From Owned to Owner in a Decade
A decade ago I was working as a real estate investment banker earning $54,000 a year. I was broke and in debt. I worked 12-14 hour days and on weekends. I would wake up in the middle of the night to close deals internationally.
It was so bad that the office even had a camera where my colleagues could watch me work, and if I spent too much time away, they’d call me -- even if I was in a client meeting. I was completely owned. The bank owned me, and while my mentor was incredible, I needed to get the **** out of there.
That’s when I fell into real estate.
I put an offer in on a house I wanted to buy with my girlfriend (now amazing wife, Brittany). The listing agent never even presented my offer to the seller, so I went and knocked on the door of the seller and made the deal directly. When I saw how much the listing agent made at the closing table, who literally did zero work -- and worse -- got in the way of the deal, I knew I could do it better. Our market deserved better.
Fast forward to today -- one of the most exciting things in my business world is creating a YouTube channel that will earn more money than that insane banking job I had.
In May 2025, I went to a conference in Austin, TX and met a YouTube guru. I asked him to help me launch a channel sharing real estate, finance, and economic data. The first video put out -- we hit 20k views, the second -- 40k, the third.... 60k, and even soon to follow, a nearly 400k viewed video.
I couldn’t believe it. Is content creation that powerful?
Yes -- and more. It’s not only about building and adding value to a community and becoming known.
It’s also a business of its own. For me, I started getting referral leads from agents across the country -- not just buyers and sellers.
From the May 2025 launch, I’ve received more than 40 referrals from owners, buyers, and agents in other markets. I haven’t tallied up the potential income yet, I’m just focused on adding value to the people who watch and see what happens next.
The truth is: I don’t want people to fall into the crap experience I had with the bad listing agent I had when I purchased my first home. And unfortunately, they’re out there -- a lot of them. After working with more than 1,000 agents in growing their businesses, I know how to ask the right questions to agents to tell the difference.
Now I get to play a small (but important) part of helping owners and buyers get placed with TOP agents who actually know what’s happening in their markets.
It’s all coming full circle and I’m grateful for it.
It’s not rocket science to set this system set up. You can do it too -- with consistency and some creativity (though a lot of R&D - rip off and duplicate).
There are success formulas, and when you follow them, you will replicate those results.
In fact, at Momentum, we have in-house video editing, thumbnail creating, and title designing. We don’t just talk about it, we literally DO it.
We set the pace and then help our agents follow through. The fast track to getting to the next level is being around others who are doing what you want to do — at a very, very high level. Interested in learning more? Reach out. We want to see you win, too.
-JB jon@movewithmomentum.com