[ 00:00:12 ]Welcome to Behind the Bottom Line Podcast. I’m Adam Hayes, joined to my left by my co-host, Bob Payton. Good day. Across the table from us today is Barrett Johnson with JF Property Group. Welcome. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you having me out. Yeah. So what does being a managing broker at JF Property Group entail? Oh, gosh, where do I start? Right.

 

[ 00:00:31 ] So just real estate in general is just a very interesting industry to be in. You know, I mean, everybody’s familiar with what the real estate market’s been doing lately. Yeah, not much. Last couple of years, you know, prices have been going up. The interest rate’s been volatile and stuff. So it’s always fun. It’s always fun.

 

[ 00:00:51 ] Yeah. So tell us what you guys do at JF Property Group. Is it commercial and residential, or is it primarily residential? Tell us about that. Yeah.

 

[ 00:00:59 ] So we’re primarily a residential real estate company. Our license does give us the authority to do commercial units, but we’re not specializing in that right now. We’re pretty much just residential. We’ve got about eight agents with us. One of them’s a property manager, so she has some familiarity with that, but most of the agents just do residential. Okay. And what areas of town do you cover? So I live down in Greenwood in the Center Grove area. I like to Most of my business comes from the Johnson County area. But like I said, our license covers the whole state, right? So I’ve had clients before in Marion, Indiana, or Poland, if you’ve heard of Poland before, all the way down to Bloomington. So I try to stay within about an hour of where I live just for comfort. And then I feel like I can best serve my clients that way. I’m not driving out to Santa Claus, Indiana. You know, I don’t know where that’s at. Yeah, I do. I’ve been there.

 

[ 00:01:55 ] Been a while, but I’ve been there. Yeah.

 

[ 00:01:57 ] So talk to us about what was your journey to JF Property Group? What did you do before? How did your journey lead you to there?

 

[ 00:02:04 ] How did you get here?

 

[ 00:02:05 ] Oh, gosh. I mean, this will be a super long story here, but I’ll try to recap it a little bit. So I’ve always had an interest in real estate. Like I’ve had construction background before and always enjoyed doing construction. Chores around the house, my wife has a list this big— stuff for me to do, right? Like you guys too. I’m sure. So, uh, at any rate, um, I was in an aerospace manufacturing company before I got into real estate. Which one was that? It’s a company called Nitrex, they’re out of Franklin, they’ve got a couple places in Michigan around the country, Vegas, stuff like that.

 

[ 00:02:40 ] I’m an X-Rolls race guy, that’s why.

 

[ 00:02:41 ] Okay. Yeah. So, we, we probably made that one of my suppliers— you guys sent stuff to us, probably. So we did a lot of heat treatment and stuff like that, super cool job, very scientific. I loved it. Um. Just didn’t get a lot of enjoyment out of it, you know, and everybody wants to be an entrepreneur nowadays. And so I decided to kind of dabble into real estate, get my real estate license. And long story short here, I was with another company at the time when I got my license and they got word of it. Right. And they were like, ‘Why are you getting a real estate license? Aren’t you with us?’ You know, so. They they gave me an ultimatum that day that they found out that I got my license. They’re like, ‘Hey, look— you can stick with us and dedicate 100 percent to us or you can go and do real estate and we’ll part ways today.’ So that day I was, I went back to my office, kind of sat there for. About 30 or 40 seconds, I walked back into the office. I was like, ‘Hey, you guys, I’m out of here. Peace.

 

[ 00:03:39 ] It’s been real. It’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.

 

[ 00:03:41 ] I think I said those exact words.

 

[ 00:03:44 ] Some of us have done that multiple times. Yeah, I’ve done that multiple times.

 

[ 00:03:49 ] Yeah. So what does the real estate industry look like for you going forward? I know, you know, up to this point, you know, 2019, 2020, 21, 22, it’s really a crazy inflationary market. Where are we at today and where do you see that going, you know, a year from now? So everybody has an opinion, right?

 

[ 00:04:10 ] You know, for the last. Eight years I’ve been hearing people say, ‘Oh, the housing market’s gonna crash! It’s gonna crash. Uh, funny little side story. My mom should have been my first real estate client. Oh yeah, she wasn’t. She was like, and she she sold her house like a month before I got my license. I’m like, ‘Mom, can’t you just wait, like 30 more days?’ She’s like, ‘Barrett, the housing market’s gonna crash. I gotta sell it now If she would have waited, she would have got about $30,000 more for a property. And then it sold for about $30,000 more three or four times after she sold it. Wow. Anyways, the rates have been volatile. They’re on the steady decline right now this year.

 

[ 00:04:49 ] Home prices are not going to go down. They’re just not. There’s not enough housing out there for people. You see all these apartments and condos, these new… apartment places being built. And, um, you know, I know a couple of people that rent and stuff and they’re paying just as much, if not more than what you can buy for a house, if you have a significant down payment and stuff like that. So, uh, home prices are not going anywhere. Hopefully the interest rate does drop down a little bit more. This is an election year, typically gas prices and interest rates go down. Right. So hopefully that happens in the next year, but, um, I see home prices staying about the same. If not, just if interest rates go down, I feel like they’re going to. Bump a little bit more, you know. So, we’ll see. Time will tell.

 

[ 00:05:31 ] Yeah, awesome. Well, I mean, aside from what we all, you know, I’ll call it, immediate kind of market, though. Let’s say, elections passed us, we’re in 2025. Put your crystal ball on, you know, take a look at that. What do you, what do you maybe see happening in 2025? Is it truly? I mean, we had talked about, you know, I’m a boomer. Our kids are out of the house. We’re kind of stuck with a low-rate mortgage. But to move, I got to spend another 150 grand to get a smaller house. Is there anything, I mean, I see a lot of over 55 units starting to come onto the market. Do you see that continuing for the next decade? What do you kind of see in the next five, 10-year window even?

 

[ 00:06:11 ] What I’m seeing with a lot of my clients that are approaching retirement age, right, is that they’re starting to go off on these dreams that they want to do. I’ve got a client right now that they’re selling their house and they bought an RV camper and they’re just going to sell their house, sock that money back. And they’re going to live in a camper at a, at a rented lake or something and just go back out. You know what I mean? Um, so for those people that have the equity built in their house, I think they’re, they’re still going to be wise and make good decisions with stuff like that. But for the most part, I think you’ll see a lot of downsizing. Um, and, uh, or people just stay in their properties because they don’t want to lose the equity in it and they don’t want to uh you know adopt these new interest rates.

 

[ 00:06:57 ] Yeah, that makes sense. So, how do you focus your practice? Are you more on the you know obtaining listing side, or are you more on the buyer representation side? How do you focus your practice that way?

 

[ 00:07:07 ] So, as a managing broker, me personally, a lot of my listings come from just word of mouth, past clients, and stuff like that. So I get a lot of the listing side of things. I still love to represent buyers. That’s um something I really enjoy, especially first-time home buyers. They are new to the process, they are completely green, they don’t understand how it works. So it’s uh, I enjoy being that teacher part of things and like showing them. Hey this is what’s about to happen. This was what you can expect. Um, so um, you know, that’s what I do. But we’re kind of all around. So we’re about 50-50 split. I’d say we get a half buyers, half listings and stuff like that. Okay.

 

[ 00:07:45 ] All right. And then how do people generally find you? Is it because they’re interested in a listing that you have? Or is it because they know one of your agents and they’re like, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a house and can you do a search for me?’ Right. Is it just kind of 50-50?

 

[ 00:07:59 ] Yeah. So in real estate in general, you know, you definitely have to. Um, have a website right? Like modern age, everybody has to have a website. So we do pump some ad dollars into Google and stuff like that for the website. We generate leads that way. Um, like I said, word of mouth and just the longer you’re a real estate agent in the industry, the more you start to build your reputation, and people start referring you. If you do your job correctly, you know, if you have a do-crap job. Our agents all do very, very well. We’re such a small, tight-knit brokerage that we don’t have a lot of overhead. Our agents aren’t beating down doors, doing 30 or 50 deals a year. So they can really take the time to tend to those clients and kind of nurse them along throughout the process. And it’s a more personalized experience. Nice.

 

[ 00:08:51 ] Yeah, that makes sense. What do you see happening? I mean, obviously, there’s some law changes coming up. Right, that the whole uh commission structure, etc. What do you see happening with all that?

 

[ 00:09:00 ] I’m a huge fan of it, honestly. Um, and I’ve told all my agents the same thing, especially on the buyer’s side, because any real estate agent, as a buyer’s agent, can tell you horror stories about yes, you know, just getting flaked out on. We’re kind of viewed as like a used car salesman, you know, in the industry. I mean, people generally don’t like real estate agents unless they have that relationship with them, but it’s going to be good for buyers’ agents because now, what that whole thing is about is you have to have some sort of um agreement in place with your buyer client before you proceed and show them the properties. It does not have to be an exclusive buyer agency agreement. It can be a one-week showing period. There can be a fee involved. There cannot be a fee involved. It’s really up to whatever the client and the real estate broker agreed to. But it’s going to be beneficial because instead of buyers now kind of using and abusing buyer agents, it’s like, Hey, you know, i’m a professional hopefully you want to be professional as a client let’s agree to work together for a certain amount of time and this is the compensation involved and let’s

 

[ 00:10:07 ] agree that we’re working together so it’s going to be good my understanding and it could be wrong is that is a total negotiation between the buyer and the agent now always has been right it always has but there’s always this kind of underlying three six percent blah blah blah whatever right is there now is that literally negotiation there there is a trend that it is starting to go down um you know back in think about like 2000s or whatever when home prices were about 150 maybe 200 would get you a spectacular home sure Three percent on 200 is $12, and that’s a respectable commission. Well, now if home prices are all of a sudden five correct hundred thousand, three percent of that you know— That’s a hefty amount. That’s a lot of money. And so that’s how we’ve kind of built our brokerage, or I started as an agent. Like, hey, look, I’m going to charge you a lower commission rate. You’re going to put more money in your pocket. I’m still full service. We’re going to do the same exact things. But I’m doing you a huge service by, I mean, you’re making $10,000 more just because I’m not greedy. I don’t want all that equity.

 

[ 00:11:10 ] That equity is yours. You pay that mortgage. You own that equity, not me. I’m not here to take that chunk of money.

 

[ 00:11:16 ] Sure, sure. So how do you feel you’re positioned against your competitors down in the Johnson County area where you’re at?

 

[ 00:11:25 ] I feel we’re good. You know, there’s a lot of big name brokerages. I won’t make sure that everybody’s heard of them and stuff. We got a couple of boutique brokerages as well. But what we focus on is, I think, what makes us the best is that our commission structure with agents. And let me kind of break that down. So as a real estate agent, your broker. Your brokerage will take either a percent from you or some of them are flat fees and stuff like that. A lot of times, you know, and I’m just throwing out numbers, but it could be a 50-50 split. They’re percentage based. There’s brokerages out there that are flat fee based. And so our model is most of the time it’s going to be a flat fee unless they’re a brand new agent and they take a little bit more time to get used to things and they need a mentor. So by the brokerage, us, JF Property Group, allowing the agent to keep more of their money, they’re less inclined to have to charge the client such an astronomical percentage. Sure. To make enough money to feed their family and pay bills, so if they can get a respectable amount of money, the brokerage takes just a tiny bit, and the consumer keeps a lot of their equity.

 

[ 00:12:34 ] It’s a win-win for everybody. So I think that’s where we kind of stand apart from other brokerages, and hopefully, that consumer appreciates that and talks, ‘Oh yeah, right!’ ‘Yeah, that’s the one I liked.’ They all do. They love it, especially when they get that settlement statement at the end and you can kind of see what both agents are taking— the listing brokerage and the buyer’s agent. And so, if the other agent’s making double what your real estate agent’s making, it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ You feel bad for them.

 

[ 00:12:58 ] Right. I like that you’re wearing the brand colors too. I planned it.

 

[ 00:13:04 ] So let’s talk about you, the human being. What’s your story? How’d you get to be here today? Yeah.

 

[ 00:13:08 ] So like I said, I mean, I, my background’s in manufacturing a little bit and stuff. And I did that and I jumped into real estate and I just loved it. You know, I mean, there’s something about sales, right? And it’s not just sales, but it’s connecting with people, you know, just like us here today. Like I didn’t know you guys and I’m coming in here. Now we’re best friends. You’re going to take me golfing.

 

[ 00:13:33 ] That’s a rough course. That is a rough course.

 

[ 00:13:35 ] Oh yeah. I’ve been there once with one of my good buddies.

 

[ 00:13:40 ] But no, I mean, it’s it’s been a journey. So I got my real estate license in 2000, 17 or 18—um, you know. Love all the brokerages that I was with. I mean, I was, uh, Kate Wagner— just a throw a name out there. I mean, she was my mentor and she’s a great person, excellent agent. I learned everything that I know from her and she just kind of grew me into what I’m doing today in real estate stuff, you know? And so naturally, as you progress in your real estate career, you want to either develop a team or open your own brokerage. Sure. I chose to go the brokerage route. We opened JF Property Group in 2020. Two and so here we are. You know, awesome.

 

[ 00:14:24 ] And how many agents do you have today?

 

[ 00:14:26 ] We’ve got eight agents. Um, yeah, eight agents, and a couple of them are on referral status. A couple of them are brand new agents. I don’t actively recruit people. You know, if somebody’s seeing, I’m doing a good job, and they reach out to me, like, ‘Let’s have an open discussion and uh see if we’d be a good fit.’ But there’s there’s some people out there, you know, it’s a work relationship. So you don’t want to open the floodgates to everybody coming in. I want to enjoy the people that I work with. I can depend on them, and they can depend on me.

 

[ 00:14:53 ] Yeah, awesome. So, did you grow go to? Center Grove High School. I didn’t go to Whiteland. Uh, okay. Didn’t go very far.

 

[ 00:14:57 ] Uh, went to Whiteland. Ended up moving to Franklin. And then, in 2021, when interest rates were great, you know, we moved to Center Grove Area and found a nice house there. And uh, I’ve got three boys. This was nice. What’s the family? I got three boys. Um, I used to say three, six, nine, but they’re grown up now. So four, seven, and ten. Oh, wow. Prime.

 

[ 00:15:20 ] You’ve got the prime activity, Tom, right now.

 

[ 00:15:23 ] Every day something breaks in my house. Yeah, I bet.

 

[ 00:15:27 ] Plus, you’ve got, you know, all the events— I’m sure that they are— with school. You know extra sports or music or whatever they’re into? Please tell me you got a suburban or a minivan.

 

[ 00:15:35 ] Right, my wife has a Traverse. Okay, there you go. TV’s in it and stuff like that for trips and stuff. But yeah, my oldest is in baseball. So he’s gotten full gear into it. He got picked for the All-Star team. Cool. Um, which was super cool. He was excited about that, and then he just joined the Center Grove Travel Baseball Team. So awesome. I’m super excited. So your weekends are full.

 

[ 00:15:58 ] That’s what you’re saying?

 

[ 00:15:58 ] I don’t have weekends. They’re his weekends.

 

[ 00:16:01 ] I’m surprised you’re here. Right? Yeah, no kidding.

 

[ 00:16:05 ] Is the season starting now? Uh, it’s right now. It’s uh… what? They call fall ball so okay you know you got like wreck or recreational season and then uh they do the all-star stuff and then they got fall ball and then travel ball will be coming up here. Travel is kind of year-round but I’ll be honest, my wife takes care of all that stuff. Right.

 

[ 00:16:23 ] Thankfully, you just look at the calendar.

 

[ 00:16:25 ] That’s where we got to be at.

 

[ 00:16:26 ] Yeah. I had a good buddy that had five kids kind of in that zone. Yeah. And they had a Google calendar, literally live. It’s the only way they could manage. There’s three still. That’s a lot. Yeah. That’s good. It’s good.

 

[ 00:16:40 ] So tell us about your ink. Yeah. Oh, gosh.

 

[ 00:16:44 ] You got some interesting stuff going on.

 

[ 00:16:46 ] I got a couple. It’s one of those things. You get one when you’re younger, and then you’re like, ‘Oh, one turns into two, and two turns into 30.’ That seems to be the trend. Right. Yep.

 

[ 00:16:55 ] So any meetings behind him? Inspiration that led to some of them?

 

[ 00:17:00 ] Yeah. I mean, all of them kind of have a personal meaning to them a little bit, you know, and a couple of Bible verses and, you know, family members that have, you know, passed or, you know, stuff that means stuff to you. So, yeah. That’s awesome. I won’t take my shirt off here.

 

[ 00:17:16 ] So you’re a golfer, obviously. So any other? Interests watch out.

 

[ 00:17:23 ] Um, you know, I’m uh, you haven’t opened your gift from me yet. No, I will a little bourbon in there. So, oh, nice. I like like a little bourbon. Uh, tomorrow actually. Uh, me and the real estate agent team— we’re going out kayaking at blues canoes. Oh nice, that’ll be super cool. Where’s that at? Down in Edinburgh, okay, south of Greenwood and Franklin. There’s actually on the river. Or just a body of water. I wouldn’t even call it a river. It’s like a creek. Yeah. Okay. So a couple of spots, you got to drag it. We like Morse reservoir by him. So that’s where we go. Yep. Yep. We’ve been out to, we got at the house, I’ve got three kayaks. So me and my wife will go out to like Eagle Creek or something like that. You know, it’s pretty cool. I’m outdoors.

 

[ 00:18:06 ] I like Eagle Creek itself, but the. The launch for kayaks is like a danger to society right off the left. Right, it’s like they got to shoot with the rocks and all that stuff, unless they fixed it. Uh, because usually you could go off the marina, yeah. And then they forced you to go down this other and it was, I mean, it’s dangerous. It’s bad.

 

[ 00:18:24 ] It’s been a few years since we’ve been out there, but when we did, they had like a wooden thing that you set your kite on and like walk it down. Correct.

 

[ 00:18:32 ] So, what if you let go and it just— you end up with the pile of deadwood at the end that is collected, and they haven’t cleaned out right. Oh yeah, it’s a day. It’s, I’m surprised somebody hasn’t truly passed away. Right. That’s why we went up the marsh. Because it’s. They got two launches. It’s beautiful. There’s nothing in the way. It’s you know, easy. Yeah. So anyway, but yeah, no kayaks.

 

[ 00:18:56 ] It’s cool. Oh yeah. So how would people find you? Yeah.

 

[ 00:18:59 ] Um, you can do a Google search. I mean, Greenwood real estate agent or Carmel, anything like that. They’ll find us there. Uh, we’re pretty active on social media. Um, you know, and just, uh, Word of mouth. I mean, I’m sure they know somebody that.

 

[ 00:19:13 ] So is it jfpropertygroup. com?

 

[ 00:19:17 ] jfpropertygrp. com. Okay. Great. There’s a company in like South America that has a domain. Of course. Really? I haven’t bought them out yet.

 

[ 00:19:24 ] So you’re like, what is that?

 

[ 00:19:25 ] Right? $3,000 to buy the domain or something.

 

[ 00:19:29 ] Well, I appreciate you coming on.

 

[ 00:19:31 ] Yeah. I appreciate you guys for having me out.

 

[ 00:19:33 ] I appreciate you bringing a gift. He’s the first. Right?

 

[ 00:19:36 ] Usually we’re the ones giving the gifts away.

 

[ 00:19:38 ] Exactly. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. Points. I appreciate it very much.

 

[ 00:19:41 ] If I could add a little more here, I got to give a shout out to my team. So everything that we’re doing here in real estate and kind of making a wave in the market, definitely couldn’t do it without the agents that I work with. So a little shout out to Tylee Davis.

 

[ 00:19:56 ] she’s killing it that’s the one i was telling you about that’s a property manager and she’s got a license recently but she’s just absolutely super knowledgeable ask any questions that she has and she takes great care of her clients um a couple other ones aj white he’s been with me forever he’s been a personal friend of mine since i was about 16 years old and i dragged him into real estate and uh he’s like he thanks me every day he’s like man thank you so much for getting me into real estate you know but he’s knocks out closings uh greg He’s down in Franklin specifically, and he’s just dominating the Franklin area. Awesome. He’s got a property under contract yesterday. He just got another one under contract today, and he’s doing some big things out there. And then Samantha Mann, I went to school with her, and she’s had her license for a couple of years and just doing some great things as well. She just got a property under contract yesterday and listing active right now. So we’re doing some big things. Love it. That’s awesome. Excellent. Awesome.

 

[ 00:20:55 ] Yeah.

 

[ 00:20:55 ] All right. Thanks for coming. Hey, thank you guys. I appreciate it. Oh, you’re welcome. Yeah. Thank you.