200 Houses, 44,000 Miles, and the Relationships That Made It All Worth It
The year was 2007. Jarrod Thomas was a college student who got his real estate license to land a better summer internship. He ended up in the office of Rich Richardson, a high-producing residential agent in Atlanta, and by the time the summer ended, he was hooked. When he came back in 2008, the market had cratered. Most of the people around him were panicking. Jarrod stayed anyway.
That decision, to stay in a broken market because it still felt like the right direction, is a good preview of how Jarrod thinks. He is not a planner who needs to see the full road before he moves. He is someone who picks a direction, says yes to what comes, and figures it out as he goes. Seventeen years later, he is a partner at Justin Landis Group, has helped mentor dozens of agents, and has compressed what most people would call a full career into about four years of real work.
In Episode 4 of The Justin Landis Show, Justin and Jarrod sit down to tell the full story.
The Market Nobody Wanted to Work In
Jarrod was finishing college when he decided to go all in on real estate. The timing was objectively terrible. The 2008 financial crisis wiped out the market, and the deals that were left were mostly bank-owned properties and first-time buyers with very little to spend.
But Jarrod saw something other people missed. Those were exactly the two groups still transacting. Investors and first-time buyers in their twenties. His people. He knew how to talk to them. He understood their situation because he was living it.
So he and Justin worked the market that was actually in front of them. They turned on utilities in vacant bank-owned homes so buyers could see if the plumbing worked. They drove hours to hand-deliver cashier's checks for closings. They earned $1,500 commissions on $18,000 houses and split them. It was unglamorous, time-consuming work that nobody else wanted. They did it anyway, and it built the foundation of a business that would eventually scale into one of Atlanta's most respected real estate teams.
Saying Yes Before You Have a Plan
When Justin Landis Group officially launched, Jarrod was one of the first agents in the door alongside Ashton and Amanda. His role was buyer's agent. His approach was to say yes to every client, every county, every opportunity regardless of how far it was or how much the commission was worth.
At his peak, Jarrod was helping 40 to 50 buyers per year. In a four-year stretch, he closed roughly 200 transactions. Most agents consider that a full career. He did it while learning on the job, building relationships, and figuring out what worked and what did not.
He tracked his mileage one year for taxes. It was 44,000 miles. Six counties. Forty-plus closings. Not because he had a grand plan, but because he kept saying yes and kept showing up.
"If it's hard work but it's fun, it doesn't feel like hard work," Jarrod says. That philosophy is easy to type and hard to live. He lived it.
The Number That Changes How You Think About Lead Generation
Jarrod has a simple math principle that every agent should hear before they spend a dollar on leads.
For every 10 people who know you, like you, and trust you, and with whom you stay in a real conversational relationship, you will get one piece of business per year. Ten conversations. One closing. Every year.
Compare that to cold outreach. When Justin and Jarrod were building the early business, Ashton was cold calling at a level most agents never sustain. She is great at it. The conversion rate was one closing for every 454 calls.
Ten versus 454. That is not a small difference. That is a different business model.
Jarrod's advice to any agent starting out is the same thing he would do if he had to start over tomorrow. Get a list of everyone you know. Not in a CRM, just a Google spreadsheet. Then meet them face to face as fast as possible. It sounds simple. Most people never do it.
Two Years of Lead Generation That Changed Everything
In the early days of JLG, Justin, Jarrod, and Ashton would block out Tuesday and Thursday mornings to lead generate. Not talk about lead generating. Not plan to lead generate. Actually do it, for two hours, twice a week, consistently.
Within two years, the business was in a completely different place. The referrals had started to snowball. The team had grown. The pipeline was no longer something they had to manufacture from cold calls. It was something clients were building for them.
Two years sounds long when you are inside it. Looking back, Jarrod calls it one of the best investments they made. A couple of hours a week for two years to set yourself up for a career is not a long time. It is the work.
From Closing Deals to Building Careers
At some point, Jarrod made a decision that many high-performing agents are afraid to make. He stepped back from maximizing his own production to start mentoring and training other agents on the team.
It meant selling fewer homes. It meant a short-term income step back. It also meant that the knowledge and process he had spent years building could now be replicated. The agents he trained could avoid the trial and error that cost Jarrod and Justin real money and real time.
Today Jarrod runs the day-to-day operations of Justin Landis Group. He has helped launch Bolst, Anthropic's purpose-driven brokerage. He has trained more agents than he can count. And he still comes back to the same starting point when someone asks him where to begin.
Get the list. Meet the people. Stay in the relationship. One at a time.
What the Best Agents Have in Common
Justin closes the episode by sharing what he noticed about Jarrod from the very beginning, two things that made him confident they would build something great together.
First, Jarrod always wanted to do things the right way. Not just get them done, but find a better way to do them. He was constantly looking for improvements, bringing ideas, suggesting refinements. That quality is rare and it compounds over time.
Second, he was willing to do anything. No task was beneath him. No drive was too long. No commission was too small if it meant staying active, staying visible, and staying in the game. That kind of grit is not something you can train. Either someone has it or they do not.
Jarrod had both. Still does.
The Shortcut That Is Not a Shortcut
Jarrod talks about moving four years of real estate development into four months. Here is how he says it works: proactive training, not reactive. A mentor who shows you how things look in the real world, not just in a textbook. And real at-bats, actual clients, actual transactions, actual feedback.
The combination of training, mentorship, and real experience is what JLG and Bolst are built around. It is also what most agents who go it alone are missing. They are either grinding through lead generation with no clients, or sitting in classes with no real-world application. Neither one alone works. The combination is what accelerates everything.
If you are thinking about a career in real estate, or wondering whether your current brokerage or team is actually set up to help you succeed, this episode is worth your time. Jarrod Thomas has been through it, all of it, and he is still in it. He has a lot to say.
Listen to the Justin Landis Show
Every week, Justin brings in experts from across the real estate industry, including agents, brokers, investors, and leaders, to share what actually works. Expect real stories, real strategies, and no fluff.
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Justin Landis is the founder of Justin Landis Group and Bolst, two of Atlanta's leading real estate companies. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and three daughters and has been selling Atlanta real estate since 2008.
