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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Jeremy Beland, a successful real estate investor and coach specializing in off-market properties. Jeremy shares his inspiring origin story, detailing his journey from a challenging childhood to becoming a thriving entrepreneur. He discusses the importance of perseverance, the lessons learned from his experiences, and his future goals in the real estate industry. The conversation emphasizes the significance of relationships and the impact of kindness in business.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jeremy Beland (00:00)
So I was basically on the brink of foreclosure and bankruptcy myself. I spiraled into depression. This was in my early thirties because as a dad, as a man, right, you just feel like you can’t provide everything. My family went through as a kid. like, here it is history, pizza self. I’m doing the same thing. ⁓ but I was learning about real estate investing that that time.And I had no hope and I had an opportunity to say, all right, I could go into the military and I was going to go into the air force at 33 years old because I couldn’t afford to go to college. couldn’t find a job, but the military was going to pay me $33,000 a year to come into the military and get me an education. I was like, well, it’s better than zero.
Q Edmonds (02:09)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am excited to be here today. We have another fantastic guest and listen, I’m so excited about this gentleman. I’m excited about what he brings to the real estate world, right? Specialized in off-market properties. One of their strengths is their conversion rate. But what I love most is that he’s a coach.because he wants to show people how to get better at what they do. And so I’m excited about his mindset and I’m so glad that he brings that mindset to this platform. And so I want to introduce you all to Mr. Beland Mr. Jeremy, how you doing today,
Jeremy Beland (02:53)
I’m doing very well. Thanks my friend. I’m happy to be on your podcast. It’s great honor. So I appreciate the opportunity.Q Edmonds (02:59)
Absolutely, man. Thank you, sir. You could be anywhere in the world, but you’re here. So I honor that and I appreciate that. And listen, man, I want to dive right in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. ⁓ I would love, man, you give us a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got to where you are now. We love origin stories. And then, man, if you don’t mind, tell us demographically, geographically, where you are in the world. so, Mr. Jeremy, sir, you got the floor, man.Jeremy Beland (03:26)
All right, great. I’m based out of Jeremy B land, 49 years old, turning 50 this year. Good Lord. I can’t even believe it. I’m not going to know what, because I hope I make it to 50, but I said in my 10th year of real estate investing and I decided when I was 40 years old, I’ll get you into my origin story quickly in a second, but I’m based out of Southern New Hampshire.Q Edmonds (03:32)
Let’s go.Amen.
Jeremy Beland (03:47)
Just about an hour north of Boston. So everybody listening, you’re probably going to hear that my thick Boston accent, you know, when I started saying like park and car and things of that nature. Um, but that’s why, um, you know, my home buying business, which I’m still actively doing, um, you know, we’re up here in New Hampshire. We buy in Massachusetts and we actually do some work down in Florida and the treasure coast of the Port St. Lucie area. Um, I’ve been wholesaling in other markets was up in upstate Western New York for a while, Buffalo and Rochester. did 150 wholesale deals there in about two and a half years at one point.Q Edmonds (03:55)
Yeah.Jeremy Beland (04:17)
did a whole bunch of stuff down in the Port St. Lucie area in Florida. Did stuff in Wichita, Kansas for a while. Even did a deal in Vegas. That was early in my career when I realized that I just could scale everywhere to just be magical. And I found out through time that less is more, especially as I had gotten older. But my origin story is quite crazy. And I’m going to try to sum this up pretty quickly, right? So, you know, I,As you know, I’m pretty old. So I came into this world a long time ago. You know, I came into this world with a single mom, no dad, in poverty, you know, basically homeless and on welfare and things of that nature. So, you know, the first years of my life was really challenging for my mom and she did a great job. And then she met somebody and we started to slowly, she got married and we started to have some success.
And next thing you know, was an adolescence in Southern New Hampshire. And we ended up having like a home and
⁓ I had a bike and a TV and we had cars and like things were lot of things that I didn’t have as a young child. Things were going pretty good. but my stepfather at the time decided to leave a corporate America job and start his world into entrepreneurship, starting a residential and commercial window cleaning business. The process of doing such, we ended up losing everything.
And by the time I was getting ready to go into my freshman year of high school as a very troubled delinquent youth at this point, ⁓ you know, we went through bankruptcy foreclosure. They lost the house. lost everything. All the cars were repossessed. And next thing you know, I was 13 years old and we were basically homeless. And, you know, they struggled to try to make ends meet and then really just set me up for really not success the rest of my life going forward. You know, ⁓ got into a lot of trouble as a young youth, know, drugs, alcohol, got arrested, things of that nature.
Next
thing I know I’m 15 years old and I drop out of high school. I started working full time making $4.25 an hour and had no money, no credit. My family didn’t have no money, no credit and it wasn’t really looking good for me. But eventually as I started becoming into my late teens, I found the gym and that was my first thing of…
You know, just working on myself, right? World of like, could put in some effort and get some return. was just more of my first self-development process, which led me to playing semi-pro football. And at this point in time was in my early twenties. This was right around the turn of the century. Yes, that long ago, uh, I was a high rise window cleaner working in Boston off skyscrapers. And I was making about $24,000 a year hanging off skyscrapers, you know, in the cold and the, in the, it was terrible. Um,
Anyway, I had no money. A $400 beta car and a friend of mine that I was playing football with said, hey dude, I got an opportunity for you. Why don’t you come work for me? Which was a sales job.
And that sales job was to sell copy as printers and fax machines and things that I need to know. never even owned a tie in my life. I had to literally go buy my first tie, have somebody tie it for my job interview. I got to the job interview. They said, Hey, wow, you’re breathing. You’re hired. So somehow I got lucky for making $24,000 a year working ⁓ on a skyscraper, you know, covered in pigeon poop every day to $24,000 a year in an office with the potential to make more commission. ⁓ have some success led me to another,
you know, sales job, business to business, which.
If you guys know business to business, you do a lot of cold calling, a lot of door knocking, a lot of gatekeeping, you know, really hone my skills for sales to come. Uh, but I was so grateful to have that opportunity, right? wasn’t like getting physically cold and dirty every day. All I had to do is have people tell me no, and just go on to the next office and knock on their door. Um, follow some success with that. Next thing I know, you know, I’m, you know, I’m married in my late twenties and I am making six figures a year and like, you know, I have a nice house in New Hampshire.
I
have two young kids. I have a pool in the backyard. I own a camper that we go up to a campground and I have two cars that are really nice. For me who grew up incredibly poor, like really, really poor, I hit the epitome of what, you know, the white picket fence of what I consider success watching sitcoms in the 80s and 90s. And I was so thrilled.
And then the great recession came and completely changed everything. And if for you guys who know the great recession, 2008, nine and 10, that was definitely a housing crisis, which I was affected with, but it was also an employment crisis. And I went from having a really good job to having no job like many other people. And because I had no college degree, no high school degree, um, I couldn’t find a job anywhere. And next thing you know, my house was upside down in equity, $150,000. My wife was still working as a teacher at that time, but we couldn’t afford it. And there was no.
loan modifications and everything else, no refinance options.
So I was basically on the brink of foreclosure and bankruptcy myself. I spiraled into depression. This was in my early thirties because as a dad, as a man, right, you just feel like you can’t provide everything. My family went through as a kid. like, here it is history, pizza self. I’m doing the same thing. ⁓ but I was learning about real estate investing that that time.
read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the Castro Quadra, and I was learning from people like Peter Conti, and I was kind of dabbling into everything at that time. ⁓
And I had no hope and I had an opportunity to say, all right, I could go into the military and I was going to go into the air force at 33 years old because I couldn’t afford to go to college. couldn’t find a job, but the military was going to pay me $33,000 a year to come into the military and get me an education. I was like, well, it’s better than zero.
I’m going to do it. And, but they weren’t going to hire me because if I went through foreclosure and bankruptcy, couldn’t get the top secret clearance. I needed to do what I was going to do, which was try to get a recession recession proof job of selling.
Q Edmonds (11:19)
Yeah.Jeremy Beland (11:20)
networksecurity. So, um, on the break of foreclosure and bankruptcy, I reached out to a local real estate investor who came out and successfully helped me short sale my house. So my first off-market deal, I was the motivated seller.
So I know what it’s like to be on the other side. And that guy gave me a reset button in life. And honestly, if it wasn’t for him here, I wouldn’t be here today. Um, he, you know, he, he helped us out and I could go on and on how he provided so much value during that time for us. Um, but he changed my life. He gave me a chance to rebuild and get into it. Um, so, yeah, that’s it. I went into the basic training at 33 years old, just before I turned 34, the age cutoff went into basic training. My nickname was Gramps because I was sitting there with a of seven year old kids. Um, you know,
Q Edmonds (12:01)
Mmm.Jeremy Beland (12:04)
And started to rebuild myself, came out, got divorced, started to slowly build myself up. thing I know, dude, I’m 40 years old. making six figures again, kind of living paycheck to paycheck as a divorced dad of two kids. And, ⁓I said, I needed something more. And as we get older, we start to realize we’re starting to become more vulnerable, more expendable. And I was really worried about if I don’t take control, what happens if the economy crashes again? What if the owner of my company decides to sell? What if I have to go back on the job market again? I don’t have many qualifications. Yes, I have years of success in real sales, but that didn’t help me the first time. May not help me a second time. That’s when I took a bold move. I was listening to Wholesaling Inc podcast at that time, traveling around the country on my sales job. ⁓
Decided I was gonna go into wholesaling because I didn’t even though I wanted to flip and buy rentals Didn’t know you could use other people’s money to do that So I said I have no money But if I learn how to do wholesaling at least I could find a way to get properties at the lowest level and maybe build it to something better Which I did ⁓ But I had no money to join the coaching program
and I had no money to start the thing. So I owned a townhouse that I bought two years earlier. I decided to sell that townhouse and take the equity I had, which was about 17 grand. I basically moved my kids into a crappy little two bedroom apartment in not such a great neighborhood in the next town over. And I took $11,000 and I put $5,000 into a coaching program, $6,000 into the initial marketing spend and the beginning of starting up my LLC back in late 2016 when I turned 40 years old.
And I bet everything I had on starting my wholesaling business. Got my first wholesaling deal. know, March of 2017, you can see the check is right behind me. I still hold that today. I 5,000 bucks, went on to do 10 deals that first year, do $73,000, built the foundation of what was to come. As I stand here today, 10 years later as a full-time investor for the last six years now, we’ve done over 500 off-market deals. We’ve done over $12 million in gross profits. You know, I have a rental
or fill a little month, multiple States. And I, most importantly, I’ve been super present with my family for like the last seven, eight years. And I built a life based around what I want to do. And I love real estate. So I’m building this, like this job, this business that I get to do every day, but it’s also built around my family first and my lifestyle for us. So that’s my origin story.
Q Edmonds (14:30)
Yeah, man, I wish you would really tell us like what you’ve been up to for the last 10 years. I’m just, I’m messing that, bro. Thank you. Thank you for taking us, man, on the journey. As you was writing, I’m writing down your resume. I’m taking notes. Eventually I just had to get to the point where I just put the pen down and just was just listening, man. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,Jeremy Beland (14:36)
Yeah, you’re welcome.I know it’s a lot, I’m sorry, I tried to go as quickly as I could.
Q Edmonds (15:39)
I love stories. think Kobe Bryant, before he passed away, Kobe, he was on a, he was on a Lewis Howes, the School of Greatness podcast. Not sure if you heard of the School of Greatness podcast. You probably would love this podcast. So you ever heard of it? Okay, perfect. So he was on the School of Greatness podcast and Lewis asked him, what, what are you trying to do that you have not done? And Kobe said, tell the perfect story. Kobe said, nothing in this world moves without story.Jeremy Beland (15:53)
Yes.Q Edmonds (16:08)
Story moves everything. The microphone that’s in front of you, there’s a story behind that. The hat that you have on, I’m sure has a VIN number that can be traced back to how, what factory was created. Maybe even to the person that created or the mind person that created all that stuff. And so, no man, I thank you for the gift of your vulnerability, the gift of your transparency and you sharing your story. And as you was talking, so many things was coming to mind. First, you’re 49 years young.Like, bro, you’re just getting started. You’ve already accomplished so much. I was listening to somebody and they said, the research show that the most profitable years of people’s life is when they’re in their sixties. The second most profitable is their seventies. The third most profitable is their fifties. So bro, when I look at you, man, you’re just getting started. I would not pay you to be 49, but I feel like you’re just getting started. And man, and so.
Jeremy Beland (16:51)
Yeah, for sure.Wow.
That’s how I feel. Yeah.
Q Edmonds (17:06)
I was writing down that, you know, the things that you just, said, we talked about your mom, talked about, you know, dropping out at 15 years old, just talk about just how you build up now to this $500 off market deals, $12 million. I mean, so you are personification of what I’m about to say. And I say this probably once every episode that destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning no matter what we’ve been through in life, destiny has a way ofbuilding these moments that kind of make us who we are today. And so, man, just listening to you talk, bro, it’s like, I want to ask you, and if you could put it in words, what has destiny taught you about yourself? On this journey to success, what has it revealed to you? Has it revealed strength? Has it revealed resiliency? Like, what has this journey revealed to you about you, if you could put it into words?
Jeremy Beland (17:40)
Yeah. ⁓Yeah, well, know, destiny is great. And as I was, as we get older and wiser and more experienced, we have a different reflection on life as time goes by. And, know, and I look back at the, those times of 2008, nine, 10, those were the worst. That was like really a low time in my life. I was super depressed at that time. That was the worst. was suicidal. I was on, you know, I wanted my life to end, you know, because I was a dad, I didn’t take, you know, advantage of that situ, you know, those thoughts that were going in my head, those feelings. But I look back now.
It truly was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
And it’s really become my calling. Right. So that guy who took care of me that day, you know, all these years later, you know, I’ve been able to do that to local people in my communities by giving them reset binds, right? We’re a lot of good people fall in high times, right? We’re all one or two life choices or one or two life decisions from being a situation where we need help to get out of our situation. And sometimes our house is that help. And I’ve been able to pay it forward so many times and now we get to teach people to pay it forward. Um, you know, so now it’s been hundreds and now
And my coaching programs, thousands. It’s like, who would ever thought that time in my life would have been my calling. So there’s a little bit of my destiny, but as far as who I’ve become, you know, I think of perseverance is really the, the key word you can probably see up over my head. That’s Rocky, right? The famous quote, it’s not about how many times you get knocked down. It’s about how many times you get, uh, get up and keep on swinging. That’s how life is, you know, we’re all going to get knocked down. listen, I told you about my success, but I’ve had a lot of failures along the way as well in the business. And, know, even this passion,
year, you know, there’s been a couple deals where I lost a significant amount of money. Those things are going to happen. But what am I going to do? I just need to get back up, get better and keep going. And over time, with the help of more mentorship and more experience and learning from my mistakes in my past, I’m going to get better. So perseverance would be the key word that I would say out of the ones that you described.
Q Edmonds (19:59)
No, absolutely loving man. have a saying where I say failure is just fertilizer, right? Failure is just fertilizer for us to grow. And like most of the time when you look at what fertilizer is, it’s dung, it’s mess, it’s poop, it’s stinky. Like we don’t want to handle it, but truth be told, it has the nutrients to help us grow to the strong oak trees that we are today, right? And so that’s all it is, man. These are just lessons to learn from to just help you grow.Jeremy Beland (20:13)
Good point. Yeah.I that.
Q Edmonds (20:28)
To me, again, you’re the personification of that. And that’s why I’m so glad that you shared the gift of your vulnerability, Let ⁓ me ask you this. What is your next real goal? What are you looking to solve a scale next,Jeremy Beland (20:31)
Thank you.You know, I, you know, we’re continuing to grow here in our new England market. You know, um, what are, you know, with my, my local house buying business, you know, we become one of the largest and most popular and, most successful house buying companies in the last 10 years. Something I’m really, really proud of. If you even think from a small business perspective, most companies don’t even make it five years, nevermind 10.
Right. So that’s a huge accomplishment in itself. But, know, I’m in it for the long haul. You know, I know we all get into real estate to retire, but who wants to retire from a life that you already love doing? Right. And I can scale it to as few hours a week or as many hours a week as I want. And I’ve done both. And it weaves in and out and up and down, which is great, which is what I love about real estate. I can build any life I want around or my business around any life I want. here over the next 10 years, you know, we have a great team. We’re fortunate to have great people who’ve been working
for us for a long time. We’re going to scale, but I want to be over the next 10 years here up in the New England area as when somebody thinks of house buying company, they think of my brand. So I want us to be the number one house buying company. already there, but I want everybody to know the name. So that’s really what we’re going to like try to achieve over the next 10 years. like for listeners, like when you think of facial tissue, right? We think Kleenex, right? And I said this before we got on, right? Kleenex is just the brand. So when people think house buyer, I want them to think
New Hampshire home buyers is the prevalent house buying business in the realm. So we’re going do that. And I want to continue to work on my coaching business. You know, I never thought I’d really be a mentor, but you know, it’s been very rewarding. I love helping others build a life of freedom. Like we have, I want to continue to do that, um, you know, and a lot more just spend time with my beautiful wife as our kids are leaving the nest and travel and, you know, build for the next 50 years of our life. That’s what I’m all about.
Q Edmonds (22:31)
Man, I love it, man. I love hearing you talk, man. I love hearing you talk about your story. I love hearing you talk about your family. I love hearing you just talk about just manhood and just the journey and the vulnerable steps that we have to take in manhood, right? I tell people all the time, meekness is not weakness. To be able to harness your strength, talk about the different things you’ve been through, that’s the strongest thing about being a man is setting an example. like, hey, look, we all want to go through trials and tribulations. So I love it, man.⁓ I do want to get your perspective before we get out of here on relationship building. I want to know, is that important to you? How have you went about building relationships within real estate, within business? So talk to me a little bit about your perspective on relationship and relationship building.
Jeremy Beland (23:17)
I think, I think it’s huge. ⁓ I think your reputation is huge. think your relationship is huge. You know, it’s really important for me. just want people to know that I’m a good person, you know, whether you’re on the left side of the aisle, right side of the aisle, whether you’re religious, not religious, whatever your, you know, ideology is. I want somebody to be like, Jeremy’s a really nice guy. He’s kind. He gives, right? He makes an impact in people’s lives. So being a good, wholesome person is really important to me. ⁓ and I want to help people. ⁓⁓
you know, so having that reputation out there is really important. And I have to do that by kindness, not spewing hate, spewing, you know, my ideology, strong opinions and bashing others for having disagreements and things of that nature. So I don’t do any of that, but I love, you know, connecting with realtors in our network and other people, other professionals helping provide value. The coaching community has been a great aspect for that as well. ⁓ you know, obviously podcasts like this, you meet a lot of good people a lot of times with the mask.
of minds that we’ve been a part of and other coaching programs. met some really good people that have become really great friends and business partners along the way. you you always want to have a good reputation. People want to like you. People want to do business with you. And if you’re good to people, it’s going to create you more opportunity financially as well. So, you know, be kind, help people. It all comes back around. Comma is a B as they say. So don’t be on the bad side of comma.
Q Edmonds (24:46)
Man, so very well said, my friend, so very well said. Yeah, listen, I gonna even, you know, I come from old school church background, so I say, you don’t over preach the preacher, right? So what you just said was just so eloquently said, man. listen, Jeremy, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they reach out to you,Jeremy Beland (25:00)
Thank you.Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you what, Quentin, if you don’t mind, I’m to give them a link for a free gift. Right. So, ⁓ as we talked about early, you might, my, I’m all about conversions, right? My business and what we teach in our coaching program is about taking leads and having the skillset with communication skills over the phone and in person and take those leads and convert them to contracts that actually close, not just contracts, but contracts that close. That’s a big difference. ⁓ so there’s a lot of acquisition skills that go into that. So, ⁓ we built this ebook. It’s called the talk.
sales techniques to get more deals bigger deals with less cancellations if your listeners want to go to REIFreedom.com forward slash gift that’s REI for real estate investing freedom one word REIFreedom.com forward slash gift they can go ahead and download that book for free implement those techniques into the business right away I guarantee a massive impact outside of that you know feel free to reach me Jeremy Beland B E L A N D I’m on all the social medias
I literally talk to people all day, every day for free by the way, and help them within their business. If you have a question about marketing, conversion, dispositions, acquisitions, business, anything, shoot me a message. I’ll answer it. I promise I’ll help you out. I do it all the time. Happy to.
Q Edmonds (26:27)
Listen, man, let me say three things to you real quick, man. First, thank you for your time. I think you know your time is valuable. You can be doing anything with your time, but you chose to be here with us. So definitely thank you for your time. Two, thank you for your story, man. ⁓ I put a premium on stories. I believe stories have a way of planting seeds in people that somebody or something can come along and water and then the growth start to happen. So.Jeremy Beland (26:35)
So.Q Edmonds (26:55)
Sometimes we don’t see the impact from our stories, but just planting the seed is sometimes enough. So thank you, man, for leading my vulnerability, leading my transparency, leading with integrity, leading with honesty. I appreciate your story. Secondly, I mean, thirdly, and lastly, thank you for your mindset, man. Thank you for your perspective and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you being here today, man.Jeremy Beland (27:13)
Thank you.That’s my pleasure. a great honor. Thank you for allowing me to share my story. And again, for any of the listeners, if you, if you need any help on your journey, feel free to reach out. always happy to help. We’re all blessed, blessed to be doing a podcast on a Wednesday afternoon rather than sticking in some office where I have to work for some dude I don’t want to work for or do that.
Q Edmonds (27:39)
Come on, Again, so well said, man. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Jeremy. You got the nuggets. You got the story. Look in the show notes. He didn’t give you a free gift. Look in the show notes. You can connect with it there. We got it down there. Look in the show notes. So definitely connect with Jeremy. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Jeremy. So sir, thank you again.And to everyone else, God have a fantastic day.
