Subscribe via:
Show Summary
Josh Darville shares his journey from the military into real estate, highlighting how education, financial literacy, and continuous learning shaped his success. He stresses the importance of understanding market cycles, developing the right mindset, and adapting to changes in the industry. Beyond property investments, Josh manages multiple ventures, including a wedding venue, and underscores the role of networking, mentorship, and relationship-building in long-term success.”
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (00:00)
when it comes to young younger people that are trying to get into the business the number one thing that they can do is invest in their education and I would say that don’t go out and spend you know ten twenty thousand dollars with some guru or some mastermind spend ten or twenty dollars and buy alisten to that thing and listen to it again and take notes on it and actually digest the information that you get. ⁓ Grant Cardone or Robert Kiyosaki, those are some good books to start with. There’s a lot of other people that have written down all their best ideas. They put it into a book and then they actually talk to a microphone and talk to you as a person.
And that’s the number one thing you can do is start working on, if you want to do real estate, the first part of real estate you need to develop is in between your ears.
Dylan Silver (02:27)
folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is based out of Raleigh, North Carolina, active in flips, renovations, rentals, is involved as a direct lender and is also the author of a book, Pray and Prosper. Please welcome Josh Darville. Josh, welcome to the show.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (02:47)
Yeah, thank you guys for having me. It’s always a pleasure to be able to communicate and talk with other investors and share some of the interesting life of being a real estate investor. Absolutely.Dylan Silver (02:59)
I’m actuallya big fan, Josh, of the Carolinas because of this show. It wasn’t something that I had thought much about. I’m a Texas licensed realtor. I actually live outside of the country. I’ve never lived in the Carolinas, but I’ve had so many people tell me that it’s not just a great place for real estate investing, but it’s a great place for family as well.
Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (03:19)
Yeah, so there’s a couple of interesting things about the Carolinas. They’re too far north for all the hurricanes and they’re too far south for the really, really hard freezes. I used to live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or New York.Dylan Silver (03:32)
yeah.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (03:36)
You have a problem.seasons and the temperatures because water in real estate is one of the the biggest enemies you’ll have and if a pipe bursts in your house that you just bought and you thought the power was turned on or you thought the heater was working it can become a nightmare so I think that’s partly why a lot of people like Raleigh as far as investing goes because it extends the season and there is a season to real estate a lot of people don’t don’t
So if you buy a house you want to make sure that you’re gonna be taking it to market in the right sales cycle of your area So for schools and different things like that people tend to move in the summer move for school changes Also for renovating, know, there’s a there’s seasons where it’s rainy season And if you buy a house that needs a roof, well, you can really screw up if you it in the wrong season So it’s something else to think about
Dylan Silver (04:35)
I want to ask you, really at the top of the show here, about how you got into the real estate space.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (04:44)
so many other investors. A real passion for me started while I was in the military and my father actually sent me a book by Robert Kiyosaki called Rich Dad Poor Dad and in high school I was CB student and I really found a passion that I was into but sitting at ⁓ a desk you know where you’re basically on duty and you had nothing else to do reallyI was reading this book, I probably read that book in two days, and it changed the way I thought. And from there I started thinking, well, I need to understand how I buy assets. What is an asset? What is this magical thing that pays me? Assets feed me. Liability feed me. What does that mean? And so we started kind of going down that road of ⁓ exploring different avenues of what…
assets could look like. so I actually worked at a company for a while and learned about stock market investing and puts calls, short stocks. Started learning about ⁓ entity structuring. So for example, my, I have a trust, my trust owns different LLCs. And then from there we have, you know, different properties or investments in that. So really kind of just
Dylan Silver (06:41)
Yeah.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (06:59)
started down the rabbit hole back in, I’d say 2000 basically. Today is 9-11. ⁓ I got out of the military before 9-11 happened, so I was no longer in the military at that time. And at that point I was into learning everything I could about investing and working for a seminar company that’s currently no longer in business like so many are.Dylan Silver (07:19)
Yeah.I wanna ask you about the growth path in the real estate space. mean, if you compare even real estate markets from five years ago, some of the same strategies won’t work. So when you’re talking about 25 years ago, right, it’s a completely different ball game. But for someone to be active for as long as you’ve been active for, you would have had to have made some pivots. You would have had to weather some ups and some downs. Walk us through a little bit of that.
Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (07:54)
Sure, sure. Yeah, so the the market cycles are different right and even buying a house for cash flow these days It just doesn’t really work as well doing what we call value add With the rates kind of being higher and the cost of things the average house in America is now a half million dollars So when you read rich dad poor dad, you gotta kind of go back in time to where that’s at investing nowadays, I would say⁓ has changed a lot because you have to be more savvy and understand that you’re looking for asymmetric risk where your upside is ⁓ there, but you’re very much limiting your downside. And so that’s why wholesaling has become so popular. ⁓ For me, I started out with I need to learn as much as I can. So I worked at a bank.
Was a loan officer an unlicensed mortgage professional then I got my license as a mortgage broker ⁓ The mortgage industry tanked and I did a few other jobs in between there ⁓ And then I got my license as a real estate agent and then a real estate broker and then I let that go and went full-on real estate investor so ⁓ I think that’s been kind of my progress was a lot of learning and reading I’ve read
probably about 200 books ⁓ I’ve written, ⁓ Pray and Prosper, which is right there. You can find it on Amazon. And I also wrote another book that I recently released called Guru or Gangster. And that just talks about how I would go out and actually find people that I’m wanting to learn from. I really truly had the desire to learn the information and figure out how they’re doing, what they’re doing, and did it actually work. And what I found was a lot of people that are educating,
⁓ don’t actually do what they say and so and and ⁓ I like a lot of Dave Ramsey for example but he didn’t make his money necessarily doing what he says he’s got a media empire and so when he says things like I could go buy an entire apartment complex but they wouldn’t rent from me because I have bad credit there’s there’s a little bit of disconnect
Dylan Silver (09:54)
This is true.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (10:18)
And so I’ve met Dave Ramsey, I like him personally. There’s some of his advice that just doesn’t apply to today. And a lot of it still does, but there’s some of the basics. But as you more complicated in your investing strategy, ⁓ then you have to understand how to use and pull these different levers which put money in your pocket.Dylan Silver (11:18)
think one of the things that is very tricky about that is from my personal experience, when you are bootstrapping to save up for a down payment, let’s say you don’t get down payment. I’m a realtor in Texas, so there’s lots of down payment assistance in many different cities, areas, so potentially you could come with very little down to buy your first home. But let’s say you didn’t get that and you’re bootstrapping and you’re trying to save up tens of thousands of dollars potentially. And when the advice is don’t take out any debt,Right. Buy a cash car. Don’t drink Starbucks. Any one thing at that point like any one thing could reset you to to to several months if not a year back. Let’s say you have a medical issue it’s not covered by insurance. Now you’ve got to get an MRI or multiple MRIs or let’s say for instance that hey you’d like to do something to to I don’t know enjoy or celebrate a little bit and it’s going to cost several hundred dollars. So are we now saying that we’re not going to.
you know, celebrate at all for any length of time. And I think in listening to a lot of that type of ⁓ advice, one of the things that was very apparent to me is you have to buckle down to such an extent that nothing bad can happen. You have to buy some cash car that won’t have very many issues. To me, it’s almost impossible. I know there will be lots of people who say that it is possible, but
As a younger guy, seeing where the cost of everything is, unless you’re living with family, I don’t see how it’s entirely realistic.
Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (12:57)
Sure, yeah, so to kind of continue down that path, a lot of times I would say if you listen to Dave Ramsey who says just take little bits of money and keep putting it into the stock market, let’s say, or some kind of, you know, low risk, low growth, for young people, the biggest return on investment you could possibly make, and this is the best advice I can give to, and I say young people, I’m 45, so…We’re gonna talk about anyone that’s younger than me, but the thing I would do right now is I would invest in your education. And I wrote the book Guru or Gangster, it’s on Amazon.com. The number one thing I would say is read books. And I found that for me, I’m not necessarily somebody that’s gonna sit there and read the book. I like audiobooks. Whenever I found that, I flipped the switch and I started being a ferocious reader.
Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (00:00)
when it comes to young younger people that are trying to get into the business the number one thing that they can do is invest in their education and I would say that don’t go out and spend you know ten twenty thousand dollars with some guru or some mastermind spend ten or twenty dollars and buy alisten to that thing and listen to it again and take notes on it and actually digest the information that you get. ⁓ Grant Cardone or Robert Kiyosaki, those are some good books to start with. There’s a lot of other people that have written down all their best ideas. They put it into a book and then they actually talk to a microphone and talk to you as a person.
And that’s the number one thing you can do is start working on, if you want to do real estate, the first part of real estate you need to develop is in between your ears. You have to develop your mindset. So that’s the number one thing that you got to work on. Also understanding that partying and drinking and going out and chasing pleasure isn’t the thing that you need to do as a younger person. That all…
Dylan Silver (00:56)
100%.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (01:13)
You want pleasure chasing you. The party should come after you, trying to get you to these things. But when you are a bit younger, you want to chase your potential. You want to read, develop your mind, work out, network by going to the gym, sitting in the sauna for a bit, and talk to those older guys that are sitting there, you know, hanging out, and you can figure out so much from, you know, buying guys a coffee. Now, certain people, if you say, can I buy you a coffee?Dylan Silver (01:25)
Dude.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (01:43)
They get asked that all the time.accessible because they have to ⁓
Dylan Silver (01:54)
Yeah.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (01:56)
some point you have to kind of pay for attention and you do that in two ways. One, you can actually work for them where you get to help them and therefore they will help you. It’s a reciprocal relationship. Another way is you pay them for their time through joining a mastermind or something like that. However, again, I will tell you that ⁓ you can learn a whole lot bydifferent real estate agents and looking at properties. And you just say, hey, I’m new, I wanna look at property, I don’t wanna waste your time, I’ll buy you lunch, whatever. But real estate agents, especially new real estate agents, those are the people whose time value is extremely low, they’re not making any money. I will pay your gas and buy you lunch. Let’s go look at properties. It’ll help you and it’ll help me. ⁓
Dylan Silver (02:49)
So win-win.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (02:51)
and these fresh real estate agents, those are the guys. So you kind of, go up the ladder of knowledge, right? You’re not gonna talk to a real estate agent making millions of dollars a year for free. You gotta have some money. They’re gonna vet you. They wanna know, can you buy? But a brand new real estate agent will go out and spend the day showing you properties and evaluating stuff. You can talk to general contractors.You can talk to title companies and real estate attorneys. A lot of times they’ll give you a one hour consultation. Well, if you stack up, you know, 10 one hour consultations with real estate attorneys and, you know, you go on a hundred tours with real estate agents, you can get educated at a lower cost and even help them.
maybe refer them some business, maybe try to help them. There’s an exchange of value that has to happen. And so for anyone getting into the business, the first thing is buy somebody’s audio book, buy their book. It’s very low cost, 10, 20 bucks, and read it. That’s my advice. Does that answer your question?
Dylan Silver (04:02)
I want to ask you.Yeah, absolutely. I want to I want to pivot a bit here and ask you about some of the different asset classes that you’ve been involved in some of the different deal types. I mean, we’ve talked a little bit about ⁓ rentals and flips rental properties and then you’re also involved as a direct lender. ⁓ Walk me through how that process ⁓ transpired really from going from one asset class and one deal type to to another.
Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (04:17)
Yeah.Sure, sure. So as you go out and you start to network then you might say all right well I just sold this property and I have a bunch of money, but I don’t have another deal lined up so then you know other people that you view as your peers or as good operators so in Columbus, Ohio Terry Summers He’s a solid operator flips a lot of houses owns a big portfolio
South Carolina, Tim Brotz, he’s a solid operator, owns a whole lot of multifamily, so that’s a good guy. Louisiana, Chris Rude, that guy owns a whole bunch of mobile home parks, and he’s a good operator, he’s solid, right? So there’s different people in these different asset classes, and then you’re like, all right, well, I can invest in their deal and kind of learn by investing. So I own 5,000 doors,
in a Washington DC conglomerate and somebody’s gonna be like, wow, this guy is really successful. But if you look at it, you might’ve invested $100,000.
into a 50 million dollar project and you own 0.006 % of you know, 5,000 doors, right? So sometimes people inflate their numbers to sound cool and so you really gotta understand if they’re the general partner or if they’re a limited partner, a GP or an LP and so that’s another thing that kind of comes to play in evaluating your guru, right?
Dylan Silver (05:41)
Right.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (06:06)
Is this the right guru for me because sometimes? ⁓ Sometimes they’re they’re lying to you through statistics and data right if I would say I own 5,000 doors But I know yeah, you know like you got to kind of go hmm. Wait a second or There’s just a lot of things that you got to kind of watch out for and so booksDylan Silver (06:20)
and you’re a limited partner.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (06:32)
Podcasts I really I like books and especially audiobooks better than podcasts. I say podcasts are for poor people Because I started listening to Tim Ferriss. He wrote a book called the four-hour workweek great book get it read it, butListen to podcasts and I started going 90 times designs. Yeah, and so like how much is free information costing me in the space between my brain so I just would buy the audiobook and then I would listen to that twice or three times or whatever. ⁓ Cody Michael Burt, he’s out of Nashville, Tennessee. He’s a big guy. He’s written a bunch of books. They like his content. And so you find different people and you’re like, all right, so then you pull it all together and
make your content. Like, all right, cool. this is now a… there’s interesting thing I heard one time. said if you quote only one person in book, that played the rising. But if you quote like ten, that’s called good research. And so what I would encourage everybody to do is understand that there’s nothing new under the sun just because somebody quotes somebody else. It doesn’t mean they’re stealing their stuff.
Because what you gotta do is you gotta plan all this stuff and then kinda make your own, right? And so, uh, I,
Dylan Silver (07:52)
Yeah, you got to carve your own path. I mean,you mentioned ⁓ really paying to put yourself in the game and the difference between free versus, you know, paid access. And I agree with you. You know, the things that have really moved the needle for me most in my real estate journey have been things that I’ve ponied up for. those, like you said, you do have to vet, you do have to screen and you could be a
talking with someone who says they’ve got $5,000 but they’re the LP and that’s a big difference. But in the grand scheme of things, if you wanna leapfrog time and really put yourself ahead, you could either do it through the school of hard knocks and bootstrap it yourself or you could get around people who have already done it. Josh, we are coming up on time here though. Where can folks go if maybe they’re in the rally area and they’ve got a deal they’d like you to look at or?
If they’re anywhere and they’d like to reach out to you, get in contact with you.
Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (08:51)
Yeah, so you can find me at Josh Darville through Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, all that stuff. https://www.joshdarville.com is my website. It’s always under construction, being updated. We also own CellMultiFam.com, which was geared more towards us in our growth phase. We’re not doing as much there right now, but it’s, you you gotta kind of put yourself out there in different ways. ⁓ And if anyone…you know, wants to talk about one of our books or, you know, have us on a different podcast or whatever, just reach out. I’m very, very accessible ⁓ to anyone who wants to talk about real estate, really, and then we can go from there. ⁓
Dylan Silver (09:38)
Josh, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.Josh Darville – Pray & Prosper (09:42)
Thanks.
