Today we’d like to introduce you to John Wagner.
Hi John, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story, much like my life, is a meandering one. I envy the people who woke up one day and said “I’m going to be this” or even the people who had the focus to weigh their strengths and weaknesses and net out what they’re best at. I’ve never really had that, I grew up in East Tennessee, from a family of entrepreneurs. My grandfather started a metal machine shop in a laboratory town and opened the town’s first golf course, which my dad took over. Instead of following in their footsteps, I went to college in Orlando, a bit rudderless, to enroll in film school. In the first class, the teacher said, “if this isn’t your passion. If you don’t wake up and have to do this, don’t do it.” So I didn’t. I dropped out to be a drummer for a hip hop band in Arizona, which took me out west for the first time, to a place I never thought in a million years I’d end up – loving the desert. The band took me all over the U.S. and Europe where I gained a lot of perspective which I otherwise wouldn’t have. As the drummer, I didn’t have a whole lot of input in the music at the beginning, so I found myself doing our social media which lead me to work for the label we ended up on, which lead me to managing said niche label.. During the time, I was linked by LA rapper Busdriver to meet with a contact at SXSW. She was a was a striking blonde with wit, intelligence and ambition who lived in LA. I had lived here briefly a couple of years before and felt like I never gave it a real try and since I had already planned on moving from Denver after the band dissembled, I took my chance and my little dog and moved to a studio apartment in East Hollywood. I had a parking space and no car and it is because of this very fact, Angelenos, that wonderful woman has now been my wife of 10 years. IYKYK.
With my experience in the music industry, I was able to land a job at a distributor and then a large label group in metadata. Yes, it’s as boring as it sounds. But while I endured those jobs, outside of them my now wife and I fell in love and got married in Joshua Tree and wanted to own a little piece of it for ourselves. My wife, Ashley, cold called a realtor about a property near where we got married and he got back instantly. We didn’t get that one, but he took us around to a handful of places and we settled on a little cabin nestled at the base of a small mountain on 2 acres. Sitting across from our realtor, Cam Wortman, as we signed the purchase agreement was by far one of the scariest moments of my life. A real step into accountability and adulthood. At 31, it was about time.
Once we closed we did the HGTV thing and threw ourselves into renovating a homesteader cabin in the desert. We learned the usual lessons and then some along the way and eventually opened up The Moon Cabin as our first, very own Airbnb. From starting to get my hands dirty in the renovation it became clear that my dad’s handyman skills either rubbed off or are completely hereditary. I enjoyed the hard work and seeing a job completed. After being successful hosts for while, and seeing my music business career dead end, I quit and we embarked on a new endeavor, rehabbing homes to short term rent and sell. Things were actually going pretty good, we finished a house – sold it and bought another one – and then the pandemic happened. Our first rough inspection on that house was the day everything shut down. As you may remember, this period was both terrifying and confusing. We were holding on to a house with a ballooning budget, a contractor who walked off the job and nothing but uncertainty ahead. We listed and sold the house as quickly as possible and managed to make a small profit. I don’t know if you followed the real estate gold rush that ensued during this period but because of low interest rates, zoomer migration and the promise of making a quick buck doing Airbnb, the housing market went crazy – just after we sold that house. Big money came in and inflated our little desert market and pushed us out. But in the meantime, I had studied to be a real estate agent to hopefully represent in our transactions and became licensed.
And right at this time – our son arrived.
Seeing as going back to work at an entry level job again or trying to start from scratch as an agent would be a pretty 1:1 exchange for childcare, my successful, driven, hardworking wonderful wife agreed I should become a stay-at-home dad (/Airbhb Host/Property Manager/Up and coming Realtor).
So I got to be the one thing I’ve always really wanted – to be a dad. And attempt to be a good one. I know most of the time that I’m doing passable, especially now that he’s 4, quite brilliant and able to give me reasonable feedback, but it’s not an easy job. I’m grateful to break tradition and do what my family needs right now. My mom has always told me that the time she stayed home with my sister and me was the best time of her life. I am finally coming around to that as it’s nearing an end.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
With parenting there’s a pretty clear challenge for all dad’s out there and that’s the basic fact of not being mom. And I don’t mean that in that men aren’t capable of being the caretaker or nurturer, or attuned to their child’s needs – I mean dad does not have the intrinsic level of comfort for a child as their mother does, especially a little boy. Hurt? Scared? They need the comfort of M-O-M-M-Y. And when she’s in the other room on an important international conference call it can be trying for all involved. Another thing that all parents will tell you is that as soon as you get comfortable understanding your child’s needs, emotions and schedule – it changes. And it doesn’t just change over time, it flips on a dime. One thing they don’t tell you about being a stay-at-home parent is that it’s really isolating. Yes, technically, you have the freedom to go and do anything you want, but the reality isn’t quite that. Everyone you know is working and especially when they’re really little, you are on their schedule not yours. As transplants, we don’t have the luxury of grandparents and other family nearby to help with our son. So everything that I need to do, he’s got to come with me. We have found some on demand child care in a pinch but they say it takes a village and without one, it is trying and cumbersome.
Also, once you get out of what I call the gardening phase (newborn – 2.5 yrs) and into the parenting phase, it can be difficult – it was for us anyway – to marry parenting styles between partners and find what works for everyone. There’s so much information out now from so many varying sources that it can be overwhelming.
Millennials are really the first generation attempting to heal generational trauma with gentle parenting and it’s tough. We have the behavior we were modeled, and breaking learned behaviors, especially in the heat of the moment is hard.
As for being a realtor, see above. Without the necessary bandwidth I haven’t made the time to market myself, which will be an obstacle once I do. And social media. As an elder millennial, I’ve been chasing the algorithm for decades now and I’m frankly over it. But it is a necessary evil in this day and age and I’m just going to have to find my voice and get to it.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a stay-at-home dad, Airbnb Host, Realtor, Handyman. I’m very proud of the new skills I’ve been able to acquire and mold the ones I had previously to fit my needs. The houses I’ve helped renovate and the houses I’ve helped sell. As for what I’m known for, that’s a good question. When reached out about this interview, I had to ask why me? Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of None is what I’d say, but I’m trying to hone myself into being a Realtor who is knowledgeable and experienced for a first time home buyer and seller alike. I know a lot about what goes into building, what to keep an eye out for and how it feels to be on both sides of a transaction when there is sentiment involved. I hope I’m known for being dependable and the kind of person you want in your corner.
What are your plans for the future?
In the fall, our son starts school and it will give me the freedom to focus on marketing myself as a realtor and I hope to get involved with the PTA and do what I can to grow and connect with my community in North East LA. Having been isolated and talking pretty much exclusively to someone under the age of 5 for the last few years it will take some practice to get back to holding adult conversations and putting myself out of my comfort zone. I plan on doing door knocking around my neighborhood and really getting to know my neighbors like I know my neighborhood. I’m hopeful that the steps I’ve taken over the last few years to improve myself will pay off.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.themoonjoshuatree.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/johnrwagner
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-wagner-651bb722
- Other: https://www.realtor.com/realestateagents/662c1a2f1e7ec683d1e08719
