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From School Teacher to Real Estate Investor: How One Deal Changed Everything

By January 9, 2026Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Joshua Boyd shares his inspiring journey from being a school teacher to becoming a successful realtor and investor in Georgia. He discusses the challenges he faced, the importance of networking, and the mindset shifts that helped him succeed in real estate. Joshua emphasizes the value of community, integrity, and taking actionable steps towards one’s dreams. He also shares insights on his first real estate deal and the lessons learned along the way, encouraging listeners to take their first steps in the real estate world.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Josh (00:00)
    I said, but everything inside of my real estate agent training brain says to walk away. goes, you need to shut off agency brain for a second. Agency brain is telling you the truth. There’s a problem. Turn on investor brain now where we solve problems in unconventional ways. He goes, you’re going to call this person from our real estate club who specializes in repairing that type of damage and just go see what the cost is.

    So I did that and found out that actually this wasn’t going to be that bad because of the construction of the house.

    Dylan Silver (02:04)
    Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Joshua Boyd is a realtor and investor in Georgia. He leads the JRB Dream Team. He’s also a retired school teacher and also runs the Dealmaker Atlanta group. You can find him online at jrbdreamteam.com. Josh, welcome to the show.

    Josh (02:26)
    Hey man, I am fired up to be here. Thank you so much. Look, anytime we’re talking about real estate’s great, but when I’m talking about real estate with just kindred spirits and folks that get it, that makes it extra special. So I am fired up and excited to be here today. Thank you.

    Dylan Silver (02:41)
    Yeah, it’s great to have you. We were talking before the show. What a a backstory. So teacher and had a kid on the way and you said, I got to find a way to, you know, put some more bread on the table. And that was the entry point in a real estate, huh?

    Josh (02:59)
    It was, it was, it was kind of crazy. So it first off 10 years ago, I had a, I had a rental house and it pretty much everything that you could do wrong is what we did. I mean, that’s a whole story in 20, but if you could do it wrong, that’s what we did at that time. So I was swore, started to swear off real estate. I’m like, no. so I’ve got an 18 year old, a 17 year old. I’m so excited. I’ve getting towards the end of this teaching career. I’d done about 20, you got to go 30 to fully retire. And I’m like, well, if I can just make it.

    Even though it’s a lot long hours and I’ve sacrificed all this time, I’ve given everything, there’s nothing left for me to give myself. But then we find out that we’re going to have a baby again. And I’m like, my gosh, how in the world am I going to do that? And so I’ll tell you this, and then you can ask me questions, you know, because I’m really bad about I get asked something, I get excited and start talking. But like, I had this former student of mine, his name was Eric Vogel.

    Dylan Silver (03:46)
    Yeah, no, go ahead.

    Josh (03:51)
    If you want to see a picture of Eric, dude’s totally good looking. If you go to onpurposeinvestor.com, that’s a group and Eric and I kind of work it together. But I called Eric, so I was his teacher throughout band. I was a high school band director and he got his degree and he was teaching band and he was trying to mentor him and he only taught six years and dude walks out and retires and like is living life on his own terms, doing his own thing. And here I am, I’m 20 years in. I remember when he left, by the way, I was like,

    But screw you dude, you’ll be back. You’ll be back. Never came back. So I called him on the phone. Here I am approaching my 40s, calling this former student of mine in his 20s. And I was like, hey, Eric, yeah, I don’t know if you remember me. This is Dr. Boyd. dude, your life is awesome. I need to learn from you. What can I do now to become your student? And three years ago, that’s kind of what happened. And it’s how I got here. I kind of had to humble myself and

    Go ask a student to become my teacher.

    Dylan Silver (04:50)
    hey, you know, it’s one of the hardest things to do. It really is. I mean, you talk about having to pivot, right? But then also, hey, how do I get these skills? And I’ve had this experience myself, not, you know, going to to a student, but then also realizing, like, I have to go into these rooms where I know nobody where I don’t really understand the subject matter, but I know I need to be in there, right?

    And that’s half as intimidating as the process that you went through. When you were on that initial call and then follow up calls, did you have an idea, like the segment of real estate that you wanted to be involved in? Or were you more like, hey, Eric, I’m an open book, like help guide me here.

    Josh (06:21)
    It was kind of, man, look, I’m an open book. I, you know, it’s so funny too. And Eric, Eric was really good in that he taught me about before we figured out which avenue, cause real estate investing has so many different wonderful pathways that you can choose. But he had me start by getting out a piece of paper and he goes, I want you to write down an entire day in your dream life. You wake up in the morning, what do you smell? What do you do? What does that look like? And then we’re going to design a life based on your dream life.

    And so that was the first thing he did. And then the second thing is, he goes, and this is the local meetup, which shout out to Danny Williams in Triple E that meets in Fayetteville, Georgia. They still meet to this day and I still attend his meeting. It was my very first one. And Eric goes, you’re going to go to this meeting. And I was scared to death. Like I didn’t know, man, I didn’t know anybody or anything. And I dressed up and then I get in the room and figure out all these, all these guys got on Hawaiian shirts and shorts and. ⁓

    Dylan Silver (07:09)
    Yeah, yeah.

    Josh (07:19)
    But it kind of, started a journey for me of, I started way back at the beginning of feeling that I didn’t deserve to be in the space to where I am today, where I realized that everyone, every person that’s listening to this podcast, this call or watching it, wherever you’re seeing it, everyone deserves to be successful. And the true investors, it’s a community that wants to help everyone get there.

    Dylan Silver (07:32)
    her.

    You know, you hit the nail on the head when you said like how scary it can be to walk into that room. That was that I’m almost ashamed to admit this. There’s been some rooms like early on when I was when I was leaving Nissan and just getting into real estate, I was working in automotive where I was like so intimidated to walk into these rooms. I would show up and leave. Like it was it was that bad for me. I was like, I don’t I don’t know what am I supposed to what kind of value am I adding to this room here? Right.

    And then over time, just through like sheer white knuckling my way through networking, I ended up, you know, being able to work my way in with wholesalers and then with investors and realtors, then I’m going to foreclosure auctions. Next thing you know, here I am hosting a podcast and I’m a full time realtor. Like that’s exactly how it happened. So it’s not like it’s sunshine and rainbows walking into these circles. Like it is, it can be scary.

    Josh (08:39)
    No, but you know what? You did it because you took that first step. And to this day, I mean, what Eric taught me was to take, know what my dream life is, and then to every day wake up and take one step towards it. And what you just told me that you did, it’s amazing how many people never get to that step. I mean, and there were failures along the way for sure. I mean, there were conversations at networking hour, scared to death. I fumbled over myself.

    I remember it’s so funny. We talking about that I have a real estate license. And I just remember when I was, how did I end up licensed? Right? Cause I found real estate investing first, but I walk into one of these rooms and I’m trying to get this house from this guy who I realized now it was just compassionate. And he was kind of probably chuckling on the inside, but he taught me a lesson. goes, Hey, you got to have a skill. You can either have time or you can have money. I have money. What do you have? And I realized I had no time.

    Dylan Silver (09:14)
    Yeah.

    Josh (09:33)
    And I was a high school band director and nobody in the room needed a trumpet player, right? Like that’s not, that wasn’t a bartering skill. So I go, but I had a doctorate degree in education, meaning I am smart and I am book smart. So I go, I can get a license. And so I did a 75 hour course and I did it in about two weeks because I was book smart. And I went back to the room and I was like, I know license law. I will do these things for you for free with zero commission. I just need you to teach me. Now I don’t do that today. Don’t get me wrong.

    Dylan Silver (09:51)
    Yeah.

    Josh (10:02)
    But that’s how I got started, right? It was just, kept showing up, asking questions, fumbling over myself. So kudos to you, man, for like showing your power and just getting in there and be like, I’m just gonna get in the room. How many people who just don’t get in the room?

    Dylan Silver (10:13)
    Yeah.

    You know, it’s funny because that there was a couple rooms there was Texas Rias, the real estate investor. ⁓

    Josh (10:22)
    I hear those

    are the best too. Like I know Georgia Rias are great, but I’ve heard Texas Rias, there’s like where it’s at.

    Dylan Silver (11:02)
    hey, there’s probably some overlap some people who have been to both between the two of us, but Texas Rias, then there was also a real estate mastermind that I was going to in Dallas. And honestly, it was also just telling everybody wherever I went that I was buying or wholesaling distress real estate at the time. And through those conversations, deals happen. I’m like the first time that it happens, it’s like a switch goes off in your head, a light bulb comes on like,

    my gosh, all of this effort connecting with people, there’s actually a monetary benefit tied to it. I’m not just here just chopping it up. Like, that’s someone who I now have as a buyer for a property, which segment of real estate was your first deal in? Was it single family? And how’d you find that deal?

    Josh (11:50)
    Look, so my first deal that came along, was definitely single family and I had just gotten my license and I had one of my first five, I can’t remember if it was my fourth or fifth client, but I was newly in trying to figure it out and we had this thing happen. I’m trying to help them figure it out and they had a home inspection on their house. They were the selling, I was representing the seller, right? And my gosh, we found termites on the house.

    bad massive termite hit and the inspection basically said this house is a fall down house. You should do nothing. And here I am stuck with this house that we really needed to sell for like $200,000 that we now know we can’t sell. What in the world are we going to do? So I didn’t know what to do. So I called my friend Eric, right? Cause you know, it was like Eric, I’ve got this. know you’re Eric’s not a licensed agent. Um, but I called him on the phone and said, Eric, what do I do? He goes, this is it. This is opportunity.

    Dylan Silver (12:17)
    Mm.

    Josh (12:45)
    I said, but everything inside of my real estate agent training brain says to walk away. goes, you need to shut off agency brain for a second. Agency brain is telling you the truth. There’s a problem. Turn on investor brain now where we solve problems in unconventional ways. He goes, you’re going to call this person from our real estate club who specializes in repairing that type of damage and just go see what the cost is.

    So I did that and found out that actually this wasn’t going to be that bad because of the construction of the house.

    And that to make a long story short, this house that was valued at $200,000, I was able to buy it for $90,000 to put $12,000 into it. And so I got to the end of that, like, holy crap, I did it. And then again, agency brain came back up, right? And it’s like, now I can, I’m going to sell it and make money. But then Eric calls and he goes, do you want to make money or do you want to be a millionaire? And I go, I want to be a millionaire.

    He goes, now we’re going to talk about a DSCR rate and term refinance. I’m going to show you how to have it. You’re going to put four walls up. It’s not going to be a pad split. And instead of 1500 a month in rent, you’re going to get 3,200 a month in rent. And you’re going to walk away every month that you own this house for $800 a month. And that’s in addition to the equity. And it happened. And my brain went, holy crap. Because like for me, first off, I was, I was a teacher, right? That little extra.

    Dylan Silver (14:04)
    Yeah.

    Josh (14:05)
    $1,000 a month at that time of my life dude that changed my life like to this day I feel like I’m like religious here preaching like it I felt like it saved me and I got so excited I’m like if I could do three or four of these which by the way, that’s so limit limited thinking right but at the time I was like three or four ⁓ But yeah, man, that’s it all started with a mistake that occurred that everyone told me was the end of the deal I turned on investor brain

    Dylan Silver (14:14)
    I

    Josh (14:33)
    and investors solve problems. And by the way, that seller was so excited that I bought that house from them. They send me Christmas cards. They brought me candy because they had a baby on the way and they were stuck and they couldn’t get out of it. And I solved their problem. And so it was the culmination of all of that. And like you said, what we’re able to do as real estate investors is we help people. We solve problems.

    And in doing so, there is a monetary value for that. So today I tell people that I get paid to help other people solve their problems. what a great, I get paid to do that.

    Dylan Silver (15:09)
    Yeah,

    that’s the name of the game. And gosh, what a great friend to have in Eric. What a great phone call, right? That was a life changer.

    Josh (16:03)
    Dude, it was great. Now there’s been some funny ones along the way. So I remember the first time I found a deal, right. And I met my first, ⁓ my first lender. my, so his name is Keith Gettinger. can tell you he’s in Fayetteville. ⁓ And I called him on the phone because of course I learned then, and this was a real hard mindset shift for me. I grew up as a teacher with that scarcity, that money is limited. Now realize that money is abundant.

    But I remember when it’s like, I need to buy this house, but I have no money. So I call Eric and I go, I found this great deal, but I have no money. He goes, why do you think you need money? I said, well, cause you gotta have money to buy the house. He goes, no, here’s your next lesson. You’re gonna call this guy on this phone and you’re gonna tell him that it’s a good deal because this is a great deal. And he’s probably gonna lend you the money. So I call Keith on the phone and it was the…

    Most horrible pitch ever. I mean my voice cracked. I sounded like I was going through puberty even though it was like 40 I was like Keith you don’t know me, but my name is Josh and Because in my mind why would someone lend me a couple hundred thousand dollars like no one would do that, right? I can’t be fifty dollars. I mean my parents would but like not a lot of people But to make a long story short he shows up at the house. He walks through he looks at the numbers

    Dylan Silver (17:07)
    Yeah, who would do that,

    Josh (17:18)
    I find out later that of course he called Eric and Eric said this guy is trustworthy, take a chance on him. So I go back to, if you’re listening to this call, show up to the meetings because that’s how people get to know you. And I learned then that your reputation, your integrity, just like money, your reputation is something that you can barter. He found out that I was a person of integrity. So he’d landed me the money that helped me do the deal. And by the way, for my last six deals that I’ve done to like this 2025,

    I don’t have any of my cash in those deals. ⁓ Repeat business off lenders, but that was another mindset shift of, people out there, they want integrity. They want people of integrity. So if you’re listening to this call today, next thing I’ll share is that if you’re a person of integrity, you do what you say you’re gonna do, you’re honest about it, you can make it in real estate and you have something more valuable than money.

    Dylan Silver (18:12)
    Now, when we talk about getting into this space and we talk about folks, know, teachers or, you know, folks who have, you know, jobs working for the city or any number of different jobs or vocations.

    Would you say that they can get in, you know, get started in real estate as an investor through a similar type of thing? Because I pretty much dove in and it sounds like in a large way you dove in as well. But is there a way to kind of deep your feet in before diving in? Is there is that a possibility for people who want to invest?

    Josh (18:48)
    I absolutely think it is. We did we did three, four, five deals before I quit teaching because we had a baby on the way, right? So I couldn’t afford to just run out and hope it all turned out okay. And that’s something else I want to put out there. People will say burn the boats. And that is a philosophy that has been very successful for some people. It wasn’t going to work for me because I had a baby on the way, right? So I couldn’t do that. So I had to dig the well.

    before I could drink from it. So there was a whole year and a half where I was a licensed real estate agent, a high school band director, baby on the way, like I’m power playing through it all. But the thing is, is you can do anything you set your mind to if you want it bad enough. ⁓ One of my coaches I consider and probably like my number one mentor’s name is Reggie Law.

    Dylan Silver (19:28)
    Thank you.

    Yeah.

    Josh (19:37)
    And Reggie likes to say it like this, you can be anything that you want to be if you’re willing to do the work that it takes to get there. So ask yourself the question, is five years worth the rest of your life, or do you simply want to live the rest of your life the way it is today? And for me, I decided I was willing to do extra work for five years to have the rest of my life on my own means.

    Dylan Silver (19:53)
    Yeah.

    And you know, whether folks are employed looking for an on ramp to another life, or maybe they’re new realtors themselves. And I mean, as a newer realtor, seeing other realtors and seeing people who are like, man, this is hard, you can trick yourself into thinking that it’s going to be hard for forever, right. And I’ve seen it. And I’ve experienced it, there feels like there’s like this two year or 18 month on ramp where you’re going to be tested where there might be stretches of time where you

    feels like don’t make any forward progress. But then it you know comes in leaps and bounds too. And oftentimes it’s not exactly like, hey, here’s money in your account. could also be here, here’s a relationship which will benefit you in X period of time. And so I think that doesn’t get spoken to about enough, which is like, hey, it might not be this and this and this leads to dollars in your account. It could be, but it could also be, hey, we’re going to set up

    like the relationships, the background information that you need so that when you do run across that perfect deal, like a year and a half from now, you have all the dominoes in a row.

    Josh (21:10)
    I think that’s, I think what you just said is absolutely fantastic. I would even argue that sometimes the greatest relationships are more important than the money. And so, you know, we talked a lot about coaching and I’ve mentioned some of mine here. I know you’ve mentioned people that have opened up doors for you and that’s something too, I want to make sure someone listening doesn’t miss that. Who you allow to speak into you is extremely important. The world is full of folks that are trying to sell the next greatest thing.

    By the way, I’ve paid for some courses and seminars and they were worth every dime. But just be careful who you associate with. I mean, the people I know, like I was at Pete Fortunato’s course, I paid for this amazing note investing course that I went to last month, was worth every dime of it. But while I’m sitting in the room, one of my mentors, Reggie Law, what is he doing? He’s introducing me to relationships and people in the room.

    And you just can’t get over the value of the people that you met when I was with my last brokerage, exp. that’s where I got my start and I loved the XP. It was a great brokerage and my sponsor at exp, Jeff Richmond, he was incredible because what Jeff and his wife, Lexi did is they didn’t just show me how to do real estate. They introduced me to people in the room. Same today with where I’m at now with TJ McGraw TJ. When I, when I got to real broker, TJ goes, let me, I want to introduce you.

    Dylan Silver (22:21)
    Yep.

    Josh (22:28)
    to the people that can help get you from where you’re at to where you need to be. And that’s just something else that if you’re listening, find those people that make you better and will take you to the folks that you need to know and introduce you personally.

    Dylan Silver (22:44)
    it only has to happen once right because I think for myself I can speak for myself personally up until I saw a relationship that where this happened was like I knew this person we were friends for like six months never really had a deal that we were both mulling over then I call them out of the blue saying hey I’ve got this assignable contract in you know west of Dallas can you take a look at it and they end up

    doing the deal, we end up becoming JV partners on other deals, then you start to think, okay, all this time was worth it. So that’s definitely, you know, a takeaway for folks is don’t discredit the time you spend in those rooms. Yeah, you do want to be doing other things as well. It’s not just networking. But that’s certainly a big part of it. Now, now we are coming up on time here, though, Josh, any projects?

    Josh (23:34)
    man, I was

    getting excited. I was into this one. This is great. I’ve enjoyed this.

    Dylan Silver (23:37)
    Any any projects that you’re working on or how can our audience reach out to you or your team or learn more about what you’re working on?

    Josh (23:45)
    Well, first off, anyone can find me if you go to jrbdreamteam.com or if you email me at josh, j-o-s-h at jrbdreamteam.com. ⁓ can I get my cell phone number out? Is that, is that okay? My cell phone number is 770-639-5177. I, know, if you leave me a message, I will personally call you back. I’m always here to help. And I will just say, take one step. You know, today we do weird things like, we found a property that, that

    Dylan Silver (23:56)
    Go ahead.

    Josh (24:16)
    All my crews are out busy, so I couldn’t take it down. So I had another friend who’s an investor. I called him up and he got this house. It was valued at $150. We helped him get it under contract for $90. And then he figured out what he wanted to sell it for. But then I called him and said, hey, instead of selling that at $170, can I just buy it back from you at $126? When your crew is done with it, you’ll walk out. You won’t have to worry about any sale, any holding costs for 60 days.

    which is our days on market, I’ll just go ahead and take it from you right then. And that serves my purpose. He goes, well, I just don’t know if the private money lender works that, but we were at a meeting. So I knew his lender, because his lender had been my lender, a great lender. So I say, hey, come over here, Keith. Keith sits at the table. I go, here’s what we’re thinking about. Now, would you be willing to help us get that property from him to me so that I can do a rate and term refinance such that the original person got out of the house, the person that was then buying it

    Got it, did the rehab, paid the crew, walks away with a quick $20,000. The lender is happy because now he’s got somebody he’s already worked with that he’s secured his interest with, 10, 12%. We’ll get an additional 60 days. And I’m adding a cashflow and real estate to my house, to my portfolio that’s gonna have $90,000 of upside plus $300 a month in cashflow. Now, how did I figure all that out? Because it goes back to what we said today. I was in the right room.

    with the right people that inspired my mind to see deals that I could not have seen two years ago. And it all starts with just making the first move. So whoever’s out there listening, keep listening to this show too. I just, I want to throw that out there that maybe you can’t get to all the spaces. I started off listening to podcasts, this one and others just like it that it’s like, well, this is your room for today. And just take the first step. Cause remember mine started with one house.

    Dylan Silver (25:45)
    God bless the Frums.

    Josh (26:08)
    that was ganged up with termites.

    Dylan Silver (26:10)
    The termite house, the termite. What street was that on? You remember?

    Josh (26:13)
    It was on Burnham Road.

    Dylan Silver (26:15)
    Look at

    that first house, you know, everyone remembers that first one, Josh.

    Josh (26:19)
    I

    will never forget it.

    Dylan Silver (26:22)
    Thank

    you so much for your time. Thank you for coming on the show.

    Josh (26:25)
    Hey, thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity. This was great.

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