Building Communities with Josh Brook — Wits Realty
On this series of Building Communities we highlight Josh Brook of Wits Realty.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! To get started, give us a quick summary of where you grew up and what you did before your current gig.
I’m from Green Bay and came to Minnesota for college at the U of M. I studied marketing there but was heavily involved in the Entrepreneurship program there.
In 1–2 sentences describe what Josh does.
I work with Wits Realty and we work to create remarkable real estate experiences.
When did you get into real estate investing and why?
I’ve been interested in real estate for a very long time but would say that I seriously entered the space during the fall of 2017. I was working in sales at a healthcare startup at the time and was doing well financially. I’m pretty anti-debt so most of my commission checks would go towards student loans but I began to think about what I should do once that was paid off.
I understood the concept of making your money work for you so I began to look into real estate investing as a way to do that and generate passive income. Fast forward to today, I’m now a licensed real estate agent at Wits Realty because I wanted to help others understand the same things I had learned.
What are the biggest opportunities you see in the real estate industry?
I think there is a huge opportunity to incorporate the community into aspects of the real estate business. Look at WeWork and the success they’ve had by bringing people together. I think of them being in the hospitality business. Retail, office, and multifamily should absolutely start doing the same.
I also think there is a huge opportunity to invest in sustainable development. You should always leave a community better off than how you found it and a big piece of that is caring for the environment and reducing waste. What if we changed the way we developed apartments so that water systems could be a closed loop and energy needs didn’t have to be filled by fossil fuels? There are a lot of smart people trying to answer those very questions and I’m excited to see what they come up with.
What impact does real estate investing play in your community?
Real estate investing is all about providing housing for people and while my niche isn’t in single-family, I want to create a “home-like” experience for tenants. People should feel safe and comfortable in the place they live and good investors create those types of environments.
How do construction and real estate intersect? What is the gap you see?
This again comes down to relationships. You need to meet with people who are trustworthy and know what they’re doing in the trades. You don’t need to know how to wire a home, but you need to know how to find quality people who can do that work.
What advice would you give to someone getting started?
I’d recommend start meeting with people in the industry. Real estate is a relationship-based business and people love to help out beginners. While meeting with people, try to find out how they got started and what they focused on to see if that would work for you. Also, be very patient — you want your first move to be a solid one. It doesn’t have to be a home run, but if you can get a base-run with your first property that helps build a solid foundation for the next one. Just don’t strike out.
What are you most excited about in the industry?
I love the number of options people have today to get into real estate.
Who would you like us to interview next in the Twin Cities that is in the construction or real estate industry?
Josh Jacobs from Wits Realty.
You can find Josh online:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jsbrook92
LinkdIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-brook-b531a957/
Blog: https://minneinvestor.com/
About WorkMand
WorkMand is a market network for real estate investors to complete their maintenance and renovations. We save you time by taking your tenants requests, coordinating maintenance. Plus connecting you with top contractors for your rehabs and renovations.
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