107: Scaling to $1B in Real Estate w/ Brandon Turner

23:02Because if that buffer isn't there, it forces you to do things that are very silly with money, like selling your 401k investments early or selling out of your Roth IRA early or going into high interest credit card debt. No one wants to do those things. And those are very bad for your financial future. So if you set yourself up in this like call it 50 to$100 ,000 base that we encourage people to have invested and saved and built before you begin to diversify into real estate, it gives you enough buffer between you and life. But to your point, having some down payment, a couple months worth of reserves, I can understand that.

23:35The other thing I would encourage people is to really, really don't underestimate the importance of knowing how to accurately run the numbers on a deal. There's something I often call, there's pure cashflow and then there's phantom cashflow. And people say, oh, I have a property that cashflows X amount. I'm always wondering, Is that pure cash flow or phantom? What I mean, the difference is, let's say you have a rental, your mortgage is$2 ,000 a month. That includes taxes and insurance. We'll even give them that. So it's$2 ,000 a month, including tax and insurance, and the rent is$2 ,500. Most people would say, I cash flow$500 a month.

24:06And I would say, no, you lose about$500 a month in reality. And they're like, well, what do you know? Of course not. Look right here,$2 ,025. I'm like, well, what about repairs? And you got to fix things. Well, you know, things don't break every month. I mean, but on average, over time, it does. And it's usually 5 % to 10%, maybe even 15 % on a smaller, older house. So let's just say it's 10%. Okay, well, that means it's$250 a month on average just for the repairs. Then what about replacing things? Or if a refrigerator goes out every 10 years, the windows go out every 20 years, the roof every 20 years, the furnace every seven years.

24:39Okay, average that all out. That's another 10%. Oh, now we're at another$250 a month on average. What about vacancy? It sits empty once every two years for a month. There's another 5%. So now all of a sudden we're in the negative. So when you really look at the actual cost of owning rental properties, you've got to do the pure cash flow calculation. I call it pure because gold goes through the fire to get purified. When you put rental properties through the fire of analysis of saying what all could go wrong over time averaged out, that's pure cash flow. And if it purely cash flows, actually cash flows, in reality, your risk drops dramatically.

25:14Especially if you have good stable debt, which I would always recommend. and get a fixed mortgage if you're going to buy rental properties, then, okay, as long as you can hold it, you can always win in real estate. This is one of the secrets to, I mean, really all finance, right? But as long as you can hold it, you're always going to win. I mean, unless an asteroid hits or something crazy, but a house in 30 years is worth more than it is today. And you paid it off over that time. So how do you not win? As long as you can hold it. And that's the tough part, holding it. So I'm going to say two things to this, and that was great.

25:44There's an old saying, do as I say, not as I do. And I'm going to change it a little bit. And that is do as I say, not as I did. Because Brandon, you brought up a good point. When I first got started in real estate, I want to say it was perfect. And I had my bridge account set up and I had my base built and all that. But being a true entrepreneur, a lot of times you just go for it. And you're like, here's the opportunity. Betty down the streets got this old rundown house. I know the neighborhood. I know people, I'm going to buy it. I'm going to fix it up. It's going to be great. And you learn along the way.

26:19And I think it's really important for people to understand that we would love for everyone to listen and build their base first. So no one goes broke in the process of trying real estate and buying their first property, but not everyone's going to listen. And I never want to be the person that quells someone's entrepreneurial spirit. But then secondarily, a big point that I want to make to kind of wrap that up is understanding the numbers and the total ownership cost of a project is easier than it's ever been. When I started 30 some years ago in real estate, we didn't have any of this. You literally looked at it and you go, well, I need a roof.

26:54I need this. I need to paint. I need to fix everything. I think it's going to cost 30 grand, but you had no idea people today, entrepreneurs and want to be entrepreneurs have all the advantages. It's unbelievable. And I'm so glad at my age to be alive during this golden era of technology and all the tools we have now to succeed. It's just so, so incredible. And so I'm glad you guys discussed that and kind of alluded to it of, you know, humble beginnings and how to get started. So that brings me to my next point is Austin and I talk a lot about and covered a lot in the private community and on the podcast.

27:35And that is how do you buy the first property? You know, a lot of people think they need 20 % down. I do owner financing all the time. You and Pace really use the sub two as that word you've created now to make it sound really cool and fun. But how do people get started? And what are some of the creative financing options you could share with our listeners around purchasing real estate when you don't have a lot of money? Because, I talk about owner financing, hard money lending, all of those things, but give us some insight from your experience of some of the crazier ways you've been able to get financing done early on.

28:12We talked about house hacking. I still argue house hacking is the greatest low money down strategy for getting started. Now, some people might be listening and go, well, I don't even have the 20 grand down that I need. Little known fact is that you can actually bring in a partner to fund the down payment on even a house hack as long as one person lives in the property. as long as you're in the property. And I don't know if we made this clear earlier, the house hacking idea with the FHA loan, you only have to live there a year. So people are like, well, I don't want to be trapped in a house forever.

28:39Just a year, that's it. And then you can move on to another house and yes, you can only have one FHA loan at a time, but fine, next time you go 5 % down conventional and then another five. So there's ways to do this. So house hacking, love that strategy. But probably my favorite way, and I'll illustrate it by a story. There's a triplex years ago I really wanted to buy. It was super cheap, nasty little property, needed a lot of work. but I knew it was a home run. I just knew it was a home run, but I needed like, I don't know, 30 or 40 grand. I think probably 40 total for repairs and a little bit of a down payment.

29:07And, uh, I, I didn't have that. And so instead I just went to this friend of mine at church, this guy that I met at church and we'd been talking about real estate just casually. Like, you know, in that awkward greeting time, if you go to church, there's awkward, like greet your neighbor kind of thing. We just talk about real estate for a minute. So I mentioned to him about this property and I say, Hey, yeah, I've got this really cool deal. I'm looking for somebody to partner on it with me. Do you know anybody that'd be interested? And he's like, I might. And so him and his wife came in, they brought the 40 grand.

29:32We bought the property. We each made about five grand every year on that. I put no money in. He put, you know, 40 grand in and it just worked. And we held it for a long time. Each made around a hundred grand when we sold the property. It was just a win-win across the board. And he had the money, he had the credit, he had the ability to borrow, but what he did not have, and this is kind of the theory that I'm getting to here, he didn't have the knowledge or the hustle, like the drive to actually do it. So in real estate, I always say there's three things you need. You need the knowledge and you know what you're doing, how to analyze a deal, what makes a deal, what properties, cashflow, et cetera.

30:06You need to have the drive to actually go and do it. It's the hustle. It's the making the offers and the guts to go do it. And then you got to have the money, but you do not have to have all three. If you're lacking the money, just bring the other two, bring the knowledge, bring the hustle. there are far more people out there with money than there is with hustle. Like there's far more, there's millions of millionaires in America, millions of them. Yeah. Especially with the fact that real estate has gone up so much over the last few years. Like there's a lot of millionaires. There's probably a million millionaires in California.

30:33I don't know. There's, they're everywhere. Right. So once you have that abundant mentality of like, oh, I can get the money if I'm just good at the, the finding deals and the way you get good at finding deals is knowledge and hustle. Okay. Well, I'm going to go focus on that. So that brings me to my favorite, probably my favorite strategy, the way that I've used to scale up my portfolio, which is that partnership thing with that, like my buddy from church, but you can do it on a single family house. You can do it on a multifamily. You could do it on an industrial property. I have 2 ,500 investors right now.

31:00We just do the same thing. I find the deal. I do the work. I mean, my team does, and then they bring the money or they bring the down payment. That has worked out really, really well. And so again, I like that approach because it's probably the most expensive approach you could take, like it would be probably cheaper to go put it on credit card, right? I mean, in reality, you're giving 50 % of a deal away maybe if you partner versus 29 % on a credit card. But it is the safest way, in my opinion, to invest creatively because it's somebody else who has the money. They're the ones bringing it. And I would rather do twice as many deals, but give away half the profit for the security of knowing that I've got the financial backing to make these investments work.

31:41So I love that strategy. I mean, there's dozens of other no and low money down stuff. Like you said, sub two, lease options. You can take out a home equity line of credit on your house if you want to. It's almost like a credit card, but usually like 5 % interest. And you can use it to buy property and then pay it off and use it. And there's a lot of fun strategies out there. But my favorite would be the equity partnership for sure. Double click on the 203k loan and the SCR loans. Yeah. I love the 203k loan. I love this. It's one of my favorite loan products in the world. It's part of the FHA program.

32:12So it's still three and a half percent down, but the beauty of 203k is that it allows you to wrap in the repair costs. So earlier when we talked, so you got to house hack this thing, but let's say you find a house, let's say you find a duplex, whatever, and it's 200 grand, but it needs a hundred thousand dollars worth of work. So now you're in for 300, you know, you$300 ,000, but because of that, you know, it's going to be worth four. And by the way, those are completely normal numbers. Those are not crazy. You can find a$400 ,000 property that you can buy for two because it needs a hundred grand worth of work.

32:40So that's, that's a doable scenario. Well, normally you'd have to put down 20 % on the 200 and then a hundred grand for repairs on in cash. So you're coming with, what is that? $140 ,000 out of pocket. The 203k loan allows you to wrap that all in together. So 200 for purchase, a hundred for repairs is 300 total. And they say, just pay three and a half percent of that. Well, now you're looking at like, what's that less than 12 grand for the all in. And now you, you use the money, the FHA 203k loan pays the contractors as you go. Now it is hell to do this. Like it's a lot of, it's government, it's government and banking combined together.

33:16So it's, it's red. Oh, three things, government, banking, and contractors all combined together. It's like the three worst administrative things in the world. And you combine it all together. So there's a lot of red tape to get through and you got to file the right paperwork at the right time to this person. And it's annoying. But at the end of the project, you may have a cash flowing property that's on a fixed rate mortgage, that's low interest rate, you know, comparatively, you're not paying crazy hard money rates. And you have$100 ,000 of equity in the property that you could sell it if you had to right then and make a bunch of money.

33:45You could hold it for a long time. And the value of that property goes up over time based on the higher amount. And this is gets a little bit in the weeds, but you're not increasing from 200 ,000 at 3 % per year. You're increasing at 400 ,000 from 3 % per year on average over the next 30 years. So it's like you get this like immediate, it's like buying a stock for those people's stock. It's like you buy Tesla at a, I don't know, whatever. I don't even know what it's like, any, any stock at a hundred dollars a share. And it immediately goes to 150 a share the first day. And then it climbs from there.

34:15Like that's what we're doing with real estate by doing that fixer upper strategy. I, yeah, I'm just a big fan of the 203 K alone. I love doing it. And the whole BRRRR strategy for people with that is really just like a, a twist on the FHA 203k idea. It's buying a fixer upper and then holding onto it as a rental. So you're flipping it to yourself essentially. And so like you mentioned, there's a lot of red tape. It can be kind of difficult to go through some of this stuff. Maybe there's someone listening right now who's in the weeds with their 203k loan and they're just trying to figure it out and they're holding on for dear life.

34:45Do you have any tips or tricks for people? Because I feel like this is definitely one of those financial loan products that can really help people go from zero to one with real estate, especially if they only have enough for a decent down payment. They might not have the network. They might not have the church friends. You didn't mention the Mexican restaurant story, so I encourage you to do that as well. But do you have any tips or tricks for people that maybe are really in the trenches with these two or three K loans and are trying to figure out maybe new lenders, like just anything around that?

35:12Yeah. A couple of thoughts. There's a book out there. I mean, it's going to sound like a complete deviation to your question, but I'll come back to it. There's a book out there about the whole 30 diet. I think it's called like the whole 30 diet. The whole 30 is like a really strict diet. I read this book one time, but I don't remember much of the diet, but I remember a line in the first chapter and it said this. It said, whole 30 is not hard. Cancer is hard. Your spouse leaving you is hard. Drinking your coffee black is not hard. Right. And I love that line. I use it all the time with things. I'm like, we think things are hard in business.

35:42Almost everything is actually an email or a text or a decision. It's all really easy stuff. What's hard is identifying what decision needs to be made and then having the guts to make a decision. So it's not even, it's not hard. And so the reason I bring that up is because, and this is just a broad principle that I apply to my life, but I'm always wanting to ask, what is that most important next step? I call it MINS, M-I-N-S. And I'm like, what is the very next thing I have to either do or decide? And it's the smallest thing. So for example, let's say you're going through the 203k loan. Yeah, it feels hard.

36:17Well, it only feels hard because either you don't know what the next step is. Okay. Well then your next step is to figure out what the next step is, or your next step is to make a decision or to go do something. And the do something is usually send an email, make a phone call, shoot a text to somebody, ask your contractor why he wasn't there today. It's pretty easy stuff. We just simply ignore what that next step is. And so we sit for weeks or months not taking action because we just haven't identified what action to take. And so it's like, this may be a dumb metaphor, but it's like, if you read a book one page every month, it would take you 300 months to finish the book.

36:54But if you read a page every hour, it would take you 300 hours. If you read a page every minute, it would take you 300 minutes, right? The consistency and the persistence matters, but also the intensity or the frequency, maybe we'll call it, right? So if you're making decisions frequently, like every minute, you're going to move that 203k loan much faster. And that again, goes to every area of your life. If you wait a week to make a decision that didn't take you a week to make a decision, it takes 10 seconds to make a decision. You took a week, a break before making a 10 second decision. And so in my life, and this applies again, everything is I'm always asking myself, how do I just move the ball down the field just a little bit?

37:31How do I make that next step. What is the next step? Can I make it right now or put it on my calendar so it gets done? Anyway, that's my best advice for any getting through a loan process is it's actually not hard. It's just something we haven't decided on or figured out what to decide on. Well, it really reminds me of our conversation with Sahil Bloom. He was on the show a couple weeks ago to talk about his new book, The Five Types of Wealth. Yeah, I'm in the middle of that right now. It's awesome. Dude, it's such a good book. I'm right there with you. He was talking about the most successful people that he's met in his life have a razor thin sort of gap between learning something and acting upon what you just learned.

38:10Right. So to your point of like, you know, you need to take the most important next step, you figure out what that next step is, and then you actually go do it. It's so simple. Yeah. In my career, one of the biggest things that I have seen, and probably the word that strikes the most accord with me is I want tenacious people in my life. because I have seen some of the brightest minds in my lifetime and in my career where when they run into a wall, they don't figure out how to climb it or get around it. They just give up. And I think that is one of the most important mindset hurdles that people need to understand is that guys like us don't get to where we are by giving up.

38:53We're tenacious. We keep going. We figure it out. We call, we email, and we just pound and pound and pound until we get to the end. That is how success is born. That is how it is bred. And that is how you get to the next level is by not giving up as soon as something gets hard. And I think it's such a great concept to unpack. So I appreciate you guys bringing that up because it just happens so much to so many gifted people and talented people. They just don't have the drive and the tenacity to make it to the other side. Yeah. And that goes down to the mindset thing, right? It's like, if you believe there's always a path forward and you really believe that you're going to figure it out, then you'll figure it out.

39:31But as soon as you believe, like you said to believe that there's not a path forward, you give up. That's like that. I want to always believe there is a path. There's just something I haven't figured out yet, no matter what. So whether it's the 203k loan or whether it's trying to find a property or whether it's trying to, how do I let go of an employee? Like there's always a way to get through whatever you're going through. And you just, if you really believe that in your soul that you, there's a way forward, then you will figure out that way forward. It's just, it's mindset. Yeah. I always tell my team, there are no problems.

39:58There are only solutions that you haven't found yet. And I always really say that to all of them and they just get because it's so true. Stop worrying about what's happening and figure out how to fix it. And it really just loosens their minds up a little bit and gets them to understand that you have to figure it out. You can't just quit. Well, I love it. Now, Robert, I want to pull away from the interview with Brandon just real quick because I want to give a shout out to the rundown by public.com. It's their daily podcast that's seven to eight minutes long hosted by my friend Zaid Admani. And he does a wonderful job of breaking down the market moving headlines that happened the previous day.

40:37And it's an every morning episode. So you get all the information you need every single day. They also do a weekend deep dive episode. I think last weekend's was about like Uber Eats versus DoorDash. And they go into the weeds about all the fun differences and how these businesses are built. It's a wonderful podcast. So if you want to listen to the rundown by public.com, there's going to be a link to the show in the show notes below. I love it because as you stated, seven to eight minutes, I listen to them all the time in the car because I can get through it, see if there's anything I'm missing because they do a lot of really good deep dives and the information is great.

41:14Okay, let's jump back into our interview with Brandon. So a big concern right now are interest rates. Interest rates are high. Again, when I bought my first property, I think I had a 3 % interest rate, 3.1, something like that. The mortgage is like$1 ,200. A identical property, the mortgage is closer to$2 ,500. The house I'm in right now is a 6.6 % interest rate. So it's like a completely different game, right? I can't command rent on a $2 ,500 mortgage in this neighborhood. This is just my house. So it makes sense for me financially. But back to this idea of high interest rates, phantom cash flow versus real cash flow.

41:52How do people find cash flowing real estate investment properties in 2025? Is there a strategy? Is there a part of the country? How do they find those deals today with high interest rates and everything that's going on? Yeah, this is my favorite thing to talk about these days because I feel like most people trying to get into real estate, look at the price because yeah, prices are maybe double and interest rates are double. It's ridiculous, right? And so they look at that property like, well, it would only rent for$2 ,000 a month and my mortgage is$2 ,500. Now I'm negative$500 just from day one and that's not even accounting the repairs and vacancy and capex and all that stuff that goes into it.

42:29So what do you do? Most people give up, right? Because most people say, oh, too hard. Can't do it. Uh, but then if you believe there is a way forward, then you ask the question that you're asking how, right? I think the most powerful word in the English language is how, like, how do we get through this? Not can we, but how do we get through it? And that leads to like these, what I call the fringe strategies is where I see the best, uh, opportunity today in real estate. Back in the old day, you go get a real estate agent, go on, you know, realtor.com or Zillow, find a property, put 20 % down on it and you're cash flowing and it's great and everybody's happy.

43:00That's 2012, 2013. It doesn't work like that anymore. Instead, I'm trying to think what are the fringe strategies? So I'll give you like four or five examples and these are not in any particular order. It really depends on location and all that, but Airbnb still works. Like short term rentals still work. Now they are very different than they were even three years ago. The market got way over competitive, overheated. I interviewed a couple yesterday on my podcast. They are making thousands of dollars a month on an Airbnb that they own. It's a bus. They remodel the bus. They call it the beach bus.

43:32They spent 20 grand total, 15 to buy the bus, five to remodel it. They put it in their front yard of their house. And they're making thousands of dollars a month on this bus, the beach bus. It's wild, right? So like this couple said, how do we make Airbnb work? They figured it out. So Airbnb is one of them. Midterm rental, super interesting. Like traveling nurses and construction workers, They need places to stay that are furnished over a long period of time. There's a great website that kind of facilitates this kind of Airbnb of that world. It's called Furnished Finder. They can pay sometimes double what you'd get a normal rent just because you have a couch and a bed in there.

44:03And so that's a, that's a cool strategy. One of my kind of current obsessions is something called a co-living or rent by the room. And like the Airbnb of that is called Pad Split. They're the biggest company called Pad Split. And so I just bought two of those actually to kind of test out the idea. Cause I like the idea. it's crazy to say it out loud, but it's like, you literally take a house, add bedrooms to it, you know, legally, but let's say you go from a five bedroom to an eight bedroom. And then you rent out each room separately. You got a lock on each door. They share the kitchen. They share a bathroom.

44:31Maybe, maybe they get their own bath depending on the house and they just live in their houses. And again, it's like, well, who would possibly ever do that? Yeah. Anybody who makes less than 50 grand a year and alone and single, because like if you're in any major city, you're in Nashville and a studio apartment, 1600 bucks a month where you want to live, but you can go get a bedroom and a house for 900 bucks a month. Yeah, I'm going to do that all day long. And there are literally tens of millions of people in America that fit that bill that make less than 50 grand a year that are single. So it's a huge market.

44:59So now you, let's say you take that eight bedroom house and you're getting 900 bucks a month out of each bedroom. You're bringing in$7 ,200 a month. Now, are there other expenses? Yeah. You got to pay the electric bill. You got to pay the internet. Uh, people are going to move out more often. I'm not saying there's not problems, but all those are figureoutable. There's a great book, Marie Forleo, right? It's called everything is figureoutable. And I love that. I use that phrase all the time. It's all figureoutable. You just figure it out. So anyway, those are the fringe strategies. Assisted living is one of my favorites, one of the most difficult, but residential assisted living.

45:28You buy a house, maybe it's got five bedrooms in it. You widen all the doorways. You put up the shower handle so that they don't fall. And then those things on average in America, the average room in a residential assisted living goes for over five grand right now. So yes, you have to have some staff there, part-time or maybe full-time. Yeah, it's complicated. How are you going to find people to work there? Oh my gosh, it's going to be so hard. What if the person dies? Like, okay, we figure it out. Everything's figureoutable. One residential assisted living house. I have a buddy who does a lot of these and his number, by the way, is 10 ,000 a month in profit per home, or he won't do it.

46:04Like one house can get you out of your job. One house. So if I told you, you work your nights and weekends for the next year to learn and then put into practice a residential assisted living house and you're going to make a bunch of mistakes that first year. In fact, the first one you buy, let's be honest, you're probably not going to make a lot of money. You're probably going to break even because you didn't know what you didn't know. Okay. The second year of your life, you buy a second one and that one makes you 10 grand a month going forward. Would you spend two years of your nights and weekend to get the 10 grand a month for the rest of your life and give you a new career?

46:33That's pretty flexible. I would in a heartbeat, right? So those are the ways, that's how I'm thinking about real estate right now are these fringe kind of like nuanced strategies that are a little more business, a little less real estate, and they just work. And how do you know what those are? Listen to podcasts of people doing it and just pick one and go with it. Yeah. I think really to unpack this a little further, it's about getting creative. The people that win in any sector, especially real estate, when Airbnb got really oversaturated because everyone was selling a course of how to do Airbnb and arbitrage and all that, the people that continued to win in Airbnb that didn't have a lot of money got created like the bus people.

47:14I know a guy right now that crushes it in Boise and he has a train car in his side yard where he actually put railroad tracks, put the train car on the tracks and it's only 20 feet of track, maybe 30 feet, crushes it because this train car is in his side yard right next to a waterway, right next to the parks. He prints money with this thing, but he got creative. He paid very little for the train car. He did what you said they did with the bus, put in 20, 30 grand, but it's being creative. And I talk about it all the time. People should be looking at old schoolhouse buildings, old campgrounds that they can turn from a campground to a tiny home community.

47:58Get creative and that's where all the wealth can be built in these fringe concepts. So I'm so glad we're covering it today. Yeah, that's super cool. You know, the last point on that, it goes back to mindset. Whenever I teach any of these strategies, especially if you look in the YouTube comments of this video, you guys probably have a better audience, but I'm on a lot of podcasts that the YouTube comments are just atrocious. And the number one comment is usually that can't be done or that's too hard. I don't want to, you know, get old people and deal with them. And like, there's two types of people in this world, right?

48:27Some people see something that's hard and they say, I don't want to do that because it's hard. And then there are people who say that's hard. I want to do that because that's hard. And who do you think becomes wealthy, right? It's the people who say that's hard. Like money is in hard. Wealth is in hard or it's in time. I guess you take your pick, right? You can throw money in the S and P 500 and for the next 40 years, you're going to be wealthy. If you want to be wealthy quick, it's in the heart and there's no other way around it. It's just in the heart. But I think it's also about understanding that the most successful people that I've ever met have zero analysis paralysis.

49:02They don't overthink it. They do their research. They go for it. And it usually works out. And I think over time, especially now, because people can hire mentors, they can hire partners. They've got podcasts, YouTube. you can learn to do anything in the course of a few hours now and be pretty damn sure you're going to be successful at it once you do it a few times. So I just love this podcast and really unpacking not just the real estate side of things, but also the side of things relative to mindset and how it is such a big hurdle for so many people. So, you know, once someone has successfully completed a house hack and they're renting out all the units, what's the next logical step, whether it's one of these fringe strategies or just a traditional strategy to get them to that second property, the third property, the fourth property, where do you tell people how to get there and move from the first property onto others?

49:58I mean, the most important thing, I said it earlier, but you have to decide, you have to pick your thing, like pick your heart. So the next step is once you've gone into it. And again, you might have to test out different options. You may have to try the rent by the room thing. And you're like, eh, it's not really for me. Try Airbnb. Oh, it didn't really work. Right. But you have, you have to make a decision. It's like going back to the diet metaphor. Like all the diets work, right? Pick any random diet, insert diet here. It works. And there's science to back it up. And there's Instagram influencers who talk about it and sell courses on it.

50:26It all works. But what doesn't work is not doing anything. Just sitting at home, eating nachos and Twinkies all day, isn't going to work. Right. So you have to decide, I'm going to go all in on this diet. I'm going to stick with the rules and then I'm going to lose the weight and it always works. So you do the house hack, you're kind of getting into it. You got bit by the bug. Now you're, now you're addicted. And it's funny because people do like, I get addicted. Everyone gets addicted. Like almost if you're in real estate, like it's, it's a weird obsession. So you get into it. Yeah. It's, it's, it's super funny that we all like commiserate together.

50:55And like, it's such a community, uh, real estate's wild in that, by the way, side point is how shareable, like I've never met a real estate investor in my life. I mean, I'm, and I've talked to thousands and thousands of them who has been a jerk to me and tried to hide things. Like I've never had somebody not tell me what they're doing or their full entire strategy. When asked, everybody's open to sharing. It's not like, I think a lot of the business world, which is like, I'm not going to share with you. You're my competition there. It's weird. There is no competition. I feel like in the rental space, even though there clearly is, I could be had a meetup with three people in Maui, uh, who all invest where I do.

51:32And we're all looking for the same condos and yet we're all like sharing ideas and helping each other. So anyway, side point. So you got it. You got to decide you you're in real estate. You're bit by the bug. What am I going to do next? And again, it's probably picking one of those strategies or it's going to Ohio and trying to find the product. Cause there are places in the country where you can still buy cashflow. I shouldn't say there's not terrible. Don't come here. Yeah.

51:56Don't go to side, and then you commit to that thing to seeing it through. I mean, not for 30 years, but commit to the deal. I'm going to get this. I'm going to test it. I'm going to say, do I like this? There's a great book came out probably 20 years ago, maybe more called the lean startup by Eric Reese. I think it's like, I, like, I love this book. One of my favorite business books. And the idea is not lean as in like run your company minimally, even though maybe that's a piece of it. It's lean as in like lean into what works. So you try things, you test an idea. Oh, I think that Airbnb is a thing.

52:25I'm going to try it. And if it works, I'm going to lean into it. And I'm going to be like, okay, well, how do I make it work even better? And then I'm like, oh, I can do a train car. I'm going to lean into that. And you're like, oh, that works really good. I'm going to build a spaceship. I'm going to lean into that one. So you lean into what works, but the only way you can lean into what works is if you make those tests. You put the hypothesis out there, try it. Decision is the first step. What am I going to do? Write that down, set a goal. Like this year I will do this. In order to be on track for that goal, this quarter I'm going to do this.

52:53And then if I'm going to do that this quarter, what are the actions or habits or constraints, meaning the things I won't do, that will give me the result that I want for the quarter? So I'm going to analyze deals. I'm going to talk to a real estate agent. I'm going to go to a meetup. And these are the habits that will make me rich, to steal your show title. You can steal it all you want. You've coined enough really cool things. So you can go coin rich habits too. That'd be awesome. Everyone will know about it. But, you know, I think what's really interesting about what you just said is real estate to me, at least it was like, again, this was a 24 year old, you know, talking right back then.

53:28But like real estate to me when I was 24 and I had to go buy this first house, like I learned, I listened, I read, I did all of these things to set me up for success. But it was still so hard to pull the trigger. It was still so hard to say like, all right, I'm going to go do it. I'm going to go buy the house. Right. It's such a big leap. and it's investing, but it's a different form of investing. So like when you compare that to like buying, you know, the S &P 500 on a broker like public.com, you know, you can deposit 50 bucks and you just go buy it and you're off to the races, right? It's like, it's such a frictionless thing where I'd argue that buying real estate has a lot of friction.

54:05There's the underwriting, there's, you know, all the communication, providing your documentation and like it's a month long process to buy a property, more cases than not. So I just, I don't know, I hear what you're saying and I get really excited and pumped up about like, you know, go to the deals and the meetups and like get these people like in your corner and excited. But I think there's people listening right now that need an extra nudge in the right direction to really go take that first step. So talk a little bit about, you know, setting up that vision for your future financially, the mindset that goes into really taking that first step, going from I'm a person that lives in an apartment or maybe, you know, I am house hacking at the moment to Robert's original question here, but now I really want to scale my portfolio.

54:46How do they really go and set up their vision board, that really cool thing that's going to allow them to not only learn about it, but stay consistent throughout the next 5, 10, 15 years of real estate investing? Yeah, there's a lot I could unpack there, but I'll give you a couple of thoughts. First of all, about a year ago, I'm always trying to get in shape. I always try to go to the gym, and I'm never consistent with it for, I mean, 30 years of my adult life. I've been trying to go to the gym and trying to eat right, But, you know, it's just tough sometimes, right? But about a year and a half ago, a friend comes to me and he's like, hey, we're doing a fitness challenge.

55:18Me, you, and 12 of our best friends. We're all going to report every single day what we ate and how many steps we walked. And we've got to go to the gym three times. And if you don't do any of those things, you owe$100 into the pot every week. At the end, you know, we'll spend all the money on a big party or we'll give it to whoever won. All of a sudden, I started going to the gym every single, like, you know, three, four times a week. I started hitting it. I don't want to pay the$100. It's not about the$100, right? But I'm in a community. If you want to be a runner, go surround yourself by a bunch of runners.

55:42You want to be a vegan, go hang out with a bunch of vegans. You become like those you hang out with. So I'd say the most important thing, if you want to start getting into it, you want the extra motivation, you want the push, you want to scale, you're nervous, is just get around people who make the extraordinary look like a Tuesday morning. Just like, oh yeah, that's just what I do. Example, I had a buddy named David Osborne. He runs a group called GoBundance, which is a big mastermind. and David Osborne once, I was at a GoBundance event and he said on stage that he was raising$100 million and I was so blown away by that.

56:13I'm like, I can't imagine a human being could raise$100 million, like that's insane. A year later, I raised$120 million in eight weeks. I could not have done that had I not been in that room, right, to make that possible. The extraordinary was just like another Tuesday morning for David Osborne, just he thought differently. So through osmosis, I became more like him. So you gotta get in those rooms. The cool thing about real estate, I mentioned this earlier, but there's meetups and they happen all around the country all the time. Like every major city has a meetup happening every single week. And some of them are just pitch fast, we're gonna sell you some course, but most of them are pretty good.

56:49They're just normal people hanging out at a pizza place or a bar. And there's 20 old school landlords just hanging out talking. And there's 20 newbies that are there trying to learn and everyone just talks and hangs out. and some are more organized, some are less organized, but you start going to that thing over and over and over. First of all, nobody does, right? They go one time and then they disappear if you're new, but you start going to that thing over and over. You start being friends with these people. You will become like these people just naturally. You want to scale, then get around people who have scaled.

57:17If you want to buy your first deal, get around people who have bought, did buy deals. You'll become like them naturally. And then I'm a big believer in reverse engineering your success. Like, right, I always say this line is you get the results of what you repeatedly do, right? If you want a six pack, then there is a prescription to get that. If you want to be a better husband, there's a prescription to get that. There's things you can tangibly do. You're not naturally a good husband, but by going on date nights and by giving your wife flowers and by listening to her, those are tactical things I can do.

57:45You get the results of what you repeatedly do. Okay, so what do you want? What's your goal? Let's reverse engineer that. What are the things you need to do on a regular basis? I alluded to the idea of a three, like how do I get three yards down the field? I said that earlier, I think. It's this metaphor of if you're playing football, right, you've got to get all the way down from one side of the field to the other. Like Hail Marys get all the press coverage, right? That's what shows on the 10 o 'clock news is the Hail Mary. The guy catches in the end zone. Everyone's excited. 95 % of football is carrying the ball like two or three yards.

58:16It's just like three yards, four yards, two yards, three yards. That's what wins games. So if you want to, you know, people are like, oh, man, I want to buy a rental property. I want to get rich. I want to retire early. I want to blah, blah, blah. start a business. That's the Hail Mary. They're looking at the end zone. Stop looking at the end zone. What is the three? I mean, it's good to know where the end zone's at. Otherwise you're going, you know, left or right. You're going to the stands, know where the end zone's at, and then ask yourself, what is the three yard carry here or the three yard toss?

58:42Let me just get a little bit down the field. That is a whole lot less scary than I'm going to go buy a rental property that freezes people. So what is the three yard play? Identify it, decide, commit, take action. I love that because I feel like the Hail Mary anecdote is the clickbait of our generation. Everyone wants to follow the clickbait because they think there is this get rich quick scheme that actually works. And unfortunately they find out that it is just tenacity and hard work and following people that have actually done it. You know, I always tell people that to get to a place that you have to get uncomfortable before you can get comfortable.

59:21And so many people don't understand that, that, you know, going to these meetups might not be fun. It's easier to stay home and watch Netflix. Going and traveling to go to a mastermind might seem rah, rah, woo, woo. But at the end of the day, you're getting yourself around the right people. And if you don't do it, you're not going to be able to get to that next level, even if you do it from a local or regional standpoint. You know, I'm at these Dan Fleischman events, Aspire events, Pace, Morby, and I were at an event together recently as well. When you get around those people that are all doing it, then like you said, it's kind of that osmosis of energy and information that really helps other people get there as well.

1:00:04And I think it really is true that you are the five people you hang around with the most. It really is true because when you're around a bunch of people that are your high school or college buddies that have a lack mentality or a victim mentality, guess what? You're going to get lazy too and feel that's just the way the world works. But when you're around a bunch of killers, like I get to be around Austin every single day, it's phenomenal because you don't find yourself being lazy or being passive and not making the effort. And so we're always moving the chains that three yards at a time. And I think it's so incredibly important.

1:00:41Now, before we ask Brandon, our very last question, let's take a moment to hear from this episode's sponsor, Blossom. Investing is more fun when you're doing it alongside like-minded people from dividends to growth stocks. There's a community for everyone on Blossom. We just talked about communities in real estate. Well, that's with real estate. This is with stocks. Remember, Blossom is not an online broker, but instead a social investing app that's built around transparency, a social media platform built specifically for investors. I've already connected my personal accounts to Blossom and I enjoy seeing how everything is divided up and performing on a daily basis.

1:01:18Additionally, they offer Duolingo style educational video content for those of you that are still learning. They were just recognized as a top 25 app for 2025 by the Apple App Store for good reason. So click the link in the show notes below to sign up for Blossom or simply type Blossom in on the App Store. Let's now jump into our final question for Brandon. So let's go into my little last piece of information I want you to break down. And that is, you mentioned earlier MINS, most important next step. We talk about the mini wins, but what is something people can achieve right now, whether it's educational, it's checking out your book or a podcast like this to help them move closer to their goal as becoming a first time or maybe growing their portfolio in the real estate industry?

1:02:08Yeah, if you just pay me$100 ,000, I'm just kidding. No, if you just, I'll say this from a few perspectives here. If you're brand new, I mean, you know nothing, right? You got to start with education. So yeah, I'd say the simplest thing is to pick up a book. Go to Amazon, go to the real estate section, and look at all the top books. Look at the reviews, look at the ones that are ranked high, and then get a book. And maybe it's mine, maybe it's not, but get a book and read it. Simplest thing in the world. It costs you$20. I remember way back early in my career, I just read that first real estate book.

1:02:38I got from the library and I thought it was really good. And I got bit by the bug and I was like, I mean, I would love to do real estate, but I don't really know if that's for me. And I don't, you know, am I, can I make this work? And then a friend recommended I read rich dad, poor dad, which is the foundational book. I mean, I'm bigger pockets and now I'm better life. I've interviewed what over 700 investors, 90 plus percent of them have identified rich dad, poor dad as the book that changed their life. And it changed mine as well. For whatever reason, it just changes everybody's life and gets them excited about money.

1:03:06It just changes mindset and perspective, but I didn't even have the money to buy that book. Like I was so broke and they didn't have it at the library. So I went to a Barnes and Noble and I sat there, the whole book just sitting there. Cause I couldn't buy it. So I just read it while there. It's like, that's the tenacity of like, Oh, I'm going to figure it out anyway. So go read rich dad, poor dad, read a good rental property book. That's yeah. Step number one. There's a million YouTube videos. Obviously you can watch, but I, in my opinion, nothing takes the place of like a book in that you get 20, 30 years of some industry veteran, like ridiculously high level person giving the best of what they know in a format that explains it for 20 bucks.

1:03:43Like there's no greater investment than a book. That's why I'm a, I'm an avid reader. I have, I just, I buy every book. Somebody recommends, I just buy it no matter what, even if I don't read it, I just buy every book. Cause I'm like over time on average, every single book makes me millions of dollars. And so I'm just going to keep buying books because they're game changing. I love it. I love it. That gives me goosebumps. And then I'll give you one more. Just go on to Zillow or realtor.com and just start playing around. Sort by the cheapest properties, like a single family house and sort by cheapest one and just start playing with it.

1:04:12There's no commitment. It's just playing with it. You're just looking for stuff. And here's a fun game. I'll give people a little game. Try to read between the lines on a description of a cheap house. What I mean by that is real. I find it every time I go on the MLS. Yeah, Robert, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There's little things they say that you're like, oh, there's something more here. For example, great for multi-generational living. This is a duplex. They're not saying it's a duplex. That's not legally a duplex maybe, but this could be a duplex. Or it'll say something like, you know, could use some TLC.

1:04:42Quaint. Yeah, quaint, quaint. Yeah, exactly. You're like, oh, opportunity. Like one of my favorite quotes, I had a friend interviewed on the podcast years ago, and he told this story of how every time him and his kid would walk into a nasty house and it would stink really bad, which is common. Most people turn around and leave, but he trained his kid. His kid would go smells like money every time, right? Like we look for those opportunities. So what you're looking for is you're looking for hidden money in those descriptions of the properties of like, where's the opportunity here? Bonus room. Oh, can I add a bedroom?

1:05:15All of a sudden you go from a three bedroom to a four bedroom and the rent goes from 25 to 3000. Oh, now there's opportunity. So in today's market, to kind of summarize what I said earlier, and I'll say it again now, is in today's market, you don't typically find good deals on the market. It's really, really hard, but you can make good deals on the market by knowing to identify those little things, which is a game with zero commitment is go to Zillow or Realtor.com, pick a market and just start digging around and see what kind of games you can play there. I love it, but also the meetups. I told that story earlier about my buddy Scott, who out here in Hawaii, right?

1:05:47He wanted to buy a property with me or he wanted to buy property. I said I'd partner with him. So he just starts calling. We didn't even fly there. He just started calling everybody that was in the industry in that area, talked to one gentleman. He's like, yeah, actually just had a deal earlier today. I came across my desk. Uh, would love, you know, I can show it to you. That guy ended up selling us this house. And I think I'm going to probably get the numbers wrong. Cause I bought a couple of them. I think it was two hundred and 10 ,000. The guy wanted for it. Now he was wholesaling, which basically means people find a deal.

1:06:12It's cheap. And then they sell it for a little bit more money to another investor. So this guy was, I think he was buying it for like one 80. He somehow knew the owner and he was getting it for 180. He sold it to us for like 210. And it's like, well, you know, cool. But then the thing appraised at 310 day one, without any work, it appraised at a hundred thousand more than we just bought it for. And the after repair, it needs to work. So the after repair value was more like 450. And we're only going to have about 350 into the whole thing. So we're going to be able to refinance, get all of our money out completely.

1:06:41And this is a guy, Scott, first deal ever done. And he just had to make a bunch of phone calls and call people. Brandon, I feel like, you know, again, And I've listened to several episodes of podcasts that you've been on. And it's just I learned something every time I listen to you talk. And so I very much appreciate you coming here onto the Rich Habits podcast and, you know, share your unique perspective on building your billion dollar real estate empire. I just want to emphasize that again for everyone listening. It's like, oh, why should I care about what Brandon says? It's because he has a billion dollars in real estate with nearly 15 ,000 units, right?

1:07:17So it's like, this guy's figured it out. To add one more piece to that, just because I think this is important. It's like, I bought the billion dollars and that matters. And I say this not to like toot my horn or to pat myself on the back, because I just want you, as you're listening to people out there that are doing like real estate, as you find educators, I bought whatever, 15 ,000 units. I also bought two houses, one in Atlanta, one in Florida last month, right? So what I mean by that is like a lot of people, they teach what they did 20 years ago and they don't do that stuff anymore. Like they're not actually in the game anymore.

1:07:46So they're teaching what worked 20 years ago. So as you're following people online and you're in this industry for any industry, make sure they're doing what they're teaching that they're doing, not just what they did, if that makes sense. And if you're an educator out there, you're somebody listening, like do the work, keep, keep current on what works, even though you don't need it anymore. It just keeps your skills sharp. It's so funny because the old saying is people that can't do coach. And I see it a lot of times and I'm always careful to point that out. But so many people that failed in business now coach online and they're telling all their followers things that might have worked 10 or 20 years ago, but they don't work now.

1:08:22And that's why people get a kick out of my content because I'll show me on a roof. Yeah, I love that. I love that you're still doing it. I do. I love it. I mean, I'm right here in a house we're renovating. There's people right over here doing tile work and it's hilarious. And I love it because it just really shows authenticity in our work and in our message that we're actually doing what we're educating people on. And I think that's so important. So Brandon, this has been an incredible episode. And for anyone listening, and if you enjoyed this, please share with a friend, leave a review, and let's keep stacking good days, good weeks, and good months.

1:08:58And we appreciate you all tuning in so, so much. And before we sign off, Brandon, you got to tell the people, where can they learn from you? What's the name of your book? How do they connect with you on the interwebs? I would say, I mean, there's a lot of places. I've written a lot of books. So if you Google my name in Amazon, you'll find them. But Instagram is my favorite place. Like I'm an Instagram nerd. So Beardy Brandon, beard with a Y at the end, Beardy Brandon on Instagram and TikTok and all the social channels. Thanks, brother. Robert, what an incredible conversation we just had with Brandon.

1:09:28Again, I learned something every time this guy talks. He just did a wonderful conversation with Graham Stephan and Jack Selby. I love it when people like this are able to come onto our show and really unpack the blueprint of going from you have no idea what you're doing to, wow, congrats. You're an expert now if you put in the work. Yeah, I love it. And Brandon's message is great. He is very authentic. He really puts a lot of great information out there. And I like his mindset stuff because it aligns really well with ours. So make sure you guys share this episode with a friend. tell them about it if they're thinking about getting into real estate or maybe they're having some mindset issues because I think this episode, like you said, really unpacks a lot, especially for people that are interested in real estate or maybe just getting started or even if someone has a couple properties and is looking to scale.

1:10:18I think it's a great episode. And I also want to mention that we're so happy and so proud of where this podcast has gone. We appreciate each and every one of you that shares it, gives it those five-star reviews, and lets other people know about our message and this podcast. Robert and I are incredibly grateful. As you guys know, last Thursday was our two-year anniversary for the show. We had a whole reflection montage that we had shared sort of at the end of that Thursday episode, and it's just, it's awesome. We're just so grateful that 80 ,000 of you come back every single week to listen to the Rich Habits podcast and continue to give us those five-star reviews, share it with your friends and family.

1:10:57And this episode, I feel like, can especially be shared with someone, maybe someone in your network, a colleague or a family member that's like really trying to get into real estate and wants to get a little bit of extra nuggets here and there. This is a good one for them. So thanks again for coming back every week and have a great start to your week this week. Lemo, emo! And Doug. Here we have the Lemo, emo in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Lemu? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us?

1:11:35Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at libertymutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.