Josh Tucker goes from race cars to real estate

After ten years in the pits of NASCAR all over the country, you’d think Josh Tucker would have a steering wheel or at least a race car as his logo for his real estate business.

You’d be wrong. It’s an anchor.

Josh and partner Greg Biffle, also a NASCAR alum, are both avid boaters and fishermen in the Lake Norman, North Carolina area. And they were very savvy about crafting their brand based on their target clientele.

“Our clientele is all about lake life,” said Josh. “So while we both come from NASCAR, that’s not what we want to tie ourselves to.”

Building a real estate brand on innovation

Anchor Real Estate is a luxury-focused firm. And from the green flag, Josh was asked what would set his company apart. Why should anyone use them over another agent?

“The consistent answer is innovation, technology, and our client relationships,” Josh said.

For a firm of their size and age, the Anchor team stand behind technology from a marketing standpoint.

“We’re one of the only firms that use the Matterport scanner — we own our own,” said Josh. “We buy new drones when they’re available. Greg is a licensed pilot. We do a lot of aerial photography and videography and 3D scans of all listings. And we have an in-house staging team that does a consultation on every listing.”

Josh finds that many sellers don’t even know this technology exists. And because Josh and the team own the equipment, the marketing period is shorter and execution happens even faster. “In a competitive market, every day matters!”

Starting from scratch? Start with your sphere.

It’s strange to think Josh is only a year into his real estate career. But he brings over a decade of a high stake, high-stress career in NASCAR to this new field. And it was his network in the racing industry that helped him launch.

“NASCAR can be a dangerous sport,” Josh said. “You’re jumping off a wall in front of race cars coming in at 70 miles per hour. I went to battle with these folks.”

And that’s why they were the people Josh turned to when transitioning into real estate. They knew and trusted him but just didn’t recognize him at first.

“Folks at NASCAR saw me all dirty and covered in oil most of the time. They weren’t used to seeing me in a suit,” Josh laughed. He shared more about that with Sam DeBianchi, too, talking about using his sphere to build his business.

So Josh worked his network, staying in touch and staying connected. And his first-hand knowledge of a professional sporting world was his driving force, so to speak.

“In sporting communities, everyone knows each other. Business managers know business managers, so they talk to each other. Getting that first one or two to trust you, it snowballs from there.”

Steering clients through nature’s surprises

Adwerx CEO Jed Carlson put a client’s toughest question to real estate agents: “Why do I need you?” His answer was that agents are like Sherpas: they reduce the risk of the transaction, they help carry the load and they comfort the client along the way. With this mindset, no amount of technology or automation can ever disrupt the role of a real estate agent. “Be the Sherpa,” he said.

For Josh, nature has been a bit of an obstacle in the road. In two different transactions, disaster has befallen the house one way or another.

His seller had $60,000 worth of damage after a storm that destroyed the kitchen — just two weeks from closing. That meant Josh spent those two weeks keeping the buyers’ agent engaged, calming both the buyers and the sellers, and navigating the insurance claim. Then it happened again when a tree was struck by lightning and fell smack on his listing. More hand-holding and supervision helped Josh guide his seller through it.

Which brings us back to Josh’s logo. An anchor seems like the wrong thing to bring on a mountain climb, but as its own metaphor, it’s actually perfect. Josh was able to help ground his clients, keep them from going adrift and be a strong central point no matter where the current threatened to take them.

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