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Paul Neal: [00:00:00] Hey welcome listeners. This is Paul Neal again with the entrepreneurial agent. Glad you’re we have you on our show. And today we’ve got an amazing guest, a super great friend of mine, husband, father real estate, agent and investor James BOS law. 

James, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on, man. 

James Bauslaugh: Thanks for having me, Paul honored to be.

Paul Neal: Oh, this is gonna be great. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for quite some time. I know we’ve worked together in the past and and we’ve talked a lot about some of the really cool things you’re doing in the vacation properties and, and we’re gonna get into that because you’re really just crushing in that area.

But tell me for, for, for me and for, for all of our listeners, tell us, you know, your story, man, how’d you get in real estate. I mean, you you’ve been such a rockstar agent and just wanna know, you know, how you got there. 

James Bauslaugh: well, it’s been crazy for me to say this, but this is now my seventh year in real estate as an agent.

And it started off unexpectedly. My background’s actually in ministry. You know, I was actually a student pastor and a [00:01:00] connection minister at a church right before I jump into real estate. But 

I jumped into real estate quicker than I thought that I would be. And so it was kind of a sink or swim season for me with two kids, a third on the way.

My wife just stepped away from her job. So there was no option, but to succeed. Oh. And so I know for most agents, they kind of dipped their toes in the water and kind of slowly walk in. But even though, even though it’s hard to, to be thrown into the waters, I think that’s what kind of helped me have the mentality.

You know, I have to go out and I have to get this done for my family. So my first year in real estate was actually, my first full year was 2016. I, I stopped working at the church in November of 2015. Okay. So about, you know, a month and a half later, 2016, I was a full-time real estate agent. And I was blessed to be able to close 37 deals in my first year.

And, you know, that was kind of helped me shoot out the gates. And from, from there each year, I kind of built and got more and more [00:02:00] sales. And then last year, my six year I sold 56 homes and. 22 million of real estate and that was such a, a great, great thing. 

And, and I was sharing with you a little bit before this, but this year’s still been good.

Maybe not quite to where I was last year. Sure. But still having a great year and just having a lot of fun serving folks who are looking to buy a, sell a home and. I, I will also say that there’s kind of three markets that I’m going after. And the first is the Fredericksburg area. That’s the area that I live in.

So from the the, the double wide on a piece of land to the million dollar property and everything in between I could sell anything in the Fredericksburg area. My second market that I go after is a community it’s a community that I live in it’s called Fawn Lake. And it’s a, a golf and, and lake community.

Absolutely love it here. So it’s easy for me to sell that to my clients and that’s definitely a, a niche market for me. And then as, as you just mentioned previously, my, the third market that I’m getting more and more into and just having so [00:03:00] much fun with is the vacation rental space. So my wife and I have personally invested in that space and I’ve helped now eight other people do the same. So, I’m having a lot of fun with that as. 

Paul Neal: Wow, boy, that’s a lot to unpack James I’ll tell you boy, my head, my head was spinning on that. That just, just a couple of things, just a thoughts came to mind here. It’s like knowing, understanding real estate, knowing and understanding that there are a lot of people that, you know, will listen to this.

And, and, you know, there’s a lot of, you know, promotion about get rich in real estate and all that. But you and I both know that real estate is challenging for an. Particularly, if you don’t come from sales, you don’t understand that concept. There are a lot of agents, there’s a lot of competition. And for you to come out of the gate year one first the guts to, I mean, just take that step right after your wife leaves her job with baby number three on the way.

I mean, I’m, I’m sweating over here. Just thinking about that, man. I tell you why. [00:04:00] You’re still. Yeah. Right, right. So you’re, you know, to take the guts and then come out of the gate, you know, swing in at, at 37 closings your first year. I mean, really that is, that is just fantastic. And you know, that’s just a, that’s, that’s a Testament to obviously your, you know, your professionalism, your ability, and obviously there’s some lessons that came into your life before that point, because you were to be able to execute, you know, right away.

Most people learn those lessons, you know, once they get into real estate and they start the process and they’re like, oh my gosh, I gotta, no, you know, I’ve got, got another. No, you know, and, and, and then, you know, they, they starve for a few years before they either quit or figure it out. But te tell me this, and then we’ll dig in some of these things.

What, what were some of the key lessons along the way? I think maybe that prepared you for that. I mean, what’s, you know, Because obviously again, you, you, you were rare to go and it takes more than just desire. There’s there’s other factors there, man. 

James Bauslaugh Yeah, well, oh my gosh. There’s so many, so many lessons that I’ve learned.

You know, I learned to [00:05:00] pray a lot in that season of my life. My, you know, leaning into the Lord, but you know, one of the things, you know, I was jumping into a, a completely new industry and going from the mindset of an employee, which is I go to work and I get a paycheck and it’s the consistent paycheck.

Every single. You know, month, right. And so going into a space where nothing’s guaranteed I, I really did learn, like there’s a, a mindset shift that needs to take place and it’s, it’s, you know, it’s performance based, you know, in our business, you get paid when you have a closing. And so it doesn’t matter how hard you tried or didn’t try.

It’s just, did you get the deal done? And so there were times that I was doing things. I wasn’t used to there were times that I was really unsure of myself. But I, at that time, what I kept reminding myself is what my, why was. And I had a mug that I kept on my desk and I, I, I didn’t drink out of it.

Actually. I put pens in it, but on that mug, it was a picture of my wife and at my, at that time, my two, my two sons. [00:06:00] And it just reminded me when I was making. Calls and knocking on doors and doing all these weird things that made me feel uncomfortable. It reminded me why I was going through that. And so I think that one of the lessons that I learned is that you have to have a really strong reason or desire to wanna win in order to make it work.

Also desperation helped me. I mean, my wife had just stopped working and you know, I wasn’t receiving money from anywhere else. It was like sink or swim. Right. And even though. Maybe not the most ideal way to enter into a vocation. I do think there’s some upside to, to burning the ships and saying, that’s it, we’re gonna make this work right.

In order for that to happen. So that would probably be, you know, one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned is, you know, just to, to lean in you know, my face was very important to me at that time, my family knowing my why and just going all in. I think that was huge for helping me to. 

Paul Neal: Wow. Yeah.

Going all in that’s that’s, that’s an amazing phrase. I’ve heard that a lot lately and, and, [00:07:00] you know, particularly as the market has shifted for people, I know it shifted for you. It’s shifted for a lot of people. I mean, you started in a time in 20 16, 20 17 when the market really wasn’t that great. So you really dug it out.

And we are in a shift, but I think you’re gonna see probably in the fall that we’re gonna see numbers really start to tick back up again with inventory low, you’re gonna see interest rates start to soften again, I think. And we’re gonna see inflation start to, to start to abate. It’s gonna be interesting to see what happens after the midterms of political shift and right.

You know, hopefully there’ll be, you know, some more optimism, cuz I think that will drive people to you know, to continue to be active in the market. Well, 

James Bauslaugh: yeah, and there’s just so much you know, we’ve been spoiled for the last several years and I think that that is important for us real estate agents to note and, and, and lenders as well, is that we’ve been spoiled.

I mean, we we’ve had unprecedented appreciation in the market. We’ve had record low interest rates. And for us to think that that would continue, I think would be a bit naive. And so I think that, you know, [00:08:00] Us agents got spoiled, especially the agents that were new into the industry with being able to sell a home in a day or two and having multiple offers, right.

And waiving inspections, no contingencies. And you know, the most recent home that I sold, you know, took 44 days for a DME market before this contract. And I’ll tell you what, as, as an agent who has been spoiled, it felt like an Eter. Yeah, stop. And you, you, you say that out loud and you look at history you know, for a home to go under a contract in 44 days, historically speaking, that’s not bad at all.

No. And you know, even though things might be plateaued a little bit on, on appreciation of home sales you know, it’s not, it’s not as bad as what some of us might feel it is because we’ve been spoil. 

Paul Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Good point. It’s so true. It’s just a matter of perspective. And I think as people adjust their expectations, same thing on the lending side, I did my first, my first real estate loan in 1998.

And I believe the interest rates were I, I was in the eight to 9% range on a lot of [00:09:00] loans. Some people were doing second mortgages in the. Double digits and people did them all day long. And so it, it is just a matter of adjusted expectations. Yep. I, I think we’re gonna have a great fall. I really do, but, but even if the market isn’t perfect.

I mean, you talked about desperation in your why and burning your bridges and going after it. You know, my lesson I’ve learned after running several businesses, some very successfully one blowing up in smoke. And you know, that was a bad day. But the, the lesson I learned too, is that, Hey, if you, if you just grind it out and work the plan, you, the, those that are willing to show up and work are, are gonna make it happen.

And you know, if you have a why you can, you can muddle through it. So I love it. Awesome. So, Hey, I wanna talk a little about this, this niche that you’ve carved out for yourself, because it’s really exciting. And it there’s a lot of dimensions to it. I know we’ve talked about it before. Yeah. Most people don’t think about it.

They don’t consider it. Honestly. You were the first one to bring it up to me. I had not really considered it. And now you’re, you’re you’re, you’re really capturing that. So [00:10:00] talk about, talk about the niche, what it is, how you got into it, how people can benefit and, and that sort of. 

James Bauslaugh: Well, real estate agents.

If you’re listening now perk up those little ears, cuz everyone can benefit with what I’m about ready to say. But if you’re a real estate agent or what, what is classified as a real estate professional. So Paul, you would qualify. Yeah. Then your ears really have to perk up when you say this, cuz this is a game changer.

But it all, it, it has to do with vacation rentals and that’s what I wanna speak to. And it all started when I think it was 2019, I was with my, my wife and. My three boys, we were on a vacation in the outer banks. And, you know, we were just looking for a three day getaway or three nights I should say.

And we just did like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And you know, back then this might sound inexpensive now, but back then when I booked it, it, it ended up being like about a $1,200 booking for three nights, which I was happy to pay for. I mean, we were just, you know, a short walk away to the beach. I was right across the small [00:11:00] street.

And we stayed there and had a great experience. But one of the days when I was sitting on the front porch I, I started to do the math in my head. I thought, wait a minute, I just paid $1,200 to stay here for a weekend about. 200 or, or a hun 150 or $200 or something like that was going towards a cleaning fee.

I said you know, they just essentially made a thousand bucks off of me in three nights. what would the mortgage payment be in a house like this? So I started to do the math and I was like, oh my gosh, this is a legit business here. So I started to do some research. And sure enough that was rate as Airbnb was blowing up and getting more popular, more people were using that and V R B O to do some travel.

And that kind of got things started for me. As far as thinking about what it would look like to invest in vacation rentals. You know, most of us agents are pitched on doing long term rentals or, or traditional rentals. And for whatever reason, I, I knew that that would be a good decision to invest in that, but it never got me excited.

I just, you know, [00:12:00] evictions and, and, and going through the process of, you know, signing an agreement with people for 12 to 24 months, it just didn’t sound fun to me, you know usually in that, that space, your, your cashflow is not as good either. I know it’s a, a good long term play, but it just didn’t appeal to me.

So I, I started to do more and more research and I stumbled upon a community that had some coaching and my wife and I signed up for it. And we just went all in. We wanna learn as much as we can. We spent you know, a decent amount of money investing into that space growing in our knowledge and understanding of it.

And then we, we, we jumped out and we made our first purchase. You know, we purchased our first vacation rental in wintergreen. Small little place right there on the, on the slopes for $129,000. Ah, and yeah, just a wonderful location and a great resort. We purchased that we flipped it, you know, completely remodeled it.

And we started renting it out and it started doing so well that we’re like, wait a minute. We, we, we don’t wanna stop here. We wanna invest some more. So actually what we did was we, we hooked up with this [00:13:00] really, really great lender for re. Yeah. Matter of fact, I’m talking to him right now. and you did a fantastic job.

My wife and I were super impressed. But we went ahead and refinanced. We pulled some money out and we said, you know, let’s be aggressive because the interest rates were low. So we did refinance our house, took some money out, and then we went ahead and we purchased another vacation rental in winter green resort as well.

And this one was a two bedroom, two bathroom, one home that has a panoramic view of the. Of the blue Ridge. And so we now own two properties in wintergreen. They have done fantastic for us. Gosh, I don’t even know where I should stop and, and let you in jump in, but I will say that after we purchased those, they did so well for us, that I had other people come to me saying they wanted to do the same.

So I’ve actually last year I sold seven properties in wintergreen resort and, and helped some buyers jump into that space so that they too could benefit. From, from the great advantages that are in that space. So I’ll pause there cause I probably threw a lot out there. 

Paul Neal: Wow. Yeah, you did. Thanks for the plug though.

I appreciate that. I [00:14:00] wasn’t, I wasn’t asking for that, but the, the, you know, as I sit here and listen to you and I want to get into the, in these rentals even more, but the thing that really strikes me about you is a couple of things. You, when you, when you decide to do something, you’re all. I mean, you did that with real estate.

You did this with the vacation rental, the idea hit you. , you know, your, your quiet time, you’re sitting outside at the beach at outer banks, you know, enjoying a sunset or whatnot. And all of a sudden you’re like, Hey, this idea, just boom. You know, like a little bit of research found somebody that you could mentor you and lead.

You made a great decision and boom. But the other thing is that your wife, man, she’s, she’s like behind you 110%, isn’t she on all these things? Yes. Oh, it gives 

James Bauslaugh: me chills when you say that, because you know, it was something that we wanted to do together and that that’s part of the beauty. I think of vacation rentals space is.

You’re oftentimes doing it with your spouse and with your kids because your kids get involved. And so yeah, my wife was behind me 110%. And as most people know who are married, [00:15:00] opposites of track. So I’m the sales guy. I love sales. I love negotiating deals, but she’s more of the researcher. She likes crunching numbers, looking up properties, evaluating you know, there, there’s all these great calculators out there that can help you to evaluate you know, if it’s a good purchase or not.

And. The return on your investment. And so the two of us together make a great team. And that’s something that that’s very fun when you’re doing it with your family. 

Paul Neal: Yeah, that’s a, that’s awesome, man. And, and, and the fact that I, I imagine as their vacation rentals, and maybe you can speak to this. So some of the benefits I I’m thinking, well, you not only.

You have this rental property and since you’ve not renting it out, you know, for the whole year you’re probably getting some use of it as well yourself. Right? So the family’s involved maybe helping you to just enjoy it to market it, to be part of it. I mean, what, what is this all about? 

James Bauslaugh: Okay. Oh my gosh.

Now you’re eating into a lot of fun things to talk about. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna talk about two or three advantages into get in the vacation rental space. Let’s start off with the obvious you get to. Which is super fun. You [00:16:00] know this, this is something that can be purchased multiple different ways.

There’s so many different options out there that, that you can share with folks. I went with the secondary home lot option mm-hmm um, and there’s rules to that. When you have FA Fanny and Freddie, and once again, we’ll let the lenders and professionals dive into that. But what I will say is you can purchase a vacation rental home for as little as 10%.

And and that’s a great option that most people don’t know about. And so that’s how we purchase both of our properties. And but here’s the thing. The second thing that is great, besides just being able to use ’em with your family is that you get to rent them out and experience positive cash flow.

Yeah. It is amazing how much people are willing to pay to go to a, a destination or a resort or, or a nice area to, to visit. It’s amazing how much someone’s willing to pay for just a. Yeah. And you know, when you do the math, it gets, it gets silly and it gets silly fast. And so you know, the margins are just much greater.

The cash flow is much greater mm-hmm if you do it right, the potential is much greater than what you would experience [00:17:00] in a long term investment. So you, number one, you get to enjoy it yourself. Mm-hmm number two, you get to have positive cash flow, but here’s a third thing. Most people don’t realize is that there are incredible tax benefits for vacation rentals.

So I’m gonna throw out a few buzzwords out there that might make your, your head spin a little bit, but that’s okay. You could follow up with Paul or myself. But you can do something called cost segregation on a vacation rental and a cost segregation is a specific appraisal that allows ’em to segregate the cost of the value of the home.

And once you do that, you can actually take that cost segregation and do something called bonus depreciation and bonus depreciation is when you you’re able to write off that, which was segregated in the cost segregation in year one. . So I wanna say between both of my properties last year, I was able to take the cost segregation of both of them.

And we were able to write off about [00:18:00] $200,000 between the two proper. And so that on top of the cash flow, now you’re talking about benefits that are, are much more than just what you’re seeing come in and come. Every month. And so real estate agents or real estate professionals. Listen to me when I’m talking to you, , there are more benefits than just being able to have fun, use yourself and have positive cash flow.

There are massive tax implications that can come with taking advantage and leveraging things according to the rules out there in a way that can benefit you. So I’ll probably throw a fourth thing out there too, that I didn’t anticipate is I did not an. And this is all timing. Of course, the amount of appreciation that the value of the home has had since I purchased it.

So we purchased one home in January of 20, 21 and the other home in the, the fall of 2021. And. Let’s just say that it’s been very, very good appreciation since then. Yeah. You, 

Paul Neal: you, you you certainly made great purchases, man. I tell you that that’s, [00:19:00] that’s exciting. And, and just for the record for if any of the new 87,000 IRS agents are listening to us here that we’re not tax professionals, but Seek your, your tax professional for that.

But but that is amazing what you can do. So, so you have so many benefits here. I can think of a fifth one. So you enjoy it with your family, positive cash flow tax benefits appreciation. And the fifth one you mentioned earlier, that’s no evictions or cleaning toilets, right? Yes. oh 

James Bauslaugh: my gosh. Yes. That is a huge, yep.

And actually we’ve chosen everyone. Does things their own way. Some people self-manage, but we, we are not, we, we have a property management company that does pre-check ins post checkins. They handle the cleaners. Right. But I’ll tell you what it is. Nice. And I have to worry about evictions. Most of our, our guests come for about two and a half days on average.

You know, sometimes it’s two days, sometimes it’s three, every once in a while you get a, a four or five day booking over holiday weekends and whatnot, but. But, yeah, it’s nice to not have to worry about evictions. They come, they go and, and I’ll tell you what, Paul, you know, they, they [00:20:00] typically leave a review on Airbnb and whatnot, and it has been so fun and rewarding to read those.

I mean, people are getting away and they’re having a true experience. Yeah. And so it’s an honor to be able to host people. 

Paul Neal: Well, James, my wife is that person she’ll, she’ll take the book out, you know, the log book, when we’re sitting in some beautiful place and paying somebody like you, our hard earned dollars to enjoy, you know, three days , she’ll write, she’ll write a fantastic review and then she’ll go online and do it.

And, and, and she, and she’ll look through the book too, cuz she just likes to see other people’s experiences and that’s, that’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So, so a couple questions on that. So for people since. We’re we’re running outta time here. So one, two questions. One, is there a seasonality that you see and you know, how important it is to, to find vacation rentals and, you know, in certain particular areas.

And then you know, what are some pitfalls? Because, because obviously if it was easy and simple and there, there were no challenges, then everybody would do it right. 

James Bauslaugh: Absolutely. Well, first off you, you really have to do your [00:21:00] research before acquiring a property. I think the, the danger in this space is that you follow your heart and not your mind and, and, and put yourself in a situation where maybe you’re in a property that you love.

And it makes sense for you, but if the numbers don’t prove it, then it, it might not be the best investment. And you know, just being upfront with you, my wife and I, we really wanna go to outer banks. We really wanna go to the ocean. You know, we love the beach, but after crunching some numbers, you know, we kind of miss.

The the boat, when it come, when it came to purchasing a property in a beach destination, having it make sense. Those prices now are very elevated. And so, you know, for some it might make sense for them to, to enjoy a property like that and have a small, small loss, you know, after renting it out.

But we wanted positive cash flow. We wanted something that was bringing in money. and not taking away money. So we, we readdressed reassess our our outlook and went away from the beach into the mountains where you touched on it, seasonality, you know, mountains are, they get [00:22:00] a stereotype of being winter destinations mm-hmm , but actually they’re not.

They’re actually year round destinations and, you know, winter is our highest occupancy. It’s when we can charge the most money. It’s when we have the highest occupa. But I’ll tell you what summer is not far behind at all. And actually the fall is great. If there’s any slow season, it’s in April, that’s typically the slowest seasons in a mountain town, and both of our properties were booked every single weekend in, in the month of April.

So you know, for that to be slow, we’ll take it. Yeah, 

Paul Neal: but yeah. Yeah, I’ll say for sure. I mean I’m a mountain guy. I love the mountains and I could go to the mountains. Definitely all four seasons, you know, just to be there it, do you get away from reality? I guess you could say, you know, the day to day buzz and Hubb of life out of the rhythm and, you know, Enjoy nature and God’s creations 

James Bauslaugh: love it.

Well, that’s it. Yeah. Nature activities year round, you know the resort winter groom resort that we invested in, it has golf. It has hiking. It has wineries breweries, of course, skiing and [00:23:00] snowboarding in the winter. It has a spa, it has incredible views. And so you can enjoy it year round. There’s a lot of great mountain destinations out there that if you’re listening, your, your, your heart might be like mine and it’s screaming ocean, and, and maybe someday that will be a reality.

But yeah, you, you have to just let your mind kind of meet your heart and where the two of those come together. That’s probably good purchase. But when it comes to, you are asking about the, the pitfalls and maybe some of the, the disadvantages you know, you’re always a little more susceptible to.

Where is the market going? And when I say the market, I mean the economy mm-hmm what I have not gone through yet is like a big recession or something like that, where discretionary spending might come down. But what I will say is probably one of the greatest advantages to having a vacation rental was COVID and, you know, obviously COVID impacted our, our nation and our world and in many ways, but probably one of the greatest industries that was impacted for the positive was a vacation rental space, [00:24:00] cuz people, instead of going to a hotel where they’re, you know, interacting with other people, they can actually purchase you know, a weekend away where they’re mm-hmm they have their own space and they can do so safely and get out in nature.

So COVID Shed more and more light and, and dollars on the vacation rental space. Airbnb still does not have enough supply to meet the demand that they have for homes. So even though things are a little crazy right now with interest rates, trust me. There’s still plenty of opportunities for you to invest in vacation rental space and the demand is there.

Paul Neal: Interesting. And so do you, so, so now you’re a seasoned vet in this ni in this niche. So I wouldn’t know how to price, you know, a vacation rental. I mean, do you have tools or methodologies or ways that you can find out, Hey, what’s a, what’s a legitimate rental income I could sort of expect. Yes. Are there things I could do to the property to create a higher, maybe higher demand?

For my property, because if I can rent it for 200 a night versus a hundred or 150, obviously that has, [00:25:00] you know, multiplied over that has a major impact downstream on positive cash flow. Certainly you’ve learned, learned, because I would imagine that not everybody that puts a, a property on V R B O is, is knocking it outta the park.

You know, that’s the impression you get with V R B O. They’re selling their, their, their stick. Right. But you know, you’re on the, on the other side making it happen. 

James Bauslaugh: Yeah. Well, well, first off, let me just give a shout out. I get nothing out of this. That there’s nothing that I get out of saying this, except that I just wanna give credit to where credits due.

But the coaching that I was a part of, it’s a group called Vasey. The owner’s name is Sean Moore and he he’s a great. And he actually has some free resources where you can download his podcast. So for those of you that wanna learn a little bit more about this space, I would highly recommend you checking out his podcast.

Once again, his name is Sean Moore, but it’s called the Vasey podcast, but I, I pay for his coaching. I’m a part of, of the community. So that there’s a course that you go through. So I think that you really just have to invest and get the right knowledge from someone who’s done it. Yeah. Not someone who.

You know, [00:26:00] has the concept, but someone who’s, who’s a practitioner in that space. Yeah. And so I really like Sean’s humility. I learned a lot from him. So that would be a great place to start. But one of the things, the tools that I learned about in that community is it’s called air DNA and it’s become very, very popular air.

DNA is actually used by, by some lenders actually, when they’re doing calculations on some loans, but RGNA is a great software that can be used to take a look at different markets, different properties in the market. And what they could bring in as far as their income. And so I, I think that’s one of many tools.

I don’t think you should put all of your eggs in one basket ever, but I’ll tell you what air DNA has. Me steer away from markets that maybe weren’t as good as I hoped, but it’s also affirmed me in the markets that I’ve chosen to jump into. And it’s been a great tool to, to help me. So air DNA is an absolute must.

If you’re trying to look at acquiring properties, it icy I will give you a heads up on that. There’s different ways to, to use it. You can have a nationwide [00:27:00] plan, which is. , you know, I was able to get a really big discount on yeah. But they also have like plans for specific areas. If you just wanna look at one corner of the market.

So I see, I would definitely recommend that tool, 

Paul Neal: but then, you know, but then that’s, that’s kind of for the DIY guy, right? And you, I mean, you’re a professional in real estate. This is what you do, and this is your livelihood and you’re all in. And I think about other people, I have a lot of investors that I work with that, you know, they have a regular job.

They’re, you know, they’re full time with the government. , you know, some, some large corporation or running their own business and they just don’t have a lot of time for this. So, so you you’ve already kind of walked down this road and you know, so, so, so my question to you is how can they reach out to you?

And they say, Hey, James, I I’m really interested in this. And it, at least for maybe the, the, the first or second experience to kinda learn the ropes. I mean, you could hold their hand and help them purchase. I would imagine that’s what you do, right? Yeah. So how could they 

James Bauslaugh: has. You know, that, that, that that’s something that helps me walk [00:28:00] other people through it.

Like I said, last year I helped seven people you know, participation rentals this year. It’s been one I’m about ready to have a second one here next month. And so you know, this is something that I love to help walk people through. You can reach out to me. You know, my email is just my first, my last name, James Bauslaugh@.gmail.com. You can also go to my website, which will be easier for you to remember it’s called explore with jb.com and you’ll see that vacation rentals is a space on there. So explorejb.com. You’ll be able to contact me and I’ll be able to help you. Answer the questions that you have also that software that I was talking about that’s nationwide.

I, I leverage that in a way that helps me screen homes that my clients are interested in. So, you know, I, I had a client reach out to me yesterday and say, James, I’m interested in this property. Can you run the numbers? And, you know, I went ahead and I did that for him and I, I, I was able to provide very detailed information on the [00:29:00] property that he was interested in.

And I could do that for anybody nationwide. So my connections are across the nation. So if I, it’s not me, that’s helping you in certain areas of Virginia, where I’m licensed to help you. Then I can connect you with other real estate agents who are seasoned in that space. And that’s what it takes. You really wanna get with someone who, who knows how to acquire something from an investor’s perspective?

Yeah. 

Paul Neal: Yeah, no, no doubt, man. There’s nothing like somebody else’s experience. Not my own, because experience is expensive. It’s an expensive lesson, no matter how you’re learning it, right? Yes. Now we’ll put those, we’ll put those, your website and that, that information in your email in the show notes.

So. It’ll be there for people to get. Yeah, 

James Bauslaugh: I’d be, and whatnot. I’d be honored to help anybody for, as you can probably tell if you’re watching this on video or maybe you could hear it, my voice, but I get, I just get so passionate about this topic. Yeah. Cause the people that I’m helping it’s just fun.

They they’re, they’re looking at an investment that will help build wealth for them, for their families. It’s oftentimes something they wanna pass [00:30:00] on to their children and their grandchildren. But it’s all about creating experiences with their own family and then also building wealth. And so it’s just such a fun space to be in.

And so you don’t have to twist my arm to help you to get into that space or to talk more about it because it’s just too much fun for me. 

Paul Neal: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And it’s a lot more fun spending time in your beautiful vacation home with your family than just rolling around on your bank statements.

You’re like, oh, look at all much money. We have, you know? Yes. , it’s so much fun. Yes. Awesome. Well, James, we were wrapping up now, buddy. We’re at we’re at sort of at our time limit. Is there anything that you wanted to mention or say or talk about briefly as we finish that we didn’t get into today? 

James Bauslaugh: Yeah, I, I think the last thing that I would just wanna finish up with is the important for real estate agents and those in the real estate industry.

I think it’s important for us to understand that we need to have diversified income streams, you know there is some uncertainty in the market and I’m like you, I’m probably a little bit more on the optimistic side. I think that there’s [00:31:00] some pent up demand. That’s been waiting on the sidelines and, you know, I think that they could be jumping in the fall.

So I, I don’t think the sky is falling. But, but I still think that it’s wise for real estate professionals to, to have diversified income streams and, and to invest in channels that provide provide some wealth building. And so I think that, you know, there’s some great opportunities right in front of us.

You know what I didn’t say, with both properties that I, I purchased my vacation rental properties is I negotiated part of my. You know, commission within the deal and there’s certain ways to leverage that. And so I think that it’s just a great opportunity for those in the real estate industry or anyone that’s an entrepreneur.

Definitely look at real estate investments because you know, there’s nothing like having somebody else pay down your mortgage as your appreciating and value and experiencing cash flow on a monthly basis. So real estate investment is powerful. Multiple streams of income is important and it’s something we all should look into.

Oh, 

Paul Neal: that’s fantastic. James. I can’t add to that, man. That’s [00:32:00] an awesome final note. This has been a super blast. I’ve had a great time with you and let’s catch up again soon, 

James Bauslaugh: honor, to be on the show. Thanks for having me.