Welcome back to another episode of the IRA Cafe podcast! This week, Kyle Moody is joined by Gregg Cohen, co-founder of JWB Real Estate Capital in Jacksonville, Florida. In this episode, Kyle and Gregg explore the journey from humble beginnings to building a thriving real estate investment company that serves clients from 49 states and 13 countries, managing over $1.3 billion in real estate assets. 

Gregg shares the pivotal moment that started his investing career, the importance of education and mentorship in real estate, and the power of leveraging self-directed IRAs for building passive income through single-family rental properties. Listeners will learn about JWB’s vertically integrated turnkey approach for landlords, why Jacksonville is poised to become the next great American downtown, and how self-directed retirement accounts unlock unique opportunities for investors. 

The episode also highlights JWB Cares, the company’s community-driven initiative focused on affordable housing and resident homeownership. Whether you're new to real estate investing, interested in using retirement funds to diversify your portfolio, or drawn to opportunities for community impact, this conversation offers practical insights and inspiration.

Key takeaways:

1. The Importance of Education and Mentorship: Gregg credits his early success in real estate to investing in education and relationships, which enabled him to master smart debt and navigate challenges despite starting out with limited funds and experience.
2. Turnkey, Vertically Integrated Investing: JWB Real Estate Capital offers a fully integrated, hands-off approach—handling land purchase, new construction, tenant placement, property management, and long-term leasing all under one roof—allowing investors to be truly passive.
3. Leveraging Self-Directed Retirement Accounts: Both speakers highlight how investors can use self-directed IRAs and solo 401ks to invest in real estate and other alternative assets, often unlocking capital and achieving tax-deferred or tax-free growth.
4. Why Jacksonville Stands Out: Jacksonville is showcased as a high-opportunity market, with positive cash flow, above-average appreciation potential, and rapid growth—making it a prime destination for real estate investors looking for both income and long-term value.
5. Commitment to Community: Through JWB Cares, Gregg and his team have raised over $1 million to support affordable housing. Their unique programs empower renters to become homeowners, reinforcing JWB’s mission to make a lasting local impact beyond financial returns.

Tune in to discover how you can build your own portfolio, overcome barriers to entry with the right partners, and even contribute to community progress— all while planning for your financial future with self-directed investing!

Hi, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever and whenever you might be listening to this podcast. This is another production of the IRA Cafe, powered by American ira. I'm Kyle Moody, part of the sales team here and we are so excited that you've decided to join us and get some good information from our special guest today. Today I'm joined by by Greg Cohen of JWB Real Estate Capital out of Jacksonville, Florida. And a lot of information to really touch on today, their history and where they came from, where they are now, and some of the things that they're doing in the community and really how they're going to be a resource for you no matter where you are. Really what sounds like whether you're in the Jacksonville area here in the United States or around the world. So a little bit about our company as well. For the JWB folks that are going to be joining us, I'm with American IRA again, Kyle Moody, been here for almost nine years.

And American IRA though has been around for over two decades. So really that same timeline as JWB. We specialize in self directed IRAs and solo 401ks where someone can diversify out of their current portfolio that they might have in the stock market to start getting into that real estate portfolio and always wondering how they might be able to fund that. So that's what we do. If it's real estate really isn't your thing, you've also got private lending or investing into the private equity markets as well. Always remember too, you want to consult with your tax professional or legal professional as we are unable to give any tax, legal or financial advice, suggestions or opinions. But the one thing we are able to do is bring the education to you and we're glad that we can do that today. So Greg, thank you so much for joining us today.

Tell us a little bit about you and jwb.

My pleasure, Kyle. Well, thanks so much for having me. I'm just super excited to sit here with you, chat a little bit about not only investing in your ira, but investing in the asset class that I love. And you know, my investing story started about 20 years ago. I thought that I wanted a job in corporate America. I worked there for a little while, found out that it wasn't right for me. And you know, a friend of mine turned me onto this wonderful book that changed my life. And the book, as many of you probably are already expecting because it's so well known, is is Rich Dad, Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Kyle, you read that book?

Absolutely.

Yeah. You Know what? If anybody hasn't read that book by now, please go read it. Just, just be aware that it likely will change your life. It is a very powerful book. And for me, what it did was open up my mind to what it calls minding your own business and not just going to work and thinking about your active income as your only sort of responsibility, but the opportunity of minding your own business and thinking of your investments outside of it. And so for me, I fell in love with this beautiful asset class that Robert Kiyosaki talks about, single family rental properties. And, and I saw how much control you have over the asset, how it could be very passive, how it could be very flexible, and how it could create a financial outcome for myself. So at 23 years old, I grabbed my, my best friend and business partner and we set out to build our own rental property portfolio.

We didn't come from a family with money or, you know, any real estate experience, so that was a little bit of a learning curve. But you know what, we surrounded ourselves with mentors, we surrounded ourselves with people who had achieved things that were well beyond what we had achieved at that time. And we tuned into education like this, and we bought about 40 rental properties in our first year and a half. From there, we've grown our rental property portfolio to over 400 single family rental properties, all here in the Jacksonville, Florida market. And we've built a property management company surrounding those single family rental properties so that we could do this for others. And so JWB Real Estate Capital is our company and we're here so that everyday investors can take advantage of this beautiful asset class to build up your army of income producing assets. And we create an experience that makes it easy and enjoyable for folks to be able to be a real estate investor and a rental property investor. And I've just had a blast over the last 20 years.

As I mentioned, I started when I was 23 on almost 43 now. And you know, this has been a journey here where we realize that the way to create these passive income streams and make it enjoyable for, for people is to make sure that the experience is top notch. So JWB has roughly 140 full time employees here in Jacksonville. We have all aspects of the investment under one roof and we're here to deliver this incredible experience for people. And we've had the opportunity to do that for over 1700 clients. They come to us from 49 states, 13 countries. We get to manage over $1.3 billion in real estate assets and we have a blast Doing it. So really excited to be a resource for everybody here and share some of the things that I've learned along the way to be able to help investors make great decisions.

That's amazing. And you know, normally hearing all that, I can pretty much say, well, thanks for joining us today. We can pretty much wrap up. I mean, that is a mountain of some really cool information there. And the one thing that stood out to me, lots of times when we're educating and we have guests on, you know, they're, they're real people. It's almost like, you know, they think we're bringing on superstars or results aren't typical. But you just said it. You read the book.

It was 20 years ago. It was you and a buddy. You're sitting there, neither one of you came from money and you didn't know that much about real estate. And in your first year and a half, you did 40 properties, if, if, if that, if that's correct. So you didn't do that on your own. I'm just guessing. It's like you said, it's, it's the people that you surrounded yourself with. Tell us a little bit about the way, like somebody's gonna say, how did he do that? You know, if, if you can touch a little bit on that about how you got started to.

It's like they say about Disney, it all started with a mouse. And then, and then look at everything. Okay, well, if folks really paid attention to everything that you have built in these 20 years and where it started, tell us a little bit how you were able to fund those deals.

Well, you know, even before the movement of the money, the most important thing that I learned from that book and from my mentors was to invest in my education and my relationships. And that's where we spent our time. Because we had a lot of that 20 years ago when we didn't have money and whatever money we had, I mean, you know, many people are, are concerned about paying for education before they do their first deal. Well, you know what, we spent thousands on education as, you know, 20 somethings who had never done a real estate deal. And people made fun of us for it. People, you know, friends, you know, people, colleagues, people that I was working with. You know, everybody made fun of us. And I would imagine others out there may have either had the same experience or maybe scared about that, you know, but it's educating yourself and investing in your education and your relationships, especially if you have the benefit of being on the younger side, is the best investment you can make from Those investments in my education and my mentors and, and those relationships, I learned how to master smart debt.

And the reason that was really critical is because my education, what I learned in Rich Dad, Poor dad, and what I learned from my mentors is that if you can build up an army of income producing assets, especially if you have the opportunity to do it while you're younger, you're going to be able to control your time at some point in the not too distant future. So my goal, after learning this and seeing others who are much farther along and much more successful than I was, my goal became how do I use the assets that I have, which is not just money, how do I use the assets that I have to get these income producing assets into my portfolio and then just simply let time do its thing. And so now, sitting on the other side of a 20 year journey, it's just the way that real estate works. If you buy the right assets, supported by the right team in the right market, and you let rental properties do their own thing, at some point in the next 10 to 20 years, you're going to accomplish those goals. The challenge for most people is how do you build it so that you have a great experience for those 10 years and how do you avoid the pitfalls so that you stay in the game longer, long enough to be able to enjoy the benefits of it. But you know, for me and Kyle, I know you, you own real estate as well. For me it was all about that education, those mentors early, early on in my career. How about you?

You know, it really is, it was the, one of, one of my mentors who's no longer with us. And you know, it was all about how, how he really started out and it was, it was mobile home parks and how, you know, you took, people laughed a lot at you and stuff. You know, it was all about how he was like, hey, you know, yeah, one here, one there. Then, then, you know, a couple of mobile homes came to the park and he was like, there's a lot of, of money in those. And it really is, to your point, the, the people that you do surround yourself with, it might not be what's in your pocket, but nobody can take away the knowledge. And you know, it leads to a lot of flexibility. That's one of the things too that, you know, folks will say, yeah, I'd love to be able to do this, but I might not have the funds. Well, actually, you know, and of course talking about what we do on the self directed part, you may actually have the funds or you know, someone that has the funds, but they don't know that they have it either.

And that's where the self directed IRA or the, your 401k comes in and how you're able to use those funds to really power your investment. And the biggest thing, and Greg just talked about it as well, is the freedom and flexibility that it gives you so that you have your personal funds or bank funds that are there. This unlocks the power for you to have that freedom and flexibility to use a retirement account to be able to make the investments like Greg has done, or to make the investments where JWB or other companies like that might be the ones that are going to manage these properties for you. So it really does just open up a whole new world. Real estate investing as, as my grandfather always said, they don't make any more dirt. Right. And so I would bet maybe not bad, but, but let me ask, are there properties that you have right now that may have been something that you got almost 20 years ago?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I own all the assets. I mean.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah. My, my belief is, you know, the hard work is getting a great asset supported by the right team in the right market. There's so much hard work that goes into actually buying it. Once you do the hard work and if you bought it right, it's supported by the right team in the right market, why would you sell? People might say, well, I want to create, I want to realize the income from the gains, which is a great problem to have. But in rental properties there are so many tax efficient ways to unlock the gains and still hold the asset. That's one of the beautiful reasons that I love this asset class so much that you just can't get elsewhere. So yeah, so I'm a big proponent of buying and holding and you know, my long term plan is that, you know, my kids will inherit a portfolio of rental properties which again is a great tax efficiency strategy because you know, the step up in basis is a way to, you know, give assets to your, to your heirs as well. So so much tax efficiency.

So much. And that's why I love being here with you, Kyle, and with American ira because this asset class, as you can tell, I love it, but I love it even more when you, when it gets to be tax deferred or tax free growth, which is what's possible when you buy single family rental properties in your self directed retirement account. That's why what you guys do at American IRA is so important. We're able to take these assets that the average investor doesn't understand can be done in their retirement accounts. And it's like, we're supercharging the benefits when we work through the products and the, the, the platform that you guys offer to be able to have investors invest in those.

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, because one of the things we'll talk about when I've done presentations in front of certain groups, and it might be, you know, younger folks starting out, but they're, you know, really hungry and they want to. They want to jump out, and they're doing all these, say, fix and flips or wholesale deals. You know, they're starting, you know, smaller, smaller accounts. You got to be a little bit more creative, Right. And as they grow, I'll explain the difference in the traditional IRAs, as opposed to the Roths, for example, and then I'll say, hey, you know, imagine everything you've done. All you guys are really killing it right now. But, you know, what's the one thing that you have to worry about at the end of the year? And it's like, oh, God, the taxes. And I'm like, all right, yeah, exactly.

I'm like, imagine doing everything you. You already do, but now you're doing it with a Roth account. And they're like, okay, I said, you're never going to pay a dime in taxes ever, with that. And I mean, that's. There's a lot of light bulbs going off. There's a lot of, you know, eyes opening up. And it's always great to be able to share that information. And it's not just the traditional.

It's not just the Roth, you know, I mean, there's folks out there that say, well, I don't, I don't have those. But, hey, spousal accounts, inherited accounts, HSAs, coverdales, you know, if you've got the newborn, hey, go ahead and start putting that two grand in a year for a Coverdell, whether it's the parents or the grandparents. And, you know, they're going to be able to. You can use that as the kid is growing up to grow it, and then they've got something that they can use for college. But then also there's that investing potential as well for the entrepreneur. Any of your clients that are entrepreneurs, and they, they don't have a solo 401k yet, or they want to learn more about it, hey, it's the most powerful retirement vehicle out there, but you can use the Solo 401k the same way that you can use the Traditional or the Roth to be able to invest in the real estate. And one thing I don't want to do, I don't want to take away too much of the thunder on JWB and exactly how you guys work with all of your landlords and how you can really power their portfolios. So tell us a little bit about what, what the turnkey landlord experience is with your group.

Thanks so much. And this is why I work so well with self directed custodians, just like American ira. Because when you invest in real estate in your retirement account, I don't know if it's 100% required. Kyle, you'll, you'll be better at explaining it or not. But what I can tell you is it works a whole lot better when you invest passively in your retirement account. And so the, the experience that JWB offers is one where the investor can be passive and you can invest with confidence in the market that we believe is best suited for single family rental property investments, which is Jacksonville, Florida. And you can do it from anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world, and you can do it regardless of your experience in real estate. And so we have some clients that are super experienced in real estate and they might be super successful flipping homes in Arizona or California or somewhere else, but they choose to build their retirement account in real estate through single family rental properties with jwb.

So the way that we do it is everything is vertically integrated. And I find that that is a critical piece. If you are searching for a hands free, passive way to invest in single family rental properties, you're searching for a vertically integrated provider. And what that means is that all aspects of the investment are under one roof. It's very unique. Many people will say, oh yes, we do this or we do that. But many turnkey rental property companies, what they mean is we will refer you over here, we will refer you over there. What you're searching for is it the company that owns all aspects under one roof.

And the reason that's really critical is because there's a, there's some complexity to this. It's largely done behind the scenes and it's, it's done by companies. But when there's one company that owns all of the outcomes, there's no room for finger pointing or the blame game. I always tell folks, when you're buying a rental property, the same person who sold you the house should be the same person or company that is collecting the rent. Because if you go to different providers, different teammates, let's call it, they all have different motivations. If it's not under one roof, the realtor has a different motivation than the property manager. And at the core of it, that misalignment of goals is what prevents a lot of folks from having a good experience in rental property investing. So we believe that it's just absolutely critical that the landlord experience starts with a vertically integrated approach.

So clients who come to jwb, they come to us, we understand their goals and their resources, we build a plan based on the number of assets they should have in their portfolio, the number of properties they should have in their portfolio, and then we have already purchased the land, we have already built a new construction home, we have already found a wonderful tenant to rent the home, we've signed a long term lease, either a two or a three year lease, and all of the property management is already in house and done for you. And the client simply gets to choose the asset that they'd like to purchase, or three or five or whatever the right number is. And all of that stuff has been done before they bought the home and that long term management is in place. So it's a completely different model than what the average approach is to investing in real estate. And that vertically integrated approach creates that wonderful experience for folks.

Did I just hear you say that you just reverse engineered how someone is going to get into being a landlord? I mean, that's pretty much almost what I just heard.

Yes. Well, you know, we take the pain points of what? Of all of the reasons, the obstacles that most everyday investors have is, you know, I felt them 20 years ago when I, when I got into this, I was like, man, I love this asset class. I see what this can do for me and my future family. But man, this can be hard. So we took every single one of those pain points and we solved for that internally. And when you do that, then you create this great experience for folks. Because if you ask most people walking down the street, do you think investing in rental properties you can make money in that? Do you think you can do that? Most people would say yes, but they say, ah, but I, the experience is the thing that I, I'm concerned about. You don't really have to convince people that owning real estate is a good thing.

That's how most millionaires are created in the States. Most people, you know, are aware of that, but it's that experience. So we crafted everything here at JWB to pinpoint the negatives of the experience. And as an investor myself, and we solve for that. And that's why we Sort of have created this approach where you can serve it up on a silver platter and then you have that existing management in place. It makes all the difference.

You know, I've, I've always told folks, you know, not that, not that we can tell folks, hey, the IRS makes you use a property management company. I tell them, you know, look, I came from the property, the real estate world and the property management world. I was a broker in charge of a property management company before I came to American IRA almost a decade ago. And you know, one of the things that, you know, you just always say is that, you know, the right property management company, let them handle 100% of the issues for 10% of the rent. And then of course, you know, whatever that nets out, it's coming into your retirement account without you touching anything. It is really hands off all the way around. You know, the IRS doesn't necessarily say that you have to or not have to, but we do strongly encourage our clientele to think about it. Because when you're using your self directed retirement account, you want to make sure that you're keeping everything as clean as possible.

With you, not only are you basically taking on 100% of the issues, you know, for a fraction of the, of, of the rent, but you have broken down barriers that someone may set up whether, whether they are true barriers or whether they have manifested them themselves when to your point, they were. Yeah, it sounds like a good idea. But gee, I don't know, whatever barrier is there, you've completely broken it down.

Yeah. And I think that's, that's a credit to the self directed custodian as well. So American Ira, you, you do a great job of this too because I think the first barrier that people say to themselves is I don't, I don't have the money to get started. I can't tell you how many conversations, and I would imagine the same for you, Kyle, can't tell you how many conversations you sit down with somebody and look at where their money is and they just assume that they can't use their retirement account. They just assume that that can't possibly be the entrance into real estate. So, you know, working with a self directed custodian who is a top notch, who cares about the customer experience like I know you do, unlocks the, the first hurdle. And you know, the rest of the hurdles are, are there as well for average everyday investors, but they don't need to be there. It just gets solved when you have, what do they call it, they call it one throat to Choke.

You know, I know that's kind of like, we don't really like that. But you know, as an investor you want to make sure that there's one phone number to call if things don't go right and it's going to be solved. And you want to make sure that they are making more money. When you are making more money. You know you can make one simple decision when you start rental, investing in rental properties, that you're only going to do business where there's one phone number to call where the same company that's selling you the house, same company that is collecting the rent. If you do that, that one simple decision will set you up so that you can enjoy this beautiful asset class that you already probably believe is going to make enough money for you that one simple decision solves the biggest problem for you.

Well, and too with that, any true investor knows it's not what you make, it's what you keep. And so whether thing everything is all in one house under one roof, no pun intended for you there and for your investors, it's just like with us, I mean the way that they're going to either have their annual fee, which is a low flat fee and the prices haven't increased on that in two decades and they're not even paying an annual fee with us on cash only IRAs. So until they even move forward with the investment itself or their first movement of money, they're not even noticing an assessment of their annual fee. And of course we try to make it as simple as well on our end that, you know, people say, well to your point, I don't know, I mean, how would I even get started? Yeah, I left this company a few years ago, I've got a sizable 401k. But how does it even get to you? And I just say, hey look, you know what, everything that you know about a retirement account is just that an IRA is an ira, whether it's at Vanguard or Edward Jones or American ira. All you're doing is diversifying that portfolio to go from investing in Apple stock to Apple Street. And it's as simple as an application that comes in. You've built your own portal in our system.

When you're filling out your application, you get the account established, you get it funded, and then you're ready to make your investments and that's it. And so we're very happy in how we've been able to streamline that process, educate folks along the way and then also on the back end making sure that they have a Client services team and a transactions team where everybody knows their name. You know, when they call in, they're not a number, they're the individual. And you're always going to know who you're working with and asking for when you call in to our company. So, you know, it sounds like, you know, with both of the companies with yours, you know, all under one roof, turnkey, making it simple, breaking down the barriers. We're the exact same way when it comes to the retirement account. Because you know what, people have lives outside of, you know, their 9 to 5, if that's where they still are, they've got other things that they want to do. And sometimes the last thing they want to talk about is an IRA or setting one up or even knowing what funds are in there.

And if they have the investments, they want it to be seamless. You know, they don't want to have their hands on it all the time, which is why they go the self directed route because quite frankly, they can't. So, you know, it is really, it really is cool seeing the similarities on the two companies. Tell me really quickly or take as much time as you like, but tell me a little bit about the Jacksonville market and how that, how looking in the right market to invest can really grow, whether it's going to be your portfolio or you know, even in our cases, someone's self directed retirement account.

Yeah, you know, I think the, the, the choice of the right market is one that people make very simply and they don't understand the ramifications of it, unfortunately. But choosing the right market will, number one, ensure that you are in the game for a full market cycle, which is what you need to do in order to be able to maximize your return on investment in rental properties. So if it ensures you'll be in the market long enough and it ensures that you're gonna, and it ensures that you will receive maximum potential for your return on investment. Otherwise saying if you don't choose the right market, you're likely to leave hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions of dollars on the table. And the thing is, we can help identify the right market before you get started. It's not rocket science. So I'll kind of explain what I mean. There's two main components as to how you're going to win.

And rental property invest. There's five profit centers, but the two that get the most attention, number one is cash flow. And people need cash flow. We are in search of cash flow. Cash flow helps us actually retire early or send our kids or grandkids to college. It's not net worth, it's cash flow. So cash flow is important, but we can't only focus on cash flow because the actual real growth comes from home price appreciation. So out of those five profit centers, those are the two that we need to pay attention to the most.

Well, if I want to understand how to find cash flow, I can do that really easily. The data on which markets out there are lower priced and have higher rents is pretty easily available. So we just need to find a market that has lower prices and higher rents than the national average. And boom, there's our cash flow markets. And that'll take, you know, a hundred of the top markets and combine it down to about 10. So when you do that, that's where most investors stop. They just think about cash flow. What you're really looking for is a market that has positive cash flow because it has low prices, high rents.

And what you're also searching for is above average home price appreciation. We get to manage about $1.3 billion in real estate assets. And I look at the reports, I look many times a month, and we report quarterly to our clients. And I, I get to see not just the numbers, but I get to see the pie, the profit pie. And I share this all the time with clients. When you look at my profit pie or any of our clients profit pies, they look like a pac man. And the big part of the pac man that's eating the smaller part is home price appreciation. Between 60 to 80% of total portfolio gains, total wealth created in rental property investing comes from home price appreciation.

Now you need cash flow because cash flow pays the bills. And we want to have positive cash flow when we start. However, the way you're going to make the most money is by choosing a market that has above average home price appreciation. So the pac man creates the larger pie, and it's, you'll see that it's between 60 to 80%. Now, all of this identifying a market that has great cash flow and is built to appreciate more is actually really simple. All the data is free, right on the cash flow side, low prices, high rents. On the appreciation side, what we see, and history proves this, is that certain markets appreciate more than others, and there's a cycle to it. And there are markets where people are moving to, which creates home demand.

And those markets where you see population growth tend to have higher home price appreciation. So we can almost know the answers to the test. I have a pretty good idea which markets over the next 10 years or 20 years are going to appreciate more. And that's because we largely look at things like population growth. So we're in Jacksonville, Florida. Kyle, do you think that we tend to have higher home price appreciation in Jacksonville?

I would think so, considering that my memory serves me correctly. It's the largest. Is it, is it by land, but largest city in the, in the country. So you should have between on both sides of the water, north, south, east and west. My guess would be that somebody has at least some type of pocket that, that can meet their needs. And, and, and to also, you know, when you and I first met. I want to take a break here for just a second. When you and I first met, we, I mean we, we didn't know each other.

We just had, had jumped on a call and, and there was that click, you know, and I find the importance sometimes in really how people can relate. You know, in, in business, people want to do business with folks that they relate to or, or that they appreciate or that they, that they like. And, and, and as we were kind of just really talking about each other in the company is one of the first questions I had for you was man, this, you know, pretty good sized company, you know, this many employees and, and, and this much in, in, in the assets and everything, you know, where, where all are you located? And I, and I think I may have thrown this in. I'm like, it was. I think I may have asked you or are you just in Jacksonville when what I really meant was there's no way you're just in Jacksonville. Right? I mean, you know, 49 states, 13 countries, people are investing right in Jacksonville. So that's actually the answer right there is that it's not just do. I think it's, it's, it's world renowned that they can take care of everything they need to right there in Jacksonville.

It still blows me away even looking at the map and all the conversations we've had, but it is super cool.

Yeah, well, 20 years ago I had to teach people what turnkey rental property investing was. Nobody had heard about it. I spent most of my conversations explaining this different approach to help people invest in real estate. So that might have been 75% of my conversation. The other 25% was letting people know where Jacksonville was in the US because nobody knew about it and nobody thought about investing there. Right. But both of those things have changed now. And Jacksonville has become what was the best known secret.

We now have the fastest growing population in the state of Florida. We have the fastest median growing, median incomes in the state of Florida. This is a place that has an incredible amount. We, we were number one. Most people don't know this. We were number one. Jacksonville, that many people might not think of number one for corporate net relocations, which means the number of businesses that came in to Jacksonville versus the ones that would leave. We were number one of any major city in the U.S.

you know, so there are a lot of things, and this is what you need to look for for a market that produces both positive cash flow, cash flow and growth. You need to find a market that other people might not say. Because if you're thinking about things like places like New York or California or some of these places with high home values, you might be able to speculate and get high growth over time, but you're going to miss out on the cash flow. You're never going to survive long enough and you're certainly not going to. Yeah, and if you go to some of the Midwest cities where you have low prices and you have high rents, guess what, there's low prices there because home values aren't growing. So you give up hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe millions of dollars in after holding onto the asset for 10 or 20 years. So the fact that Jacksonville is this wonderful city that I wouldn't say is the first thought for most people to invest in, but it's certainly not a no name city anymore, reflects why this is such a great city to invest in. And I'm glad you pointed out that we are different than most.

We have planted our flag in Jacksonville for 20 years. All of the 400 rental properties that I own are right here in the same neighborhoods as our clients. We were not going to other cities. And it's because we've done the research. We manage over a billion dollars of assets here in Jacksonville. And I have such an appreciation for how, how hard it is to be able to build a business that has this type of reach within the real estate community, within every type of teammate that you need here to be able to perform and create a wonderful experience for folks. I think companies that think they can just go to here and there and you know, where everything. You know what? I've built a business for 20 years.

What I can tell you is that creates risk for clients when you think you can just do the same thing by going to every other city. So yeah, we're a little bit different than most in a number of different places. But Jacksonville is our city and it's, it's wonderful to be able to have created great outcomes for our clients, meaning financial outcomes. But we don't have to worry about a lack of opportunity here as well. Jacksonville has that opportunity to create, you know, those, those rental property portfolios for, you know, the, the thousands of clients that we have and you know, hopefully the, the additional ones that, you know, get to know about us here. There's more than enough opportunity here in Jacksonville.

I, I actually liked what you said a second ago that people might not even know where Jacksonville is. And I'm thinking, well, it's, it's the, since it's the biggest city by land in the country, you, you pretty much just go to the oldest city in the country and it's, it's the, the next door neighbor, which actually is an interesting thing that I know that you're going to be talking about going into the webinar series that we're going to tease here shortly. But it's investing next to the next Great American Downtown and how that's really a, a theory and a culture that you really have helped build the, the company on. So tell us a little bit about that.

You know, we're all about. So, so when you're locked into one market and one model that just serves for your clients, it gives you the opportunity to constantly look for ways to refine the model. And 20 years ago, when we started to invest personally and our clients started to invest here with us in Jacksonville, we were focused on building the best rental property portfolio that we could, the best experience for clients. But you know, over the years, because we are so committed to this market, we look at other ways, we look at other ways to be able to drive return on investment for our clients and improve our community without bringing additional risk. And so many years ago we started to look at what the effects would be for a client base that owns single family rental property portfolios. What would the effect be if we could be the next Great American downtown here in Jacksonville? And there is a movement going on in downtown Jacksonville. We have about $8 billion of development going on in downtown Jacksonville of which JWB is a big part of it. But we started to say, you know what, what if you could know which downtown was about to be the next Great American Downtown and you could buy these beautiful risk mitigated single family rental properties surrounding that downtown.

And we started to put the data to it and we looked at places like Nashville and we looked at Austin and Denver and Tampa and we saw this phenomenon happening where revitalized city comes online. You looked at a few indicators to know which one was likely to be the next one. And you looked at home prices going up and you looked at rents going up around those markets that had revitalized downtowns. And then we said, well, you know what, you'd probably be the smartest guy or the smartest girl in the room if you knew enough to where you could buy cash flowing rental properties while the prices were still low and the rents were still high enough to produce positive cash flow. And you did that and plan to hold on for the next 10 years. And if you, if you can know what to look for, how great would would your portfolio be? And more importantly, how could you ride that wave of home price appreciation and rent price appreciation while locking in your positive cash flow? Because you bought it before, before the wave. And so we put a lot of research into it. What we found is that revitalized downtown cities, like the ones that I mentioned and a host of other ones, those revitalized downtown cities appreciated 89% more than the average US city.

And that's going back since 2005. So those cities have appreciated 89% more. And what we started to look for is, you know, how can you identify what the next Great American downtown is? And there are certain things that you can look for. And so these are the things. I can't wait to share even more about this when we do our webinar together here coming up in the not too distant future. Because when you can match the right team with the right market, the right asset, and then you have a way to supercharge your returns like buying in your retirement account and then also sprinkle in buying and next to the next Great American Downtown, this is how we together can create great financial outcomes in a relatively short period of time. And that's, you know, that's one of the things that we're absolutely focused on here at jwb.

Absolutely. And I tell you folks, that right there is, is going to be why you are not going to want to miss. Greg joining us on our live webinar series that is coming up in November. I want to say, is it November 12th? I believe so. Be watching for all of our newsletters that are going to be coming out and anything on our website where you can see the schedule of events coming up, this is going to be one you are not going to want to miss because Greg is really, really going to delve deep into that, into that topic. Really, really meaningful. Going to bring a lot of information for folks. I want to, you know, I know that we, we, we both have to head out and go our separate ways Here.

The rest of the. The. The business day is. Is calling number one. I want to just thank you so much for your time. I want to thank you for what this partnership is going to look like. We're really excited. One thing that I'd like to soften it just a little bit.

We've talked a lot of business here. There's one thing that you haven't talked about yet, and it's one thing that as I was doing my research and, and learning more about you and the company and, and everything is really your presence and in the community, in your fundraising and everything that you have done for basically in your way to give back. And that is called JWB Cares. And I'd like for you to tell everyone a little bit about that.

You know, it's been 20 years that we've been building this business, and pretty early on we realized that if all we were doing was buying and selling and renting real estate, that as worthwhile as it is and as wonderful as it is for clients, it would become a little hollow for us. And, you know, for us, we realized that we wanted to make an impact and be a part of something bigger than ourselves. And we realized that to attract the right talent, the right talent wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And that's really the mindset of where our charity, JWB Cares, came from. And we saw this challenge of affordable housing, and we saw the challenge that everyday people have of just buying their first house, might be their primary residence, might be a rental property. But, you know, we saw the challenges here and we said we want to, we want to do something that can really make an impact. And so over the last eight years, JWB Cares has raised over a million dollars. And this all goes to being a part of the solution for affordable housing.

But we do it in a pretty cool way. So every year we raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. And some years what we have done is we have built a brand new construction home and then we have donated that home to a deserving member of the community. The really cool thing is that we, you know, we run a property management company. And who are the folks that generally have the hardest time owning a home? That would be renters. Our renters have the hardest time making that leap to becoming a homeowner. But the average homeowner has hundreds of thousands of dollars more net worth than the average renter. And we said, you know what, what if we could align our charitable efforts towards helping our own, our own residents, our own renters take that step and become future homeowners.

And so this year we expanded our efforts. We actually just had our charity golf tournament about two weeks ago. And this year we had eight of our residents receive down payment assistance through the charitable efforts. The way we do it is pretty cool. All of our residents get the opportunity to submit an application to be one of the down payment assistance award recipients. Each one of them receives $20,000 that doesn't need to be paid back. That goes towards their down payment. And so we received over 450 applications with heartfelt stories.

Our residents are amazing people and they just needed a helping hand to be able to buy their first home. And so there have been, there are now eight new homeowners here in Jacksonville because of the charitable efforts of our community, our clients, our team. And rallying around at a time where affordability is, is the biggest, biggest challenge for everyone out here and especially renters. Many feel like they have never, they will never have an opportunity to be a homeowner. To see the look on their faces, to hear their stories about how JWB Cares was able to bridge that gap for them changes our lives and it makes everything that we do that much better. So thanks for letting me kind of wax poetic a little bit about it. If anybody would like to support the mission of JWB Cares, we would love all of your support. You can go to jwbcares.org if you'd like to donate and be a part of the special mission.

You know, property management is, is not for the, the weak of heart. I always said that I used to be 6, 4 until I got into property management. And now, and now I'm five, seven. But it seems like the hardest part now of all of your days would be who do you, who do you choose from, from the heartfelt letters and the applications. And you know what, if that's the, the hardest part, man, then of your day on that, then, then that's a pretty good day. And so what a, what a really, I'm going to end on it, you know, I mean there's, there's no more to talk about any more business. We've got the, the webinar coming up in, in November. But that right there, folks, you, you just heard in this time that we've spent together where Greg started, how it's gone and where he is now, and where it is now is not just about him or his company, it's about the others out there.

And that's some, that's some really good stuff. Greg, thank you so much for joining us today on this podcast. I always say that I learned something all the time from whoever we have on and you know, learned a great story today and I can't thank you enough. We look forward to spending the time with you in November.

Well, likewise Kyle. We hit it off instantly as you and I got to know each other and you know, I know our communities together really share mutual goals and mutual interests. So excited to share the JWB community with the American IRA Group and and vice versa. If anybody's interested and would like to learn a little bit more about JWB, you can go to jwbrealestatecapital.com American IRA There's a special Q4 2025 Jacksonville Real Estate Market Outlook that you can download for free if you want to go to that special URL. Again, that was jwbrealestatecapital.com American IRA and yeah Kyle, just thanks so much for having us. I hope that we get to do this many, many more times in the future because we're kindred spirits and I know our our groups, our communities can really benefit.

Absolutely. And for any of those of you out there who are listening or know folks that would benefit from this as well, you want to learn more about this, the self directed impact that it can have on your real estate portfolio or other aspects of your passive non traditional investing, head over to american ira.com and there you will be able to choose from any of our publications. Our latest E Guide is there. You can also set up an appointment with me or others in the sales department to learn more about how your self directed IRA can benefit you and your investment objectives. So without further further ado, we do appreciate your time. We'll let everybody get on with the rest of their day and the rest of their week. So again from the sales deck here at American ira, I'm Kyle Moody. Thanks for joining us again on another episode of the IRA Cafe.

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