What Does It Actually Take to Build a Real Estate Career in Atlanta?
Relationships, and enough runway to let them compound. Justin Landis rebuilt his career in 2009 by meeting one person face to face every single day — no paid leads, no CRM, no advertising — and closed thirty homes in a market that was still falling. Sixteen years later, that is still the answer.
The first episode of The Justin Landis Show is the one where Justin tells his own story, and it is not the tidy version. It includes the part where he lost everything. If you are weighing up a real estate career in Atlanta — starting one, restarting one, or deciding whether to do it alone — that middle section is the useful bit.
Nobody starts in real estate
Justin came to Atlanta to study chemical engineering at Georgia Tech, worked out fairly quickly that he did not want to be an engineer, and graduated with a degree he had no plans for. What he knew was that he wanted to work for himself.
In 2003 he borrowed $4,000 from his grandmother, bought a house, flipped it, and made a small profit. The profit mattered less than the fact that he had found the thing. He and a few friends from college went on to buy a “We Buy Ugly Houses” franchise and flip roughly 150 homes across metro Atlanta.
This is worth sitting with if you are considering the career change. Almost nobody in this business started in this business. The agents who do well here arrived from teaching, ministry, banking, hospitality, higher education. A different first career is not a disadvantage — it is usually where the relationships come from.
Then the market took it back
When things turned in 2008, Justin was heavily leveraged, five years out from his last job, and carrying a negative net worth. What he had instead was a fact he almost overlooked: across the flipping years, he had personally sold close to a hundred houses.
His thought was roughly — maybe somebody else will let me sell theirs.
A mutual connection introduced him to Rich Richardson, who became his mentor and later co-founded Bolst. What Rich taught him was not a system. It was a habit.
Meet one person face to face. Every single day.
No CRM. No purchased leads. No advertising. By 2009, with the Atlanta market still falling, he closed thirty homes.
That is the part worth copying. It is also the part most new agents skip, because it is slow and it does not feel like work. A referral business does not switch on — it compounds, and it only compounds if you feed it on the days nothing is happening.
The question that turned a career into a team
By the time the market recovered, Justin was working effectively every day of the year, closing 55-plus homes, and about to become a father. Something had to give.
His broker asked him a question that redirected the whole thing: if you could create this opportunity for someone else and you don’t, are you doing everything with what you have been given?
He launched the Justin Landis Group shortly after, with a mission to serve clients, coworkers and community above ourselves. It started with three people. Justin eventually stepped out of production entirely to run it.
That last detail is the one agents should ask about when they interview any team. A team leader still competing for the same business is not neutral about your growth. One who has stepped out has no reason to want anything other than your production going up.
What the team actually counts
Plenty of teams quote their own sales volume. The number JLG watches is a different shape: 38 agents have crossed $100,000 in gross commission income for the first time while on this team.
First time. Not agents who arrived already producing at that level — agents for whom it happened here. If you are trying to judge whether a team develops people or simply recruits people who are already good, that is the distinction to ask about.
90 contracts in 90 days, and $270,000
As the team grew, Justin pointed it at something larger. The campaign: get 90 buyers under contract in 90 days, and raise $90,000 for the Atlanta Mission to fight homelessness. Lenders, attorneys, inspectors and movers all put money in.
On day 90, at 4:09 in the afternoon, the ninetieth contract was signed. They cleared $90,000 — and the Atlanta Mission then used the story to challenge its own donors to match it. The final figure was $270,000.
In 2021 Justin and four co-founders launched Bolst, a Georgia Benefit Corporation with a public benefit mission written into its legal structure. It is now the only real estate brokerage in Georgia to hold B Corp certification. JLG operates as a team inside it.
What JLG is working on next: 5-10-20
The current internal goal is specific, and it is about agents rather than volume.
Worth noting what is absent: a target for total team sales. Those three numbers only move if individual agents move.
So is a real estate career in Atlanta still worth starting?
The honest picture is that the last few years have been harder. Transaction volume is down, rates are up, and there are more agents chasing fewer deals. Justin’s answer to that is not that the market is about to turn.
“People are still coming in and succeeding every single day.”
A crowded market does not stop anyone — it just removes the ways of working that only functioned when it was easy. Buying leads and waiting stops working. Relationships still work, which is the same thing that was true in 2009. What changes the odds is who is behind you: the training, the support and the lead generation you are or are not handed on day one.
Questions people ask before making the move
Do you need real estate experience to start a career in Atlanta?
No. Most agents arrive from another career entirely, and the network from that career is usually where their first transactions come from. What you need is a licence, a way to cover roughly your first six months, and a plan for meeting people that you will actually keep to.
How long before a new agent writes their first contract?
At the Justin Landis Group the average for a newly licensed agent is 74 days. That number depends almost entirely on whether you are handed leads from day one or expected to build a database from nothing.
Is it better to join a team or go independent?
Independent gives you a larger share of a smaller number, and everything — marketing, transaction coordination, lead generation, compliance — stays on your desk. A team trades some of that split for volume and infrastructure. The question worth asking any team is what they have actually done for the agents already there, not what they promise.
Thinking about your own next move?
Whether you are newly licensed, changing careers, or already producing and wondering what a team would actually change, it is worth a conversation. Not a pitch — we will tell you honestly whether we would help.
Connect with the Justin Landis GroupOr call us directly — 404.860.1816
Justin Landis is the founder of the Justin Landis Group and a co-founder of Bolst, Inc. He has been selling Atlanta real estate since 2008 and lives in Atlanta with his wife and three daughters. The Justin Landis Show publishes a new episode every Monday.