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Erika Brown: You give away a house? I gave away a house. Never doing that again, but I gave away a house. It was amazing. It was phenomenal. Whenever I first came up with the idea to give away a house, they were like, what? And I was like, no, no, I think I can make the math work. And I just thought how amazing it would be to look 20, 30 years down the line and to see how someone was impacted by real estate, by giving away a house. And the couple that won said that they prayed for the person who was going to win the house. Wow. Yeah. And it was them. And they had just, you know, experienced a miscarriage and they had a really difficult year. So this was a really amazing blessing for them.
Justin Landis: Welcome to The Justin Landis Show, your real estate podcast about having conversations, building relationships and creating freedom. And today I'm here with my good friend Erika Brown. Erika, thanks for being here.
Erika Brown: Thank you. Thank you both so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
Justin Landis: Erika and I go way back. Way, way back. I actually helped Erika and LB buy their first house a long time ago. Erika, a great real estate agent, investor, now coach, and Bolst co-founder.
Erika Brown: Yes. So it helped us launch Bolst at the very beginning and been working together ever since. It's been so good. And that was such a good, just amazing surprise too. So yeah, that's been a good ride.
Justin Landis: All right. So when we first met, you were climbing the corporate ladder. You're banking, you're climbing the corporate ladder. Tell us a little how you ended up making that transition into real estate that you're doing now.
Erika Brown: Yeah. So, I mean, it's crazy because I was absolutely that person who was like, I am going to, you're going to do it, I'm going to be what I call a corporate baddie. OK, like I'm going to keep going and I'm going to retire from corporate at 65 and do all the things. And I got to a place I was doing all the right things, the networking, the meeting the right people, the getting the letters of recommendation. And after having like back to back promotions year after year, I found myself just hitting like a ceiling consistently, even despite doing all the things. I feel like sometimes God puts us in a place where he's like closing a door to get us to be open to walking through another one. And it wasn't until after you had helped us buy a house, we moved into a neighborhood. We were living in this neighborhood, loved it. This was the West Side before it was like cool now, you know? And so we fell in love with the neighborhood. I naturally just love like the real estate and the amenities nearby. And so because I'm the kind of person where anytime I learn something new, I want to share it with everyone. I looked up and I helped like 10 people buy a house with someone else. And I started, I said, how much do realtors make again? I was like, wait, it's about $100,000. And so here I'm in this place of trying to climb a corporate ladder. I'm hitting the ceiling and I'm technically selling houses without doing all the paperwork. And so I finally got to a place of actually being open to a different path. And I find that if you're not even open to a different path, you may miss it.
Justin Landis: What do you think it was that, was there something specific that opened your mind or did it just happen over time?
Erika Brown: One, it was getting kept getting declined for jobs. Two, I had a really close friend pass away suddenly. So grief. This friend, you may have known him, Sam. I did. Passed away suddenly, 32 years old. Natural causes shocked our whole world. And it's something about when someone passed, as you know, it makes you pause and think about your life. And so it made me pause. And thinking about how Sam lived his life so courageously and saying yes and taking chances. It made me feel like, well, maybe I'm missing something in mine. So let's be open to what God is going to do and not just think that things have to be this way.
Justin Landis: And then what steps did you take to pursue that? Now that you're open to it, what did you do to walk through the next door?
Erika Brown: So I did two things. I contacted two people who were in real estate. I reached out to you because you were my realtor and you still have real estate. And I reached out to another friend who had previously made the transition from banking to real estate. And I said, OK, if I decide to do this, what do I need to do? How much money do I need to have saved? What's important? What are some of the steps? And you and my friend gave me the blueprint. And so for me, once I get the information, I'll just, you know. We had a conversation with my husband, like, because this is very different, you know. And it was going to require me to leave a six-figure job to potentially start a business. And so that was pretty scary.
Justin Landis: When you did it, you were pretty immediately successful. You found success really quick. What was it like getting started in this? Because for anyone who's listening that is in corporate America thinking of jumping, it's very different. What advice would you give and tell a little bit about what that first year or so was like for you?
Erika Brown: Well, so it's interesting because some of the mechanics were the same. So as a banker previously, my job was to assess my client's needs. And similar as a real estate agent, it's your job to do that too. So my network had already looked at me kind of like the financial guru go-to. From banking. So whenever I decided to go into real estate, it was really a natural transition because I was already sharing about, hey, we moved to this neighborhood. Hey, we rented out our basement. Hey, we're doing these things. I naturally do that. So it wasn't like a big shift, but I did announce it to people what I'm going to do. And that really helped to help get the initial business by, one, letting people know what I do, establishing credibility and authority. I am a learner. I'm always learning. I'm always reading. I'm always doing something to learn. So because I'm learning and I'm sharing information, people see me as go-to. So it just really wasn't difficult to do that. And so my foundation of my business has always been education. So because people see value in the information that I give, that helps it to be easier for people to work with me, whatever I decide to do.
Justin Landis: Man, I think that's so valuable for real estate agents listening to figure out, hey, what is my role? Who do I want to show up and be? I want to be the educator. Yeah. I am giving finance, sharing financial education with the people that I know. That's a great role to take in this business. So you started doing that and you're working with primarily retail clients at first. But then also you started to think more and more about investing. Tell a little bit about your journey of the clients that you worked with over time and which led into your own personal investing story.
Erika Brown: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know if you remember the first house. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I can remember. I can picture it in my head like it was yesterday. Yeah. And that house had this crazy dirt crawl space. It was not a basement. I mean, I remember we were talking about this, you know, like I try to be direct, but kind and I'm trying to be direct of like, I'm not sure this actually could be a livable space, but also I don't want to squash your dreams. Exactly. I'm like, it's six and a half feet. We can figure it out. And so buying that house and being able to renovate it and to be able to create that space in the basement was the key to us not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. Because even though it was making six figures, it's expensive, right? So that cushion allowed us to be able to get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle. So then I'm saying, OK, if I'm going to make this switch from banker manager to real estate agent, my mind, because again, I am not the risk taker. I'm not the kid who had a lemonade stand at 10 years old. I'm thinking like this is the trajectory. So I need to figure out a way to come up with consistent income so that in case I'm not getting a commission check or something like that, my family can still pay their bills. So I actually looked at real estate investing as a way to be able to get additional forms of income to help me, you know, be able to focus in on my real estate agent business. And so being able to have that first house hacker, or I didn't even know the term house hacker. Yeah, I don't think people were saying it back then. No, that's what it was. Yes, yes. Rent out my basement. That was the first part. And then we bought another property. It's pretty much year one, becoming an agent. We also bought an investment property. And I mean, I did some things that the traditional finance guru would not agree with. I used a portion of my 401k as a down payment, but we were able to get 100% return on investment within the same next year. And so it was really, yeah, it was key. And so we continued to buy real estate in addition to sell real estate. And I started out working with people just like me who were looking to buy their first home. And then after I helped them buy their first home, and as I'm sharing our story of being able to buy rental properties and this new Airbnb thing and making money there, and people were like, I want to do that too. OK, cool, I can help you. And then it just kind of kept going from there.
Justin Landis: I want to go back to that very first house because I think for people listening, that for ourselves individually and for our clients, there's something to learn. So this property, it was bank owned and it was not in good condition using FHA 203K loan, if I recall. And so there's a good amount of work to that, but you can do it with a pretty low down payment. And then you guys immediately had a lot of equity in the house because you did the work. And that's another thing that kind of changed that trajectory a little bit there. You got that second property. You're in this position of great equity. And that's still possible to do even in today's market.
Erika Brown: It was huge. It was huge. I mean, those first two investments were key. Key to now. I mean, now we own over five million in real estate and those two key investments were the catalyst to all of it. Yeah, man. And also in the right place, right location. This was before West Side Trail. This is in the historic West End. And so, yeah, I mean, we looked at, there were a lot of houses for sale. We looked at a lot of houses. People had their pick. You could buy a good amount. And it ended up being an awesome buy to change your trajectory.
Justin Landis: All right, so you've got those first couple, which were huge for your investment portfolio. And then you set a goal for yourself that you wanted to hit a specific number. Tell us about that, because I think this is going to be fascinating for people to hear.
Erika Brown: Yeah, I mean, again, I'm like super simple. And when it comes to figuring out, OK, I'm at my bank and I'm thinking about, OK, we're going to set up this new business and become a real estate agent. And if I calculate the commission I would have already made, this is I'm going to be able to hopefully match my salary that I'm making. But then also I want to be able to withstand the ups and downs of business. We set a goal based off of how much it took for us, our minimum lifestyle. So we say, OK, just to minimum be able to pay our bills and do what we need to do, maybe not go on vacation, all of that. That number was $5,000. So our first goal for real estate investment, recurring income was five thousand dollars because my goal is like if we could at least cover that, if I have a slow month, then we will have that money back from real estate. And so that has served us over the years for sure.
Justin Landis: Because once you got to that number, did it produce like a level of freedom or comfort or something like that?
Erika Brown: Oh, yeah. I mean, we were able to homeschool my kids. We've been able to vacation. We've been able to support our mental health. Like so many things we've been able to do, being able to have additional income from real estate.
Justin Landis: So you've got this income going. Your real estate agent business is growing. Tell us what kind of like the next couple of years were as you were growing both your investment and agent business.
Erika Brown: Yeah. So one of the beautiful things I love about having a corporate background is that in corporate, you get to learn what it's like to run a business on someone else's dime. So when it's someone's budget, all the things. And so I really like the team structure. I felt the value of having a team, especially as a working mom. I wanted to still be able to have the flexibility and to be able to have the freedom. And so I began building a team year two. That was not advice at the time. This is not the typical real estate agent path, but tell us about your path. It's been good. You know, my leadership at the time was like, you don't even know what you're doing. And I was like, I know. OK, I know. But and so I had a friend from Texas who had reached out to me who was interested in real estate. He had majored, actually, in real estate in college. And he was thinking about moving to Atlanta. So I was like, come on out here and you can stay in our basement and let's show you around. And so that he was my first teammate on me. And so I began building a team. I brought an agent. I hired an admin. The first thing I did was like, let me get rid of all the things that I don't need to do. Yep. Admin, transaction coordinator, and then from there started building our team while also continuing to invest in real estate. So when we had surplus after, you know, we were able to take care of our expenses and fund our savings and stuff like that, extra stuff. We would buy another property here, buy another property here. I bought a few properties that initially were going to be listings. I'm like, hey, would you mind if I buy it? You know, and so just kind of did that over time.
Justin Landis: How did you, I think people are probably asking themselves, how does she find those properties? You mentioned some on the listings, but how did you find those properties you were buying?
Erika Brown: So many different things. One, I believe in the value of opening up your mouth and letting people know what you do. I was hoping you were going to say something like that. I have a great example of this. Growing up, my dad used to flip classic cars. Yes, he had a specialty. We always grew up having 60 model Chevrolets in our garage. So he would restore Chevy Camaros and Novas and all these different classic cars. And so what would happen is everyone knew him as like the Chevy guy, right? Because he loved cars. He always talked about it. So what happened was people would be driving down the street in random places and they will see a Chevy and they will come back to him and say, hey, Brother Lee, I seen the Chevy. And he and everyone knew that if you brought him a car, he would pay you a commission. So he didn't even have to go and find them. They will find him. And so knowing that I seen that growing up, I took that same principle with real estate. And so whether it's like a friend who's like, hey, I have this property. I think I want to sell it. I have a neighbor they want to sell. Or I have a client that, you know, wants to sell their house. Are you interested in buying it? Or even the MLS. Yeah. We bought properties so many different ways.
Justin Landis: Man, I love that advice. That is so good. So you're buying these properties. You're growing the team. And then over time, a lot of people wanted your advice because they saw what you were doing. Just like I asked that advice there. Everyone's asking you, hey, how do I do this? How did you do it? And then you took that in a different direction.
Erika Brown: Yeah, because what I started realizing is that people wanted to invest in real estate and they would come to me to help them buy a house, but they didn't have a strategy. And they would say, hey, can you help me, you know, buy an investment property. And I'll say, sure. Like, what's your, you know, what are you looking for? And they're like, I don't know. A good deal. I want a good deal. Well, what's a good deal for you may not be a good deal for me. Exactly. And so I started helping people like one-on-one, just friends, teaching them what I was learning and how to run numbers and all this analytical strategy piece. And then it simply became too much. Like I'm a big time efficiency person. I do a lot of things. So my time is really important. And it's like, I don't have time to talk to all of you guys individually. So I was like, why don't I create a group? And here's the crazy part that people will laugh at me. I had no idea about the online coaching world. I just didn't. I had my head down doing the work. And so 2021, I started, I got a group together of friends and I said, OK, well, I'm going to teach people how to invest. I'm going to try this out and I'll talk about it online too. And I ended up having like 30 people sign up. And then that was the beginning of something amazing. And the biggest surprise, because again, I started to teach online, not for money or not for, you know, just basically for efficiency. But one of the biggest surprises was that the community that was formed, there are so many people like me who are like the first generation of people who are looking to not only own a home, but also invest. And there are people who are like starving to be around other people who are like that too. And so the community that has birthed from it has been the biggest surprise that I did not even anticipate.
Justin Landis: Well, you've done a lot to foster that community. Tell a little bit about when you decided, hey, I am going to do this. I'm going to really grow this. What's your coaching program?
Erika Brown: Yes. So I work with clients. I work with people, whether they're agents or everyday people, attorneys, everyone, just everyday people all across the United States. And I help teach them how to invest in real estate and even existing landlords, whether you're accidental, like maybe you turned your first home into a rental property or whatever. I teach them how to scale, how to buy more, how to manage what you have and how to leverage it so that you don't have to use all of your money. A lot of the principles that I had to learn, I teach my community. And so it's a combination of online and in person. So we meet up in beautiful, amazing places. And we have retreats. I mean, we just, that's a big thing for fostering community. Yes, huge, huge, huge. I mean, we have couples. We have everyone. We have so many different types of people. We come together in cities across the United States a couple times a year. And we do weekend retreats and we check in virtually. And then we have our big event at the end of the year where I have, this is my third year, I have Owning and Living experience. We come together in Atlanta and it's an amazing, it's not like your typical conference. It's like we have music, we have media, we have real estate, we dance, we had a worship service.
Justin Landis: You give away a house?
Erika Brown: I gave away a house. Never doing that again, but I gave away a house. It was amazing. You got to tell everybody about that. Because I'm not joking. If you're listening, I'm not joking about this. No, no, I really gave away a house. Tell us about giving away a house at the conference. Yeah, it was phenomenal. Whenever I first came up with the idea to give away a house, they were like, what? And I was like, no, no, I think I can make the math work. And I just thought how amazing it would be to look 20, 30 years down the line and to see how someone was impacted by real estate, by giving away a house. And, you know, I baked the cost into the cost of the conference, but the couple who won was amazing. So the way it worked is when you bought your ticket to the conference you entered a chance to win the house. And so we had some type of like lottery type of situation. My assistant pulled the names. I didn't know it until the morning of. And it's so crazy because the couple that won said that morning that they knew that I was going to announce who won. That morning, that couple said that they prayed for the person who was going to win the house. Wow. Yeah, and it was them. And they had just, you know, experienced a miscarriage. And they had a really difficult year. So this was a really amazing blessing for them. And so, yeah, they have the house. It's been great for them. And they own it free and clear. And it's already appreciated in equity. The house is in Birmingham, Alabama, which is an area that's growing. So, yeah. And it's fun. My kids were all a part of it, being able to turn over the keys. And so it's been great.
Justin Landis: Yeah, I think that's something else that I'd love for you to elaborate on. It's been a family experience for you. Tell about your family experience.
Erika Brown: So along the journey of real estate, now I've been full-time entrepreneur for 10 years. Not only have we, you know, we have Bolst and we have our agent and now coaching, we also have other businesses. We have a very successful commercial landscaping business. We're investors in other companies. And so our kids have been, my kids and my husband have been involved the whole entire time. My husband is our director of property management. My brother-in-law runs our landscaping company. My sister-in-law is a part of my team and she also helps with property management. My kids have worked in our landscaping company. And because you've homeschooled, they got extra capacity and time to do it. Oh yeah, absolutely. And so it's been great for them too. It's been really great for them. So it's definitely a family effort and it's been really amazing to have, to be able to do it together.
Justin Landis: What, as you look forward with all these different businesses going, what are your future plans and dreams as far as real estate and investing and sharing that with other people?
Erika Brown: Yeah. I mean, I'm looking forward to now helping the next generation. You know, my sons, I have a son that's in college. He's looking to buy his first house this year. And so I'm looking, my office friends, all their friends are following us, learning online too. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how we're going to be able to help the next generation and really be able to demystify a lot of the myths around real estate investing and hopefully allow it to be something that young people can aspire to even earlier than us.
Justin Landis: If somebody wants, if somebody is listening and they want to engage with you and follow and learn more, what are the ways that they can get connected with you and start to be on that journey of their first investment?
Erika Brown: Yeah. So I have a podcast called Wealth Within Reach and I teach all the things. I give so much free information. I bring on guests that I've helped as well. So I definitely would encourage them to follow that. Follow me, Erika, be investor online and then come to my conference, come to my conference and, you know, come and be in the room and meet the people and experience the community and get loved on. And if you decide like, I really want to take real estate seriously, then you could book a call with me and then I could talk about what that looks like.
Justin Landis: All right, Erika, you've talked about what a family business has been for you, specifically for moms who are listening. If there's a mom listening and she doesn't have experience in real estate yet or she hasn't done this, but she's here and she's curious and like, I might want to do some of the stuff that Erika's done. What could be a good first step for her to be on a kind of journey like you've been on?
Erika Brown: Well, one, I think the first step is to recognize that you have so many amazing skills as a mom, even if you feel like you're completely green in real estate. Because as a mom, you have to do all the things. You are the quarterback of the house, right? And that's a huge deal. Huge job. So one, recognizing that you have transferable skills that will be super successful in whatever you decide to do. I would say to that mom that if you want to focus on what do you feel like your gifts are and your skills, right? Because sometimes it could feel like, I don't know what the job description is, but I know what I want to spend my time doing. I know what skills I have. Start with that. And then you just never know how you can actually end up creating a role that works for you in the season of life that you're in. And that's kind of served me throughout the time. I didn't know I was going to get into real estate investing. I didn't know I was going to be an agent. I did not know I was going to be a coach, but I just kind of followed that burden. I followed that problem I was trying to solve. And the beautiful thing is like God opened up opportunities along the way.
Justin Landis: Yeah, because your journey is a beautiful journey, but it's not like you had this 10-year vision scripted out at all. It's changed over time, but you just kept taking steps. Using your strengths. Yes. And then when the door opened, you weren't scared to walk through it. Yeah. Man, that's amazing advice. Thanks for sharing that. Thank you. Thank you. Erika, thanks so much for sharing this journey. I mean, what a story. And the number of people that you've impacted over that decade as an entrepreneur, it is astounding. And the beauty of investing is it's just going to keep compounding. That impact and investment is just going to keep growing as these investments grow for people and they're able to do more. And so thanks for sharing that today. And I hope if you're listening, if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, hey, I'm inspired by Erika. I want to get involved. You should follow her. You should go to the conference, reach out. And for everybody else, we really appreciate you watching today. Make sure to like or subscribe so you don't miss a single episode and we'll see you again next time.
