Apartment Investing ft. Brad Sumrok | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 35

26:08By the way, I just got back from one of his events. So I, you know, I not only mentor people, but I always say this, every great mentor has a mentor. You know, they have somebody that they're learning from, somebody they're modeling, you know, they're modeling somebody. At what age did you decide you needed a mentor? I, uh, well, uh, my first professional mentor was back in 2001 when I went to that real estate program. That was when I realized I needed a mentor. But then like looking back, I would honestly say my first set of mentors were my parents. Like I didn't realize it at the time, but like they taught me to study hard, get good grades and go to school.

26:50Like without that foundation, I don't know what I would have done. Like some parents kick you out when you're 18, some parents make you pay rent. Some parents, some people don't have a mother and a father. They might be raised by a single mom or a single dad. So I was fortunate to have stability in my family when I was growing up. And they guided me, i.e. mentored me to go to college and get good grades. I didn't appreciate it at the time. When I first started getting into business, I was angry at first. I'm like, Mom, Dad, why didn't you teach me to be an entrepreneur? I wish they did. It would have been so much easier than getting a master's in whatever.

27:31I know, but they didn't know. Yeah. So like one of the things I learned about your mentor and it's why you got to choose them wisely is like you can't have a mentor teach you something they haven't done themselves. Like you can have a life coach. That's different. You know, there are life coaches out there that they could coach you through anything. But like a mentor is different than a coach. A mentor is somebody that's actually been down the yellow brick road that you want to go down. So like if you want to go into business and you want to learn from somebody rather than going to school and getting an MBA, like go work with somebody, either work with them or for them or mentor under them so they could teach you the ropes of that business.

28:13How does one go about finding a mentor? Well, I mean, look, you know, with with social media and Google searches and YouTube searches, it's not that hard. Like you type in like what it is that you want to do and you find people, but the best way is through word of mouth. Like, it's like, who, who do you know that? Like in my case, if you'd say, Hey, who do you know that does apartment syndications and look, some of the best apartment investors and syndicators, they don't want to mentor somebody like, they'd be like, no, I I'm not going to do that. Like, you know, when I look at my own career and, and somebody asked me like, well, Brad, why do you mentor people?

28:55Well, the truth is if I had focused just on doing transactions, I'd probably worth, I'd have thousands more units and have a lot more money. Like I have a lot of friends like that did that. Like they started their apartment investing companies in 2007 and eight after I bought my first deal and they own tens of thousands of units and have like golf streams and big companies and friends here in Newport like that. No, but they're mostly in Texas where my company is based. But I'm literally talking about companies that like, like I know a guy that's a friend of mine that's got 59 ,000 doors, you know, that got like 28 ,000 doors.

29:37They got 42 ,000 doors, you know, 12 ,000 doors, but that's what they focus on where I have like 7 ,700 doors and a ton of doors, but yet, but yet like my passion is actually doing the education platform. And why is it like people always ask me that maybe you'd ask me as the next question, but what I tell people is doing deals puts money in the bank account. But when I help people get into the apartment business and I see them succeed, you know, quit their jobs or buy their dream home or, or retire their spouse or pay for their kids' education. That puts like a deposit in my soul. So, you know, there's, there's the financial rewards of doing transactions, but there's also, why, why do you think, you know, so many people love to do events and seminars and coach people and all that kind of stuff?

30:32Cause it's fulfilling for some people. It is. It's fulfilling. It's rewarding. It's 10 times more fulfilling if you do it at a purpose of serving. Yeah, exactly. Like I never got into that business for money, although I've made money mentoring people, but I never got in the business for the money. There's a lot of opportunity on the horizon with apartment buildings, multifamily. But it's not like multifamily is facing the same thing as commercial. You think it's, you know, multifamily could be in trouble. Well, when we talk commercial, there's all different types, right? Like we got industrial, we got this.

31:06industrial is not in trouble but office commercials office is probably in trouble and i you know look if you look at a life cycle of an industry right office is kind of like in a decline right ever since the pandemic right like and i don't know i think it's recovering a little bit but like are we ever going to see the day again where like like you have a company do you have remote employees? We have 900 people and we maybe have 80 people in-house here. The rest are all remote. So 90 % of your team is remote. 90 % of the entire organization is remote. Yeah. Now in the old days, it would have been like the opposite, right?

31:47It would have been like 90 % come to the office. Yeah. It's crazy. That's why I'm like, you know, you still have Silicon Valley where people are from home. So I think office and retail are declining. Obviously retail, Like, you know, we talked about, you know, the bookstores, you know, Barnes and Noble, Borders. These were what? Billion dollar companies. They're out of business, right? So office and retail are declining. Yeah, but they're declining. Multifamily, we're in a winter season of multifamily, but the industry itself is in its prime. Like people need a place to live. We're becoming a renter nation.

32:29it's becoming more and more expensive for a working class family to buy a home, right? Like I just looked at like the median priced home in the United States is what? 500 something down. Yeah. Or even like in Texas and Florida, like where it's not as expensive, but it's still like 400 ,000, 450 ,000 in Dallas and Tampa. And so how does a family make in 60 or 70 ,000 a year buy a$450 ,000 home? They're much more likely to rent a three bedroom apartment for$1 ,800 a month. Even those are going up. Yeah. Well, it's going up too, but it's still more affordable. So I look at this thing called affordability gap.

33:04And what affordability gap measures, Joe, is like, what's the median PITI and principal interest tax and insurance for a medium priced home might be$3 ,200 a month for a medium priced home, where a medium priced apartment might be$1 ,800 a month. So there's like this$1 ,400 a month gap. And that's why I'm so bullish on multifamily rentals. So it's not like a declining industry. It's just the season that we're in where interest rates went up. And now the season is coming back down. I believe so. Like I can't foresee the future with a hundred percent accuracy, but like I've been through the 2008 downturn and I see some signs like the fed's going to lower rates.

33:46We're going to have an election and no matter who wins the election, we're going to have four years of certainty. Like, and you know, like capital markets and Wall Street, they like predictability and certainty. So whether we have a Trump administration or a Harris administration, and that's a whole other conversation about how either of those two will impact things. But either way, capital markets and Wall Street and the banking industry, we're going to know what we got. We're going to know what we're going to deal with for the next four years. So I see a lot of stability and I see a lot of opportunity.

34:22Now, outside of like, we talked about this briefly, but outside of grinding on time, because you grind a lot, you work harder than 99.9 % of people. Do you have any other like hobbies that you enjoy outside of working out? You know, so, well, I'm glad you said working out, but one of my, let me, let me go into that a little bit. Cause one of my, something, something I don't do for money that I would, if I weren't doing real estate is I would probably like, I love health and fitness and wellness. Like I eat tight, I work out, I take my health seriously. And part of it isn't just working out and eating right.

34:55It's like doing yoga. You know, it's like having like mindfulness, like yoga changed my life. Like it really gave me that 30 minutes to an hour a day where my mind isn't thinking about what I got to do, you know, about what's next. It's like at first it just made me like, you know, I'm stressing out, like trying to do the move, you know, like doing these uncomfortable human positions, doing yoga. But then what I realized is like, man, my mind ain't racing when I'm doing yoga. Like I'm actually present. So being present is huge. So I love that about, you know, yoga specifically. But another thing I love to do is travel.

35:33And that sounds cliche, but I travel like a lot. Like I just got back from Argentina two days ago. Like, and I was in somewhere, dude, I'm going to Dubai, Abu Dhabi in India later in October. I was in Argentina earlier this year. Last year, I went to Nepal. I went to Bhutan. I went to Rwanda. I went to Botswana. I go to cool places that most people don't get a chance to go to. For my geography experts out there, do you know where all those places are? I don't even know. Yeah. So a lot of people say, hey, I like to travel, but I don't want to - You really like to travel. I love to travel. And that's important to me.

36:10Travel is important to me. And it's about like the cultural experience, you know, simple things in life. Like I love walking on the beach. Like I love nature. I love coffee. Like whenever I travel, like I seek out, like, it sounds boring. Cause I'll say, well, what I don't play golf. Like I don't like I do sports. I do tennis here and there. Like I, but I don't have, like, I'm not a passionate, like golfer or musician, or I don't make my own music, you know? And I actually love going to events like when people say what do you do for fun i'm like like like tomorrow i'm gonna be attending an event so i only not do events but i go to events you're going to an educational seminar yeah for development yes i am and that's fun it's different than going to coachella yeah like i i i have never been to coachella i've never been to burning man like like like so it's you know some people might say that's boring but it's like so for me what do i do for fun besides doing my own events and mentoring and coaching people and doing deals, which I actually find fun.

37:11But if you take that away, I love going to events. I love learning. I love being a student. I love learning new things. I actually like being a beginner at some things like imagine getting out of your comfort zone and like learning something for the first time. Like, you know, a couple of years ago, I bought a one wheel, you know, the skateboards with the wheel. Like I bought that and I actually learned how to use it. And I fell a few times and it was uncomfortable but i'm good at it now yeah you're pretty good at the one i'm good at a one wheel like if i could freak people out i see people on the street using a one wheel and i'm like hey man what is that they're like oh it's a one wheel and i'm like can i try it and they're thinking oh man like you don't want to get on this thing you're going to mess yourself up and then i get on it and i and i could and i ride it pretty good that's pretty cool yeah did you ride a skateboard when you're young barely yeah i'm probably more adventurous now in my 50s than i was when i was 15.

38:05That's awesome. Yeah. Keeps me young, man. It is. It is. Now, what's your favorite quote? Favorite quote. Well, I'm borrowing this from Tony Robbins, but it's, The secret to living is giving. And I find that when you give with no expectation of receiving anything in return, it's a really fulfilling, uplifting experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you were to tell your 20-year-old self to build wealth right now, what would you tell them to do? I would just say, get started. Like, you know, when I was 20, I was in my third year of engineering school. And I would say like, and it's funny because even now when I'm thinking about how to answer this question, like my whole physiology slowed down.

38:56Did you notice? Yeah. And I was like, wow, you know, but like age is not a limit. Like so many people think that like, well, I got to start here. Like, let's say even in real estate, people have this, just like I thought, like I got to get a job or, you know, and then get another degree. It's like so many people go into real estate and they're like, well, I'm going to start, you know, flipping houses or like, I'm going to start with a single family or a duplex and then a fourplex and then somehow I'll graduate to 16 units. And then maybe someday I could do a 60 units indication. And you know what?

39:30That's not true. Like anybody that is committed, you know, and invest in the real estate between their ears could go out and do a big deal. And I'm not taking, I'm not taking this lightly. Like, look, man, there's work, there's risk, there's time, there's energy. Like if you want to get rich quick, like don't come and see me, like, don't, don't look me up. Don't go to my website. Don't come to my events because it's not get rich quick. But you know what? Real estate is never get rich. Neither is like going to school for four years or eight years or 12 years and being an engineer or an attorney or a doctor, man, it's like four, eight, 12 years of education.

40:09And so you could go faster by being a business owner, but you got to know what you're doing. You got to surround yourself with people that are doing it and you got to understand the upside and the downside. Now, how important is taking risks in your business? I mean, there's risk in everything you do. Like every, every deal with these kinds of deals, you know, like, is it like, are, are you, when you see a deal, you're like, wow, there's a lot of profit in this deal, but it's going to be tremendously risky. Well, like I mitigate the risk by, you know, like there's a there's a process that I go through to like, you know, is is it in a good market?

40:50You know, are there jobs being created or jobs being taken away? Are they people moving there or people moving out of there? So like there's a recipe that you could follow that I teach that's going to stack the cards in your favor. But just to be clear, there's always risk. You know, there's risk that interest rates could go up in an unprecedented manner. we didn't count on that happening. No, we didn't know that the government could shut down the country. And now people can't be evicted for non-payment or rent. You can't underwrite for that type of stuff, right? That's called a black swan event.

41:24And a couple of these things happened in the last few years. But even outside of that, like there's risk in everything. But let me just tell you this, there was risk in me having a job, like what I thought was secure and going to work every day and just putting my head down and keeping a low profile. Like that didn't work out either. You know, I find myself unemployed not once, but twice. So like, look, there's risk in everything you do, but the way you mitigate risk is through education, not like a degree, but like, you know, invest in, when I say education, go to events, get a mentor, join a mastermind, surround yourself with people that are doing it and have a team of experts around you.

42:04And that's going to mitigate risk. it doesn't eliminate it, but it's going to mitigate it. Now, are you using any AI technology to really kind of look at the value, assess value, help mitigate risk mitigation? So yes and no. It's interesting because I just sat through an AI presentation and I would call myself like so many others, like I'm using AI to maybe help with some email campaigns and copywriting and messaging and stuff like that. But I'm still kind of in the playing stages but there's so much upside in AI right now and in any type of business, including real estate, including like underwriting and, and messaging and capital raising and all that type of stuff.

42:47But I would also say that like, it, it's still gotta be you. Yeah. Like it's still got, yeah, I could still be you. Yeah. That's where I see the biggest opportunity is if you take like, like one of the projects I'm working on now is I have like hundreds of hours of content, you know, from every event I've ever done, from every podcast I've ever been on, from, from any zoom meeting I've ever done. And we're feeding it into these AI engines and it's going to create a Brad GPT instead of a chat GPT. That's awesome. Yeah. So you started building out your AI. So that's something we're working on right now.

43:25That's excellent. Yeah. Now, do you think right now with the way that youth are being told, because you and I both discusses you're, you're highly educated. Do you think college is still as important as it was when you went to school? No, I mean, look, I, I believe, and this is like, if you want to be a doctor, if you want to be a lawyer, if you want to be an accountant, you know, there there's training involved. Like, you know, it doesn't occur to me that you could just go and be a doctor, you know, without the training. Right. So I'm not advocating that, but the whole idea of like, you know, Hey, I, I'm an 18 year old.

44:04I don't have a clue to what I want to do with my life. Um, let's just go to college because it's the next step, you know, become a C or D student. You know, you study communications, you know, let me just say, like, I was going to say something politically incorrect. Um, I don't know the, the, I knew you were talking about something you wanted to study some sort of, you know, gender study back basket weaving degree. I'm just being facetious here. Probably going to have people hating, hating on me for that, but, but Hey, look, so like just getting some, I'll call it a bullshit degree is, is with everything out there, you know, online and through a masterminds and stuff.

44:48It's like it, to me, it's a waste of time and money. You know, I would rather see somebody become an apprentice of a business owner and fast track themselves into the business world. I agree. Yeah. Now, how important to you is like going to masterminds events in these conferences? And why would someone who hasn't ever attended and they're too boastful? Oh, why do I need masterminds? Or why do I need these conferences? Like I, for me, I love attending those things for many reasons. How important is it to you? Well, let me just say, let me just be real here. I can't say it's everything, but it's next to everything.

45:26We would have never met if we didn't go to that 100M event. Yeah. And I believe we're just beginning to have a relationship. Like I'm here in your offices. I'm learning about your company. We're having this conversation. You're learning about me. We may be able to collaborate and create something or support each other's businesses. We're both in the same line of work. And I've met at that same event. I've had meaningful conversations with several other people. And then you multiply that by 10 because this year alone in 2024, not only do I do my own events and masterminds, but I've literally, I was counting.

46:00I just got back from my 10th event that I attend that. And then I'm here in Orange County attending another one tomorrow. So I'm getting educated and informed on different topics, call it leadership, communication, negotiation, building a better team, being a better leader, being a better human, you know, so, but I'm getting more than the content. I'm getting connected with other people that are committed to, let's just say, commit when, when you're around people that are committed to upgrading their human experience in any domain, you know, whether it's in business or in real estate or in health or in, in numbers or in, And, you know, anything that's possible to anything valuable, there's something, there's somebody that could help you accelerate the process and do what I call turn decades into days.

46:55And so to me, it's next to everything. It's far more valuable than formal education. I think it was Jim Rohn that said, you know, specialized education, like the kind that you get in conferences and mentorship programs and masterminds could earn you a fortune where formal education, which was my experience getting an engineering degree and an MBA will get you a job. Great, great advice. And then for those listening right now, if you're not involved in a masterminds or some sort of business group or a meetup, like you need to get involved. This is like, this is everything. This has totally changed the trajectory of my life, allowed me to start a podcast, allowed me to go viral on social media, et cetera.

47:34It's all about who you know. It's all about who you know. Now, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? The best piece of advice I've ever received.

47:53Well, it's probably going to be repetitive, but you got to invest in yourself. I think Warren Buffett said it. He said the best the best investment is going to be the one you make in yourself. Yeah. He did say that. And you know, I, I've already said, I honestly, I hesitated because I was trying to come up with something else, but I can't like, I, that's, that's the best advice. And for some people that could be formal education, like just to be clear, like I'm not knocking it in every case. Like for some people, there's certain things that like you need a skillset that could be taught in a formal program, you know, whether it's a degree program or a credit, you know, accredited, uh, university or something like that.

48:36But what I find like in the world of business is it's going to be outside of that arena. Now, um, what's the most painful thing or the hardest thing you've had to overcome when you built your business? Well, look, um, yeah, let me, this is, this may not be, uh, I'm going to try to keep it as brief as I can, but this is, this is a great question. And I want to share this thing because for, for decades, I bought lots of buildings, transform communities. I, I, I was named the apartment investor of the year by the national apartment association. Um, made a lot of money for myself and my investors did a lot of good work.

49:19And then in my mentoring company, I've helped hundreds of people like achieve financial freedom, buy communities, uplift the properties, make it a better place. And I craved to be like in the media, right? Because, you know, we're all taught like, Hey, there's, you know, if you could get in the media, especially national media, like that's good. Right. And so have you ever seen like people's websites and things that say like as seen on CNBC, ABC, Fox news? Well, you and I both know that most of those are paid sponsorships. And I've done some of that. Like you pay to be on a interviewed by, you know, a TV program or write a bestselling book.

50:02And there are gurus that teach how to do that and become an Amazon bestseller. And so like I wanted media attention for like the good work I was doing, but I never got it. And what happened was after all these years of doing good work when 2022 multifamily peaked, you know, and then we had this unprecedented rise of interest rates combined with like increases in expenses, inflation, labor costs went up, insurance costs went up, taxes went up. Well, jumping to the conclusion here, in 2023, one of my former students that I mentored lost a bunch of money for his investors. And he was written up in the Wall Street Journal on a very bad way.

50:52And they found out that I was his real estate coach. And so they looped me into the article. And so I started for the first time, had like negative media exposure. And then the Wall Street Journal called me and said, Brad, we want to do an article on you and your company. because it occurs to us that you more than anybody else have made multifamily syndications available to like the retail investor, you know, the people like I am like the guy or gal that has a job that has a W2 and you've helped so many people get into multifamily investing. And now there's challenges in the industry. So we want to profile you.

51:37And I, Joe, I lost so much sleep. I'm thinking, oh my God, like this is going to be a disaster. Like it's going to be a hit piece. And I went to two mentors of mine that have both household names that everybody would know, but I'm not going to mention them. And one of them said, Brad, do not talk to the media. Like they will manipulate you, destroy you, and you're better served to just let them do their thing and ignore them. And the other said, you should talk to them and you need to engage and you need a PR team. So I went with the second option and I got a PR team and engaged with the Wall Street Journal.

52:14And let me just tell you that I flew up there. It was supposed to be a one hour interview. I was there for almost four hours. It doesn't sound like an interview. It sounds like they're drilling you. Yeah. And I was prepared like it was the biggest interview of my life. And let me just share with you that it turned out amazingly well because they saw I was a human being and not just this guy that like mentored this guy that lost people's money. You know, it'd be like saying like, Hey, I go to Tony Robbins events and Tony's my mentor. So like somehow Tony's responsible if I go out and lose people's money, or I went to Harvard and, you know, lost people's money.

52:52So Harvard's responsible. So the wall street journal, after all these months of doing their investigative journalism, this article came out in July of 2024 this year. And it was actually positive. That's great. It was, it started off as an AVEN told me, they said, Brad, this is not going to be a positive article on you. Like, because we've heard things that concern us, but after they really, and I can tell you the Wall Street Journal, unlike some other media outlets that I've had experience with, the Wall Street Journal is committed to being fair and accurate and balanced. And they told me they would.

53:32And so they not only interviewed the one or two people that lost money in real estate, they interviewed tens of people, hundreds of people that went through my program that were successful. And several of those people were quoted in the Wall Street Journal. That is amazing. And so all of a sudden, like I went from being scared to being like, oh my God, this turned out actually positive. And it was a great experience. Like, and like, honestly, like going up to New York and being interviewed. And then like, they gave me a tour of their offices and I saw the poster. This was a few months before the, the journalist that just got released by Putin.

54:15Like his poster was all over their hallways, you know, release Evan, you know, stand with, you know, met me, you know, that guy, Evan Gershowitz, probably mispronounced in his name, but I learned about him and I became a big advocate of like, like hoping and praying that he would be released. I'm not saying I support prisoner swaps, but just the fact that I was up there and became aware of like he was a political prisoner for like 480 some days and convicted to 16 years in prison. And then finding out he was released, I was happy for him and his family. Now, I'm not saying that I believe our government should do prisoner swaps, but I'm just saying I was happy he got to come home.

54:56And you were happy that you were there for the experience, I guess. Yeah. So look, you know, I would say like, be careful what you ask for. I'm not a polarizing person. And at first, you know, when I started to get negative media and then of course, you know, people online start saying shit about you that they don't even know. And they're like, oh, you're, you're a sleazeball, you're a scammer, you're this, you're that. It's like, they don't even know me, but they're reading fake news in the media because look, the job of the media is to get clicks and eyeballs. And again, I used to think that people in the media were bad people, but they're not.

55:32They're just doing their job. And their job is to write articles that people actually read. And so when I went through this process, Joe, like there have been a couple other articles about me that aren't positive. And I and I like like a year ago, I would have cried myself to sleep at night. Now I'm just like, look, they're just doing their they're doing what they think is their job. I wish they would be fair and accurate and balanced like the Wall Street Journal because I had a great experience with the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, you're not like we were saying earlier, good media, bad media. Nobody really remembers.

56:05Nobody remembers. The most important thing is that you're doing it. You're getting out in the media and you're doing the best you can. You're serving. You're doing God's work. You're like trying to help people. And well, that's what we know me and my team. And I was like, hey, we're going to keep doing good work because that's what we do. We buy communities and we transform them and we educate people to buy communities and transform them. And that's what we're going to keep doing. So you think media obstacles have been primarily the biggest obstacles you've faced so far? Hasn't been like money?

56:35Hasn't been bad land surveys? I mean, look, there have been challenges, like I said, in 08 and 09, we had situations where we You have to put money into deals. And out of all my deals that I'm in right now, and I'm in like 37 syndications, there's a handful that have challenges that we're putting money into. And if I didn't keep liquidity and reserve, I would be in more trouble. Yeah. But I, at the risk of being called, I don't want to say stupid, but like some people were like, well, Brad, why do you have so much money just sitting in a bank account when you could be earning a return on it? And I'm like, well, because.

57:21You got to be ready. There might be a rainy day. And there was a rainy day in 2008 and 2009. And so I call it having a rainy day fund. And I think it's smart to have a rainy day fund. And I think investors should ask if they're going to invest in, say, an apartment building, they should ask the general partnership team, like, hey, have you been through a challenge before and how have you overcome it? you know have you ever had a deal that doesn't perform well and everybody that's been in the business long enough will have a deal that doesn't perform well at some point and then the question and then the question is how did you deal with it yeah you know did you give the keys back to the bank and all the investors lost their money or were you able to get through the downturn and turn things around have you ever had investors lose money not at this point and it's possible Well, like now, you know, and again, I want to be accurate with that.

58:18I've mentored people that have lost money in their deals, unfortunately. Clearly, from the Wall Street Journal. But none of my deals have lost money. Now, you know, and I got to say that, and I want to look, it's really important to me that I'm accurate. There's deals right now that if I had to sell them today might be less than what I paid for them. But I'm not selling them today. That's the beauty of real estate. like over the long term they they go up in value but over the short term there could be a market cycle like for example if i bought something at the beginning of 22 where the market was at its highest level it may be worth a little less today that was by the way i feel like it's at the beginning of 22 but i'm not selling it yeah that might be just in texas where it really peaked in 2022 yeah and now we're seeing a lot of declines but i only am seeing declines in texas that bought and well i mean i'm in other markets too like like tampa or nash do you have anywhere you bought in 2022 that are upside down or hurting besides in texas well they're like if we had to sell today yeah they we would probably have a hard time there's probably one or two that would have a hard time getting all our equity out are they only in texas or there are no they're in different markets like in the sundell you know they're i'm just curious to see what what where are you seeing the most impacted equity wise?

59:41Well, look, I I've only invest. I, most of my assets are in Texas and Florida. Okay. So, and then I have a few, like I have, you know, a couple hundred units in Nashville. I have a couple hundred units in some other markets. I have a property in Columbus, Ohio. Um, so I'm not in California. I'm not like on the East coast or West coast, except Florida, but even in Florida, I'm not in South Florida. I'm sorry. Wood and pencil here anyway. No, Not in California. No, not on the deals I buy. That's why I don't buy in California. I like to buy in landlord and business friendly environments. Yeah. This is not it.

1:00:14This is not it. This is the worst of all of them. Is there a specific business principle or a mindset that you have when running your organization? Well, to me, it's the partner and surround yourself with people that are, you know, truly committed and that are, you know, I don't want to say better than you, but I'll say like better than you or have different skill sets. I mean, shoot, you're going to the most brilliant masterminds on the planet. Some of those people are a lot better than both of us. Let's say I'm going to do a deal. If I'm really good at raising capital and investor relations or securing deals from brokers, but I'm less passionate or less attuned into managing the renovations, then I want to partner for somebody that's really good at managing the renovations.

1:01:02and I don't see that happen all the time. Like, you know, sometimes, you know, there's a saying, birds of a feather flock together. So you take two big picture guys that are really good at networking and sourcing deals and being on social media and they go out and do a deal together. Well, who's paying attention to the details? Who's paying attention to like walking the units and doing the renovations? So like when I partner with people, you need it i'm not just talking about i'm not just talking about the people we hire no you're talking about equity partners yeah that are in control of the deal like you need to have a mix of skill sets you can't have all engineers either like i've seen the opposite like i've seen people that are like very financially they're like like four financial analysts will team up and they're like we're the best financial underwriters in the world but we don't own anything.

1:01:54And I'm like, yeah, cause you guys aren't taking action. You know? It's funny you say that blend because my partner is like the engineer. Yeah. I'm like the sales guy, the networker, the guy who puts the, you know, to, that's bringing in the deals. Every business needs a yin and yang. Yeah. Like, like, let's say in an apartment syndication, like say we're going to go out and buy, you know, a$30 million property, you know, and we need to raise$10 million and get a$20 million loan. And we're going to buy 200 units or 300 units. Well, first I know what you're thinking. It might be like, you can't do that in California.

1:02:30That's why I don't buy in California, but you can do that in like Texas or Florida or Nashville, right? Buy that many units for that price point. But like, so what I'm going to look at is I'm going to be like, okay, I know what my skillsets are at this point and what I love to do. And so I'm going to partner with somebody like you look at a syndication and you need somebody that's able to source the deals, meaning like someone that's in with the brokers and the owners, right? Because it's not just what you know, it's who you know. So like if the brokers that control the deal flow don't know you, you're not going to get as many deals sent your way.

1:03:04So that skill set is like somebody that likes the network and hobnob and hang out with the brokers just to get the deals. Now, once you get the deals, you need an underwriter. Now, when you get a big company, you can hire an analyst, but when it's just you or your partners, you need a, you need in the beginning, you need an equity partner. That's really good crunching the numbers and going through the dot, making sure all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed right on the acquisition, the due diligence, making sure no stern is stone is left unturned. It's usually not the big picture guy that's out there hunting the deals.

1:03:39Right. Right. Then you need someone that's going to raise the money. you know like the salesperson the marketer you know the the social media guy or the the guy that's got the relationships or the gal that got relationships with investors and family offices or retail investors you know and then you need somebody that's going to manage the asset after it's closing and and it managed and and remember like about 30 minutes ago i was sharing with you when i got into the syndication business i tried to do all that myself and that's why i was able to do like one deal a year. But now I know what I'm really good at and what I'm apt, what I have an aptitude for and a skillset to do.

1:04:16And so I partner with people to compliment what I don't bring to the table. So together we could go out and buy big deals and get the money, get the debt and have all the operations handled. And I have that in my investor teams that I put together. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, that, that only comes with years of wisdom though. Yeah. So a couple last questions. One is about your goals. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself and a goal that you have for your business? Well, a personal goal is, so I'm 57 and call me crazy, but like, I'm really, I think everybody, once they hit my age, they start, not everybody, but a lot of people get really interested in longevity.

1:04:57Like how do we extend our life, but not only our lifespan, but our health span. Yeah. Yeah. I'm big in longevity and biohacking and all this other. So like to me, the best, but I, and I can tell you, cause I, I, I know a lot of the big name people in that industry. Right. But the best thing I believe is like you, you eat right. You're good to your body. You get enough sleep. You get enough recovery. Like I track all that stuff with my aura ring. I'm religious about it. I can see when I'm off. I could see when I'm on, I could see the habits that make me on and see the habits that make me off. So like my personal goal is, is to just keep like, my personal goal is to be healthier at 60 than I was at 40.

1:05:39And right now at 57, I weigh, I weighed myself this morning. I weigh myself every day. I was 168. And when I was 37, I was 185 pounds. So I'm like 15 pounds, 17 pounds lighter, 18 pounds lighter than I was 10 years ago. 20 years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, what? I said 57. Yeah. 37. Yeah. So I'm 18 pounds lighter in 20 years. And the average American actually gains a pound a year. Yeah. Yeah. So think about that. You gain a pound a year from the time you're 30 to 60, you're going to go from, you know, normal to overweight. Yeah. And unhealthy. and then you start getting like, you know, metabolical disease or pre-diabetic.

1:06:26And these are like, that's the precursor to like, you know, all the cancers, all, you know, the majority of the cancers, even the Alzheimer's is tied to metabolic disease from what I understand from my own independent research, all the heart disease. And so my personal goal is to avoid all that and to reverse it and slow it down. And then my business goal, 10 years ago, I wish I would have started the podcast. So I'm doing that this year, 2024, 10 years ago, I wish I would have started like a Sumrock Capital. Like everyone knows Grant Cardone has Cardone Capital. I'm starting that this year. Sumrock Capital is going.

1:07:04The Brad Sumrock podcast show is going. um hiring more people like i'm interviewing like more sales people right now so scaling up and and building more sales and marketing oriented the organization while at the same time providing like like i've i've been like really good with fulfillment and delivery in my education business and creating hundreds of millionaires but we've we've you know we're missing a few things so we're we're going to be scaling up on that side of the business too on the branding in the marketing. Uh, I'm going to have now with AI, I'm going to have my first book done within six months by the end of the year.

1:07:43Good. Yeah. A lot, a lot of the same goals we're sharing, you know, scaling up, building your brand. Yeah. Uh, and then one last question I have, I ask everybody this question when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

1:08:01man my whole physiology changed here um

1:08:09what i hope he tells me is i hope he says uh come on in you know because i um you know i was raised catholic but there is a period of my life for decades that i kind of turned away from, from all that. But, you know, after going through some business and personal challenges, you know, I've, I feel like I've come back full circle to, to that core belief in God. And, uh, I believe there will be a day and, uh, I want to live my life so that I get into those pearly gates. The goal of that question is to change your physiology and just to kind of like, we come full circle from your morning to what's God going to do.

1:09:04And we live our life, me and you both like a life of purpose, life of service. And that's all we can do. And I know that's how you live your life and you're doing a great job. Well, you know, it's interesting, and this is kind of a deep subject. I'm sure we'll talk about it once we finish the show a little bit, but you know, I hear so many people talk like even in real estate, you know, in the seminar business, build generational wealth with real estate investing or leave a legacy. Like to me, look, I don't have kids, you know, maybe I'll have them someday, but my legacy to me is the people I come in contact with in this lifetime and not just in this lifetime, but in today, like if I could make your life better today than it was before you met me.

1:09:50That's the legacy. You know, I was in TSA pre-check in the Miami airport this morning. The line was really long and there was a late, you don't see that many friendly TSA agents, right? No. But there was a lady this morning that like changed my day and she was smiling and all these people were like, you know, it was morning. People were stressed out. Some people were still sleepwalking. You know, it was like 7 AM. I'm bored of my flight from Miami to LAX. And she was just smiling and she's like, good morning, everybody. You know, you could come this way. And I looked at it and I said, thank you for being so happy.

1:10:32You know, you really made my morning. Thank you for being so happy. So like, I just believe that Like we could change somebody's day, like with a smile, a conversation, a question, like you don't know what somebody is going through. Even if somebody snaps at you, like you don't know what they've been through. Like maybe, maybe they got in a bad fight with their spouse, you know, or maybe their kid told them like, I don't, you know, I hate you, mom. I hate you, dad. You know, maybe they lost their dog. Like one of my friends on WhatsApp is like in the hospital with her dog. going through a hard time.

1:11:09Like, we don't know what's going on. Like give people the benefit of the doubt. I know you asked me like, what I, what was the question? Like, what do, what do, what do I want God say to me? You know, when I'm in front of the pearly gates, but you know, I, I just hope he says, come on in, Brad, you've, you've lived a good life. You've, you've lived according to my principles. You know, you've lived according to my will, you know you followed my commandments and um you get to come inside let's go brad sumrock guys soon to be sumrock capital hopefully he's killing it in the real estate investment game uh and if people want to connect with you how do they connect with you yeah they go to uh bradsumrock.com and there's no c in my last name so it's real it's b-r-a-d-s-u-m-r-o-k.com you can find all the information.

1:12:04I got free content to events that I do, you know, periodically throughout the year. And also all my social media is the same. It's B-R-A-D-S-U-M-R-O-K. There are some copycat accounts out there that have like underscores and, you know, different, like one different letter and it's none of that stuff's me. So if you get messages from me selling crypto or like precious metals or some weird, you know, like investment stuff. They hate me. That's a copycat account. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that out there. All right. Brad Sumrock on all social media platforms and bradsumrock.com. Thanks, Brad.

1:12:43Thanks for coming. Awesome, man. I had a great time.

1:12:57Thank you.