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Joe Oz and Friends – Laid-Back, Fun & 100% Real Talk for Business Owners Who Started Small
Every big business starts as a small idea. Joe Oz and Friends is a podcast for the hustlers, risk-takers, and underdogs who built something from the ground up. Join Joe Oz as he sits down with entrepreneurs, real estate pros, and business owners who started small and scaled big—sharing their crazy stories, biggest failures, and the lessons that got them to the top.
Expect real talk, plenty of laughs, and zero corporate vibes. This is business unfiltered, unscripted, and not too serious—because success is messy, and that’s what makes it great.
No fluff. No gurus. Just real conversations with real people who built it from scratch.
Joe Oz (00:01.934)
Jeremy, what's up man, how are you? I'm good dude, so if those of that don't know, Jeremy Wilson is, actually this is what I think I know, I'd like to learn more about you today, right? But like, I think you're like the super biggest, largest real estate agent team in the United States, I think maybe in the world. And by the way, I was lucky enough to, so Jeremy and I sit on the agent advisory board for Zillow.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (00:03.863)
I'm good, how are you, Joe?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (00:21.272)
in the world, in the world actually now, I'm just not at all.
Joe Oz (00:31.598)
I was lucky enough to sit next to him in Charleston where you're from, I believe, right? Like at one of our events, one of our Mastermind events and you're a super humble guy, right? You've done a lot of really cool stuff. And I think what I'd really love to do is I'd love to learn a little bit about your journey. Do you want to tell us a little bit about you, your team, where you guys are located, just whatever you want to production, stuff like that. I know you guys are doing really cool stuff and I'm excited that you're here to talk to me about it. So thank you.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (00:36.814)
Yep, yep.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (00:49.775)
Sure.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:01.421)
Yeah, for sure. You want me to go all the way back to my messed up childhood or start at some point after that? I'll start after all the bad stuff. So I was 30 something years old now. So really Joe back in 2006 is when I got in the business. I was in the restaurant business for a long time. Actually my previous
Joe Oz (01:05.858)
Yeah, taosan!
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:23.927)
job, the one that I held the longest. I started as a dishwasher at a restaurant. It's a national chain, but it was a restaurant in Charleston. Started as a dishwasher in high school and eventually I ran the whole company, well the whole company in Charleston. There's 25 restaurants with this chain. I was the director of operations. So that got me up until about 2006 and my, good friend of mine that was in the restaurant business with me, he had already left the restaurant business to get into real estate. He was just dabbling.
and doing some investments and stuff. Nothing, nothing too big. And we were actually at his house. We would do Texas Hold'em games in his, in his basement. And he's like, man, you should get into real estate. And if you know anything about me, you know that I am quick to make decisions. Like I don't even really think about decisions sometimes. I just make them. So like the next morning I signed up for real estate school and like within 48 hours I was going to real estate school. And in that time, at that time it was in person. So I had to go to the, to the play.
You know, I didn't quit my job. I still had my job as a director of operations, which was a very busy schedule, but I had a lot of freedom, you know, driving around in my car to different locations in the office at home working. So I got my real estate license within 30 days and, uh, uh, you know,
put a desk in his real estate office. was sitting there starting to make real estate calls. didn't know what I was doing. I was so freaked out because I always want to know everything about the subject before I talk about it. Like, I don't want to talk to you about real estate unless I know everything about it because I'm in fear of what questions you're going to ask me and I don't have the answer right away. Like, I want to know everything. So it was really hard for me to make calls at first. I probably asked a billion questions to Donald.
Fast forward a little bit. got into back then condo sales were big in Charleston. So I got into some on-site condo sales. So I'm sitting on site selling condos while I'm working as the director of operations for a restaurant company. So that and that was fine. You know, they didn't care. was you know, we were just kind of brokering this condo deal. So, you know, I even had my magnet, you know, everybody's magnet on their car. I had my magnet on my company car and the owner of the company
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (03:38.473)
actually saw me driving by I guess one day in traffic and they called me on it they knew I was in real estate kind of on the side but they they called me on it you know I told them no worries I'll take it off but but Donald eventually gave me an ultimatum this was probably six months in said hey man you know that's great that you're double-dipping but you know in order for us to be successful you're gonna have to either ditch the restaurant job or or get back out of real estate so you know I was making decent money back then and and we weren't making any money in real estate
that yet we were still so so new I think I was selling a couple condos a month so I'm making nothing.
And I decided to quit my full-time job and I know people from there were telling me it was the dumbest mistake ever and the market was starting to crash. know, short sales weren't here yet, but you could see that the end was near. So I did it and then, you know, the next three or four years was the hardest I've ever worked in my life. But the good news is the restaurant job really prepared me for it. And I'm telling you, the restaurant business is so much harder than the real estate business.
Joe Oz (04:33.507)
Wow.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (04:43.053)
you know, as soon as I quit, I would go work on my real estate office, which was part of Keller Williams. And, you know, two or three o'clock, the office was empty. People were gone. They didn't get there till 10. They left at two. They complained if they had to work on a weekend. Like it was, it was cake compared to what I was used to working. I mean, 13 hours a day, especially running restaurants, working 13, 14 hours a day. I've slept in my restaurants before. mean, was, it was crazy. So this was, this was much easier for me, but it took a long time to get to where, you know, I was making enough money to,
you know, make up for what I lost.
Joe Oz (05:16.014)
Yeah, they say, I think they say like restaurant, anyone that's worked at a restaurant is probably the ideal person for real estate. Also you think on your feet, like you gotta fix stuff constantly. also, I there's also, heard something recently that like I was in a mastermind and we were talking about the number one character trait for a successful leader, it's humility. I think you learn a lot of humility. then like, did I remember when I was a dishwasher busboy in college and I think the first, my first achievement.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (05:37.174)
Yeah.
Joe Oz (05:43.15)
was the rack of glasses. I think I slipped and whole thing. I broke every glass. I'm laying on my back. This was a really upscale restaurant. The way up in this restaurant was to like, I was like, want to be a server. They're like, all right, dude, you gotta start.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (05:51.481)
You
Joe Oz (05:59.374)
Like being a server was a prestige. It was like I went to this like college in South Jersey It was a sleepy state school and like the only is like the pine. It's called a pine barrens It's just woods, you know, it's like wood It's like woods Atlantic City and then like Philadelphia, right and I was in the woods and it was like the only restaurant like so I needed to make money but like Yeah, I think there's a lot of humility in that role. So when you got into real estate, it sounds like you're talking about short sales It sounds like 2007 eight ish. Am I right?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (06:09.809)
huh.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (06:25.347)
Yeah, I got my license in August of 2006, but we really started ramping up in 07 and 08 and we first started expired withdrawals. That was our business model at the beginning. No leads wasn't really a thing back then. Like you had to go find your own business. So and again, I was the guy that like, I don't know if it was self confidence I didn't have or just not enough knowledge about the business, but like, you know, I went with Donald everywhere. Like he's 10 years older than me and he knew the business a little bit more and
Joe Oz (06:42.061)
Uh-huh.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (06:55.281)
Donald had more confidence than anybody and he's quick. He's very quick-witted and can answer every question even if it's made up answers. So, you know, he would be by my side. We would go on every single listing appointment together. Every day we'd get to the office in the morning. We'd go drive out to all the new expired listings, go knock on their door. We'd actually walk to the front door with a for sale sign in our hand, knock on the door, they would answer. And we were very successful at that. We started to get busy with that.
And then I remember our first ever short sale before short sale. was a thing. was a, it was a small local credit union and this lady owed more than, than the house was worth. And we actually went to the credit union and I started having conversations with them and they ended up agreeing to short selling this house for, and that was the first time I ever remember hearing that term. And then it started picking up and you know, then, you know, all the big banks, bank of America country, why they were not ready for all the short sales. So.
I mean we had to hire somebody that would just sit on the phone for an hour and half on hold waiting to talk to somebody in their loss mitigation department. So we ended up getting into short sales lots and lots of agents throughout Charleston thought we were the short sale experts. We were learning as we went we had no clue what we were doing but they thought we were the experts so they would just refer all of their short sales and distress sales to us and we would pay them gladly pay them a referral fee. I mean there were times when we had probably over hundred short sales at one time listed.
So that held us for a long time. always, we always got worried. Like you know, around that time they were either guys that only specialize in expired withdrawals or only specialize in FISVOs or only specialize in bank owned foreclosures. And I was like, man, we got to be careful because this is not going to last forever. And we need to make sure we're providing some service that we're doing, you know, we diversify as much as we possibly can. And sure enough, that was, that was a, that was big help for us because the guys that you saw,
ranked number one in sales in the MLS that all they did was REOs. Like they're nowhere to be found after that boom was over because they didn't have any real customers that they were talking to. So it turned out we lucked into getting busier and bigger.
Joe Oz (09:07.96)
Well, I bet. I have a very similar story, right? I remember like, I remember when I got licensed in 2008 and I think I set my first open house and I, people asked me about like the beginning of real estate and I always, I always compared to like when you're, when you go to a party, right? And you're like, you were a little late, like, or if you go to a concert and like the lights are kind of turning on or maybe you missed the band or whatever. Like I got to the party and they were like cleaning up and like turning the lights on and I did an open house and
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (09:31.576)
Uh-huh.
Yeah. What year was this?
Joe Oz (09:38.613)
2000 and I got licensed in 2008, so this was 2009, right? And I remember I was so excited. It was a townhouse complex and there was an open house right next door. And dude, I'm just like a, I think one of my blind spots, no, one of my blind spots is I think everything's fine. I think everything's great all the time, right? Like that's one of my, and so the people that I work with, I'm like, guys, know when you work with someone in leadership, you hire someone, like, these are my blind spots, you need to know them right away, because you have to look out for them, because I won't see them.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (09:42.179)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (09:54.989)
Hahaha
Joe Oz (10:04.622)
And so I went next door. And by the way, I never, I didn't know anything about money or wealth or markets. We never had anything growing up. It sounds like maybe you had a similar background. But if you're watching dishes, dude, you didn't have a silver spoon, I would assume. I went next door to the open house. There was another agent doing an open house, I don't know, a seasoned older agent or whatever. And I walked in and I was like, hey, I'm Joe.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (10:04.814)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (10:15.151)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (10:19.767)
Yeah, that's right.
Joe Oz (10:30.902)
I'm doing the open house next door. How cool is this? And, you know, meanwhile, I'm living in a house like four guys, you know, we just need beer money and whatever, you know, like, and, you know, the agent was like, I remember she just looked like she saw a ghost. She was like, not psyched. She's like, you just got your real estate license. And I was like, yeah, is it cool, man? You know, and she's like, she said,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (10:34.585)
Ha ha ha.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (10:38.671)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (10:49.56)
I
Joe Oz (10:56.118)
In South Jersey, there's a town called Wildwood and like, it's where like North Jersey people go to vacation. And so she's like, I'm like, how's the market? She's like, there's what she said, she goes, how's the market? I couldn't afford my boat payments anymore. So we left our boat in Wildwood in the Marina and we just like, we'll never go back for it, right? And she just like, kind of was doom and gloom and similar to your story.
My team leader was a guy that got into it before me, you know, and he was my age, but he like had, he wasn't living in a house with four guys trying to scrape money together for like beer money. He was like, he was doing really well. And so he opened up a brokerage and he was really smart and he was like, dude, we are, we need to do, he did the same thing as like, got to figure out how to do short sales. And he had this, he hired, we had someone that would sit on the phones and we kind of had a similar story. And I remember we,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (11:25.827)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (11:36.239)
Hmm.
Joe Oz (11:42.926)
really grassroots, like I remember getting chased out of like the local malls called Monmouth Mall and during the winter time we were like, we made flyers, like are you behind, everyone was behind on their mortgage, right? So we're like, are you behind, like we like made the flyers, like punk rock style, like, and we were like putting them on windshields and uh...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (11:49.092)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (11:53.251)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (11:58.423)
Yeah. my goodness.
Joe Oz (12:01.816)
Yeah, the security chased us away, we were doing, I love the thing, you're door knocking with yard signs and things like that. That's the kind of stuff, man. And it's funny to see the way it's kind of changed, way we're like, you and I met because of Zillow, the way we lean on technology and these channel partners. Tell me now about what your business look like now.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (12:17.539)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (12:23.599)
Yeah, that's a good question. It's mostly lead based and I say that, you know, we still do over a third of our businesses past clients or SOI, but I mean, it's a lead based business, make no mistake about it. Like we are partnered up with some of the top lead source companies in the country and we either pay for leads upfront or we're paying a referral fee on the back end as you know. And that's really what we're using to build and grow.
The way I like to explain it is, know, not everybody has what you and I had back in 2006 to 2008. that, first of all, the time that it takes to build that business up.
But also the work ethic, not really the work ethic because people do have good work ethic, but just the division, I guess. Like I've got to go out here and grind every single day, all day long in order to close some sales. It's not like that anymore. the agents want something quick. They need to see quick success. And that's where we think we fit in. Like we can give them the leads and get them to quick success. I think Amazon obviously helped with that too. So the consumer.
are looking for quick as well. So you know the consumer clicks on the internet and we get their information. They don't care about us. They just care about the house that they want to go see. So we've got agents in there to fill the gap that we train and get ready and the agents go to work and I call it rocket fuel. Like to get to the database that you and I got to you know 15 years ago they can get to it in a year honestly with taking leads and now they've got to do it the right way. They got to take the leads and take care of them and then try to nurture them and try to
get referrals from them for new clients and build up their database but I mean honestly if an agent does the right thing with the leads that they're taking that are very expensive leads by the way and low profit but if they do the right thing in two years they could be off leads and have their own beautiful database business now that's not always the way it happens but it could happen that way
Joe Oz (14:26.914)
Yeah, let me ask you this man, I love how you said that, right?
Joe Oz (14:34.38)
mistake we made at Oz Group was we didn't have any standards. I didn't know the avatar. I didn't know who we were looking for. We had the opportunity with Zillow and I want to go really, really fast. It's funny, man. I received a handful of accolades from Zillow and our brokerage and whatever. We went from five agents to 50.
in like six months, right? And I was like, my God, I'm a genius. how smart I am, right? And by way of the blind spot for me, can be ego a little bit, right? So like whatever, and then like, this is easy, you know? And my God, what I didn't realize was out of 50 agents, I probably had to off board about 30. Like I was like, this is like the airport and there's like no TSA. We were letting terrorists on the plane. We were letting like people without a passport, right? And so like then,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (15:28.227)
Yep.
Joe Oz (15:30.754)
you know, I brought on a sales manager who actually saw what I was doing. And like, really, it's funny, man, that first year we were onboarding 10, 12 people a month and I thought that was the move. And, you know, it's like, this is why they put like, if you're like, if you're like a really, really happening club in Vegas, there's like a velvet rope and a bouncer and a clipboard for a reason, you know, not everybody can get in, you know, like if you're wearing sneakers, you're not getting in. And so, yeah. And so,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (15:52.418)
huh. Yeah. You were not that.
Joe Oz (15:58.828)
You know, I had to learn that lesson, like, cause everyone also another blind spot in mind is like, I just think everybody can do what I can do. And I believe everybody like I'm excited and I think everybody can do it. So, you know, I believe you're in a bunch of like, how do you, like when you're hiring, like, what does that look like? Like you can't, I'm sure like, if you put something up on Indeed or if you hire a recruiting service.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (16:11.278)
Yeah.
Joe Oz (16:22.518)
I believe that you probably have a lot of people knocking on your door and I believe that with the success that you've had, the resources that you provide your agents such as onboarding or training or pipeline reviews and things like that, I would assume those are really valuable resources that also you as a leader have to.
protect those resources, you can't burn out your sales managers, you can't burn out your operations department. So can you talk to me from like the leadership standpoint and like an onboarding standpoint about bringing on people and like how do you address that man? Like anyone that's starting a team right now or got a Zillowfx account or got a Zillowcellar account or got you know whatever that looks like and has an opportunity to grow and how they can avoid some of those pitfalls. Can you talk about some failures that maybe you've had and things like that?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (16:54.083)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (17:03.769)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean we had a lot of the same exact stuff you're you're talking about with the quick growth and then like man What did we do and dial back and then rebuild like we we've done that a lot the I think the saving grace honestly for us Joe are We had systems and processes not the same. We still have not the same ones we have today We had a change and evolve, but we had systems and processes early on that was my forte Like I'd love I love the operations side of the business. I'm not the sales guy
Joe Oz (17:08.27)
you
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (17:34.753)
So that would be my first recommendation is try to build out the foundation and the outside of the business like what's going to be your processes and systems for your agents, your training program. Build all that out as much as you can. That's never going to be perfect. So don't wait till you get to 100 % to launch. It's not going to happen. But then partner with somebody else because rarely is there somebody that's great on both sides of this business, the outside and the sales side. And I am not that sales guy. So there's zero chance we would have been successful.
Joe Oz (17:42.638)
Ahem.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (18:04.677)
the sales side if it wasn't for Donald, my business partner who was the sales guy in Charleston when we were building Charleston and then when we started to expand we've got a chief sales officer his name is Brandon and he's on the sales side so he's the guy that's helping you know all the team leaders we have one team leader for each location help them then recruit making sure they find the right avatar holding everybody accountable like he's got to the team leaders accountable the team leaders have to hold the agents accountable so
He's doing all that side of the business and I'm really dialed in on the outside of the business. again, we're nowhere near where we need to be. We've got a lot of work to do, but we've done a lot of things over the past years. You know, it's the whole, you know, how you write a contract is, you know, every time you get sued for something, you change something. You know, that's how the sales contract is. That's kind what we've done over the years. We haven't been sued a bunch, but you know, just as we learned something, like, crap, why are we losing agents? Like we shouldn't be losing agents. Well, then we
Joe Oz (18:54.647)
Yep.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (19:04.517)
to go fix why we were losing agents. And then, you know, when you were talking about when you first got on with Zillow where you were bringing on a bunch of people, well, we made the same mistake. Like we called it giving the keys to the Mercedes to a 16 year old. Like we were giving them this holy grail of leads. They were ready to go look at a house and they were like 18 years old, you know, just got out of high school and going to look at $3 million houses. Like that was the wrong thing to do. So we had to dial that back and, know, we fixed our training program. Now we have tiers.
graduate to get so we've learned a lot of lessons and made a lot of mistakes over the last several years.
Joe Oz (19:41.346)
Tell me this, how many locations are you guys in?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (19:43.595)
We're in seven.
Joe Oz (19:44.962)
Seven, are they all in the same state? Same state.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (19:47.055)
No, four different states. South Carolina, Charleston is our original office. We started there 19 years ago. And then we have two other locations in South Carolina, one in North Carolina, two in Georgia, one in Florida. We got cell seven.
Joe Oz (20:03.534)
What advice, okay, so Zillow is like, yo, can you guys expand? Can you go here, right? And I listen to lot of podcasts, I read some books, know, I try to hang out with really smart people and what I hear is like, I always hear the fastest way to fail is by expanding too quickly, right? And so what advice can you give to a team member who has an opportunity to...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (20:07.139)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (20:11.812)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (20:23.844)
Yeah.
Joe Oz (20:30.11)
has an opportunity to expand with a lead source, but is a little apprehensive. think the apprehension comes from knowing that every state is different, right? Every market, even if you go to a different state, the different area, different MSAs are different, right? So what advice can you give to someone with an opportunity to expand that might be a little apprehensive or hesitant? Dude, we got time, brother. Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (20:43.503)
Yeah
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (20:49.231)
do I have time to tell a quick three-minute story about our first attempted expansion and should I say a brokerage name it kind of plays into it but I could say XYZ brokerage if I need to okay all right perfect perfect
Joe Oz (21:00.736)
Yeah, you could you could say whatever by the way, we're broker agnostic. love everyone. Jeremy and I not saying brokerage. We're just buddies, right? And by the way, can I just say that like the collaborative effort is where people succeed, right? And for what I found in real estate was I was the top agent at Keller Williams office and like and it doesn't matter if it was Keller Williams or Coal Bank or a remax, but like the other three agents that were on we were all on my we were all doing the same out of business. You know, we're all competing to be number one, right? And
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (21:22.084)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (21:29.657)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Oz (21:30.946)
They all... I was like trying to knock on their doors and hang out with them and share things and they all thought I was competition man and I think that hurt all of us. Yeah man and like when I worked at Remax they told me to lock your desk when you leave.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (21:37.751)
It's like frenemies. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (21:45.357)
Ha ha ha!
Joe Oz (21:45.494)
And I was like, what are you talking about? And the broker's like, yeah, the agents will go. This is what they said to me, this is real. Sounds unbelievable. They're like, they'll go through your desk and try and find your open house sheet with phone numbers on it to call some leads. So anyway, man, this is all about collaboration, man. And if it's part of your story, it's part of your story. We're here to uplift everyone.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (21:54.831)
Jeez.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, so I think this is a valuable part of the story and
So I'll start with the first 10 year and then I'm sorry, the first four years we were in business. yeah, first four years we were in business. We were with KW. we left it when the, when the crash happened, our actual local KW offset, we were part of went out of business. and there's another story about there, basically we moved our license and we became independent. We were independent for 10 years and that was perfect for us. Like we love being independent. Like we wrote our own agent's checks. Like they got the second,
they turned in the commission check, we handed them their check. Like it was perfect. We were known in Charleston, we were doing well, we were growing slowly. But then we had the idea to expand. were like, man, we got something here. And then Zillow Flex came around, so we got something here. We got the foundation with the systems and the ops. Like I think we can go take this somewhere else. It's pretty repeatable. So we were still independent. We went up to Columbia, South Carolina, about an hour and a half from us. And we were like, man, if we could do this in Charleston, we'd easily do it in Columbia. So we started to...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (23:06.789)
put ads out like indeed I think it was monster back then but indeed and try to recruit agents start talking to people trying to look for office space trying to learn the area in the MLS and like almost immediately it was roadblock after roadblock like nobody knew who we were they were some independent brokerage out of Charles and nobody really wanted to join the team we didn't really know what we were offering them we were like this is kind of an experiment hopefully it works so they didn't believe in us because we didn't believe in ourselves and then it got really
Joe Oz (23:32.706)
Hahaha
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (23:36.641)
We almost signed a lease for like $7,000 a month for an office space with zero sales coming in zero people on our team Thank God that didn't work out and a few days after that fell through or like man. This just doesn't feel right You know, let's let's scrap this so we we did away with the plans to expand even though Zillow was gonna let us go up there and they were gonna give us a campaign to start with
And then we were still friends with our KW people and we walked into his office and it's funny, we went there at the intention to find out what it would take to net a million dollars running at Keller Williams office. He's like, take about 600 agents on your, we're like, Whoa, there's no way I want 600 agents running around here and I've got to corral them all. So he was like, what about this? And he started talking about expansion. And at that time it was four or five years ago, expansion, what expansion?
look like was a team taking one or two agents putting them here two more agents putting them here just like a couple agents here and there basically trading referrals back and forth and you know I guess that worked for some people but what we wanted to do was start a big team and almost immediately like that day we and I told you I'd make quick decisions almost pretty much that day we made the decision that we were going to go to KW because they have the building
They have the agents. They have the broker. They have the copy machine. They have very cheap office space. And we're like, man, this makes sense. All of the things that we were worried about, they have fixed. Yes, we have to pay for that, but there's value in that. We just learned that there's a lot of value in that. And I say KW, like KW doesn't work for everybody. It just works for what we were trying to do at the time. So we almost immediately went up to Columbia and you know, KWs are all independently owned and operated. So you got to talk to the right people.
and find out which is the best fit for you. But we partnered up with them and almost overnight we opened three offices, Greenville, Columbia, and Savannah. And we started with about 15 agents in each one on our team. And we made a lot of mistakes. We started with a team leader, a weird pay structure. But we've learned, I think we've gotten better. And every time we open a new office, we've kind of changed the iteration a little bit. But that's really what did it for us, was our partnership with KW and our lead sources.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (25:55.585)
vital as well. to answer your original question, think finances is the most important because unless you've got tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to lose the first six months, like you got to you got to find the right partnerships with leads that aren't going to be you know $50,000 a month and you got to find you know the agents and cheap rent and all that stuff. So I hope that makes sense.
Joe Oz (26:21.678)
Yeah, that makes sense, man. Yeah, our Zillow rep was like, she showed us what we would be paying for these leads if we were paying out of pocket. And yeah, I don't know. I saw that number. And so, yeah, no, you're just talking about just leaning on your resources. And that's really super smart. And so now you have a team leader in each area, right? And then your sales manager oversees the team leaders. And then
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (26:34.797)
Yeah, yeah, it's a big one.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (26:50.415)
That's right.
Joe Oz (26:51.16)
Who, when someone wants to join Savannah or whatever, who interviews that agent? Like who interviews that person? I guess it's the team leader there, correct?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (26:54.991)
Yeah.
Yeah, the team leader and then we have a corporate recruiter now. We recently hired over the last six months. So they'll usually step in and do screening process as well. And we do a couple of different interviews with some of our leadership team to make sure they're a good fit. And we don't, you honestly, the 10 or 15 deal per year agent that's already doing that much is really not our avatar. Like,
in real estate business. mean, that's pretty much got it figured out. I know that doesn't sound like a lot of deals per year, but as an independent agent, that's not a bad, a bad living. you know, so in our team, like we don't mind going after the brand new agents or the agents that have only done a few deals. Maybe they're new to the area. They don't have SOI business and they can't take a year to build that up. That's our avatar. and, Brandon, our chief sales officer, his, his tagline is humble, hungry and kind. That's, that's what they're looking for.
Joe Oz (27:54.638)
That's good, man. What advice would you give to a new agent or someone or even like someone that's like, you know, doing a couple deals and like probably your avatar? So what advice would you, if you were speaking directly to the agent, like what should I be looking for? So like, obviously like someone might hear this that's not in your area or my area.
They're just interviewing in whatever, Illinois, whatever, right? What advice would you give to a new agent? What should they be looking for and what questions should they be asking the team lead or the recruiter or the sales manager, whoever's interviewing them? Let's arm them with questions, right? Because just like you said, man, I think a lot of, I've seen, I've worked at a bunch of brokerages and I've done a bunch of roles and I feel like I've seen really talented people.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (28:18.169)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (28:33.518)
Yeah.
Joe Oz (28:46.478)
just come in and out and they just weren't given the right tools, I think. You know what I mean? Like a lot of these brokerages are like, once they sign you on, they promise you X, Y, and Z, and they over promise and under deliver. Cause a lot of these are like franchise organizations, right? And so like, as I describe it a lot, like there's a lot of brokerages are, you know, there's monthly fees and things like that. And it's almost like 24 hour fitness. Like 24 hour fitness doesn't care if you're at the gym every.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (28:50.179)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (29:03.758)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (29:15.289)
That's right. Yeah.
Joe Oz (29:15.406)
they hitting your goals, they do care if they get their $99 a month or whatever that looks like, right? Netflix doesn't care if you're watching your share of whatever, they just make sure that you don't delete the app and not pay. So what advice would you give to a new agent when they're interviewing? What questions should they ask?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (29:20.802)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (29:29.005)
Yeah.
Yeah. So, so much. I think the word leads is thrown around too much and leads is such, and you know, leads is such a broad category. And I think a lot of people with the team craze over the last several years, I think a lot of people are trying to start teams and, not offer in as much value as those new agents need. And I think the first one I could think of is the lead. So make sure you really find out what kind of actual leads you're going to be getting.
Because if you're going to be splitting apart of your commission, you want to make sure that the leads are decent. Now, there's no, I really agree that there are no bad leads. Eventually, you you talk obviously about phone number, but you talk to enough leads, they're going to eventually start to convert. So there are no bad leads, but there are leads that convert faster than other leads. And you and I know what those, what those sources are. You know, a lot of people say they have leads and all they have is pay per click or website leads that are going to take a year, honestly, to convert. You're going to, you're going to convert.
one or two percent out of every hundred versus some of the bottom of the funnel stuff that's going to convert at 10 to 15 percent. really find out what the lead sources are so you know how fast you're going to get to the money. You know if you got the right bottom of the funnel lead source you're going to you're going to hit the money a lot faster. The next is support like you know when I'm writing my first contract or I have a question like who am I to lean on like who's going to be there for support is that person in production or they going to be here for me am I going to have a hard
getting them on the phone or getting them to help me. I think the support is a big question. Advancement, you know, I never thought that advancement would be something I'd be talking about, but once our team has gotten bigger and grown, like there's a lot of room for advancement now. You talk about the team leaders in each location. We also have assistant team leaders. That's a paid position. We also have mentors. That's a paid position. We have certified trainers. That's a paid position. We have a 17 person leadership team. That's all advancement and paid positions.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (31:29.627)
So there's so much advancement now. Somebody doesn't want to sling houses for the rest of their life, you know, and they're a good leader. There's a spot for them. so I think, you know, burnout in real estate is real. And I think I would recommend going to a team that's big enough to have some advancement opportunities for you. Systems, processes, all that stuff is very important, but leads, leadership, and advancement, I think, are three of the big ones.
Joe Oz (31:41.719)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Oz (31:57.176)
That's awesome. What?
What's the heart? So how many units did you sell last year?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (32:05.007)
Last year we did 1200. We're on pace to close 2200 this year. We're at 50 to 60 percent growth over last year through March right now. Currently as of today we have about 160 agents. We ended last year with 123.
Joe Oz (32:15.906)
How many agents is that in the org?
Joe Oz (32:27.448)
Got it. how many, tell me about the staff, dude. Like what's staff, like what, dude, come on, man. Like what's the staff behind that? Talk about support. So you just talked about like advancement and all that stuff and support. Like when I'm writing my first contract, who's gonna help me? But like, sounds to me like you should be, the agents should be looking for leads, right? And of course, let's put a magnifying glass on what does that mean, right? I always say, by the way, like my leads were like,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (32:34.627)
Yeah.
Yeah,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (32:42.51)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (32:48.718)
Yeah.
Joe Oz (32:55.896)
Dude, I was like a private investigator. These weren't people expecting my phone call. Sometimes the phone numbers are wrong and I hunt these people down and see if they even were thinking about. They just signed up on a website or something, right? Because they wanted to look at photos. So I get that, but yeah, on the support side, that's really, yeah, who's going to be there for me, right? Tell me about that. What is the operational side of your organization looking to support staff?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (33:05.677)
Yeah? Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (33:23.535)
Yeah, so obviously I think we've already talked about the sales side of it where it's the chief sales officer, the team leaders and then assistant team leaders, mentor certified trainers. On the outside of the business, we have a director of operations and she has seven different departments. I'm not going to be able to remember all seven of them off the top of my head, but marketing, training, customer service, referrals, admin.
and transaction coordination and then maybe there's one more but so you've got our Director of Ops that sees overseas those seven departments each of those seven departments are led by a US based person full-time person US based and the members of each one of those teams for the most part are all VA's in the Philippines that are like family to us and they've been working with us for years I think we've got 20 to 25 VA's at this point and we found that
Joe Oz (34:11.49)
Got it.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (34:19.485)
to work really well because the VAs have been great but they don't necessarily know how real estate is done in the United States so it helps to have a point person that's kind of their mentor, their coach, and their leader that runs that team. They have their own meetings and then the department managers have a meeting with the director of operations and it's worked really well for them. The transaction at the beginning of the call you were talking about you know different states do things different ways so on our transactions team
we have a transactions manager that lives in the states and then each office has their own transaction coordinator the busiest offices have two so
Joe Oz (35:00.514)
Got it. That's awesome. What's the hardest part about leading at this level?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (35:05.935)
the hardest part about leading at this level is just keeping everybody happy. Honestly. like we, we always try to do the right thing for everybody. you know, but the change, the change and keeping it pretty happy because nobody loves change, right? so when something seems to be going well on the agent side of things, and then we're like, all right, here we go. Like we just changed it. We're in process of changing our IDX solution. We're in the process of revamping and redoing our website.
People are just like, what's wrong with the old one? They don't understand all the ins and outs of it. So there's got to be some trust there. So nobody loves change. So that's the hardest thing, just trying to get people to understand the change and go with it.
Joe Oz (35:47.406)
Okay, perfect. How do you retain talent?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (35:54.182)
That's a good question. was just talking about that on a call yesterday. It's really honestly the culture in each location. I think the culture has a lot to do with it and the other members of the team. And you know, I've got the advantage of seeing seven different teams. I'm on all of their Slack channels. If you can imagine how crazy that is. But some, some of the teams are like super plugged in. They're like family, like great culture. mean, they're handing each other free leads. Like we don't let anybody, you know, take anybody's leads. Like if you're giving up the lead, you're giving it.
Joe Oz (36:12.866)
Haha
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (36:25.371)
to you're not getting anything in return eventually you'll get a favor paid back to you so you know just seeing that in some of the slack channels but then you know some of our you know we've got a couple of struggling offices and seeing how that the culture is not quite the same in those offices the collaboration is not quite the same it's it's a ghost town sometimes in that slack channel so just trying to get that culture going and this tough when you first that we just launched three new offices in the last nine months and you know we've got one person the team leader that knows Chucktown they've been in Chucktown
for a long time, but we've got like in Atlanta, we've got 20 agents that are new to Chucktown and know nothing about Chucktown or the culture. So trying to get that one person to influence these 20 people, it doesn't happen overnight and it takes just repeat over and over and over again. So a lot of it's culture. We rarely lose people over money and stuff. I really believe we've got more value than most places out there. We really try to take care of our people.
Joe Oz (37:24.578)
Yeah, man, I think in those market, I think what it looks like too with that culture, at least in my experience, you said you need those one or two people, but it just needs time for it to create itself, I think. And you do that by bringing on the right people and helping those people win. then once everybody sees them, once that person starts winning, our business model is like, let's just take, we started this literally, we started with, let's find my business partner, his name's Gil, he said, I'm like, how are we gonna do this? He's like,
He's like, by the way, we started it with like, I was in California, he was in New Jersey, I was cold calling. Like I was an expired cancel with John person myself, right? I, I'm like, dude, we're just gonna take a shit ton of listings and then we'll figure it out from there. And Zillow came along, but his, he's like, I'm like, how are we gonna do this? Like him and I were doing it, we're making money, it was cool. Like, holy shit, that first year we like, I set 200 appointments, we took 50 listings, right? And so like, was just him and I and an admin. And then like we, he's like, we're gonna take one person and change their life.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (37:59.56)
huh.
Joe Oz (38:23.542)
And then we're just going to scream it from the rooftops, right? So when that person's life changes, that becomes the social proof, right? And then that person gets to kind of scream it from the rooftops and then we're putting people around them and like, I think people just have to see that it's possible. You know, it's like a four minute mile. Like, you know I mean? It's like, dude, I just have to see that it's possible. And so if you can start small, I think, and then really just change someone's life and then...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (38:23.713)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (38:40.771)
Yes. Yes.
Joe Oz (38:50.19)
I think it just trickles down, man. And that culture, I think it just takes time to create. And the funny thing is, is man, I've been in these rooms where like culture, dude, I didn't understand it for so long. Like, what is culture, man? Like, what does that even mean, dude? You know? And now it's like, now I get it, dude. You know, man, we have like the top producer dinner. We go to top golf. do these things. let me, yeah, let me shift to another question, man. What market trends are you?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (38:53.859)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (38:59.533)
huh.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (39:05.166)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (39:11.919)
Sure.
Joe Oz (39:18.104)
yeah, what trends are you watching in real estate right now?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (39:22.172)
this is going to sound really...
dumb probably but I don't worry too much about the real estate trends. know that sounds so crazy but I'm no longer in the real. I don't even see myself in the real estate business any longer to be honest with you. I mean I think my agents are and my team leaders are but I'm in the agent supports support business honestly anymore. So I was telling my wife the other day I'm like man I hope we don't ever move because I'm going to hire an agent to help us move. even know.
Joe Oz (39:32.556)
Yeah, yeah, dude.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (39:54.805)
I'm the MLS anymore. Like I've been, I've been not doing real estate for so long at this point that, you know, I'm in the taking care of agents business at this point. So, you know, there, there's, there's trends, but there's always going to, my mindset is there's always going to be business. Yes. The, the, may not be as many sales this year as there were last year. It may be a different type of sales, but there's always going to be market share. Like we're not even probably 3 % of the market share in any one of the markets we're in. So think of that. mean, there's 97 %
Joe Oz (40:05.848)
Good answer.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (40:24.729)
in the market share. There's so much there for everybody and that's why like I love those rooms that you're talking about. Like I was in Tampa with it for Zillow Mastermind last week where there's 40 of the top Zillow Flex teams in the country there from all different brokerages and man it was like everybody's just open book. They'll tell you everything like there's plenty of business for everybody Joe.
Joe Oz (40:46.124)
No, first, dude, that was such an awesome answer. Also, like, there's so much bullshit, right? Like, we just gotta put the blinders on, and it's like, everyone's asking me about, like, clear cooperation this week, and I'm like, dude, I don't care, man, like, it's gonna be fine, and also, we're gonna figure it out, right? Like, the leaders figure it out. Like, we're gonna figure it out. It's so funny you say that, man. I'm in California, I am licensed, I have access to the MLS, and dude, I,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (40:54.68)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (41:00.527)
Yes, yeah.
Joe Oz (41:14.286)
I just this morning I was with my broker who's helping me purchase an investment property. Like I can't do I don't even dude he I couldn't find bro for like multifamily homes like like I was looking for four plexes and three plexes and I'm in my app. I'm in the MLS by myself like this how dumb I am. I'm like trying to find like comps and stuff and then I called this dude and he like screen shared with me and like he like
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (41:18.872)
Ha ha ha ha!
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (41:26.669)
huh.
Joe Oz (41:38.062)
I was in the wrong place in the MLS. I didn't know how to use the MLS, right? And I'm like, oh wow, this is crazy. And it was funny, he was like, I was very clear with this dude. was like, yo, I'm not looking for a commission, I'm looking for a broker to help me. Will you please help me find this house? And he's like, yes. And it's funny because he asks me for, you know, whatever. It's a symbiotic relationship, right? We talk, he's like, what do I do about my team and this and that, the other thing? And I'm like, oh dude, I can help you there. But I can't find a fourplex in this.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (41:41.665)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (41:50.479)
Hahaha
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (41:58.531)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (42:06.243)
That's right. One of my neighbors, one of my neighbors is a financial advisor and he consulted with lot of widows and widowers and I saw him in Starbucks the other day and he's like, Hey, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to jump on a podcast and talk all about probate and wills and real estate. And I was like, I'm not your guy, man. I can give one of my agents to do a buy. I'm not that guy. So like, if you want to talk about building a team or expanding a real estate company, I'll help you with that, but I'm not, I'm not that guy anymore.
Joe Oz (42:29.954)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (42:36.451)
When I was doing it, was, I really felt like I was good. I was a great listing agent. I loved the listing side of the business. Very analytical, you know, but I've lost it all just doing what I've been doing for the last several years.
Joe Oz (42:50.178)
Yeah, cause you're not that person anymore, man. You just grown, right? And that's okay. That's like who we are, right? Like that's where we go. What keeps you up at night?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (42:52.747)
Mm-mm. Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (43:03.245)
My all my thoughts man, I've got so many thoughts and ideas and I can I can't even imagine being like a Brandon or an Anna. That's my chief sales officer and my director of ops like I kind of feel bad for them a little bit just like I'm like, what about this guys? Let's try this. Let's do this. Let's change this. And you know, they've got to hold me back sometimes. You know, because I've got a lot of thoughts and ideas. That's really it. I just want to and taking care of my people. I really like the thing that bothers me the most
as if I ever get wind of somebody in the company complaining. Whether it's complaining about bad leads or bad leadership or you know somebody not getting back to them and communicating with them. So like I just want everything to be perfect. I know that's impossible but that's just I strive for perfection. That's probably my downfall.
Joe Oz (43:56.45)
Yeah, sure man, that's awesome. What's something that agents totally get wrong?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (44:04.932)
well, I don't know if I can...
What I think they get wrong is they don't have belief in the kind of what you were alluding to earlier. Like they don't have the belief. Like I'm like shaking. I'm like guys, you've been doing this for a long time. I've seen agents go from zero to closing 70 deals a year or like making no money to bring it home half a million dollars a year. Like, and this is how they did it. I saw them do it. I actually trained them when they first started and now they're here 10 years later and they're still doing it. Like this is what they did to get there. But you know, it takes a lot.
of consistency and a lot of you know just every day doing the same thing over and over again and and you know it's that's hard for I mean just think of like losing weight I'm going through that struggle right now like I talk a good game in real estate but like it's hard for me to stay consistent with working out and exercising and eating right so I get it it's a hard thing to do every single day but that's the only way to get successful in this business is just the consistency and believing in the system and believing that it's going to work.
Joe Oz (45:08.332)
That's awesome. Now let's get on to the, let's move on to the more important questions. I'm in Charleston for one night. I've got one place to eat. Where am I eating?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (45:13.231)
Okay. All right.
knew you were gonna ask me that. I'm the worst. So I don't know if you know this about me but I have eight children. I have eight children so we don't get out to eat much Joe and I'm gonna be... yeah I've never found them. I still haven't found that store. I'm gonna be serious. This is my favorite restaurant. You're gonna think I'm joking but this is my favorite restaurant. I'm gonna tell you where to go if you're in Charleston. Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A.
Joe Oz (45:27.958)
Okay, is there like a pharmacy in Charleston that sells like prophylactics maybe or like, did you not find that or what?
Joe Oz (45:44.75)
Okay.
That's the one, huh?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (45:48.428)
Chick-fil-a is the one man. It's like there's always friendly. They're always fast. You can I mean they've got it figured out man
Joe Oz (45:51.96)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Oz (45:55.928)
Bro, we just had, so I live in San Juan Capistrano, right? We have something called Swallows Day. It's like 4th of July for like San Juan Capistrano. It's when the swallows come back to Capistrano, right? And it's a lot of history and heritage here and we have a parade every year. The parade was last Saturday and my wife and all of our friends, we like rode our bikes over and we parked right in front of the Chick-fil-A. And my wife's like, we need to park in front, we're gonna...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (46:00.349)
huh.
Joe Oz (46:22.53)
you you're gonna make your spot at the parade, you know? And so my wife said, I was like Chick-fil-A, I'm like, all right, she just kept talking about meeting. Everyone met at Chick-fil-A, and we left at like 10, we made our way over there, it's like noon, all the kids are like, dude, my wife just walks across the street, gets like, she's like, what's the biggest chicken nugget, like, I guess they do like 30 count chicken nuggets, yeah. So she got like, she comes across the street, my wife's amazing, her name's Nicole.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (46:24.751)
you
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (46:41.135)
Platter. Yeah.
Joe Oz (46:47.982)
She just comes over and like everybody was hungry man and like she's everyone just eating it and that's a home run. That's to and from my son's school, Is Chick-fil-A, we stop there constantly.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (46:51.909)
huh.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (46:59.575)
That's awesome. Yeah, and if you want to figure out how run a business, man, just go sit in the Chick-fil-A for a while. They've got it figured out and if they don't, they will figure it out.
Joe Oz (47:10.158)
Well they have the customer service. I always talk about Trader Joe's, right? When I do a training, I always talk about Trader Joe's because when you ask for where's the peanut butter pretzels at Trader Joe's, I always say, what do they do? Do you know what they do at Trader Joe's when the guy's stocking his shelves and you ask him where the peanut butter pretzels are? Do you know what they do next? Correct, yeah. It's like the Four Seasons. It's like, sir, I'll take you there or whatever. It's like, not that I hang out at the Four Seasons. I'm just a realtor, maybe one day, right? But like.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (47:13.165)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (47:26.785)
he takes you all the way across the store, doesn't he? That's... that's... yeah.
Joe Oz (47:38.488)
you know, it's the front of the airplane, that kind of thing. And when we start treating people like that, I think that's when everything kind of starts to change. What was your first concert that you ever went to?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (47:49.455)
of the you. So I think this is going to resonate with you. It was actually Green Day. I look like a typical Green Day fan, don't I?
Joe Oz (47:54.763)
Nice!
Joe Oz (47:59.694)
Well, you know, it's funny, man. Do you know what year was that? And do you remember the venue or were they probably, were they were smaller? Like now they play like stadiums now.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (48:03.114)
that had to be...
Yeah, that had to be, it was in a coliseum that seats about 10,000 people and that had to be 1993 or 1994.
Joe Oz (48:18.282)
That was like the beginning. Do you remember, did they play with anyone else that is notable?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (48:20.143)
Yeah, it was a long time ago. I don't think so. was so having fun. If you know what I mean, like I was, I don't remember too much about that concert.
Joe Oz (48:29.665)
Uh-huh. That's awesome, man. That's great, man. Yeah, yeah, when I was younger, I had a record label when I was 19, and I actually went on tour. Got to go on a couple tours, man. One of my buddies, my buddy got me into it. It was funny, had real, like one of my oldest friends, his name's Adam, and he, we both grew up at the Jersey Shore.
and you could get on the train and go into New York and there was like, we caught the tail end of like CBGBs and all these little clubs and there's always stuff going on and it was really cool because, you know, we could go into New York and there was punk rock shows every, on Saturdays and Sundays, like they were everywhere. They're all over the place and you could find them and you know, there's like this community of weirdos that like we kind of got along with and it was really neat and I was kind of like, I was like a
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (49:19.417)
Sure.
Joe Oz (49:23.918)
good kid, I did good in school and I wanted to go to college and I was kind of a nerd and my buddy Adam was like, kind of like, don't think he, I guess, gee, I don't think he finished senior year, you know? And like, you know, at the end of my senior year, which is his senior year as well, I was like, well.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (49:27.597)
Uh-huh.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (49:34.191)
You
Joe Oz (49:43.438)
going to college or whatever and he's like, I remember I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm going on tour with, there was like a local punk band. He's like, I'm going on tour with this band. And I was like, I was like jealous. I was like jealous. And then like, but my jealousy was like loser, you're not going to be anything. But really I was like jealous, jealous. Like there was my, my, and so he wound up, um,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (49:58.703)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Oz (50:07.106)
It was crazy, it's like anything else, dude, like you were talking about. Like, it's gradual and then it's sudden. He like went on tour with this one band that nobody knew, but then they got asked to go on tour with a bigger band, and then he went on that tour, and then that bigger band called him up and was like, dude, this was like in the course of like nine months. It's like, hey, they were like, hey, we're going to Japan. Do you want to come to Japan with us? So here I am, a dork at college or whatever, hanging up posters in my dorm.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (50:16.12)
Uh-huh.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (50:23.267)
Wow.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (50:30.989)
He's traveling the world.
Joe Oz (50:32.61)
Yeah, he's like, I'm going, I'm going, the band was called Sick of It All. He's like, I'm going on, I'm going to Japan, I'm sick of it all. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, so, and then like fast forward a couple years later, he's selling t-shirts for Green Day. Dude, he's like, literally the guy on tour working for that band. And yeah, I think he called me, he called me one day and he was like, hey man, this so and so needs to go, needs a person to sell t-shirts. Do you want to go on tour this summer? And I was like, yeah. And so I got the opportunity to do some really cool stuff and.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (50:36.663)
You're putting posters of your buddy on your dorm wall. He's out traveling the world.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (50:45.965)
Wow.
Joe Oz (51:02.284)
That was really, really fun. What do you like to do? What do you do for fun, man? Like, I obviously have a gigantic family, right? So obviously you're doing a lot of that stuff, but if you get time to yourself, what do you like to do?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (51:10.605)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (51:15.245)
Yeah, this is gonna sound like I like to work. really love what I do. So that's that's big part of it. But my hobby is actually I've always wanted to be a cop, a police officer. So every other weekend on Friday at about five o'clock p.m. I go I've created a nice friendship with a guy that works for the sheriff's department. So I'll go jump in his truck and we'll go policing until five o'clock in the morning. Ride along every other weekend.
Joe Oz (51:38.188)
Really? Ride along.
Joe Oz (51:43.734)
Really?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (51:44.141)
That's right. I love it. It's so much fun. It's so much more interesting than real estate.
Joe Oz (51:49.604)
Can you share a story of something that you've seen?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (51:51.407)
Man yeah, yeah, so like I sit in the passenger side right so and like I can get out like I'm getting more comfortable I've been on some like when they go run the dog track and stuff like I'll go with them on that like I got it can't do too much because I'm you know I'm not a cop but so he always puts the the prisoner behind me or the person get arrested behind me and it's one lady this one girl she had tattoos all over her neck and stuff and she was a big girl and She actually slipped through the cut they had her handcuffs out handcuffed out by her car
We almost got into a chase with her, but we didn't. So she slipped out of her handcuffs, started wrestling with my guy and another cop, and they ended up getting her again. They threw her in the back seat of the car, and she was just going off on me. She thought I was... She said, are you a police officer? I was like, no ma'am, I'm not. I'm like, no ma'am, I'm not. Please don't hurt me. She was like, you're a snitch, aren't you? Yeah, you're a snitch. And like there's all kind of this commotion going on behind me. I'm freaking out. Like she's going to pull a gun out and shoot through the seat or something. But there so many stories, man.
Joe Oz (52:48.224)
my goodness, wow.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (52:51.443)
It's crazy. It's a lot of Yeah, yeah.
Joe Oz (52:54.35)
at your wild side. That's so funny. I've been on a firefighter ride along. That was pretty awesome, by the way. it's probably, I'm a lot more tame, like, yeah, like a few years ago, like as an adult, my buddy was like, you wanna come in the fire truck when we get a call? And I'm like, are you out your mind? Yeah, I wanna do that. Are you crazy, dude? Hell yeah. That's fun, man. Let me ask you this. What?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (53:03.841)
Really?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (53:16.751)
Heck yeah.
Joe Oz (53:24.204)
You like these questions? Are these fun for you?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (53:25.837)
Yeah, yeah, these are good, these are good.
Joe Oz (53:28.82)
What is, what famous person have you met?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (53:32.539)
man, not many honestly. So I've been in a hotel room with Ric Flair and Ric Flair was only wearing a towel. So that's...
Joe Oz (53:41.537)
Hahahaha
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (53:43.726)
I won't give you any more of the story than that. No need for that. I was room service at a hotel many, many years ago and they were having a wrestling event here. So, you know, I got to the, I worked at the room service at the hotel. So I delivered room service to him. I can't remember if he tipped me or not. So that's really about up close and personal on it. It's as personal as you get, I guess, but now I don't have many famous people stories. I don't get out much, man. There's not many famous people running around Chick-fil-A in Charleston.
Joe Oz (53:50.764)
Wow.
Joe Oz (54:12.782)
I think you're a famous person man. love what I love most about you is you're a really humble guy man. You've had a lot of success and you're an open book man. I see they're following you on Instagram and Facebook and I just always see you collaborating with folks and things like that. You know I think I let me ask you this man like what
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (54:13.649)
you
Yeah.
Joe Oz (54:36.46)
What can we plug, man? Like referrals, dude. If people need to move to what, so we talked about it. Let's recap, right? Where can we reach out to you guys if we need real estate assistance?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (54:47.041)
Yeah, I think the easiest way that we've done it is just anywhere in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Like give us a call. If we don't have our own Chucktown agents in that area, we're partnered with the best agents in every county. Like we'll just connect you with that, with that agent that we know. And we've got referral partners in almost every county throughout the United States. And we've personally talked to them, interviewed them, made sure they're a good fit so that we feel comfortable sending people to them. So really any of those four.
States like we can either take care of them with our team members or we can get them in the right hands so yeah I appreciate that. We did we did send you a referral today yeah it's crazy man we're sending about thousand referrals a year at this point it's it's nuts yeah it's been cool.
Joe Oz (55:24.302)
Dude, you sent me a referral today.
Joe Oz (55:33.154)
That's wild, Yeah, man, you guys nailed it. That's like where I started my real estate career was in the town where that referral came from. So I've already connected with you. That was so nice of you, by the way. I should have thanked you right away. That was so nice of you, Yeah, that same thing, man. For us, it's New Jersey, anywhere in New Jersey. We're pretty much covering all of it. New Jersey's not that big, actually. Cool, man. And what's next for Chucktown Homes?
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (55:44.655)
That's great.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (55:48.195)
Yeah, no worries.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (56:00.216)
We're dabbling, we're talking about a few different areas, but really we're right now, we're just ultra focused on the three new expansions that we started with in the last six to nine months, just making sure we get them energized and making a ton of money and a lot of successful agents on the team. So that's our goal right now. If Zillow comes to us and says they've got something for us, it'd probably be hard for us to turn it down right now. But we're ultra focused on our seven locations at this point.
No thoughts of expansion in the next six months.
Joe Oz (56:34.754)
That's awesome, man. Cool. I'm gonna see you in like three weeks, I think, right? I'm gonna see you in...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (56:41.709)
Yes, I'll be in California. We're going to, against my will, my wife and our neighbors are taking us to, taking me and the kids to Italy. And I have no desire to go to a different country where I don't know the language, I don't know the transportation. Like I'm not looking forward to it. But the day we get back from Italy, I fly out to go to the West Coast from the East Coast. So I'm going to be, I may not, I may be a zombie when I get to LA or Orange County. Yeah.
Joe Oz (57:07.182)
That's brutal, dude. So that's why you can't come surfing with us.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (57:10.413)
That's right. Yeah, I'm not getting there till later in that day. Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Oz (57:14.433)
Can I tell you something? So my wife, her name's Nicole, she's got, I don't know what happened man, she just got the travel bug. Like dude, we travel, right? Like we're very lucky, we have a condo in Hawaii on the big island.
We go there, that's like a six hour flight and like we, it's my wife's uncle's condo and it's got all the stuff in it. Dude, it's got the beach chairs, it's got the mayonnaise is in the fridge, you know what I mean? It's easy. We go there, we stop at Costco, we get a bunch of stuff and like we hang out at the beach. So I love that, right? That's cool. I surf, that stuff's awesome.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (57:31.821)
Yeah, it's not bad.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (57:39.439)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (57:45.571)
Yeah.
Joe Oz (57:50.39)
We'll also do something like a state park or something. But my wife got the travel. When we were younger, we would travel constantly. You know what's happening is on Instagram now. It shows you like 10 years ago you were here, whatever. So when we were kids, I mean, whatever, not kids, but you get it. When we were younger, we went everywhere, man. We went everywhere. So in her feed, it's like Peru, Italy, all these places we went. So she's got the travel bug and she just recently was like, she wanted to go to Japan. And I'm like.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (57:54.733)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (58:03.823)
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (58:07.853)
younger yet.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (58:14.614)
my gosh.
Joe Oz (58:20.044)
We have a three year old and a nine year old. On hour five, back from Hawaii last time, Max was like biting and scratching Milo, like it was getting gnarly. Japan's like a nine hour flight. So I'm like, gee, Japan might even be a 12 hour flight. I don't even know. Either way, man, I'm like, this does not sound good. And so,
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (58:27.319)
Ha ha ha ha ha
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (58:35.151)
you
Yeah.
Joe Oz (58:39.374)
And then my wife was like, and so Italy just came up. And I've been there, I love it, it's awesome. But in my head, I imagine me and my wife when we're dating, roaming around, stopping in the pubs, yeah man, or like doing whatever, but like yeah. Do you chase him, do last night, my three year old, it was like from nine to midnight, I was like, I was putting him to bed every half hour, then I like laid in bed with him, then we woke up and I tried to get out of bed and I brought him into my bed.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (58:48.193)
Yeah, yeah, nice romantic, yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (59:02.023)
Ha
Joe Oz (59:07.406)
I don't want to do that in another country, right? So my wife recently was like, yo, she's like, she doesn't say yo, I say yo, because I'm from New Jersey. My wife says, what if me and Milo's are nine years old? What if Milo and I just went to Japan? I was like, that sounds amazing.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (59:08.887)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (59:22.444)
Yeah, that sounds like what my response would be.
Joe Oz (59:26.134)
I was like, that sounds like a win-win. also, my three-year-old is such a sweetheart that like, I...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (59:32.825)
Well, I have a feeling that part of the conversation going to get edited out of this.
Joe Oz (59:37.312)
I know man. I told her. I texted her. was like, you know what? Because you know what? think also I did discover that that one-on-one time with your parent child is really special and it's really rare. So not only would it save my whatever anxiety I have around this whole thing and not wanting to do it.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (59:52.226)
You
Joe Oz (01:00:05.698)
Like she would get to do her thing with Milo and Max and I could just chill and do our own thing, you know? And I think that would be really special. most people would think that you're crazy for not wanting to go to Italy or whatever, but like, but no, I totally get it, bud. Well, listen, dude, wanna respect your time. We're at about time, or about an hour. thank you for joining me, man. I learned, when I learned more about, when I found...
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:00:09.635)
Yeah, you stay back here. That's right.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:00:20.611)
Yeah.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:00:29.443)
Yeah, that's great.
Joe Oz (01:00:33.666)
The more I learn about other people that I respect and admire, the more I learn about myself. And that's the opportunity that you've given me today. And I think we've probably given some cool stuff to some folks. So thanks for your time, man.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:00:41.593)
That's cool.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:00:45.955)
Yeah man, next time you're in Charleston we'll out to Chick-fil-A. Just let me know when you're coming.
Joe Oz (01:00:48.334)
I will, I will. Alright, let me stop this.
Jeremy Wilson-ChuckTown Homes (01:00:52.409)
Ciao!