very early on in his career is. It's a people business and you just got to help people be of service and help people get where they want to go.

Guaranteed. The other side of that coin is they're going to turn around and help you get where you want to go. Right. 

Justin Bosak: Thousand percent to become loyal because they know you're doing a lot of the front-end work, you know? So I actually, you know, not only do I do the job, I guess, of maybe some engineers preliminary, right?

I'm not an engineer, but I understand now after all these years, how it works. The architect, I'll sit down, I'll modify plans. I'll look at plans from the architect before the builder does make changes, make suggestions again, yes or no, right. I make it easy when you're a builder and you're working on, you know, four or five different subdivisions and you've got 50 or 60 different, you know, home sites potentially that, that are being developed, you don't have time as much to kind of go over line by line and everything.

So if, if, if you have some value as a realtor, we have the time, obviously that. To take that off the plate, you know, we, we take care of doing, you know, the 3d renderings, you know, for the builder, we'll do the, uh, floor plans for the builder. He doesn't, you know, we, we just kind of make it easy, you know, 

Ed Mathews: right. And, you know, I mean, it's invaluable. Like I, you know, I've got a good friend of mine now that works at Newmark, a, you know, different world, right. Multifamily, but you know, whenever Matt sends me something, uh, you know, I drop everything, pay attention to it. Do the quick math on it to see if it's something that fits us, because I already know when it hits my mailbox that it fits the, you know, 10 things that I've told them I'm looking for.

I know it hits eight of them out of the box. Right. And so I drop everything. I turn around, I do the quick math to see if it pencils. And, you know, 10 minutes later, I'm giving him a call back saying, Hey man, this is good, or it doesn't quite fit, but here's why here's how I'm going to, here's how I would tweak it.

Right. And so, you know, if you detect any flexibility on the seller side, then let's have a conversation. Right. But that makes life so much easier. And, you know, I mean, developer shops, they're not big companies, right? I mean, not, not necessarily. I mean, it's usually three to five human beings running around working 80 hours a week each, and they don't want to work 81 because they want to go home to their family.

So, you know, anything that. Partner like you, Justin can do to make it easier to say, yes, all you're doing is stacking the deck in everybody's favor. 

Justin Bosak: Absolutely. Yeah. Because one-stop shop then, you know? 

Ed Mathews: Yeah. Awesome. So when you're looking at like land, right? So I'm, I'm a multifamily guy, so I'm going to be selfish for a minute.

So if I came to you and said, Hey man, I'm looking for a three to five-acre track, ideally it's on a main drag. And there's at least 300 feet of frontage, uh, so that I can get utilities, you know, set up pretty quick and I don't have to go and carve out a road and storm water, storm, storm water management and all that stuff that really costs bazillions of dollars these days.

You know, I mean, what, like, how would you approach me? How would you, you know, what are some of the things you need to know about me so that you can help? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. So like for our builder, you know, we have some standard models that we use. So I know right off the bat. You know, we're going to do a 60-foot wide, or we're going to, you know, if we can't do a 60 foot wide, we're going to do a 46-foot wide, you know, so obviously knowing, 

Ed Mathews: So I know what you mean, but explain to the audience what that means.

Justin Bosak: Yeah. So that's the front width of the house, which is usually the biggest determining factor of what you could actually build on a lot. Um, so what you're doing, obviously a subdivision, you're taking three acres and let's just say the zoning allows for half an acre zoning. You know, your frontage is probably going to need to be at least a hundred, if not a little bit more.

Okay. Uh, depending on the town. Um, and once you figure out that, you know, you got to figure out what your side yard setbacks are, you know, so typical for 100 feet of frontage, you might have side yard setbacks that combined equal 15 feet. So that takes you down to 85 feet that you can fit inside the box.

Um, and then you've got to fit pretty much everything, not even just the, the house, but, you know, your A/C Condensers and, you know, all your roof lines and stuff have to fit within that box. Um, so, you know, we'll do the analysis to figure out, you know, how based on this township, you know, could we divide this up and, you know, listen, there's always going to be some horse trading and stuff with the township and going for zoning and approvals.

But, you know, at least we come up with a concept. Hey, this is what the township says. You know, we can do based upon the zoning for this town, uh, and then, you know, figure out pricing, you know, from there, as far as what the value of that model, you know, would be worth on that lot. 

Ed Mathews: Yeah. And, and then it just comes down to the right, you know, the right yield in terms of the number of lots and you know, what your, what your land cost is.

'cause you know, construction costs, especially in your neck of the woods, is probably 250 to 600 a square foot. Right. I mean, it's, 'cause it's, it's really nice places. And that's some pretty, yeah. I mean, we're housing down, down in your neck of the woods. 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. We, we could probably build for between 150 and two depending on the, the market.

I mean that's, you know, that's not taking into consideration the cost of the land. No. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, by the time you get all said and done, I mean, yeah, we're selling some houses for like, I think we just sold one house for 700 a square foot. 

Ed Mathews: Yeah, if you can smell salt there it adds a..

Justin Bosak: Oh yeah, it's right, it's right on the, it's right on the bag.

Justin Bosak: So that's perfect. Sea salt there. 

Ed Mathews: Yeah, it's even better. All right. So, um, so you're also an investor. Single family or multi you're single, right? 

Justin Bosak: So currently single family. So, uh, you know, it's a, it's a creative, creative finance world that I've entered in over the last year. 

Ed Mathews: Now you're speaking my language, man.

All right. So let's start with the markets. Where, where do you, you know, where are you focused? Where do you have properties now? And then let's talk about the markets themselves. 

Justin Bosak: So, uh, between Atlanta and Savannah, the property, uh, my best partner has property in Statesboro. He lives in Atlanta, which is why I'm investing down in that area.

Uh, and then Savannah, Georgia, uh, we just, uh, We're doing property there now. And then also in Florida, pretty much from Orlando to Tampa. And are you building or are you buying and buying and rehab for the most part? Three beds, two baths, two car garage, ranches, dime a dozen, 16, 18 and a hundred square feet.

Nothing crazy. That kind of thing. Good property for your blue, you know, blue-collar worker. The cost to build those things, you couldn't build them for what you're acquiring them for. So, you know, and then the cost of renovation, they're pretty easy rentals. 

Ed Mathews: Yeah, I mean, I love ranches because you can get at everything without having to shred the place, right?

So in terms of the properties themselves, when you're done with your rehab, what are you doing with them? You holding them? You flipping them? Holding them. 

Justin Bosak: I mean, we've flipped over the years and we look back and, Uh, how can you not look back and say, I wish I held that property? It's not a property that we've, that we've sold and flipped that we don't wish we still had in our inventory.

Ed Mathews: I flipped 70, 80 houses over the, maybe a hundred houses over the years. And I miss every single one of them. I, which is why I'm in multifamily now. Cause now I, I, I, I'm still doing the, Hey, we buy crappy stuff and, and, and we fix it up, but now we keep it. Right. So it's, it's a lot more fun. So in terms of, you know, the interesting thing about single family rentals, right.

You know, the population that lives in them tend to be a lot less transient, right. They stay for a lot longer, but, but when they move you're, you're losing, you know, your vacancy can hurt. Right. So how do you manage that? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. So, I mean, we're, me and my business partner are at a point where. If somebody did move, it's not really affecting us.

You know, we do want volume. Like the goal is to have somewhere between 80 to a hundred homes in that Savannah market. You know, we're not there yet. You know, the goal is to acquire about 10, you know, every single year. Yeah. I mean, we have some people on the ground, you know, it is going to be building up a brand new system, but there are systems that I've already built, you know, on the real estate side of the business.

Um, there are obviously some creative concepts when you are dealing, you know, with rental housing, especially since I am in New Jersey and I don't plan on going to Savannah to deal with it. But, you know, again, we have some people on the ground are ready to help us manage. 

Ed Mathews: Okay. And so when you're buying a property and you're holding it, you know, one of the things you mentioned earlier, I think you said was creative financing.

So tell me a little bit more about that. That seems to be more how you're buying it rather than how you're keeping it. Right. 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. So, um, joined something called SubTo. Earlier last year was hearing all these creative, you know, things that the founder Pace Morby was coming up with. And I really felt like, how do I not know all this stuff?

Like, how, how is this even possible? Like, I want to see the paperwork. I was just very, very interested in it. Uh, because I felt like if I knew this in the past, I could have done more deals. So joined, I think was September, you know, went through the course and, uh, you know, right from there, you know, acquired a property pretty quickly.

So subject to, if you're not familiar, uh, it's, it's, it's assuming, you know, the mortgage assuming the debt you're on the deed, you know, so it's, uh, it's a process obviously to, to, to learn it and understand it and figure out why would somebody actually want to do that? And part of the reason why I can't do that necessarily in New Jersey is because a lot of people have too much equity, right?

It's so easy to sell a house in New Jersey right now. Why would you go through the process of subject two right now? Subject two isn't really something if you have a lot of equity, unless you just don't know what to do with your equity, you know, then we can, you know, help you. Solve that problem too, but it allows you to take over the mortgage.

So that way, you know, you're not coming to the table and paying to sell your house. Right. And, or maybe I can pay more. I don't have to pay 70 cents on a dollar. You have a 4 percent mortgage rate, right. And I'm looking at it more long term. Well, my payment's going to be less. I don't have to deal with hard money.

You know, I don't, I'm not paying 8%, 9 percent for, for a fixed. I don't have to worry about DSCR loan. I can just assume, you know, that mortgage. The payment's fine. So it'll cashflow. And long term, obviously with more cashflow, I can do more deals. The house that we did in Savannah, two mortgages first was 6%, which is high, but 70, 000 dollars of the, uh, which is a second lien, no payments, no interest for 40 years, 

Ed Mathews: four, zero? 

Justin Bosak: four, zero. Yeah.

Ed Mathews: I'll be dead. That's awesome,

Justin Bosak: Yeah right? So I said that. Are they even going to remember that this, this money is owed? And I don't remember, but so, I mean, it was, uh, I guess a forbearance thing where, you know, the government was giving these out. I didn't even know about it. I was like, you know, I was like, these numbers don't add up.

What do you mean? The second lien, there's no payments. I was learning about it as I was doing the deal. You know, it's just something that I never had to deal with. But yeah, no payment on that second, second loan. So blended average, you know, it worked out to like 3. 875 percent was my true interest rate.

Ed Mathews: Dog will hunt. Yeah, that, that works. Okay. So then you're obviously then turning around and, you know, you're doing any rehabs, new kitchens, new bathroom, paint, textures, all that, right? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah, we're about 20 grand into that one. 

Ed Mathews: Okay. All right. And you turn around and rent it for whatever you rent it for. And it's cashflow positive, which I love.

Justin Bosak Yeah. We're gonna cash flow $700 a month on that one. 

Ed Mathews: Oh, that's nice. On a single family. Ooh, that's cool.  

Justin Bosak: Yeah, that's why the, you know, I'm buying, I'm looking at it as I'm buying these low mortgages. I'm not technically looking at it like I'm buying this house. No, no. I'm, I'm only buying this house because of the mortgage.

Ed Mathews: Right. And you know, it's interesting because, and I have a really close friend of mine, Dave DeVito up here, that is a real estate investor and a realtor, and a wholesaler. And, you know, it's interesting to be able to walk into a situation with a seller and have all those clubs in your bag to solve their problem.

Right. Obviously, if they're selling it subject two, you know, there's some sort of stressor there, right. And they're trying to solve that. And, you know, being able to walk in a realtor and say, hey, if you need top dollar, there's kind of two ways I can do that. You can help me by allowing me to, to find it, you know, to take over your loan.

And then we can work out a secondary. Um, to get you to the number that makes sense for you, or I can sell it for you on the open market as a realtor, right? But, you know, having all those clubs in the bag, so to speak, is, is gotta be really valuable because, you know, even in a non-stress situation, you're still solving a problem, right?

Hey, I, my job, my job moved to California. I gotta go. And I've got 60 days to work it out. Can you sell this property for me? And so it, you know, it's, it's gotta be a pretty gratifying as well to be able to walk in knowing that pretty good chance, no matter what the situation is, uh, you're, you know, you're, you probably have a solution that's going to make it work for the, for the seller, which is pretty cool.

Justin Bosak: Correct. It was either, hey, you can short sale it, or I can give you, you know, 5, 000 in your pocket.

Ed Mathews: Cash credit for three to five years. And, uh, or, you know, let me at least pay the freight on helping you. Pick up the pieces and move on. And it's a beautiful thing. So when you're looking for markets, it, you know, the Savannah market I get, cause you've got, you've got a partner down there, uh, Orlando to Tampa.

You know, when you look at a map, you think, Oh, that's not that far away. It's really far away. Right. So, you know, do you have another partner down there or are you doing that remotely? Like how are you managing that operation? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. So my business partner is in a commercial construction telecom. So one of his employees, um, is his project manager.

He works remote from Florida. So he's kind of more office space. So he's right outside of Tampa. Um, so that's an, it's a house that just kind of popped up, you know, a 0 percent seller finance deal, 0 percent interest. So that was one, we were like, all right, we're going to figure this out. We're just going to take it.

I closed on that deal in three days. 

Ed Mathews: I'll bet. I mean, I, I've got one of those too. And I got a phone call in the morning. I spoke to him for 10 minutes. I drove by the house 20 minutes later. And an hour after that, it was under contract and let it, let's go. Right. And, uh, it's a beautiful thing. And, you know, it's funny.

I don't do those anymore because I don't market to that asset class, but you know, that's actually one of the other things that I'm curious about, you know, when you are creating deal flow. Right. Are you thrown out a net and whatever is in that marketing net, whether it's a, you know, a potential brokerage client versus a real estate, investment client of some flavor, you know, are you marketing to different people in different ways or, is it just because, you know, you segmented by market, right?

Your realty businesses in New Jersey and you are, you know, doing the classic, I'm going to suck the oxygen out of these five neighborhoods and they're going to know who I am and, and be the obvious choice. And then down in Florida and Georgia, it's, it's a different process. Like, how does that work for you?

How do you manage that? 

Justin Bosak: So, yeah, so these deals actually came from being part of SubTo. So there's a community, there's 13, 000 people in there. So you have people that are assigning deals, you know, that can't take these deals down, that's what happened. Both of these deals, they wanted to buy them. They just did not have the cash.

So instead of buying them, they assigned them. So I paid 50, 000 in assignment fees combined for those two deals. Uh, so trust me, I am setting up the system now to hunt and get those deals on my own. Right. We're working through that process now.

Ed Mathews: So talk me through that. Like, what's the approach?

Justin Bosak: So the approach is really, it's, it's pretty similar to kind of the real estate side of the business.

So, you know, Batch Leads is a, is a company that provides, you know, data, um, on mortgages and, you know, pretty much it's like an MLS without it being an MLS. Right. You could skip chase through there. Um, it's setting up texting campaigns, obviously building out that system, building out a mailer system. And you're looking for, you know, the distressed properties, you know, people that are feeling some pain, you know, again, you're just providing a solution, providing a way out.

Um, instead of paying, uh, uh, you know, a real estate commission and, and dealing with, you know, cleaning up the property and, you know, worrying about it, you know, taking some time to sell. I mean, we can come in and, and close, you know, quickly. 

Ed Mathews: Yeah. And, you know, it was one of the things I found most gratifying about the, you know, the flip business when I was doing that is that I'm there to solve a problem.

Right? I'm actually making life easier for you. And, you know, again, going back to your situation where you have, you have a realty license, you know, a brokerage license, and also, you know, you have a whole bunch of investor tools in your bag that you can pull out, you know, just being able to say, okay, Help me understand where you are in your journey and where you're trying to get.

And then that'll help me figure out, okay, here are your options. If you need to sell it yesterday, here's one option. If you need to max out on, on money, here are two more options. Think about it. I'm going to go for a walk or get a cup of coffee, or I'll come back tomorrow morning. And why don't you talk about it and figure out what's best for you.

And then, you know, let's figure out how to move forward and solve and help, help you solve the problem, right? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah, absolutely.

Ed Mathews:  So with regard to the systems and I, I have this, I have this battle with people online all the time. Like I'm a huge, I'm an old school guy. Right? So I come from the world of direct mail and direct marketing.

I still think postcards work. 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. A thousand percent.

Justin Bosak: I still, I do high end. mailers. We do postcards for random business, but I have farm markets that I focus on for not only just the new construction kind of part of the business, but we also do a lot of waterfronts. That's actually a market, at least in New Jersey, where you see a lot of turnover.

You know, these are secondary housing, these people that, you know, they can make a couple hundred thousand on it. They'll just sell it. They don't care. You're the guy that's marketing that area. You're the expert. They're just going to go with you. They forgot the agent that came in because they're not even part of the community.

They just come down. On the weekends during the summer, or they just rent that out. It's just, you know, to them, it's, it's a business decision. Yeah. I mean, we, we do, we spend probably 5, 000 a month on, um, you know, that it's a two page, you know, very colorful, a lot of data and analytics on it, all up to date.

You know, we take beautiful, you know, photos of the different neighborhoods. I mean, one of the things I did was I kind of came up with this concept for the company, but just took all drone pictures of the entire neighborhood and then just rotated them, you know, through each, um, We reach mailer every single month and then that way they would at least hold on to one of my mailers because they're going to say that's my house right there.

Ed Mathews: Right. Right. Right. Smart. Oh, that's brilliant, man. Yeah. I mean, it's the little stuff like that, that, you know, in my software days, it was, you know, it was referred to as sucking the oxygen out of a market. Right. And so, you know, the reason that I respect brokers who operate the way you operate, right, is that you're, you know, you go into a well-defined buy box, you know, a neighborhood, and you make sure that through touching them on a constant basis and not obtrusively, but, you know, I'm sure your face is, is probably slapped against a few walls and a couple of buses and a park bench and we've got billboards, billboards and all that.

But then they get the, you know, the well-presented postcard or letter from, from you on top of it with a picture of their house, which is cool. You know, at some point you become not even the obvious choice. You become the only choice, right? This guy knows my neighborhood. He knows every single person in the neighborhood.

All the plumbers know them all. All the electricians know him. Everybody who mows a lawn knows who Justin is. He's clearly the guy, right? And then it's just, hey, do you have time to help me? I do. Right. Yeah, it's a, it's a brilliant marketing approach and it's something that, you know, it, it worked a hundred years ago.

It worked 50 years ago and it works right now. As well or better today, because now we have technology at the hospital. So yeah.

Justin Bosak: Yeah absolutely. We're doing, you know, and we are doing the, you know, Facebook ads and geotargeting. And yeah, I mean, it's layers, you know, I'm also part of the very heavily involved in the community volunteer stuff, school district stuff.

Ed Mathews: So, so you live in that, you obviously live in that district as well, that area. 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. I live in the town. I don't live on the water. Um, but I've, I'm born and raised in the town and, you know, very, again, very involved with community stuff as well. 

Ed Mathews: Yeah. I mean, it's something to be said for when, uh, you know, the little league coach or the, uh, the park and rec, uh, director or the person who was handing out food at the food pantry.

Turns out, Oh my God, I, I know who you are, right? That connection, that human connection is invaluable. Yeah. 

Justin Bosak: You nailed two out of three. So yeah, we do a lot of stuff with, you know, with my church locally. Um, they have a food pantry there. So just. You know, donating stuff throughout the year. And then, um, I was a baseball coach when my son was, was younger.

Ed Mathews: There you go. All right. Yeah. It's, uh, and, and it's gratifying too, cause you get to do some good. So, all right, my man. Well, uh, I allow you, I, I appreciate you letting me pick your brain on all the marketing stuff you do and indulging me because, you know, I, I've been out of the single business for it's been a few years now.

So I feel like completely detached from it now. So I appreciate you indulging me on all these questions, but let's get to the final four. So, you know, one of the things that I'm always interested in is what gets successful people out of bed on Monday morning, right? And, uh, obviously you are one of those people.

I'm, I'm, I'm seeing all the, all that hardware behind you and I actually know who you are, so I know, I know you've got game. So I'm curious what gets you out of bed on Monday morning? What's your purpose? 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. So for me, I mean, I've always kind of had, I'm just learning this kind of, you know, I realized that this last year, I guess I have ADD, right.

As a, I just can't stop even on the weekends. I'm not out in a field as much anymore. I still need something. So like the. You know, investing, you know, kind of fills me up. I don't know. I think everybody's probably addicted to something in life. And I've just chosen to be just addicted to work and helping people and volunteering.

And my cup is full. It's overrunning. I think with all the different things I could list out that I do outside of just doing real estate. But, you know, the main reason I think of the things that I actually do and why I do them is because, uh, my son who's 10. Uh, he has autism. So even like the investment part of it, I'm like in 10 years, like I really might have to have, uh, be doing something where he can be with me, you know, so he can, you know, just hang out with me, you know, we'll just drive around or do whatever, check up on properties.

I don't know. We'll, we'll figure it out. 

Ed Mathews: Super assistant of some sort. Right. 

Justin Bosak: Yeah. Yeah. So it's setting up the future and then having, having that income, you know, also to pass down. You know, so that's why long term rental really fits the box because, you know, at some point when I'm not here, you know, I, I have, I still have created some wealth and some income.

So I, I definitely want to get into the multifamilies and in the future, the, the single families are a step to get to that point. So, yeah.

Ed Mathews: But I mean, you, you don't have to, right. I mean, it's, uh, it just comes down to how intense you want your management process to be. You know, you want to manage 80 properties or do you want to manage two that have 80 units in them?

Right. And both come with good and bad. So it's just comes down to lifestyle and what you want. I think it really resonates with me is, and it's something that it's a theme that I, that I see through a lot of the really successful people. And that is that their purpose is above and beyond themselves, right?

It's not, I like winning, you know, I like this, I like, you know, keeping score and all that. It's, I have, you know, I have people I'm responsible for. And when I lay my head down for the last time, I got to know they're okay. Right. And this is your way to do that. And I think, I think that's really cool. So hats off to you on that.

I'm always interested in mentors and coaches and to get to the heights that you have achieved and are continuing to achieve, I'd be surprised if you did it on your own. So I'm curious about, you know, the people you've had in your life, whose advice you value. And specifically what's the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you? 

Justin Bosak: Probably the best advice. I would say is in 2016 where my flipper who now does syndication deals and, you know, is crushing life told me to start listening to podcasts. Never knew it was a thing. Part of the reason why I love doing these interviews, but, uh, started listening to Bigger Pockets and, you know, Real Estate Rockstars with Pat Hiban, uh, Sharan Srivastava, uh, is a big, you know, he's now the president of real started listening to his podcast.

Gary Vee, his podcast, now Pace Morby. So I've gone through different transitions and, and I look at them as all as, as mentors and coaches throughout the process. They've all had different, different angles and perceptions, but, but yeah, I think just, you know, listening to podcasts instead of listening to music, driving around, I'm always driving around.

Downloading something, you know, I'm, I'm filling out a contract. I'm, I'm listening to, to mentors also at the same time. 

Ed Mathews: So, so I, I, now I know who let's hear about what, you know, what, what's a really good piece of advice you've gotten from those mentors, whether they are organic people you met along the way, or someone you paid, you know, like pace and we all have both.

So I'm, I'm curious, what's, you know, what is that little gold nugget that, uh, you've taken away from one of those guys or gals?

Justin Bosak: Yeah, just, just do it. Just learn by going and doing the thing. You know, a lot of analysis and systems and everything it'll, you know, it could delay you in the process, you know, and then sometimes you just have to learn by actually doing it and then you're figuring it out and then you're building the systems at the same time.

Um, and it's okay, right? It's okay. If you do something wrong, you know, it's, it's tough to accept that when, you know, you're so used to just knowing everything about real estate and, you know, anybody asks me a question, I don't know the answer, but learning something new, you know, it puts you in a different, a different realm, a different world, but yeah.

Now I'm learning too, like I'm educating a lot of my agents on different things that they didn't know. So, you know, it's also passing that information on from actually doing it. Not just saying like, this is what I saw some other guy do. No, no, I actually did it, you know, and if you want to do it, you know, now I could actually help you do it because I did it.

Ed Mathews: Yeah, man, you know, and the mistake thing really resonates with me as well. Because, you know, here at Clark St, you know, I don't, I don't really believe in mistakes, right? I believe in lessons and because if I keep track of all the mistakes everybody makes, I got to start with me, right? Out of, from an integrity perspective, you know, I'm glass houses, right?

I'm, I don't live in one. So, or I do live in one. So the, you know, the fact is, is that if we're going to keep track of mistakes, you're going to spend a lot of energy wasted. And. I would much rather learn from those things. I mean, I've screwed. I make 10 mistakes a day and hopefully I can fix two of them.

Right. And the other eight are just, you know, it is what it is. And, um, you know,  I agree with your philosophy wholeheartedly. Like, you know, just keep moving forward. Have a bias towards action. Yes. You're going to make mistakes. Yes. They're going to be mornings where it's not, you know, ready aim fire.

It's it's fire ready aim. Whoops. Okay. Well, that didn't work. Let's try something else. Right. Um, and it's all good. Okay. Let's just keep moving forward. So, so leaders tend to be readers, right? And, you know, obviously I, I, I suspect your answer is going to be podcasts, but you know, these days people consume information in so many different ways, whether it's, you know, physical books or audio books or podcasts or YouTube videos or conferences, you know, other than podcasts, is that the predominant way where you're.

You're kind of sharpening the saw. Are there other ways?, 

Justin Bosak: Yeah for the most part, just because, like I said, I think the whole ADD thing and figuring that out, like I just no longer can sit still. Like I used to enjoy reading, but I just, you know, I have four kids, you know, and the wife at home and stuff like that.

So it's very tough for me to actually sit down. I have four kids read. 

Ed Mathews: The end of the explanation necessary. 

Justin Bosak: It's like, you know, and then when you're on your phone or whatever, even with the audible, you got the emails, you got the text message and my, my world is just nuts. So I do think that like, yeah, if I can listen and then maybe knock out some emails and stuff.

And I think that that's the thing. It's not the best thing to do because you kind of, you know, you're going to miss some stuff. I think if you're. Multitasking, but it's, it's definitely better than nothing. 

Ed Mathews: So I too have a fairly profound case of ADD and I find, so I'm a podcast listener as well, where I listen to audio books and I find that when I do, and I'm able to split my brain and I don't really know how I do it, but, and I'm responding to like emails or text messages or whatever.

Yes. I true. I don't retain everything, but I do retain enough that I learn. And there'll be an occasion where I'll be driving and I'll go back and listen to something and go, I wanted to, you know, I'm going to bookmark that. Cause that one. I think I missed something that I need to know. Right. But, but it just helps me.

It helps me focus. Multitasking helps me focus, which sounds counterintuitive, but it, you know, 

Justin Bosak: I feel like if I'm not, I feel like I'm, I'm not doing enough. Right. You're feeling, I feel like I'm falling behind or I'm going to miss something, or I'm just going to have to work more later. 

Ed Mathews: So it's the shiny object syndrome in the periphery and you're, you know, right.

So, um, so. Talk to me about success. You know, obviously you're a family man, you're a man of God. Um, you're a highly successful businessman. You know, what does success mean to you? 

Justin Bosak: Honestly, nothing, right? 

Justin Bosak: I don't know. I think I grew up different, you know, than, than probably most real estate agents, especially in the space that, that I'm in, I grew up kind of with nothing.

Um, I'm kind of fine, you know, with just. I do like fast cars, you know, so, so there is that, but I don't think I'm ever going to have anything, you know, too crazy that that's gonna, you know, but I mean, I'm just, I'm just happy that, you know, my family's, you know, healthy or when they're not, that I have the ability to take care of them, being able to kind of help other, other people, you know, that have, you know, issues in life, you know, especially when like I'm very heavily involved in the special needs community because of my son, um, I'm on, I'm the chairman for a place called the, uh, Field of Dreams in Tom's river.

Um, if you look it up, it's insane. I mean, it is four-acre complex, all community built fundraised through the community and it was built because of a car accident, you know, that left my, uh, my buddy Christian's son, you know, in a wheelchair. So, yeah, I mean, when you get around people that. That have more needs, right?

I feel like, yeah, no, I don't need all these different things, right? I feel like I need to do more to help the people that that don't have, um, you know, and people look at me and look at my situation with my son and they feel bad for me. And I'm like, well, you don't understand how many people have more needs than my son.

You know, my son's fine. He's he's, he's good, you know, like we hope he can get better and improve with life, but trust me, like there's more people. And I think that's the thing is most people aren't open to, you know, those situations and what's actually happening, you know, in, in, in their community. So, yeah, I mean, my goal is really to set up, you know, things for my son for the future, but also, you know, kind of leave some sort of, of legacy for the community that, you know, uh, revolve revolves around special needs, uh, revolves around my church.

You know, those are things that I think are just, you know, way more important than that money or trophies and things like that. I mean, the trophy there's for actually a grant for the special needs park from, um, oh, it's available. I didn't know I was getting a trophy. I just want to put a 1, 500 for the park, but we got a trophy too.

Ed Mathews: So it just clicked for me that it, you know, you're, there's a constant theme through all the things that you do and it's, you know, leave it better than you found it. Right. And it's, you know, it seems like that is pervasive throughout a lot of what you do. So that's, uh, that's amazing. Thank you. And congrats.

So I, I feel redundant asking this question, but cause you just kind of listed a whole plethora of things that you do, but when you're not dealing with real estate, you know, what are some of the fun things you like doing? I heard fast cars. 

Justin Bosak: So my, my, my son does enjoy going for rides. That's like one of his favorite things in the world.

So I had fast cars, then had a couple of tickets, had to slow down, got a jeep too slow, but cool for the Jersey shore. So, you know, 

Ed Mathews: somewhere though. 

Justin Bosak: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we just, we got a car. I wanted to actually, uh, a vette, but my daughter was like, where would I sit? So. Got to, you know, drop top M4 and, you know, so the whole family could fit.

And, you know, we just, we, we cruise around on the, on the weekend and he just enjoys it. We'll go by the, by the river. We'll go, you know, just, just around town. And he just, he just loves it. So..

Ed Mathews: And there’s nothing like hopping in a nice car and going. Brewing cruising for ice cream with the kids. It's a blast.

I highly recommend it. So, uh, so Justin, I've really enjoyed our conversation today. I've learned a lot. So thank you for that. So if people want to learn more about you or your causes or your business, um, you know, what's the best way to get in touch? 

Justin Bosak: Yes. I've made it easy. Uh, justinbosak.com Um, it'll have all my social links and different things that we have going on with, uh, charity and YouTube channels and all those things.

Ed Mathews: Excellent. Excellent. So Justin Bosak with RE/MAX Revolution. Thank you again. Good to see you, my friend, and I'm looking forward to keeping in touch. Thanks for having me. All right, buddy.