From Sanitation to Success: Jason Becker’s Real Estate Journey Revealed

Quentin Edmonds (01:31)
everybody, welcome to the investor field podcast I am your host Quentin Edmonds better known as Q and today I’m joined by someone I have been looking forward to chatting with and that’s my man Jason Becker who’s been making serious moves He’s been in the industry for a little bit and he has some some unique perspective especially when it comes to podcasting which is what you are watching and tuning into and so

Jason I’m so glad to have you in with me man. How you feeling today, brother?

Jason Becker (02:04)
I’m excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. It’s quite an honor to come on to y’all’s podcast and be able to talk to you all. It’s a lot of fun to share in the journey.

Quentin Edmonds (02:14)
Absolutely. Absolutely. So listen, think our listeners are really going to take something away ⁓ from you and your approach. I don’t want to give too much away, you know, because you have said a lot of things that, that, that aligns with me and my core values that align with invested fuel and their core values. And so I’m really excited to hear from you. So man, let’s, let’s just dive in. So first off with people who may not know you, of course, you know, you, you were all famous to me, but maybe everybody else don’t know you.

Right, if if if they want to be familiar with your world, I you to give us a short version of what’s your main focus these days

Jason Becker (02:53)
Yeah, so I’ve done a lot in my life. I’ve had the fortune to run a large regional sanitation company. I was the CEO of a company, sold that in 2009. Started doing real estate, and that’s what we’ll talk and dive into. And I still do real estate to this day. Did a lot of venture capital, a lot of equity investing as well. Still do all of that as well.

And lately here in life, I’ve started to become a storyteller through podcasting. So I produce podcasts and I have my own podcast called What the Hell Do I Know with JB? Which is funny because everybody in business knows me as Jason, but my closest friends know me as JB. And so if you watch the show, you can know me as JB.

Quentin Edmonds (03:40)
I love it, man. I love it, man. I love it, man. I really caught my attention about you was ⁓ the way that you want to connect, right? Like the way that you want to help folks, right? I want you to tell me a little bit more about that. If you want to dive into more about venture capital, venture capital, I would love that too. But listen, I just want to know more about just you and your approach when it comes to connecting and helping.

Yeah, tell me more about that.

Jason Becker (04:12)
Well, collaboration is always key. so for instance, ⁓ even in like venture capital, when I’ve had the opportunity to serve you, in venture capital, you bring on different shareholders from different backgrounds, from different ideas, and some of them are easy to work with, and some of them are very hard to work with. I found in the past that I tend to be the guy that kind of pulls people together. Hopefully how it allows people to see the value that maybe the business has or that opportunity has or the direction things are headed.

Sometimes that’s good and sometimes it doesn’t work out. So that particular world, the VC world is, ⁓ I mean, I tell people you could probably go to Vegas and sometimes do better. But the VC world is a world that I love because I love American ingenuity. I think it’s alive and well and I love to see businesses thrive. I think I read somewhere it’s like 93 % of our businesses in the United States are small businesses.

And so really, you you’ve got a very small subset of businesses that are the large businesses, but small businesses really create jobs. They’re the job creators in the country. And so if I can find these franchises and can find them that are creating jobs and value ⁓ and you know, and I can get a return, that’s great. On the real estate side of things, collaboration of course is key there. You’ve got to have people, you’ve got to find.

And that’s always hard, right? I mean, if you’re listening today and you’re an audience member today, and if you’ve ever done a flip in real estate, you know you have to have collaboration. You’ve got to have a GC if you’re not one, right? And then you’ve got to get your tile people in, your hardwood people in, your cabinet people in, your electricians and your plumbers and concrete and framers and roofers. I mean, it just goes on and on and on the amount of things you have to do. so collaboration’s key, and they don’t always work well together.

⁓ So that’s kind of what I’ve enjoyed and I’ve enjoyed doing that in the podcast world too. know, collaborating with people to create is always fun too.

Quentin Edmonds (07:02)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And listen, that’s not easy in this planet as I mean is really not like collaboration connecting It’s not always easy people don’t make it always easy. So

Jason Becker (07:14)
divided

country. A lot of people would think we’re a divided country. I tend to think that we just got some divided politics. But really, when you get down with folks and you sit day to day, I mean, look, we’re human, you know, and ⁓ we have souls and hearts and feelings and all those things. so keeping that in mind, it’s a lot it’s very easy to be a keyboard troll. It’s hard to do it face to face, right?

Quentin Edmonds (07:42)
Yeah, a lot of people don’t have carriage to do it face to face. A lot of people don’t have conflict resolution skills. Yeah, absolutely right. Because the bottom line is all of us, we’re not going to agree on everything. But how do we find common ground? How do we find conflict resolution so that we can power for it? And so, man, so I love that approach. And listen, in business,

⁓ what, what, what is it that keeps Jason back? I was about to call you JB, but I don’t know if we friends just yet. So what is it that keeps your world running smooth? What is it that keeps your engine and your businesses running smooth?

Jason Becker (08:29)
Well, I mean, if I’m honest with you, it’s my wife. I mean, I told somebody the other day, if something happened to her, I’d have to replace her with 20 people. So I mean, yeah. But it really is having good people around you. That’s what keeps us smooth. mean, my wife is certainly one of them. I’ve identified good contractors in great places. I’ve got a guy, I’ve got to give him a shout out, Dane, over at Emerald Crows Contracting. He’s done a great job. I work with really good people. I’ve got great insurance folks that I work with.

I can reach out to. you know, it’s, it’s been good people, but that takes time that really takes time. It takes errors. It takes having some bad picking and some good things. But, know, it just takes time to develop those relationships. And so even when you find a good person, you have to be willing to Have good communication with them so that they understand your needs.

and how you operate, and then you need to have good ears and listen so you can understand how they operate. Because that’s just what makes that world work. But I’ve had bad contractors, I’ve had tough insurance agents that maybe didn’t do the wrong. I’ve had people in my sphere that I’ve had to replace for sure over time. But right now I’ve got a good core group of folks that I work with.

Quentin Edmonds (09:46)
Well, you teed up my next question, man, you know, and we operated I know, you know, they had moments when kind of things get real when stuff goes sideways, maybe a deal, and you had to pivot fast. You mind sharing one of those moments with me when you had to make that pivot?

Yeah.

Jason Becker (10:36)
Yeah,

I mean, here recently, I mean, it wasn’t that long ago, my wife and I found a piece of property that, I mean, we’re really, you we went hard and heavy on it. So it was, it was right on the water in our area. We live on the Emerald Coast. So anything on the water in the Emerald Coast goes quick. We walked in, told them I’d give them cash, 10 day closed, and I won it. Great price. And we immediately knew that we bought it well. And it was a two bedroom, bath on the water.

In our area, it has to be nine feet above sea level. This happened to be on some stilts. I took it to the studs. I had to go through permitting process and all of that, but we recreated this home from a two bed, bath to a four bedroom, three and a half bath with an elevator on the water. Beautiful home, a great spot. We thought we would be able to flip it quick, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. Sometimes the economy switches. It took us forever to get in windows. We had some delays in the construction.

By the time it got done, interest rates had creeped up. And the price that it was for me to sell it was almost at a break even. Well, I don’t like to do anything for free. I don’t need to practice. You know what I mean? So we pivoted. We pivoted. And ⁓ my wife and I sat down. We talked about it. We brought in furniture. We found stuff that we could find. We put beds and everything and furnished it. And now it’s an Airbnb.

And it does very well. does well enough. It’s not like blowing my socks off, but it covers all my basis points. And so I’m now cost neutral on the home and I’ll hold it until interest rates start coming back down. We’ll give it a free fresh over and then we’ll sell it. And that’s what I do enjoy about real estate is that if you work it, you can work it. So it’s just having a plan and then being able to pivot when you can’t. And real estate allows that.

Quentin Edmonds (12:31)
Mm-hmm. See that’s the type of stuff that people don’t talk about enough. I mean honestly, it’s really it’s would separate the folks from the person that just dabbles and the person that kind of in it long term and I think that’s one thing he says sometimes, you know, you got to sit on it’s a holding pattern, right? And so yeah, man, I love that Yeah, absolutely. Right. Absolutely. So let me ask you this. ⁓ What are you focused on? Solving next like what’s your your next move like which?

Are you looking to scale anything? Like what’s the real goal for you?

Jason Becker (13:03)
Definitely, I definitely see, you know, in the podcast world, I’m scaling it up. I’m producing more podcasts every day. I’ll probably end up getting, I’m doing all my editing myself. I’m one of those guys, you know, again, being an entrepreneur and coming out of 2009, so in our business, you know, I just learned to do everything. I mean, back then I was buying homes on the courthouse steps or pennies on the dollar, you know, after the market crash.

And I still have all those homes and but I renovated a lot of myself. I just decided I’d learn how to do it. And I didn’t work a ton with GCs, but I did, you know, if I couldn’t do it, I’d bring in obviously a cabinet guy or flooring guy when I needed to. But I did a lot of stuff. I mean, I painted stuff, I fixed.

refrigerator or installed appliances and microwaves and refrigerators and all of those things just because I needed to know how to do it. So even with this podcast world, I like the collaboration and the media. We’re in an attention grabbing kind of culture right now and everyone’s attention seeking. I’m not necessarily wanting to grab attention, although I’m dabbling in that world now, but I’m figuring out how I can like leverage this. I’ve

created a studio and I pretty sure that people’s pods, but I learned how to edit and do all of that and do the reels and break through the algorithms and beat YouTube and all of those things to try to ⁓ broadcast everybody’s stories and testimonies out there. Aside from that and the real estate thing, I’m really looking forward to ⁓ probably the scale up you’ll see from me and it won’t be that far off in the future. I’ll be focused a lot on the Airbnb world. I think that’s a growing world.

like to find places that, ⁓ selfishly, at this stage in my life, as I’m starting to enter empty nesting, ⁓ I want to put places in different areas of our country where I can travel and have a week or two myself and then let other people pay for it for me. And so I see the Airbnb world really growing. I don’t think it’s done. I think, again, it all comes down to the buy. It’s all to buy. Run your numbers. Figure out what your average rents are. And rely on Shanty BT.

can tell you where the great areas are, where the great vacations are, what the average rents are, what beds and heads are running in those areas. so, you know, you don’t have like, there’s a lot of guesswork taken out today. And so don’t be afraid of this AI coming into the world for sure.

Quentin Edmonds (16:14)
Yes, sir. You man, you get your right on it. And I think that’s big, especially when you already have, you know, your media, your media in place, you already got some some properties ⁓ that you didn’t already, you know, secured and you’re sitting on and you and you’re moving in the right direction. And then, you know, talking about doing the Airbnb, I think it’s I think it’s big, man. I think it’s big. The next moves that you’re about to meet and things that you have in place.

And of course we know like with the next move, like it can either compound things or it can create chaos. I’ve in on how you play it, right? So, yeah, you know, yeah. So listen, a lot of people that’s listening, they’re either in their early journey ⁓ or they’re looking to level up. And I think they are really benefit from hearing this. And what comes to mind is about building relationships and growing your network. So what’s, what’s made the biggest ⁓ difference for you with like,

grow in and expand it. What do you think make the biggest difference for you?

Jason Becker (17:15)
hope that I’ve not burned any bridges. I’d like to believe that there may be a few out there, but I think that’s.

to try not to burn any bridges, to treat people, I mean, it’s like the golden rule, know, treat people like I want to be treated, you know? And so I think that that, I hope, I hope, right? I can’t be the best judge of me. So I’m probably the worst judge of me. I’ll give me an A plus plus, but I know, I hope, right? I hope that people, I haven’t burned bridges and that I’ve treated people well and I’ve been honest and acted with integrity.

When I deal with folks that are outside of my organization, I would prefer to hurt myself before I hurt them. And so that’s the way that we all should, if we could all walk this earth in that regard, I think it’d be a better place. Unfortunately, on this side of heaven, it’s probably not gonna completely work out that way. So ⁓ I think that’s probably what I would tell young people is collaborate, try not to burn any bridges.

You’re not going to have everything resolved. If you’re starting out in your journey, it’s not going to be resolved straight away. You know, I know you want to make it. I know you want to get there and I know you think you know everything, but you don’t. And it takes time. And, the good news is, is time is on your side. So stay focused, keep driving and things, good things will happen for you. promise if you stay focused and keep driving and treat people well, things will, the good things will happen for

Quentin Edmonds (18:48)
Yeah, Yeah, man. Yeah, you can’t fake that. ⁓ Relationships are everything in this matter. Yeah. You know, connecting is everything in this space. Treating people the way you want to want to be treated like that’s that’s everything, man. That’s that’s everything. And and I mean, such great advice with taking your time. Right. You’re not going to you’re not going to get it all in one shot.

So just be consistent. Take your time. There’s a saying, yeah, I’m trying to commit the memory and I think I have it. So hopefully I don’t butcher it, but it says slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Jason Becker (19:33)
Yeah, it comes out of the military. My brother’s in Marine Corps. so they would say the same thing.

Quentin Edmonds (19:37)
Yeah.

Right. That’s right. So before you run fast, slow it down so that it can be smooth. Then once you smooth it out, it’ll ramp up and it’ll ramp up on his own.

Jason Becker (19:50)
Well, I’ll tell you this, Q. When we had our sanitation company, and we were very fortunate, I was a second generation garbage hauler, and we had grown to the largest residential hauler in the state of Georgia, and one of the largest family owned sanitation companies in the southeast. The people kept knocking on our doors for years, 25 years in, my wife and I ran it for the last 10 years of it, 25 years in.

They knocked long enough and hard enough at our door. And I said, you know, I called my father-in-law who was the one that started, he was living in Florida and we were living in Atlanta. I said, Dave, this is the number they offered us. And he said, you know, the hungry pig gets fed, the greedy pig gets slaughtered. Now I was, and he was right, it was time to go. And so we sold that and we said, what could we do with cash on hand? And you know, when you’re that young, I was pretty young then probably in my early thirties. And I thought, man,

I’ve got all this cash. I’m rich, you know? But the one thing he shared with me though is that when you have a business, you have a spigot coming out. It’s pouring out cash and it’s giving you an income and the lifestyle that you’ve become accustomed to. But when you take that cash as a sale of it, you’ve turned the spigot off. So you’ve got to find another spigot. And real estate was the first thing I turned to. And I bought properties from those courthouse steps, around $30,000, $40,000. They were worth $80,000.

prior to 2007 market crash, they were probably, or actually they’re probably worth 80 that day, excuse me, they’re probably worth 130, 140 prior to the market crash. And I kept them all, I rehabbed them, did all the things myself, took my time at them and I still have them all. I call them my mailbox money. It sends me in the rental income every month. And at the end of the day, they’ve all appreciated over time.

back to around 300, 400, some of $500,000 plus per home. I did that across all of Metro Atlanta and several college towns in Athens, Georgia and Knoxville, Tennessee and different other places. yeah, I was very fortunate at that, but time plays a big key component. If you’re a young person out there today, I know you’re probably thinking I’ll never be able to buy a home. I would argue you should strive for home.

ownership and owning property and real estate in this country is meaningful. And if you look at the average person, the average person that decides they’re going to rent versus the average person that says, I’m going to own home. And let’s say that’s all you did. By the time you’re 65, you’re to have way more options. The net worth is traditionally for a person that rents somewhere in the quarter of a million dollars. Traditionally for a person that owns their home, only owns their home at the age of 65 is worth 1.5 to $2 million.

So it’s home ownership changes the game and it is in a way for savings but you have this appreciation, have depreciation, you have tax writers, you have all these things. In fact, I know I’m probably speaking to the choir to some folks. There’s folks that are watching this right now going, preach it, baby, preach it, because they’re But if you’re not in the game, get in the game, right?

So that’s what I would tell young people.

Quentin Edmonds (23:09)
Yeah, man, you putting them up on games, You putting them up on games, man, for sure. For sure, This is all right, before we wrap it up, before we wrap it up, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe even collaborate with you, or wonder more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you,

Jason Becker (23:30)
Well, I hate to say it, but we are in the day of social media. So I would tell you, go to my Instagram at underscore Jason underscore Becker. So go, go at Instagram at underscore Jason underscore Becker. The other thing you can do, believe it or not, check all my comments, all my DMS, all this stuff. So you can also check out what the hell do I know with JB? It’s everywhere you get your podcast. So you can find on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever, wherever you like to get a podcast. I’m there. So believe it or not.

You can DM me, you can comment to me, you can hit me up all those ways. I’ve got the old boring website, it’s called vintagewisdom.org, you can go there too. But yeah, so I love to help and collaborate. And honestly, I like conversation. You wouldn’t believe the DMs I get from young folk that ask me questions saying, know, hey, how can I save? Where should I invest? What should I do? And these questions, I love getting them. So DM me, hit me up. I got you, boo.

Quentin Edmonds (24:28)
Well, perfect man, perfect. Listen, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your story. You’re a great storyteller. You’re great at your craft, my brother. I appreciate your perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. So, Veech, thank you again, man, for being here, man. And thanks for those that’s tuned in. And listen, if you felt value in this,

Make sure you subscribe. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators and people just like my man, Jason Becker, who are building businesses the right way. So thank you so much. We’ll see you next time.