BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 240: Flipping Your Way Out of (Student Loan) Debt & the Transition to Rentals with Brentin Hess

Episode Date: August 17, 2017

Financial debt (like student loans or credit cards) is irritating, expensive, and flat-out dangerous. But you don’t have to be stuck paying the minimum payments for decades like most Americans. Today, we’re excited to introduce you to Brentin Hess, a young investor who “flipped his way out of student loan debt” and has already been able to quit his job thanks to his real estate investments. You’ll learn how Brentin used a partnership to begin his house flipping journey, as well as the mistakes that cost him time and money in the beginning. Brentin is incredibly inspiring, so take time to listen to this entire episode—and prepare to have a fire lit beneath you! In This Episode We Cover: Tips for getting into real estate at a young age Brentin’s experience of having a real estate license at 19 years old How his first partnership came to fruition How to deal with contractors when you’re young The details of his first deal Tips for leveraging capital What exactly a Guidance Line of Credit is The importance of building relationships Why he shifted from flipping to rental properties How he financed a multifamily deal Tips for finding the right partners When you should consider the rent as stabilized How he quit his job The story of how Gary Vaynerchuck was a guest for his event And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums How to Achieve Greater Success by Doing Less with Devin Elder Achieving Financial Freedom at Age 32 with Austin Fruechting A Simple Morning Ritual to Help You Dominate Every Area of Your Life with Hal Elrod Gary Vaynerchuk’s Podcast From “D-Student” to $400,000 in Annual Rental Property Cash Flow with David Osborn The Journey From Flipping Houses to Owning 1,470 Units with Andrew Cushman How Modeling Greatness Can Get You To 100+ Deals with Matt Aitchison Overcoming Inaction, Direct Mail, and Becoming an Successful Wholesaler with Tim Gordon Brandon’s Twitter Books Mentioned in this Show Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller How to Make Big Money in Small Apartments by Lance Edwards Change Your Habits, Change Your Life by Tom Corley The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey Fire Round Questions Which mortgage should I pay off first? Rental or my own? Credit card to fund renovations—lots of questions! How can I avoid the mistakes that YOU made? Tweetable Topics: “A lot of people who are into real estate sales don’t even get into investing.” (Tweet This!) “Flipping is transactional.” (Tweet This!) “Time is a finite resource.” (Tweet This!) “Life is boring if you’re not being creative.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Brentin Brentin’s BiggerPockets Profile Brentin’s Instagram Profile Brentin’s Facebook Profile GoRecn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 240. If you just go, out and you want it so badly. Like it'll somehow, some way, somebody will come in your life or you'll figure it out and it'll happen. Just go after and do it. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Storkin.

House to the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon. The crowd goes wild. Wow. What's up? Not much how you did. How was that? Was that? That was a really good introduction.

That was about the best I've ever got. Usually it's like, here comes Brandon, that one guy that just here. Yeah. Anyway, what's new? What's up, man? Yeah, we, this is the same. second show since I'm back from my my my great adventure um no man things are things are going well got a cool show with a young just hungry dude this morning who that not this morning but that we

just uh we just chatted with and i i love these shows i love i mean look i love talking to folks who were in their 40s and 50s and 60s and so on but like the guys in their 20s i don't know for me they feed me they feed my my my like my motivational passion or something. Yeah, man, just seeing somebody who's like so young with so little experience who can just say, you know, so to speak, balls to the wall and just kind of like do it, right? Just all out. I'm going to figure this out. You know, I want to get into this. Here's why. And they just go and do it. Because I think over age and we develop these fears, right? You know, if you attachments, fears, things like that. And when you're young, you don't really have that as much.

I mean like now if I were like hey Brennan you know let's get up and leave you know get up and leave your small part of town while your wife and your kids used to the church and that da da da da da and you get all these things right your ties. When you're young you're just like I'm just going to do it. Yeah, why not? So it's cool. And anyway, but besides the fact that he's young, he's out there killing it. Hustling. He's got some fantastic ideas. So here's a great show for everybody.

But yeah, things are good, man. How about you? How's your how's your life? life, how's your wife? Wife, life, baby. So good. Rosie is learning to talk. And so she's just new words every couple of days, like little things. It's fun. Nice. Man, you weren't lying. Being a dad is fun. Does she know Josh? She does not know that. She knows a whole. Wow. Whoa. Whoa. Wow. What, what? What? What? Wow. No, she doesn't know that. She doesn't know anything. Oh, my God. Yeah, that was the PG version right there. What just happened? I don't know. So let's bring in today.

I feel like there's an animus here, Brandon. What's What if I... You've done nothing. You've been a good friend and that's all I'm going to say. Wow. Let's get to today. I hope that's good. I'm going to the quick tip.

Quick tip. I got a quick tip unless you have one. Please. It's all you. All right. Today's, um, today's quick tip is I'm still like reeling here, Brandon. This whole like rosy a hole thing. It's, it's tripping me up. It's breaking my heart a little bit here.

So today's quick tip, we have begun to roll out what we have dubbed our content hubs. We have begun to roll out these content hubs. We have a new nav that we're testing out on bigger pockets. And what we've done is we realize that our users are looking for knowledge. They're looking for information. And, you know, over time, we've always said, oh, you want to learn something. You've got to go to the forum. Say, you want to learn something?

You've got to go here. the challenge is people learn different things in different ways so brandon you could bang him on the head a hundred times he's not going to learn a damn thing that's true but you listener a may like to learn things through video you listener b are a podcast guy only you listener c might be a blog person so what we did was we went through all of our content in bigger pockets and that is no small undertaking there is a massive massive million of forum posts, tens of thousands of blog posts, and we've categorized them and labeled them. And now what we're doing is we said, hey, our users are going to find this information valuable if

they can find everything kind of categorically. And so we've begun to really test that. And so thus we have these content hubs on our new nav. If you go to our education drop down, you'll see we've got property management, finance, strategy, finding deals. And hubs, there's, you know, there's going to be more and more and more hubs over time. And they're going to get better over time because we're going to get to know what people like, what people find valuable, what they don't find valuable. So check out those content hubs. Let us know what you think. Jump on the forums, biggerpockets.com slash forums and leave us some feedback on those hubs, test them out, play with them. And that's today's tips. That wasn't so quick.

I tend to ramble. You know what? You, you might. But today's show is not about Josh and his rambling. Today's show is about real estate. So we have a great show today. This is show 240 of the Bigger Pockets podcast. Check out the show notes of biggerpockets.com slash show 240. Today's guest is Brinton Hess, a man in his young 20s who is out there killing it, flipping houses, building a portfolio. He's building his own network, which is really cool. All about building a cool, better life and finance, better, better,

financial lives. But at the end of the day, he's got a great story. He has some great ideas, and he's somebody that we can all learn from. So take a listen. All right, Brenton, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Sweet, sweet. So I first met you back in January, I think it was, or February up in Whistler. We were at the GoBundance event, and that was cool. But it was good to get to kind of know you when I learned a little bit about you then, but I didn't get to, like, dive in real deep in your story. So that's why I was excited to, you know, invite you on the show here and get talking to you. So with that, let's get to it. What, I mean, how did you get into real estate? I mean, you're a young guy. How old are you right now?

I am 24. 24. You might be, is he the youngest we've had on the show? I don't know if we've had it. I don't know. No, we had like, I think, like 22 year olds. Yeah, I think maybe Devin might have been a little. Anyway, you're a young guy and you're, you're crushing it in real estate and in business and in life and you're doing a lot of really good stuff. So how did you get the idea even of getting into real estate? Walk through the beginning of that. Josh is bringing a book across the screen. All right. Walk us through your journey. And how did you get started with that first deal?

Yeah, okay. All right. So I got my real estate license at 19 years old when I was in college. It was one of those things where over winter break, I heard you can get your real estate license in two weeks. So I went ahead and knocked it out online. I grabbed it. And honestly, I didn't do anything with it the first two years.

And it wasn't until I heard about this thing. I honestly looked at both things. I looked at sales and then real estate investing. And when I looked at both, I realized, well, I wouldn't be so passionate about sales because of it's being so transactional in the sense of you do it, and then you got to do it again, do it again. And I have family in real estate. They own a brokerage.

And they've always been in sales. No one I've known has been into real estate investing. In fact, like a lot of the people inside of real estate sales, a lot of realtors out there don't even get into investing. So you would think that off the gate, like, I would have a leg up. In fact, I had never thought about investing. I had never even swung a hammer before. So I literally started from scratch, no experience, no mentors inside this space whatsoever.

And then it wasn't until I was running around the office at 21 years old saying, hey, who wants to flip houses or who wants to invest in real estate? And I have a great friend, Stu, who said, hey, I have a lot of money and not a lot of time. And I said, awesome, because I have negative dollars. Like, I have college debt. And I have a ton of time. So maybe, like, let's do something.

So we brought in another buddy of mine from home. Josh, and the three of us, we went ahead and came across our first deal. And that story and its stuff is probably one of the greatest learning lessons of all time. Oh, wow. Is it ready for it? Well, no, I'm not ready for it. I've got to ask questions already. Hold on.

Curiosity, man. So, all right, so we got you. We got Stu and we got Joshie boy. And the three of you are coming together. Your role, Stu's the money guy. You're the, I don't know, guy. And what is Josh, so what are the roles and then how are you guys coming together? Like, what does that look like?

Sure. When it originally came about, it was Stu was the money. Josh would be running the operations like the renovations and overseeing the project. and I would be more of the accounting side. And it didn't stay that way. In fact, we bought the house. And in the first week, we didn't do anything, really. We just like, okay, now what?

We met in the living room. And we went and bought some paint and started rolling it out ourselves. And we looked around and just said, all right, this can't be right. Like, this is not what the best people in the business are doing. So that's when I said, okay, having no relationships, no experience, let's build it. And we use that as our first stepping stone to finding contractors, managing them. And it's so funny because both Josh and Stu left to go on a vacation for two weeks,

like right in the beginning of the project as soon as we got rolling. So I was there with the contractors on summer break of college, just learning with what they told me. In fact, like, they would give me that long materials list. I would go to the Home Depot or Lowe's. And that's how I would learn exactly what materials were needed. and it was quite the learning curve. It still is.

What was that like dealing with contractors at a young age? I mean, you're 21 years old at this point. And, you know, you're dealing with contracts that are probably way older than you. Like, what was that like? Yeah. Intimidating, number one, because everything that they're saying, you're just nodding to and shaking your head. And you're like, yep, yep, yep. And then you go to the store and you have no idea what they said.

And you can't read their handwriting. Yep. So it actually, it was, it was challenging. because they would, I would always feel as if they're pulling one over on me. We didn't have any relationships prior to this. And I wouldn't know what's right or what's wrong when pricing. So all of that combined, it was just like me going to the store, asking others, what do you think about this?

Like, I remember, and it's funny because it actually kind of ruins you in a way because I went to the store and I said, I need that thing that goes in the bottom of a bathroom. Like as soon as you walk in, you step over it. and the guy is like a threshold. And I'm like, yeah, I think. Like, what does that look like? Can you show me? And, and now, like, you know, you walk into a bathroom.

You see all these materials because you've been through the journey or you've, you've been through that experience of having to buy them yourself and then bring them back to the house at 11 o'clock at night unloading your car. You know what I think a lot of success comes down to and a lot of things in life is how willing you are to look stupid sometimes. You know, like because a lot of people would have said, you know, I don't know what that's called. I'm too afraid to go look stupid, so I'm going to sit on my couch and watch TV every night until I'm dead. You know, like, I commend you for the fact that you're like, I'm going to go look stupid and be at Home Depot not sure what I'm doing. I think, thanks. In fact, for this podcast, I kind of went into it.

I'm thinking, you know what? Let me just share all my vulnerabilities and look very stupid so that, you know, so that others can learn. I don't have enough time for that. We don't have enough time. So kind of like where my story kind of goes full circle is I started flipping in college. And I've been coined, I coined myself the phrase of I flipped my way out of college debt because, you know, 15 flips later, I had, you know, through that journey, it was the money that I got through flipping that I was able to pay off my college loans. And I left my full-time job to pursue real estate investing full-time. So it all began with that very first deal.

You know, and there was a time in that first deal where I just wanted to stop and I wanted to quit. I didn't want to do it anymore. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's amazing what happens when you, when you look back. on things because in the moment, I just had no idea where things were headed. Now looking back three and a half years later, it's been quite the journey, a lot of fun stories. Yeah, that's awesome.

So before we dive in on that first deal, where are you today? Like, what have you done in the few years that you have been doing this? And then we'll start diving into that first deal some more. Cool. Yep. So right now I have flipped or in the process of 15 properties. and I am solo now at this point, running my own operations, branding my own business. And I also own 11 units with 50-50 with a business partner.

And those are three, three units and two singles. And I'm also under contract to buy two more. And that would be solely owned for me. So at this point in the game, I am building out the systems. Now that I'm solo, I'm building out the systems. and hiring an assistant and going through those motions, that this can be more scalable rather than like a one-off or a hobby or while you're in college kind of thing.

So it's like that exponential part. Where are you in the country? I am in Maryland. Okay. Interesting. All right. Well, so I want to bring up, I know I want to go way back, but just the fact that you mentioned this right now is something that I've been

talking about a lot lately with friends of mine, well, in real estate friends of mine, this idea that like you mentioned something about it's not, you're trying to build systems so you can repeat. it, right? Because like one deal doesn't really matter that much. I mean, a lot of people really worry about getting that first deal and, and they fret a lot about it. But like one single house doesn't really change a life, like change financial freedom, right? It's more about like, what are you learning? Are you building the systems to be able to repeat it or go larger or scale or whatever? So I think that's cool that you look at it from that perspective. It's not just about just trying to get through college to do this couple of deals, but you're building the business. Thanks. I appreciate that. And in fact, it wasn't something I looked at my own business said, oh, I need these operations manuals and I need these systems. I just talk to others who are just killing it, many of which have been on your show. And even you can hear it from your show. Like, people can break down their systems for you because that is what's going to kind of, you know, all boats rise with that same tide.

Like this is like, you know, the BP tied. Like, let's all in the forums, it's all there. I mean, people have the systems. The BP tied. I like it. That's very cool. The BP tied. The BP tied.

Yeah, you coined it. I like that. So let's talk about like that very first day. I want to go back to that again and talk about some of the things like what, what went, well, first of all, what did you buy that for? Do you remember what you bought it for? What you sold it for the numbers? And then like, what went right?

What went wrong? Would you learn? Sure. Yep. So I bought it for 121 and I sold it for 205, put $34,000 into it. And it was like a $28,000, $29,000 return, which was right around 17% ROI. And it was in 2014. That was a time.

where you know I would look at that deal and I'd say okay I probably could have made another 15 or 20k out of it knowing what I know now and they weren't in that hard to find as hard as they are now so in the sense of like looking back on it would have done way would have done so many other different things and could have made a lot more money but you know that's that was the first deal that's with all the stories kind of lie yeah so how long did that flip take so that flip took four and a half months. It was pretty quick. It wasn't that big of a project

that you can see from the renovation standpoint. And how we found it was the same way, I mean, talk about your community, the same way I found my partner, Stu, just running around the office, talking about what I'm up to, an agent in our office had a listing coming up where the seller needed to just sell the house,

need to sell out because the bank was going to take the keys in three weeks. So he's like, oh, you guys have cash? You can buy it. Let's do it. Wow. That's awesome. You never know. I mean, that's another reason why it's so important to network with agents.

Like just build up good friendships and relations with other agents. Be known as somebody, hey, I can close on this thing quickly. Kind of build that reputation. That's awesome. Absolutely. So the first deal was a success. Did you guys split up like three ways or how did you guys end up working that? Yeah.

We want a splitting profits three ways. Okay. And that partnership wrote out like six or seven flips. It was a very great time. And what we realized is that we all want to go in different directions. And that's what we did. Okay. That makes sense.

Go ahead. I was going to back to Brandon's question on what went right and what went wrong on that property. Sure. Okay. So let's start with what went wrong. What went wrong is we celebrated too much about getting a deal that we didn't even line up contractors or bids or talk about what we were doing. Like, we just told everybody we were getting a deal and we're flipping a house.

And then the day we bought it, we're like, oh, crap. You know, like now we need to figure out what to actually do. So the whole, I guess you would call it like the prehab process, like the pre rehab process, like everything involved as far as lining up timelines and contractors and responsibilities and material lists and design and layout, all of that we could have done. so much better before we even bought the house. Like we could have really hit the ground running on day one. Yeah. You know, I actually see a lot of the most successful investors I know,

flippers at least, like they're really good at that. Where like the day that they close, they've got like nine guys in there working on the project on day one, where I'm really like, I'll admit that's one of my weaknesses. I tend to like kind of wait until the last second and then I buy the property. Then I go into it.

I'm like, now what I want to do. Like I keep, I do that mistake all the time. I'm getting better at it. But I'm glad you bring that up because that is, I mean, why waste the.

two, three, four weeks ahead before you buy a property. Why not just get in there, get it ready and hit the ground running. Well, those are points, right? I mean, you have holding costs in that, especially on a flip, right? So, like, the time value of money is just getting crushed on that. If you're not ahead of the game, right? It's just that time management piece that's really, really, it's not easy either, right? I mean, I think that's probably from what I understand from the folks who really are good at it.

I mean, it's challenging being able to get all. all that set up, get the right people in and have it ready to go. Would you agree with that? Yeah. And in fact, you bring up a point where another thing that went that could have been better is this idea of leveraging money. We legitimately put cash in a pot and bought it and paid for everything with cash. Not once was the cash leveraged. And therefore, we were stuck with one deal. You know, four and a half months goes by. Then, okay, now let's go and get our next deal. So we were doing one, then the next, then the next. And we didn't leverage any of our capital until about a year later, three deals later.

Good advice. Yeah, I think that's, I would. You would, I'm saying like, yeah, I would, that's where I would really delve into who's doing this at a high level around you or in BP because that one piece of advice or maybe that one individual who could have opened up our eyes. I mean, think about how much more money that we could have made or how much. many more houses we could have renovated and provided for the you know for for families and stuff like that like I could have learned so much and I could have been able to share so much more if I wasn't just doing one deal the first year two and a half the next you know yeah I think real estate investors especially newbies are often guilty and I'm in this boat as well a lot is thinking in terms of

deal okay I did it next deal and then I did it rather than thinking pipeline or you know like systems and process again like how do you get that thing just going and it's not just just deal. Okay, well, now what do I do? Okay, got the house. Okay, now it's rehab. Now what I do. Sell it. Okay. Well, now what I do. Find another one. And in, you know, thinking that way, it takes some, it's like a shift in how we think, but it's, it's vital. So, I mean, do you have any recommendations for people that are just getting started today? I'm like, how can they begin to think more in that way? Hey, Brandon, really quick before Brenton goes there. I think you nailed it with the word pipeline, you know, and I think one of, nailed it.

I think like one of the, you know, one of the best tools for something like that is literally getting familiar with like a G-N chart, right? Being able to literally just have, if you don't know what it is, it's G-A-N-T-T. And it's literally like this thing that shows timelines of different things. You know, you can have all these different projects. And you just kind of have to figure out where all the different parts come in. It's project management, time management stuff. But for those people interested in learning more. look that up.

Cool. And you bring in the fancy resources. Yeah, we actually use Gant charts and they're very helpful. Even as simple as a shared calendar and an eye calendar or an outlook calendar, like all of that to where at least somebody's being held accountable to something on a daily or every other day basis. And that's really important. So I would say when looking back on that, our next step to accelerate our.

real estate investing path. Like, we went from one-off, one-off, one-off to leveraging debt. And I kind of skipped the hard money. It went straight into a guidance line of credit with a local bank where we had half a million dollars to kind of do what we want. It was guided. Like, that's guidance line of credit. Though, you know, it was one of those things where we just kind of sent them the deal and they would tell us how much they'd lend and we were proved up to a half a million without them having to go any further for approvals. And then that's what we could do multiple. at once. That's fascinating. I never heard of that before. Guidance land of credit.

So is it? What is it? Yeah. Exactly. Sure. So it's a, it's a guidance line of credit is for us, we have a local community bank and we were able to finance all of our flips up to the amount that we were pre-approved for. So they looked at us and they pretty much gave us like a $500,000 line of credit. And it's not one that you can use for whatever. Like I can't take it out to go have a nice dinner. Although, because it's guided. But, like, you know, it's going to be, they're going to be in first position with the property.

And they underwrite it. They can underwrite it in-house, do a desktop, simple appraisal. And it has, it proved really well for us. The downsides of it, now that I've used hard money, private money, cash, guidance line of credit. The downsides of a guidance line of credit, in my opinion, are the fact that you do have to have 25% down. Although it's like five and a half interest and one point. Nice. So you just explained it, and I still don't know what the heck it is.

So either I'm old and missing something. He is old and missing something. So you said it's guided. Using guided to explain guidance is what is tripping me up here. So who's guiding and what are they guiding and what are they doing? Like I don't think I fully get what that means. Sure. Yeah, no, no, no.

Sure. So you look at a line of credit. Like say I was going to give you a $500,000 line of credit. Yes, sir. Well, the difference between a unsecured line of credit and this guy, line of credit is the fact that it is still needs to get go through underwriting and get approved. Even though you're approved for 500, each individual property needs to get approved. And that's like their bank's guidance to making sure that you can tap into that 500,000 so that it can be tied in the first position and you can get the lending.

So we were pre-approved on the front end. It doesn't mean we always get it every single time we want it. That's where the guidance comes into play. Okay. I thought it was on things like, oh, they're going to, you know, you say this is how I'm going to upgrade the balance. They're going to guide you and make sure you can renovate the bathroom the way you want that they agree. So it's more in they're underwriting the package, but on the individual, you still have to come in and get guidance on each property. Yeah, it's another way of getting money to renovate the properties.

You have hard money and private money. And in fact, I would say if anyone's out there looking to get some sort of guidance on credit or go to. a community local bank and see what options they have as a real estate investor, I would recommend this is actually something that I've never shared before. Like I never thought it was that important until like last week I was reminded of it. When I was cold calling banks to meet with whoever's in charge of this whatever they would be able to do with real estate investors, when I went and met with my guy, I brought him sandwiches and something as simple as that, like some small act I just brought him a wah-wah sandwich.

And he said, you know what? Like, you stood out. You came from contribution from day one. And yes, you're super young. And yes, we're very concerned with your current personal financials. But you know what? Like, you made a lasting impression. And that he said, like, he like said like last week to me, he goes, you know what?

I still think about that sandwich that day. And, you know, if it wasn't for that, I honestly would have forgotten you. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. And again, it just goes back to like building relationships. We hear it time and time again here on the show. I build relationships with those bankers.

Like they're going to be your good friends going forward. So that's very cool. So I want to talk a little bit about the partnership thing in that like eventually you decided to go your separate ways. Do you recommend people listen to this show right now trying to get started? Do you recommend that they partner up? Was that a good idea? What are the thoughts on that? I loved it.

I loved everything about it. What I would say is be careful who you get in business with. That's not a direct reflection over my business partners. Like we had an amazing time together. I will say the. you should always vet your business partners in a sense of be more scared to get in business with the wrong person than to let the right one go. How does somebody vet their partners?

Sure. Yeah, I would do it based off of experience, their real estate investing experience. And had I done that, there might have been another partner in the mix, somebody who knew how to leverage money or take us to next level or create systems and operations. Instead, it was three people with very little to know. experience with money and time combination of the two. So I would say that like it's a great opportunity for somebody out there who has a lot of money and not a lot of time. And then for you, if you or the person who has a lot of time and not a lot of money, like somebody's out there looking for you.

And vice versa. Like people need each other. So I think it would be a great opportunity. I would think though if your values don't align, your vision doesn't align. And it's better just cut it off before it gets super ugly because real estate and having assets and the disillusion of that it's it would be a mess that's so true i like that you brought a vision and values like those two things like if you don't share the same vision you don't share the same values you're always going to struggle in that partnership so i love that you brought that up it's like thanks and i would say and i would say like another thing is i if i'm super unclear about like what i want to do in life or where i want to go or what is my vision and though josh is sitting there like sharing his vision and i'm like

oh wow like i would love to jump on his rocket ship right now and i could latch on to his vision and we could ride that out together. So it doesn't, you know, if you don't have a vision or this idea of where you want to go, like that's perfectly fine. Just find someone who does. And if you are in alignment with that, at least right now, then, then that's really important. That's cool. I like that. That's good tips. So, cool. So, okay, so you flipped a bunch of houses. You got 15 some houses. I want to, I want to shift a little bit from the flipping and talk a little bit more about the, the, the rental side of things. How did you first get into rental properties? Where did that idea come from? And why? And why? That's a great question.

Flipping started to seem transactional again. For all you flippers out there, you know what I'm talking about, where you do the deal and you get your paycheck and you got to go find another, and then get your paycheck and find another. And yet, a lot of the most successful people that I know in the industry are in rentals. So I understand that they can work hand in hand, like generate quicker cash through flipping. Although it was something that I didn't know enough about

and that I really wanted to know more about because it was those, guys who were going on the two, three, four week vacations every so often and who had reached that financial freedom part, they were all in rentals. So that was when in January this past year, two and a half years into being in real estate investing for myself, I jumped into this idea of rentals. And in fact, these 11 units that I have, they were bought as a portfolio. So it was in January, I set up a simple MLS search for multifamily and for, because, to me, listening in the podcast, like, I didn't know enough, but I would say that I was interested in saying I own more units than less. So I immediately said, okay, let's do multifamily,

the scalability part of it, economies of scale. Like, all that sounded great, but, you know, I still didn't have much experience. So we set up an MLS search for multifamily, my business partner, and I came across to three unit. It looked good. Initial underwriting. So we went out and looked at it. Zero days old market, brand new. We happened to meet the owner there, because a listing agent was at a Baltimore Ravens game up in New England. And it worked out to our benefit because as we're walking through, he said, you know what? I want to move the Florida.

Like, I just would love to get rid of everything and move the Florida. And there was motivation. So at that moment, we said, oh, what is everything? And he said, I have three, three units and two single family, all in Baltimore City, spread out. and yeah, those, I'm going to, you know, one by one list them, sell them and deal with each headache one by one. And we said, well, why not sell them all to us in a portfolio? Like if the deal makes sense. And that's where I joke now, like, okay, we happen to buy these 11 units and three of them were on market and the other eight were then off market because of one simple question.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's that question now that it's that question now that we. or I use every single time I'm calling a listing agent of anything that's on the MLS. I'm just saying, hey, by the way, does your seller have anything else that they'd be willing to sell or they're interested in selling as a portfolio rather than what's listed? And it's an interesting way, as I believe there's a strong strategy to get off market leads from on market leads.

I love that. That's fantastic. Yeah. We just did a show this morning where the guest had done the same. Austin. And yeah, he said, look, he found an owner who wanted to move to Florida and unload his portfolio. Yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah, and he was very similar.

I think I just have anything else. So, I mean, it definitely works. I don't do that. I'm going to start doing that now is every time I talk to somebody, do you have anything else? I mean, I'm a landlord. Right now I'm selling my apartment complex, possibly, you know, who knows if I'll go through. But sell my apartment complex right now. And like, if that guy would ask me if I had anything else, I'd go through my listing.

okay, yeah, I'd get rid of that one, that one, that one, and that one and that one. You know, because, like, for whatever reason, I just don't want them anymore or they're maxed out, but he never asked me. I should offer. Anyway, yeah. You know, what's funny is my business partner is named Austin. So I'm pretty sure you weren't talking to him, but yes, Austin and I have the same story. That's funny.

That's funny. Well, so, yeah, that's cool. And these 11 units now, we, I love to talk about the financing. Yes, sure. Of those, I think it would be a really great learning lesson. Yeah, please. Okay, so we, for the financing, we went to that same portfolio lender that I went and brought sandwiches to. Yep.

And it's like the gift that keeps on giving. He is literally my gift that keeps on giving. I'm so grateful for him. And he looked at us. He looked at our personal financials, the deal. And he was able, he's loaning six-month interest-only loan on the front. and then that's going to be, I guess, quote unquote, refinanced himself from that interest only into a 25-year amortization. So we're only using the bank.

With that, though, we still need 25% down. So we need down payment, 25%. And that's where we raised from friends, no family, we raised the money needed in this deal. So, you know, I look back and I say, okay, these 11 units once refinanced, it's in the process right now. They were all delivered vacant, another headache in itself. They needed renovations. So that's why the bank said, you know, we'll give you six-month runway to do what you need to do to get them to income producing to the debt service coverage ratio that we need of 1.25. And therefore, for simplicity purposes, this rare finance is going to get all the money out that we need to pay everybody else back.

So we'll have $0 in and infinite cash on cash return. And we'll have an 11-unit portfolio, that's right? valued at just under a million. That's amazing. That's amazing. You said in there, you got it all delivered vacant, then you said something about how that was a bad thing. I think a lot of investors often see that actually is a good thing

because inheriting tenants can many, many cases be an absolute nightmare. And having them vacant, you can just jump in, do what you got to do. But obviously, the downside is you don't have any cash coming in on a regular basis, right? Yeah, I would say actually, I would agree. it's a great thing. It was a headache. It was the term that I used because when financing, they really didn't want to, you know, zero income producing, like literally 100% vacant. Like they were concerned. So we had to get kind of clever where I brought in a friend of mine who's W2 salary, very strong financials. He co-signed on the loan. I paid him to co-sign on the loan

and therefore we became stronger borrowers, the three of us. And I thought it was a very clever way of getting it financed. And now we're going to refy him off the loan, get our investors, their money back, and on to the next one. Man, I love that. A lot of people look at a deal and they say, I don't have 25% down. I'm going to go back to watching my TV show. Or I don't have 25% down. Maybe I'll do this when I'm older or more rich.

I'll get into this. But I love the fact that you looked at this and you're like, you didn't say I can't or whatever. It's just, how do I do this? Okay, well, I'm going to go and find this portfolio lender. Okay, well, now I have to have still 25% down. Okay, well, I'm going to bring in a partner. You know, whatever, like, you figured it out.

And I think that's the truth about creative financing, like all in a nutshell is you just figure it out. And you just keep opening doors until you find one that opens and you'll keep turning the handle and you figure it out. So, yeah, nice job. Yeah, to be honest, like, looking back during the process, we weren't like, oh, we're going to do this, then that. It's going to work out this way.

And then we're going to be great. During it, it was like, oh, crap. We're not strong bars. Now what? Okay, we need to go find somebody who has a W-2. So, yeah, looking back on it, it sounds like we had it all figured out in the process we didn't. So to your point, yeah, it was how can we? Because you hear of this fancy thing.

Well, if you have the deal, then you get the dollars or, you know, that's where it comes down to. Well, you know what? In fact, we had the deal. We didn't have the money. I mean, we didn't have $180,000. We had to raise that between the two of us. us and just for the down payment. So we figured it out. We didn't have the money. That's great. Well, and I'm one of the guys guilty of saying if you have the deal, you're going

to find the dollars. You wouldn't have gotten $180,000 if you didn't have the deal, though, right? Oh, no, I'm saying, yeah, I agree with that. Oh, okay. It's a perfect example of it. Awesome. Awesome. So, question, you said we, I know you brought your buddy in for, to help you scrap up on the credit and everything. Who's your partner on this? I know you've started to go on your own on the, I think you said that on the flipping side. Who are you in, quote unquote, in bed with now on the Binholt side? His name is Austin Carroll. A really great friend of mine. And we, this is a one-off. It's not like a partnership where we're exclusive. This was something that he had experience. Again, you vet that business partner. He has multifamily. He's,

hard worker. He has access the capital and I brought my lending relationships and together we, you know, we made it work and we may get more together one day. We may not. That remains to be seen. But, you know, I couldn't be happy with him and our self-managing these 11 together. So did you, did you and he partner prior to finding this package or did you find the package and say, you know, I'm going to need some help on this. Let me find, I know this dude. Let's get together on this. How did that work out?

Yeah, sure. We were actually together. And he was showing me what to do on the MLS, like to go through the multifamily and how you can, you know, set up those searches and track those and how to underwrite deals. And as an example, this happened to be one of the few that we were underwriting. And it was zero days on market. and it worked out perfectly. I think the greatest lesson in this is simply to, even to your point, Brandon, it's it's asking more deeper questions of, you know, instead of, oh, we can't do this.

It's how can we? At the same time, it's, oh, there's three units. Maybe there are more. Maybe there's a way to make this deal sweeter. So it's asking everyone as many questions as you can because it just takes one stone to turn over that could literally make or break a deal. Yeah, I love that. Love that. So where's that deal now that 11 unit? What are the numbers? Where's the property? And what's the plan? Property. Yep. So yeah, so there's 11 units. We got three, three units, two single family spread out through Baltimore City. And as far as the numbers, bought it for 400 and 23,000. And the valuation on the back end that is now through the refinance process, it is.

right around like 880, 880,000. Wow. So therefore, if you just look at it from those two numbers, that was the forced appreciation through the renovations and the filling of the units. So we have nine of the 11 units currently filled, which is enough for us to go through the refinance process. And that's where we are today. And now once they're stabilized, once they're stabilized, again, infinite cash

from cash return because we don't have any money in the deal. And when you just look at the, concrete financials the first year after we're putting aside our money for our repairs. We do 10% for our future repairs, even though it's fully renovated. We're looking at a $40 to $44,000 year all set and done, you know, depending on what goes wrong. But we're self-managing, so that helps too. Yeah, definitely.

Well, that's cool. Well, congratulations on that. I mean, I think that's awesome. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Hey, you use the word stabilized. I know we use that word a lot, and I don't think I often ask the question. What do you mean by that? Like, once the rents are stabilized? Yeah, so once the units are stabilized in the sense of the value add that we were able to perform to make this deal, a more attractive deal as a portfolio, was renovations and adding in tenants. So in this form, in this specific example, stabilized would be once we, have the renovations and we have the tenants in there and we're bringing in rent, then at that moment they're considered stabilized. We've completed our value ad play.

And now the bank will lend on the property as it is in the stabilized form, renovated and you have income producing. Awesome. Wouldn't it be great if your house plants paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool missed like a bunch of leafy loafers. But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts are vetted locals

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I mean, a lot of our listeners. I mean, should we leave? I mean, you want to just ask yourself questions? What are we doing here? It's good. It's good. I don't want to do it. I got some other stuff I want to talk about.

What are we doing? Brandon, anything you want to get this guy. I, this is, this is exactly where on I go, because here's the deal. Most of our listeners, we had nothing else to talk about. Nothing. I was just kind of biding my time, waiting for you to go. Most of our, yeah, sure. Are you done talking yet, Josh?

Are you done? I, you know, I miss being chatty. You miss being chatty. Yeah, well, well, okay, so most of our listeners are people who have full-time jobs. And most of them want to get out of said full-time job. So let's talk about that. I mean, how did you make that transition and just tell us. about that experience a little bit. Sure. I'd love to. While I was there inside of my accounting job

and the government, even though it was only part-time for the five years I was there through school, I was then asked to come full-time once I graduated. And in those years, like, I'm one of those people who I got the real estate investing bug while working there and I just wanted out. Because, you know, in fact, I would listen to my coworkers say, they would legitimately count down how many years they have left. And to me, if you're in a job... Yeah, when you're in a job where you're counting down how many years you have left, then that's never a good sign.

That's never good. And, you know, I was already guilty of it. I was like, all right, I have 28 more years, which is a long time. So, yeah, the pension thing. So people were also talking about, well, we get this great pension. And when you truly understand real estate investing, you can say, okay, well, I only need a handful of rental properties in the next 30 years to pay me what my pension was going to pay me. And in that journey, I mean, think about the people you can meet and you'll actually

have assets that you could pass down for generations or the gift that can pay you now rather than waiting until you retire. So I'm not going to sit here and say, you know what, I had this idea of leaving my job and I did and everything's been great. No, not at all. It's not at all what happened. What happened was I wanted to leave and I'm, you know, I had this idea I was one of those guilty people who just wouldn't leave until somebody asked me, what are you fighting for? And I'm like, what? In this life, what are you fighting for?

Like, what's your purpose or your cause? And I'm never a huge fan of the airy, fairy conversations. So I didn't even have an answer. And they said, well, you know what? Who are you fighting for? And I said, well, I can tell you what. I have an amazing niece, an amazing nephew, four-year-old niece, two-year-old nephew, both for two completely different reasons were born.

as preemies. My niece was born 10 weeks early at just over three pounds. My nephew was born 14 weeks early, microprimie at just over one pound. And I said, you know what? Who would I be if I didn't leave my job and follow my passions? When I'm going to sit there when they're growing up and say, you know what? You two are so blessed to be on this earth because you have died and came back to life so many times already that I would want them to follow their passion. passions too. So I wanted to be an example for them. And I think that was more just in general, like being an example for everyone of saying, you know what, I want to follow my passions. So might as well get off my butt and do it because I don't want to be just another one of

people who talk about it for years and years and years. So it was a couple steps back financially, for sure. Hey, so you raise something really, I think that that stops a lot of people. It's that, it's that pension thing. I think, well, there's no thinking here. I mean, I, I, I know. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, a lot of people who are staying in jobs that they hate. I know a lot of people who, you know, whether it's the government or education, those tend to be the fields that the people that I know that are in jobs that they dislike are staying in because of pensions. And I love your logic. I actually, ironically, I never even thought about it from that angle. And it's really smart. It's, you know, look, if you're that unhappy that you're counting down the clock on the next 10 years,

15 years, 20, whatever it is, right? There's got to be, there's got to be some kind of alternative where you can, you know, figure this stuff out. For you, it was real estate, right? Like, hey, if I can go and deploy my intelligence, find some resources and put it out there, you know, I can replace that pension with income from rental properties. And then I got to go replace my salary. Okay.

But like, it can be done. You just got to kind of think it over, right? Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I look at these 11 units. We just went through the example. In the first year alone, where you know that we don't have any quote unquote debt pay down. We are still putting lots of money aside, our 10% for our future repairs. Like even this, like right now, like I'm going, we in theory, based on Perforoma, I personally should bring in close to $20,000 to $22,000 this year on that. Well, that's, I mean, that right there. I mean, sure. I mean, they're not maybe. not all that sweet or maybe some are sweeter than that. But that right there is like, I don't know, a third of the pension that I would have received for the rest of my life. And here we are a year and a half out of the government job. And I can result, right? Yeah, well, I look like that. And you know, it's funny is I can start paying. I mean, it's like you're collecting your pension early and you're building up so you have a larger pension. And like, it's one of those things where

I was talking to a friend on the phone who still works inside the government. And nothing, no disrespect to the government. government or anybody inside of it. It's all based on our own passions and strengths and so and so forth. But I was talking to him and he was like, I said, what time is it? He says, it's four o'clock. Can his day go by any slower? And I'm like, holy crap, it's four o'clock already. Like, where did the day go? Yeah. And to me, that simple distinction between how our days are flying by or lack thereof is a telling time in itself. It's like that first five seconds, the alarm clock goes off in the morning. It's like, what are you? you're thinking, crap, I want to keep sleeping or like, I'm pumped to get up or like me.

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. Like, I mean, especially like, yeah, I mean, if you, if you ask yourself at 5 a.m. when that alarm goes off or 6 a.m. or whatever. Like, if you're unhappy, there's a famous quote about that. It's like when I wake up. We talked about this with Hal Elrod. Yeah, maybe that's where I came up. It was like, if you wake up too many days in a row, not excited to jump out of bed,

you need to change something dramatically. Yeah. And I always thought that was... Yeah, that sounds like Hal. Yeah. And so, anyway, I think... We're talking about Hal Elrod to anybody who's listening. And I don't know what show number it was, but if you look at Bigger Pockets podcast,

Hal Elrod, phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal, life-changing and motivating show all about Miracle Morning. But sorry, I digress. Anyway, I love that. You know, people will work the same job that they hate forever and talk about leaving forever. But the fact that you did it, I love that. at a young age, like you didn't have millions of dollars in the bank. I don't think so. I like to be able to quit, but you followed your passion.

And I think that's a lesson that anybody can learn from today's show. Thanks. Yeah. I left the salary on the table. I restarted with real estate investing as like, you know what? I actually have to do it now to have food on the table. So it was a step, multiple steps backwards with the intent of making so many leaps forward. And I'm all for that.

One thing that I I'm a big Gary Vaynerchuk fan Gary V I don't know if you guys are I love Gary V fans I love Gary Vee He's got some energy He's the guys

The guy's got some energy The guys And he can be overpowering at times But yeah he's he I mean the guy He is he does it right Yeah and he's he's one of the most genuine people I've ever met I had the pleasure of having him out for an event for a record, long, long story.

And I'll say one of his pieces of content, I think, is extremely valuable to reiterate, especially in this moment right now, we talk about people leaving their jobs, is no matter what age you are or what you're doing, no matter if you're going from 100 real estate flips to 200, the importance of documenting and documenting that journey. Like this podcast right here is like a moment in time of documenting how we got here and then continuing to do so. I know when you have guests on multiple times,

It's so fascinating to see the growth and one's mindset. So now I've, well, actually something I've never shared. I swear, I've never shared this. What I do is I take 60 second videos once a week on Sundays of me just venting into my phone. And I save them and I keep them private because I will not share the raw, authentic version if I'm posting it.

You know, it's just natural instinct to be political. So I wanted to give myself a 60 second snapshot of my week, the good, the bad, the ugly. And at the end of the year, I mean, think about it, you can watch your entire year in weekly live recaps in an hour. That's cool. And this is another way of documents. That is cool. That is really cool. Yeah, I never heard of anybody doing that before, but I think that's a very neat idea.

And by the way, go ahead. You're never like, you're just never like, oh, this was a great week. I had so much fun. It's always like always about the bad stuff. And in the moment of time, it seems to be such an issue. yet I'm sure at the end of the year, I look back and I'd be like, why did I get so upset? No big deal. That's funny.

That's interesting. Yeah. By the way, to jump back to the Gary Vaynerchuk thing, I just want to, we probably don't have time to go in the whole story. But I heard this from you back when we met in person. Gary Vaynerchuk, for those people who don't know, he's got a big podcast as probably just as big as a bigger pockets podcast. He's super motivating, all about business and hustle and all this. He wrote the book, the, what's it? Crush It was his first big book.

And then he wrote a few other ones after that that are all great. But anyway, Brenton here, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to summarize your story here. You basically invited him out to speak at this event, this reckon, this event without having the funds to pay for him or something like that. You just like, you invited him out there was a massive amount of money. Can you give us a summary of that? Sure, this seems to be a pattern in my life. Like you get 11 units with no money and like, oh, crap, now what? It's like finding the deal than the dollars.

So, yeah, with this event, we, my, my, my. network. I started three university real estate clubs, three for ones heading the senior year of college because I hadn't met anybody that I knew I'd be in business with. And, and, you know, in fact, I always talk about, I always seen college as, or any big area, like any big place, like your job. And say, like, college has 23,000 individuals. Like, those are 23,000 potential business partners, 23,000 potential clients or leads, data you can collect. So I didn't catch on to that until I was leaving college, but I started these real estate clubs. After college, I just took my network called Recin of people who just passionate about funding the life's purpose in real estate investing.

And we were like, you know, how cool would it be that we would bring out the guy that we look up to Gary Vee out to an event? Like, okay, great. So we booked him. Never asked how much until we were like, you know what? He's on a book tour. We got him at discount. And I'll just tell you, like, it was 3,000 books we had to buy. So we bought 3,000 books to get him out to speak.

Then we saw, you know, how cool it would it be to have David Osborne to come speak right before him? And David, Bigger Pockets podcast guest. David's an incredible wealth-building entrepreneur. And we booked him. And then we're like, oh, how cool would it be to be at the Xfinity Center, which is the main basketball gym at University of Maryland? Okay, cool, let's book that. Then we looked at it and like, oh, we don't have any money. And like now we're $75,000 in the hole with two and a half months to go.

And people are like, you know, when are you buying the books? When are you putting down your deposit? And my reckon team, we just hustled like no other with, and we have such great relationships with businesses. And long story short, we came up a few thousand dollars short, although it just goes to show exactly like in real estate investing where if you just go out and you want it so badly, like it'll somehow, some way somebody will come in your life or you'll figure it out, and it'll happen.

Just go after and do it because right now, Gary is like $100,000 for 45-minute keynote. And we got him for 3,000 books, which was right around like 55K. Wow. First of all, that's so much money for keynoteing. Man, I got to get into the keynoteing. But by the way, Brandon, Brandon Turner, do you notice that Brenton Hess at no point? It was like, you know, God, I got to get Brandon Turner. God, I got to get Josh Stork.

You know, not. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, there's no need to respond. Just, you'll ponder that. Well, let's just say, by the way, so this show is over. Can we get. Let's just say that maybe someday Josh Dorkin will get the invite to, you know, share the state. I was assumed he was just too expensive. He is far too expensive.

Josh is like 250 grand for it. I'm certainly more than Gary Vee, right? You've got to buy a quarter million book, bigger pockets books, and we'll be yet, okay? No, but that actually is not a bad idea. Next time either Josh or me writes a book, we should do, you buy 3,000 books. We'll come speak at your event. We're putting that into writing right now. All right.

So anyway, I love that story because of it just shows like, it's like jumping off. What's the analogy? Like jumping out of a plane and building your parachute on the way down. Like I like that mentality. I mean, there's a way to do it. It's stupid. What? McIvering it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You figure it out and you fall down. And if you don't figure it out, you die. But like, I mean, there's a way to do that stupid. There's a way to do that smart. And I think you've done it very smart. I think you've done good deals, real estate deals. And you've found ways to figure it out.

I mean, that that's what creates. real estate investing is all about. Thanks. And I think it comes down to just relationships. So, you know, fortunately, I've made money on all of the real estate deals and that is the intent moving forward. I will say, though, if it wasn't for a lot of key people in my life, I can't say that would have been possible.

And I'm just, you know, grateful for the communities such as BP and the mentors, peer mentors, accountability of people looking up to you. And I mentor people all the time who, who wanted to go to my level of success. success when I see myself as the infant stages of where I want to be. So like others mentor me, it's just this one big world of giving. And I'm always like, I answer everybody who ever contacts me and I'm always like there to help however I can. And if I don't know something, then I'll try to find somebody who does.

That's awesome. That's awesome. All right. So before we, before we move forward on to the fire around, what do you, what are you doing here, right? I mean, like you quit your job at the DOD, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, started doing all this flipping. Now you've got this portfolio. You're making moves.

You're young guy. Is this like, hey, I'm going to, you know, I want to be a billionaire. I want to, you know, what are you aspiring to actually create with this business? From somebody like you, I know you've thought this over. So what's the end goal? I appreciate that. My end goal is to make a generational impact. through real estate investing as the vehicle.

So that's the airy-fairy version of how much can I learn, how many people can I meet? And to me, I've always seen, I go back to my niece and nephew, I've always seen that those who are younger, I mean, if you look at time, time's a finite resource. Yes. So in theory, those who are younger should have more time than those who are older to make an even bigger impact.

So if we all continue just to continue to, again, all boats rise with the same BP. P tide, if we can all rise our ties, rise our boats, and then pour into the future generations so that they can pour into the future generations, then we'll be able to make the biggest impact possible. So I keep looking at this. I'm like, well, how can I, how can I pour into others? Well, I need to go out and learn. I need to go out and meet people. So that's where I, the airy, fairy version of this. The more concrete answer, Josh, is I've learned that he or she who controls the deal flow is the winner in this game. And,

I've learned a hard way that I don't control my deal flow. I spend a lot of time and energy, submitting a lot of offers on the MLS, waiting to get bites, going out and looking at them, getting creative on how I can make them work. I have an amazing real estate agent who helps me inside of that. But right now, I'm building out the off-market lead gen with my coaches, following models out there. I've sent out over 7,000 mailers, and I have closed on zero of those deals. I put up over 300 signs.

I've closed on zero of those deals. And it's a lack of consistency. It's a lack of, I mean, probably so many other things. And right now it's that time to get back to, okay, how can we get this to where I'm controlling the deal flow? So I just bought six months of distribution and stamps for mailers. So I've already paid for it. So at this point, it's going out. Like, they have my mailing schedule.

So every other week, I have mailers going out now. And getting back to those basics building you from the ground. up because I've been through multiple partnerships and I'm still young. And at this point, like, if I want to get to where I need to go, I need to control the deals. Yeah. So to me, yeah, what I hear you saying, you know, you're not saying, hey, I want to buy 10 or 20 properties. You're saying, like, I want to build something really scalable. I want to build something big. I'm thinking big, you know, to Brandon's word pipeline. I'm trying to create a pipeline where, you know, the deals are coming in. I'm jumping on them. Effective.

obviously, you know, thus far you've been testing it. It sounds like your precision effectiveness, right? But you'll get there. And so you want to go as big as you can go, impact as many people as you can, and just, you know, become a big star. Yeah, yeah. I'm all for bigger, the better. So as big as we can get this to be.

And I admire people, your former guest, like Andrew Cushman, who has thousands of units that he's syndicated. and he can do it from wherever. And you're dealing with the more larger economies of scale. And we got to get there somehow, some way. Right now, it's get the food on the table. And it's to do it where you have systems. You have operations.

You have deal flow. You're doing what everyone else successful is doing and then get creative. So right now, life is boring because I'm not being creative. I'm just doing like what others are doing. Maddie A. Aachinson is a direct mentor of mine. And I'm following a lot of what he's doing. doing. It's just other people have it out there and they're right on the community. They've been on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Both Matt and David Osborne are both on the podcast. And Hal Alarad we talked

about earlier. He's been on the podcast. Andrew Cushman. Yeah. I was actually just surfing with Andrew Cushman last weekend down in San Diego. We were talking apartment complex investing. Yeah, it was amazing. Good guy. Good guy. And also Tim Gordon. I was hanging out with Tim Gordon surfing. And he was also on the podcast. Man, there's, it's like my world is podcast guests now. Seems so. Anyway. All right. So this is fantastic. Brent, I love your story. I can't wait to see you kind of wear your head of the next few years. We want to get to today's fire round.

It's time for the fire round. All right, these questions come direct out of the bigger pockets forums, and they are quick fire and respond. I don't know how to say that. This is a shocking list of fire round questions, Brandon. What? What, what, huh? No, they're there.

They're all quick. They are quick. All right. Number one. which mortgage should I pay off first, a rental property or my own? What if your answer is none? So I've always seen as debt, just look at the interest rate you're paying on your debt. And if you can get, if you can make more than that interest rate, reinvesting that extra

money somewhere else, then go for it. If you can refinance it at, I don't know, what, four and a quarter, five and a quarter, and you can go make a higher cash on cash return somewhere else, then you go do that. So I would say you just evaluate the interest rate. And that'll give you your answer. All right. Fair enough. Cool.

Should I use credit cards to fund my real estate renovations? Again, to interest rate, if you look at how much of your credit card is going to be charged you in interest, and if you can get money cheaper, like, hey, mom or hey, buddy, like, I'll pay you 10% and can you give me like 10 grand real quick, then that would be a better option than paying 17% on your credit card or 24%. So I would say, again, it comes down to a financial analysis through. your interest rate. Fair enough. All right. Next one. Would you invest in an area where the population is declining? I would, from that standpoint, I would not, although it does come down to the numbers,

like, what is your cash on cash return? Is it still, I mean, like, if it's something that's infinite cash on cash and it's a stabilized asset, even though the population declining, you know, at what rate is it, you know, a half a percent, you know, a quarter of a quarter of a percent a year? So there's so many variables in that question, although I would say, like, you know, a good deal is a good deal no matter where. Generally speaking, if you have apples to apples and one population is declining and the other is not, I would choose the population that is not declining. Yeah, right.

And I would just warn to that over with some age here that, you know, to your point, if it's like a quarter, a quarter of a point, okay. But, you know, like when a population really starts to decline in industry and jobs start to leave, I would heed caution to anyone. to your words because, you know, a great deal is a great deal, except when there's nobody to fill it. So just, you know, be careful. That's all.

Yeah. And it's a, I mean, it's definitely a, oh, so many other variables and a little question. And one thing to be clear, like Josh, you bring a great point is we all have, you know, we all have our own strengths in our own lane. And, you know, I actually am a very big fan of, of being cautious. about giving anybody any advice. Like the term, if I were you or if I was you, like a mentor once said to me, like he said to never say that because you actually may be slowing somebody else down

because they might have more resources than you or more money or more or experience. They might know more than you. So don't ever put yourself in their position. Don't ever speak in absolutes. Just say this is what I would do based on my resources, my strengths, where I am, my knowledge. because, you know, by far, like, even the two of you, I mean, just so many light years ahead of me and how smart you are. And that's, you know, that's why that's why the community looks up to you. So I appreciate that, Josh, for bringing that up.

And that's, and that, what you just said was fantastic advice. And in fact, I, I hold the same standard to myself. Like, I rarely, rarely do I give advice. I may present a landscape. Here's, what are your options? What do you think they are? and how do those options impact you in many ways? Or, hey, you may want to talk to somebody else.

Like, I'm never going to kind of say, you know, here's an absolute answer, unless it's like this is a universal absolute that isn't going to depend upon any variables, age, time, risk tolerance, you know, things like that. Because you can't. You can't make those decisions for people for your reasons and many others. So great. I love that. I love that.

And somebody at your age being so far ahead on that, that's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. Thanks. I appreciate it. Last question. How can I avoid the mistakes that you made? Listen to this podcast episode.

Hit me up, ask me more about my questions that I mean, my mistakes that I've made. I'm a big fan of, if you haven't realized it, of instead of being entrepreneurial in our ways and being creative and how we find deals or how we renovate properties, there's so many people out there smarter than us. Success leaves clues. just go out there and talk to others who have made similar mistakes or who are doing it a higher level and just ask them what to do become more purposeful don't be so entrepreneurial and creative and I've built my life around that the hard way of like go out do things on my own that's why I have 7,000 mailers and zero deals because I was doing it Brenton's way not a proven way I love that man success success leaves clues that's that's quotable first of all and

and you're you're right and I've done a lot of that too looking back upon this career and other jobs I've done, you know, it's always like, hey, I've got a better idea. Well, it might be. But, you know, if you had kind of gone the easy road and then modified it to your liking, you might have been more successful more quickly. At least not, and I'm not saying you. I'm saying you for me. It might be the same for you.

But yeah. Love it. All right. Well, let's conclude this thing with a famous. Four. All right, the famous four. These are the same four questions we ask every guest every week. Number one, what's your favorite real estate book?

I know this gets said a lot. There's a reason why, millionaire real estate investor by the one and only Gary Keller. I've fortunately been in very small rooms with Gary. I've been mentored from afar and from close, been inside of his world. And, you know, I really appreciate all of what he has to bring the table. And I would abide by that. Another one that's just a lot less common. And I would say is how to make big money in small apartments by Lance Edwards.

Oh, I haven't read that. I don't know if you guys read that. How to make big money in small apartments. I got a ton of nuggets out of that. Cool. Yeah. All right. Next question.

Favorite business book, non-real estate. Change your habits, change your life by Tom Corley. I, you know, when I read books, I take notes in my phone on Evernote. Because one time somebody said, did you read the seven? the seven habits of highly successful people. And I was like, I didn't. They go, oh, what were the seven habits? And I was like, uh-oh.

I don't remember. So ever since then, I realized you've got to take notes or you'll forget. And I had the most amount of nuggets taken away from that book than all the other books I've read. And one that stands out was that the, you can legitimately change one's DNA through changing their habits. And if you can change your DNA, then like, that is you impacting, positively impacting your children. So I can change my children's, like my gene pool passed down to my children by changing my own habits. Like there's some scientific method to it. And that just shows the power of habits,

I would say. That's awesome. Awesome. Sorry, Rosie. Poor little girl. That'll be Brandon's daughter. All right. Number three. Number three. Hobbies. What do you do for fun, man? What's, what is it that drives you outside of real estate to get out there? Sure. Sports playing and watching just about every sport. My community wreck and my family, as you can see, I'm a passionate uncle. And you'll hear me talk about my niece and nephew a lot. I love them to death and my whole family.

And I see like business partners as family, mentors, like just people. Cool. Cool. I love it. All right. Last question. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started?

Through this whole podcast episode, And I'm sure it's very apparent that I'm very passionate about the success leaves clues and that so many people out there have done it before us. They're smarter than us and that we mentorship, mentorship in some form of fashion. Like you can be mentored by Warren Buffett through one of his books. Yeah. So go out there. And I think that if you want to be the most successful person that you can be is then go find somebody out there who has done what you want to do. And then just go ahead and model them, model them and then get creative.

creative when you've reached their level of success. Nice. Awesome. All right. So before we, before we let you go, I know you two have been going doing this little underground language about this conference of yours. What do you? Where can people find out about you? What do you have to plug anything anything like that? Yeah. We have we're having an awesome event by way it's my Rekin community. What is not here north? Roe Rekin is so I started those university clubs and then kind of got kicked out and I just took like, you know, this awesome group of people who were passionate about investing and funding their life purpose through there. And, you know, we're doing like, we're having these incredible events with speakers, Gary V,

David Osborne, and so many others. Just go reckon.com, G-O-R-E-C-N dot com. You know, I'm just, you know, really grateful to be on this podcast. And I would say the best place that anybody could reach me is Facebook Messenger, or Instagram messenger. Everything is just Brenton Hess, my first name last name. Nice. And we'll link to that in this show.

It's bigger pockets.com slash show 240. So is the audience for this reckon thing like college age kids? Is that kind of the thing? It was at one point. Then we realized that we were actually holding a lot of people back who could get a ton of value at it. So no, any age, any age, anyone. At this point, we just want to bring awesome people together and be able to grow as a community. And that's where we're at right now.

Hey, Brandon, just keep in mind he doesn't yet have the money to pay you. But anyway, show. My $75,000. Buy the books. I don't care which ones. Buy them. Hey, Brinton, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. This is great.

You're, you know, you're inspirational. I love hearing from guys your age. You're out there killing it. So, congrats on all your success so far. Continued success to you. And it's a pleasure to get to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. And I look forward to maybe potentially coming back one day and updating because I feel

It's a very interesting time in life. And, you know, I'm excited to see where it all goes. So thank you so much for you guys, have done for the community and what you continue to do. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. All right, man. Take care.

Take care. All right, guys, that was Brenton Hess. That it was. Big thanks to Brinton. Yeah, I like that guy. We're coming on the show. He's a good guy. It was a really good show.

Yeah, it was a good show. I really enjoyed it. Are you going to let me talk at all? This is fantastic. What's your problem? What are you doing? So. I don't know.

Josh is clearly a little bit intoxicated today on today's show. And, you know, maybe you were like taking a shot every time I said, um, or something. I wasn't offended by your cutoff in the beginning of the show at all. Oh, I'm sure you weren't. So, Josh, besides today being an awesome show, you know what else I did today? I told you this earlier, but I'm going to tell everyone else. Is this where you saw like a buffalo sleeping in your back? It wasn't a buffalo.

No, but it was a, so I'm taking a walk in the cemetery because that's what I do for fun. And by the way, let's, let's pause there. Is that weird? Is that weird? Hey, ladies and gentlemen, the co-hosts of the Bigger Pockets podcast likes to creep through cemeteries at night. There's a real, no, it was daytime. Someone to hang out with. There's a nice cemetery near my house.

It's like, like right near my house. And so it's the perfect place to go walk in the morning. So I'm walking around and I look down and there's this gigantic black creature. And my first thought was, there's a bear. I'm going to die because it was like a foot from me. It was like, I didn't see it until I was there. And then I realized it wasn't a bear. Then I thought it was a buffalo.

And I'm like, wait, there are no buffalo in Washington. And then I realized it was a cow, a massive cow, somehow escaped somewhere and ended up in the cemetery. So we hung out for a while. Anyway, weird. That is absolutely ridiculous. Podunk, Washington. Yeah, I keep walking those cemeteries, man. I will.

I don't know. If you also walk the cemeteries, let us know. You can tell us on the show notes of BiggerPockets.com slash show 40. if you think it's absolutely really disturbing and weird. That's so good. Jump on Twitter and troll Brandon. Brandon at Brandon at BP and let him know how weird it is to stroll through the cemeteries and steal flowers from people's gravestones. By the way, I have to say something about Twitter since you brought that up and then I'm going to leave you because I'm late for lunch with a bigger pockets member.

But you a long time ago got verified on Twitter and I was so jealous and Josh got verified. Did you just get verified? Guess who's got two thumbs and just got verified? This guy right here. So I'm legit now. Did you apply months and months ago and just get it? I applied three times, all right? Oh,

let's not dwell on that. But the fact is I am now verified. So I applied and they did it right away. Oh, wow. You know, that's because you don't have a higher likelihood of getting ripped up. Or maybe they're like, we want to make sure that this person stands out from Adam Levine because you guys are like twins. Maybe that's why.

Thank you. Thank you. I think that was a compliment. Was it? I don't know. Have you seen his hair? All right, man. Hey, great show.

Brandon. Thank you. Brenton. Thank you. Listeners. Thank you. Seriously, guys. Thank you so much for listening to the show.

And let's get out of here. I'm Josh Dorkin. And I'm Brandon. This is Brandon Turner. Signing off. You didn't think I was going to do that? Sign it. Sign up.

Sign up. Sign up. I beat you to it. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com.

Your home for real estate investing online. It's time for it. It's time for it. It's time for it. The random five. These are the random questions. We just want to get to know you a little bit better, Breton. So number one, do you like spicy food? No, not really. No one's perfect. I'm a taste to my personality, I guess. Nice.

What's your favorite board game? My favorite board game is Catan. C-A-N. Settlers of Catan. I've never played it. I've heard of it. Yeah, super nerdy. It's awesome.

Like collect resources and build out roads and settlements. It's super nerdy. It sounds like civilization or something, colonization. Yeah, yeah. I should be careful. telling everybody that's like my favorite board game. It's so nerdy. It's awesome though. Yeah. I do want to play it someday. Maybe you know I will play it together

someday. So next question. Do you know any magic tricks? No, I can juggle. I know it's not magic but that's about as creative as it gets. There you go. I can juggle like anything. Like I'm in the stores all a time grabbing three random items and throwing them up until somebody acknowledges me. That's awesome. Sweet.

All right. What foreign language would you most like to learn? and why? I would love to learn Spanish because my niece and nephew are half Hispanic. My brother-in-law, he can speak fluently, but he's been born and raised in the States. And I would say, like, you know, I look at them and they speak Spanish to them and I don't know what they're saying. So it would be great when to understand like my own family, it's communicating. Otherwise, I just assume they're talking about me.

It's good reason. It's good reason. Nice. Nice. All right. Should there be an age limit for trick-or-treating? Age limit for trick or treating. No, definitely not.

In fact, you know, I thought I heard of the greatest trick or treating idea of all time. Is that? Ever heard of a trunk or treat? I don't think so. Trunk or treat. It's like this thing where I've heard communities that maybe are very spread out. They all like getting their cars or and they drive to like a parking lot and they all parked in like a circle or in a one big line and you open up the trunks and then. you can give out candy that way.

So therefore, kids don't have to walk as far. It's quicker. You get more candy and you see more people. So I would say, like, you know, that atmosphere, the parents could, like, maybe have a drink or two and hang out and not drive home and Uber home. And the kids could have fun of the cars in the parking lot. I don't know. I've not thought of.

I think this through a little bit more. Trunk or treat. Fascinating. Fascinating. All right. Would you clone, last question, would you clone yourself if you had the chance? I'm wild.

I don't think the world is ready for, so I, you know, I'm, it's interesting. I, I would love for my wife, my future wife,

whoever that may be, to be, you know, the better parts of me. So, um, I would say, no,

I would not clone me. Although I would say, you know, there are some good attributes that, uh, I would, I would like to pass a one to somebody. So kids or I pick up and others.

Would you guys cloning yourselves? I don't think I would. I think it'd be creepy. I haven't thought it through. A good business partner. I would trust myself. You know, as much as you think it would be a good business partner. You got to stop.

You don't know Josh. You don't know Josh. I would be a horrible business partner. We would murder each other. Absolutely killing each other. I don't think that would work well for me. But maybe the only would think. Well, you know, I'd be home with my wife and kids and hanging out and spending time here.

Maybe. Maybe it would work. If they shared one brain, maybe. Two bodies, one brain? I don't know. I'm getting out of here. Thank you guys so much. This was fun. All right. Yeah, I had a blast. If there's anything I can do for you guys, let me know. Thank you. I take care.

Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoke content, and editing is by Exodus Media.

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