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

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Build Wealth with Brad: https://aimnatcon.com/coffeezforclosersBrad Sumrok a.k.a The Apartment KingSince 2005, Brad has personally helped his students purchase over $6 Billion in apartment complexes, involving thousands of investors who have taken his training. Many of Brad’s students began with zero previous investing experience and, within a few short years, hundreds of his mentoring students have retired and/or increased their net worth by over $1 MILLION. Even more are earning double-digit average annualized returns.The Sumrok Multifamily Mentoring mission is to help 1,000,000 people achieve financial freedom by investing in apartments and following Brad’s 20-year proven framework for successful apartment investing. Brad wants you to be able to enjoy the same quality of life that he has been able to achieve.For More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGw Check Us Out on all Platforms!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffeez-for-closers-with-joe-shalaby/id1726674707Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KkQWRqHSHcCK3TVfsRKUK?si=hjTnUOjFS5eTDxBjgf4RwQ&preview=noneAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Coffeez-Closers-Joe-Shalaby/dp/B0CRYLQRW6 Coffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezpod/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8 Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalaby E Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up everybody and welcome to another episode of coffees for closes where we bring you insight from the world's most influential leaders. Today's guest is a powerhouse in the real estate world with over two decades of experience and a portfolio that spans thousands of apartment units across the country. He helped countless people break free from the grind and achieve financial independence through his strategic investing. His teachings have earned him top accolades as a mentor and speaker transforming ordinary investors into real estate moguls. Get ready to meet the man that's changing people's lives one apartment at a time. Mr. Brad Sumrock. I appreciate you coming down. You flew right in from Miami, and I hope the travels weren't too burdensome for you.

Came in with your bags in hand, you know. It was a great flight, man. It was five hours on time. which is pretty rare these days. Yeah, and I know you got to work the entire time. You were bragging about that. I did. Everybody else was sleeping and I was working.

There's something wrong with that. Yeah, well, I love the grind. I love the grind. So, Brad, give the audience a 20,000 foot overview of what you do. Yeah, so I do apartment syndication. And what that means is when I first heard that term, it was really complicated. I didn't even know what a syndication was. So imagine creating a community where people collaborate and they pull their time,

their money, their resources, and their knowledge together. And then they go out and buy an asset, in my case, an apartment building that's bigger than any single individual could buy on their own. And so we pull all of our resources together and we go buy apartment buildings. And the reason we do that is there's a lot of advantages of buying more units than one transaction like professional management, economies of scale, not to mention how we're changing communities of, you know, generally working class people that live in these. building so it's a big impact i like to start my show off with the same question which is what i ask

everybody now what is your morning routine what is my morning routine well what if i said i don't have a routine the same routine every morning but i will tell you this uh before 10 o'clock every day is me time you know i love to wake up early i love to work out i actually start my day with coffee believe it or not you won't find that in any of the personal development books will you Well, believe it or not, I think a lot of people, a lot of high performers do start their day. I mean, I love coffee. And I love the name of your show. Coffee is for closers, right?

But everywhere I go, I actually seek out like, and I'm getting off the question, but I seek out like the best independent coffee shop. So I wake up in the morning and I'm wide awake, though. Like, I don't need coffee to wake up. Like I wake up usually at 6 a.m. Without an alarm and I jump out of bed and I'm ready to go. It's by peak hours. And so I have a coffee.

and then what I do is I outline what I want to achieve for the day. And I outline why I want to achieve it. I don't do it at nighttime because I'm not a night person. I do it like at 6 a.m. with coffee. So I get my whole day organized. I get my whole day planned. And usually I even look forward to the week. Then I read a Bible verse.

I love reading the Bible verse, you know, whether you're a Christian or not. Like there's a lot of, and I am a Christian, by the way, but I love reading the Bible verse because there's a lot of wisdom in it. So I do that. It kind of gets me grounded for the day and then I go do exercise. And the exercise I love to do, I love doing weight training. I love doing running, especially out in Miami, you know, or running an apartment these days. And I love doing yoga.

So I alternate those and I do it every single morning. I'll be doing it here like tomorrow from the hotel. So I do that. And then I eat a nutritious breakfast. I eat breakfast every morning. I never skip breakfast. Like if I'm going to skip a meal, I'm going to skip dinner. It's better to go to bed hungry.

So like my health is really important, health as well. So what I do every day to recap is I wake up early without an alarm, have my coffee, plan my day, do my exercise. And that gives me like that me time. And it allows me to have, you know, personal wins before I ever do any Zoom meetings or business calls or anything like that. You got to start the day with some me time and some personal wins. Yeah, I love it. I'm with you on that same boat, you know, very, very similar morning routine as well. Now, out of all the businesses you could have entered into, why did you pick apartment

syndication? Yeah, I never thought I'd be doing this, man. Like, honestly, like my parents, neither one of them finished college. And my dad worked for an engineer. And I remember he made a lot of money, like relatively compared to my dad. So, you know, we would vacation to, I grew up in Pittsburgh and we'd go on vacation to like Lake Erie and the shores in New Jersey. And my dad's boss, you know, would take his family to Hawaii on an airplane.

I had never been on an airplane until I, you know, had my own money to go on air vacations on a jet airplane. So I studied hard, got good grades when the college did everything right. So I thought I got an engineering degree and an MBA. But after 17 years of working in a corporate America and losing my job not once but twice, I found myself in my early 30s. And I was kind of like, hey, I'm not as secure as I thought. and I'm not where I want to be financially. So if you ever did everything right and you're still not where you want to be, that's where I was.

And I didn't really know what to do, but I was living in Houston, Texas at the time. And on hot summer days, you know, we'd like to spend time indoors. So we go to like malls. And back then there were bookstores.

Stores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. You probably remember these, Joe. And there's not many of them around anymore, right? Because everything's all online now. But I would go to these stores on Saturday and Sunday. day and look at the top selling books. And I'll never forget in 2001, I picked up a book that was purple and gold called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And you probably know that book, right? Everyone in real estate knows that book. And I read that book and it gave me so many ideas that changed the trajectory

in my life because everything I was doing. And then the second book, you know, was the cash flow quadrant. He talked about employee, self-employed, business owner, investor. And I realized that was an employee. And then he talked about how business owners and investors, generally they have more freedom, they have more time, they have a better quality of life, they can make more money with unlimited upside and they pay less taxes. And then Kiyosaki in these books said, hey, one of the best ways to be a business owner or investor, a business that has low barriers to entry was real estate. So I heard of a lot of people doing real estate investing. Kiyosaki actually pointed out, but I wasn't sure where to start. So I was living in Houston, Texas, and I started going to real estate investing seminars.

And that's how I got started. I went to a seminar. I was very skeptical. I came in thinking like, hey, I got two degrees. Like, what am I going to learn here? But I had this part of me that was curious, you know, and I was open. And day one, I remember walking in and I sat in the back of the room with my arms crossed day two. I got there early. I was in the front row of taking, you know, shit tons of notes. And I learned what they talked. and took massive action. So you were in your 30s at that point. Yes.

It wasn't until you were in your 30s, you realized I need to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. And I had never had, I didn't have that roadmap. Like my blueprint for success was college and then another degree. And then grad school. Yeah. And actually. The traditional normal like route.

Like that's in my culture, that's all they push is like college, grad school. That's. Yeah. And when I, when I lost my job, the second. time right before I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, I actually started studying for the LSAT because I was like, okay, I have an engineering degree that got me my first job. Then I got an MBA that got me six figures. And then I got, you know, let go and then I got fired. And so I was like, okay, well, what else should I do? Get a lot of degree. I'm going to get a lot of degrees so I could sue these people every time they fired.

Exactly. But I'm so glad that I picked up the Rich Dad, Port Dad book. And I wasn't even looking for that book. Like, you know, I would go to these bookstores and look at the best. I would always read nonfiction bestsellers. And at the time I was, and I still am, I was, you know, really interested in my health too. So I was always interested, besides in, you know, business and real estate, I was interested in working out and eating right. So I go there and I would buy books on, remember the Body for Life book, Bill Phillips, transform your life in 12 weeks. I would read those kind of books. I would read nonfiction books.

I would read books about, you know, die broke. the richest man in Babylon and think and grow rich and Tony Robin stuff like I would read that kind of stuff I mean it helps all of us evolve all those I love those books yeah and I still that's still my preferred reading material as well yeah mine too I I love reading I still read a lot so you read a book and then you're like I'm going to start a business what really in what was your first business you started well like I said I went to the seminar and it was $500 and I'll never forget like you know I was, you know, in my early 30s in Houston, my friends at work, they would, we'd work all week. You know, we hate Mondays.

Wednesday was hump day. And then Friday was like the best day of the week, right? And it was summertime and they go out on the lake. So they're out in the lake and I'm going to the seminar. I pay 500 bucks. They're all making fun of me. Well, at the end of the seminar, they offered a five-figure mentorship program. And I actually bought it.

And it was a lot of money for me at the time. And that I committed. I was like, hey, if I'm going to invest this kind of money in a mentorship program, I'm going to make sure that I actually do the work. You know, and so I went out and so to answer your question, the first business I started was an apartment building. And this was not a syndication. I didn't know about syndication back then. And I bought a 32 unit building for a million dollars in Houston, Texas. I put 200,000 down, got an $800,000 loan.

and I became the proud owner of a 32 unit building back in 2002. You still own that same building? No, I sold it. Wow. Yeah. So I'm so fascinated by this because, you know, your journey is just, it's not a normal journey. Someone to start at your age, you started in your late, in your early 30s, your entrepreneur journey and then started just immediately investing. How were you capitalized enough to start investing into apartment buildings with a W-2 job?

Yeah, well, that's a good question. So if you remember, I worked for 17 years in corporate America, right? And like I said, I did everything when I say right, you know, in quotation marks. I don't know if the audience could see me doing this quotation marks with my hands. So I did everything right. And part of that was living below my means and saving money. So I maxed out my IRA and 401K contributions and I saved money. So, you know, I was an engineer and an MBA.

I generally made six figures, you know, for the, the last decade of, you know, between my age of, say, 27 and 35 before I quit my job. And so I saved my money. And so that property, my, that first property, I needed 200,000 down. And that was a majority of my savings that I put into that building. And how I got into syndication was I, my second building was another 30 units. If you remember monopoly, right? You try to buy like the on the board the same colors, right?

So you can convert three houses into a hotel. Well, I learned how to convert three houses into an apartment building, but I ever did houses, so to speak. So I bought 32 units on one block. And then there was a 30 unit property on the next block. And so I bought that one too. So now I had 62 units a block away from each other. And that wiped me out financially,

meaning like all my liquidity was in those 62 units. And now I have 62 units and I have these properties and they're cash flow and I'm making, you know, 4,000 a month on property one and 3,000 a month on property two. But I have no more money. Now a broker brings me a 250 unit deal. And what do I do? Well, what most people do is that be like, well, I can't buy it. I don't have the money. Or I got to sell these properties and get my money out of them, right?

but since I was going to investor meetup groups and I joined that mentorship program and they would do like meetups every month. So I was networking. You know, I was building the network and people would tell me, hey, Brad, if you find another deal, like I'll put money in with you. And so, you know, fast forward. A broker brings me a 250 unit deal. I didn't have any of my own money. It was all tied up in 62 doors. but I was able to raise $2 million from 27 people and buy 250 units.

And what I learned from that, Joe, was easier to do 250 units and hire a professional management company than it was to buy 32 and do everything yourself. And Kiyosaki calls that, you know, the difference between being self-employed and doing all the work yourself and a business owner where you hire professional management. So you did the 250 door deal. Yeah. And you just raise capital for it. Well, I raised capital and I oversaw the management company.

So you don't just raise the money and do nothing. You still got to like work with the management company. And to me, it's like as the owner and you hire the management company, you're still working with the management company to make sure the assets performing. Yeah. The thing is that that's crazy is that you jumped into such a big multi-unit property with such little experience. It's amazing. Yeah. Well, the thing is, how do you get experience is you either get your 10,000 hours on your own and it takes you five years or you leverage somebody else's 10,000

hours. And that's why, like, I believe so much in mentorship. Like, the way to take a decade and turn it into days is to hire a mentor. Like, I still, like, you know, we met at a mastermind. Like, how much does that cost us? That's where we met. You know, I just got back from a Tony Robbins event. But you spend a lot on self-development. I mean, being at that masterminds, going to this conference you're going to now. I mean, you're always investing in your development. Yeah, well, that's the secret to success, at least mine. Like, the best investment you can make is in real estate, but what kind?

Some people would say, I'm going to say apartments. But I'm going to tell you it's the real estate between your ears. You're right. It's that real estate between your ears. It's the real estate of your mind that you always got to keep investing in because the matter how much you succeed, there's always somebody ahead of you in anything. Yeah. Like, and so why don't you leverage their experience?

You know, we all hear about you, you're in the lending business. You hear about OPM, right? Other people's money. Yeah. And what about OPE, other people's experience? What about OPET, other people's time? Like these are huge. That's been honestly to your point.

That's been one of the biggest benefits of this podcast is that I, get someone like yourself who's built a, you know, a huge enterprise. And I ask you questions that are completely relatable to how to navigate in my own model, my own business, you know, and then I get you as now a contact, right? And people are really undervalue. And actually, Dan said this is like my, my, my, Dan Fleischman, he said, you know, my greatest assets are my phone, the people in my phone. Everybody who I know.

And then it's so, it stands true. definitely for him because he knows everybody. But it's becoming that way for me too because, you know, and that's going to be a huge benefit with you with the podcast. Like your podcast guests are all going to be influential figures. I mean, it's, it's, you know, they say your network is your net worth. That's definitely the truth. And I think that's true to a point.

And let me clarify this, though. And I'm agreeing. You still have to have a network with me. I'm agreeing with you, though. Just so, you know, I'm agreeing with you. I'm not disagreeing with you. But I hear people say this all the time. But what a lot of people do is networking is they go to an event and they pass out business cards or they collect business cards and they come home with 300 business cards.

To me, that's not. It's not networking. Yeah. What's effective is you go there and say, hey, if I could walk away, like I went to this, you know, where I met you. And I said, hey, if I could be, if I could have like five or 10 meaningful conversations and walk away with two or three contacts that maybe. I could change this trajectory of their life, or maybe they could change this trajectory of my life. That, to me, is effective networking. It's not just grabbing business cards.

No, it's, it's having meaningful conversations at a deep level. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's the whole gist of the podcast. Yep. You're going to have a one hour coffee date, unobstructed, undivided attention, eyes gazed. And candidly, as weird as that looks and sounds.

everyone listening it just doesn't happen anymore you know why because attention is to new currency and your attention is so like it's it's been taken from you so it's hard for you and I both especially me to focus on one person one subject one conversation I really canedly don't do that outside of you know these podcasts that's that's really interesting right like we've been talking now for what 15 minutes and we haven't looked at our phones yeah yeah like if we weren't doing this conversation you would be looking at your phone like six or seven times already you would have about that and think about how you know like that's just that's the world we're in and it's impacting everything from you know first from events to how people meet each other to overall socialization to

our children the children who you know now all the their attention is everything is everything everywhere. Yeah. They're all ADD. It used to be a superpower. Now it's just the standard. Yeah. Crazy, right? Yeah. So, um, so what do you think was the underlying motivation for you to start your, your company? Well, look, I always wanted to be successful, you know, and, and success to me at one point, and isn't interesting that are like, what is success, right? Like, and to me, my first, my first, my first definition of success when I was a boy was, you know, having a good job. You know, I remember my parents used to say that my dad's boss made 80,000 a year and they went to Hawaii on vacations. So that was like I'm printed on my mind that like, man, I got to make 80K a year. So I take my family

to Hawaii. And now I'm like an engineer and I get an MBA and I'm making a hundred thousand a year. And my mom used to tell me, Brad, once you make 100,000 a year, like that's like your life is incredible and I'm making $100,000 a year and you know what I'm I had this experience of like I'm you know I have a car payment I got a I start traveling like I didn't travel out of the country until I'm 30 but like I'm traveling I got a car payment I'm paying for a place to live I got expenses and I'm like I feel like I'm barely getting by and then I get laid off and now now I have job in security for the first time so I can't remember what your question was but like it it really just hit me that like yeah it was like well what what was the thing that caused me to get into

business right it was like yeah what motivated you well i think it was actually like freedom and control like you think a lot of people think that if you get a job it's secure but after you lose it not once but twice it's not secure that's right you know it's not secure and so to me it's risky to have a job you know a lot of people it's risky to be a entrepreneur to me it was risky to have a job you know i have not had a job with another company except, you know, my own business since I was 35 years old. That's 22 years ago. And I've never lost my job in the last 22 years because it's my company. And I'm in control of my own destiny. But there has been those shaky times, you know, I'm sure in in this in this time. Well, well, sure. Like 2008, 9, 10 was one of them. And actually the last two years has

been, you know, challenging and commercial real estate multifamily. But but the thing is like, everything goes through a cycle, you know, and if you play it smart, like, you know, there's a famous guy. You know, there's a very famous guy out there. This is cash is trash. You know, live as if you're broke. Put all your money into assets. If I had done that in 2008, like I had deals in 2008 that I had to feed money into, you know, because of the recession. And then one of my properties got hit by a hurricane and it's in a recession. And if I didn't have liquidity, personal liquidity, like I would have lost that property. And the same thing happened in 2023. You know, interest rates went up, taxes went up, insurance went up.

You know, the triple negative perfect storm is hitting like multifamily after a decade of amazing times. And there's a couple properties out of my portfolio I have to put money into. And if I didn't have the money to put in, you know, you could see what's happening in the news every day or every week. You know, there's a there's somebody losing their deal. There's distressed properties. There's been one of those stories. in default, right? Yeah.

It should have been one of those texts, you know, sold this property for whatever the taxes were on it. Right. Exactly. Okay. So what do you think has been some of the biggest hardships you've overcome since you started your company? Hardship since I started my, well, let's talk about that because I really like to think of my company as being I have two separate businesses, right? So I got the apartment investing business. And in that business, you know, I really scaled up like over the past, say, five or six years.

My first investment was in 2002, that 32 unit building. And in the first decade from 2002 to 2012, I scaled up to about 1,000 units. And I transitioned from buying my own deals with my own money to syndicating deals, which, you know, I described what a syndication is. it's, you know, groups of people buying deals where I'm the general partner, take an ownership interest in the property where I control the deal. So the first decade, I go from a zero to a thousand. The second decade, I go from 1,000 to 10,000 units as a syndicator. So that's like exponential growth. So how many units do you have now? I'm in about 7,700. So I've been in that seller over the last few years. And it all started from like your little 20 unit. Yeah, that 32 unit. Yeah.

What you own by yourself? I owned it by myself. Yeah. So there's that business. And the biggest challenge has been like, you know, looking backwards. I could have scaled like I tried doing everything myself, Joe, those first 10 years. Like even even though I was syndicating, I was able to do like one deal a year. Maybe I would do like 200 units a year.

And I would have to find the deals, analyze the deals, you know, raise the money, do all the due diligence, close the deal. deals, manage the management company, handle all the investors, the paperwork, the tax returns, the K-1s, doing it all myself. So I was able to do, you know, like a deal every year or two. And then I learned about not only syndicating deals as a general partner, but now I have, like, a team of people that will go out and do deals as co-general partners. And so we divide up that work. So we buy, like instead of me buying 150 units with me as the sole general partner and a bunch of passive investors, I might go and buy 400 units where maybe me and three or four other people are the general partners. And so we divvy up all that work of like, you know, we got people that underwrite the

deals. We got people that manage the deals. We got people to raise the equity for the deals. I mean, we all have substantive roles in the business, but we kind of divide and conquer. And so, we could do bigger deals, have better scale, better management, and actually do less work on each deal than I was doing individually. So just figuring out how skill up was a big challenge. And then the other challenge, of course, was when 2008 and 9 came around. And then again, like 2022, we hit the top of the market. And then, you know, we had a downturn.

And now we're coming out of that. So in the investing business, those were the challenges. The other business that I'm in is 11 years ago, he started my own event and mentorship company, and that's a business that I'm very passionate about because that's how I got started. So, as you know, I do events and I do mentorships and masterminds. So not only do I attend masterminds, I actually create a platform where I help people syndicate deals. And that's a business that, like, think of a guy like Tony Robbins, right? he does unleash the power within he does his platinum partnership he does business mastery and he's

a business owner in 114 companies and so that's kind of my vision is like i'm gonna you know i'm a a general partner in 37 apartment buildings over 7000 doors and i do events where i help people do what i've been able to do so that's you know and i'm i'm a big tony robbins fan by the way i just got back from one of his events. Wow. So I, you know, I not only mentor people, but I always say this, every great mentor has a mentor. You know, they have somebody that they're learning from. Somebody they're modeling, you know, they're modeling somebody. At what age did you decide you need to mentor? I, well, my first professional mentor was back in 2001 when I went to that real estate program. That was when I realized I needed the mentor. But then, like, looking back,

I would honestly say my first set of mentors were my parents. Yeah. Like, I didn't realize it at the time. But like, they taught me to study hard, get good grades and go to school. Like, without that foundation, I don't know what I would have done. Like some parents kick you out when you're 18. You know, some parents make you pay rent. Some parents, some people, you know, don't have a mother and a father. They might be raised by a single mom or a single dad. So I was fortunate to have like stability in my family when I was growing up. And they guided me, i.e. mentored me to go to college and get good grades. I didn't appreciate it at the time. You know, when I first started getting into business, I was angry at first. I'm like, mom, dad, why didn't you teach me to be an entrepreneur?

What they did? You know, it would have been so much easier than getting a master's in whatever. I know, but they didn't know. Yeah. So, like, one of the things I learned about your mentor, and it's why you got to choose them wisely is like, you can't have a mentor teach you something. They haven't done themselves. Like, you can have a life coach.

That's different. You know, there are life coaches out there that they could coach you through anything. But like a mentor is different than a coach. A mentor is somebody that's actually been down the yellow brick road that you want to go down. So, like, if you want to go into business and you want to learn from somebody, rather than go into school and getting an MBA, like go work with somebody,

either work with them or for them or mentor under them so they could teach you the ropes of that business. How does one go about finding a mentor? Well, I mean, look, you know, with social media and Google searches and YouTube searches, it's not that hard. Like you type in, like, what it is that you want to do

and you find people, but the best way is through word of mouth. Like, it's like, who do you know that, like in my case, if you'd say, hey, who do you know that does apartment syndications? And look, some of the best apartment investors and syndicators, they don't want to mentor somebody. Like, they'd be like, no, I'm not going to do that. Like, you know, when I look at my own career and somebody asked me, like, well, Brad, why do you mentor people? Well, the truth is, if I had focused just on doing.

transactions, I'd probably worth, I'd have thousands more units and have a lot more money. Like, I have a lot of friends that did that. Like, they started their apartment investing companies in 2007 and eight after I bought my first deal. And they own tens of thousands of units and have like golf streams and big companies. And- Do you have friends here in Newport like that? No, but they're mostly in Texas where my company is based.

I'm literally talking about companies that like, I know a guy that's a friend of mine that's got 59,000 doors, you know, that got like 28,000 doors. They got 42,000 doors, you know, 12,000 doors. But that's what they focus on where I have like 7,700 doors. And that's a ton of doors. But yet, but yet like my passion is actually doing the education platform. And why is it? Like people always ask me that. Maybe you'd ask me as a next question.

But what I tell people is doing deals, puts money in the bank account. But when I help people get into the apartment business and I see them succeed, you know, quit their jobs or buy their dream home or retire their spouse or pay for their kids' education, that puts like a deposit in my soul. So, you know, there's the financial rewards of doing transactions. But there's also, why do you think, you know, so many people, love to do events and seminars and coach people and all that kind of stuff because it's fulfilling for some people it is it's fulfilling it's rewarding it's rewarding it's 10 times more fulfilling if you do

it at a purpose at a serving yeah exactly like i never got into that business for money although i've made money mentoring people but i never got in the business for the money there's a lot of opportunity on the horizon with apartment buildings a multifamily um but it's not like multifamily is facing the same thing as commercial. Do you think it's, you know, multifamily could be in trouble? Well, when we talk commercial, there's all different types, right? Like we got industrial. We got this industrial is not in trouble, but office commercials in trouble.

Office is probably in trouble. And I, you know, look, if you look at a life cycle of an industry, right, office is kind of like in a decline, right, ever since the pandemic. Right. Like, and I don't know, I think it's recovering a little bit, but like, are we ever going to see the day again where like like you have a company do you have remote employees we have we have 900 people and we maybe have 80 people in house here so you got all remote so 90% of your team is remote 90% of the entire organization is remote yeah now in the old days it would have been like

the opposite right it would have been like 90% come to the office yeah it's crazy that's why I'm like you know you still have you still have Silicon Valley where people are yeah So I think I think office and retail are declining obviously retail like you know we talked about you know the bookstores you know Barnes and Noble uh borders these were what billion dollar companies they're they're out of business right so office and retail we still have Barnes are declining yeah but they're declining multi-family we're in a winter season of multi-family but the industry itself is in its prime like people people need a place to live. We're becoming a renter nation. It's becoming more and more expensive

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

So I look at this thing called affordability gap. And what affordability gap measures, Joe, is like, what's the median PITI and, you know, principal interest, tax, and insurance for a medium priced home might be $3,200 a month for a median priced home, where a medium priced apartment might be $1,800 a month. So there's like this $1,400 a month gap. And that's why I'm so bullish on multifamily rentals. So it's not like a declining industry. It's just the season that we're in where interest rates went up.

And now the season is coming back down. I believe so. Like I can't foresee the future with 100% accuracy. But like I've been through the 2008 downturn and I see some signs like the Fed's going to lower rates. We're going to have an election. And no matter who wins the election, we're going to have four years of certainty. Like and you know, like capital markets. and Wall Street, they like predictability and certainty.

So whether we have a Trump administration or a Harris administration, and that's a whole other conversation about how either of those two will impact things. But either way, capital markets and Wall Street in the banking industry, we're going to know what we got. We're going to know what we're going to deal with for the next four years. So I see a lot of stability and I see a lot of opportunity. me. Now, outside of like, we talked about this briefly, but outside of grinding on time, because you've grind a lot, you work harder than 99.9% of people. Do you have any other, like,

hobbies that you enjoy outside of working out? You know, so, well, I'm glad you said working out, but one of my, let me, let me go into that a little bit because one of my, something, relax, something I don't do for money that I would, if I weren't doing real estate, is I would probably, like, I, I love health and fitness and wellness. Like, I, I eat tight, I work out, I take my health seriously. And part of it isn't just working out and eating right. It's like doing yoga. You know, it's like having like mindfulness.

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

And that sounds cliche, but I travel like a lot. Like I just got back from Argentina two days ago. Like, and I was in. Always somewhere. Dude, I'm going to Dubai. I'll be dobi in India later in October. I was in Argentina earlier this year. Last year I went to Nepal.

I went to Bhutan, I went to Rwanda, I went to Botswana. Like, I go to cool places that most people don't get a chance to go to. For my geography experts out there, like, do you know where all those places are? I don't even know. Yeah, so a lot of people say, hey, I like to travel, but like, you know, I don't want to. You really like to travel. And that's important to me. Like travel is important to me.

And it's about like the cultural experience, you know, simple things in life. Like, I love walking on the beach. Like, I love nature. I love coffee. Like whenever I travel like I seek out like it sounds boring because I'll say well what I don't play golf like I don't like I do sports. I do tennis here and there like I but I don't have like I'm not a passionate like golfer musician or I don't make my own music, you know and I actually love going to events like when people say what do you do for fun? I'm like like like tomorrow I'm going to be attending an event. So I only not do events, but I go to events. You're going to an educational seminar. Yeah. for development. Yes, I am. And that's fun.

It's different than going to Coachella. Yeah. Like I have never been to Coachella. I've never been to Burning Man. Like, like, so it's, you know, some people might say, hey, that's boring. But it's like, so for me, what do I do for fun besides doing my own events and mentoring and coaching people and doing deals, which I actually find fun. But if you take that away, I love going to events.

I love learning. I love being a student. I love learning new things. I actually like being a beginner at some things. Like imagine getting out of your comfort zone and like learning something for the first time. Like, you know, a couple of years ago, I bought a one wheel. You know, the skateboards with the wheel in the wheel. Like I bought that and I actually learned how to use it.

And I fell a few times and it was uncomfortable. But I'm good at it now. Yeah, you're pretty good at the one wheel? I'm good at a one wheel. Like if I could freak people out. I see people on the street using a one wheel. And I'm like, hey, man, what is that? They're like, oh, it's a one wheel.

And I'm like, can I try it? And they're thinking, oh, man, like, you don't want to get on this thing. You're going to mess yourself up. And then I get on it and I, and I could, and I ride it pretty good. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Did you already skateboarding? Barely.

Yeah. I'm probably more adventurous now in my 50s than I was when I was 15. That's awesome. Yeah. Keeps me young, man. It is. It is. Now, what's your favorite quote?

Favorite quote. Well, I'm barrowing this from, from Tony Robbins, but it's the secret to living is giving. And I found the find that when you give with with no expectation of receiving anything in return, it's a really fulfilling, uplifting experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you were to tell your 20-year-old self to build both right now, what would you tell them to do? I would just say get started. Like, you know, when I was 20, I was in my third year of engineering school. And I would say like, and it's funny because even now when I'm thinking about how to answer this question, like my whole physiology slowed down. Did you notice? Yeah.

And I was like, wow, you know. But like age is not a limit. Like so many people think that like, well, I got to start here. Like let's say even in real estate. People have this just like I thought like I got to get a job or, you know, and then get another degree. It's like so many people go into real estate. well, I'm going to start, you know, flipping houses or like I'm going to start with a single family or a duplex and then a fourplex and then somehow graduate to 16 units. And then maybe someday I

could do a 60 unit syndication. And you know what? That's not true. Like anybody that is committed, you know, and invest in the real estate between their ears could go out and do a big deal. And I'm not taking this lightly. Like, look, man, there's work. There's risk. There's time. there's energy. Like if you want to get rich quick, like don't come and see me. Like, don't, don't look me up. Don't go to my website. Don't come to my events because it's not get rich quick. But you know what? Real estate is never get rich. And neither is like going to school for four years or eight years or 12 years. And being an engineer or an attorney or a doctor, man, it's like four or eight, 12 years of education. And so you could go faster by being a business

owner but you got to know what you're doing you got to surround yourself with people that are doing it and you got to understand the upside and the downside now um how important is taking risk in your business i mean there's risk in everything you do like every i every like with these kind of deals you know like is it like are are you when you see a deal you're like wow there's a lot of profit in this deal but it's going to be tremendously risky let's well like i mitigate the risk by you know, like there's a, there's a process that I go through to like, you know, is, is it in a good market, you know, or are there jobs being created or jobs being taken away? Are they people moving there or people moving out of there? So like, there's a recipe that you could follow that I teach that's going to stack the cards in your favor. But just to be clear, there's always risk. You know, there's risk that interest rates could go up in an unprecedented manner. We didn't count on that happening. No, we didn't know they'd go over. government could shut down the country and now people can't be evicted for non-payment or rent. You can't underwrite for that type of stuff, right?

That's called a Black Swan event. And a couple of these things happened in the last few years. But even outside of that, like, there's risk in everything. But let me just tell you this, there was risk in me having a job, like what I thought was secure and going to work every day and just putting my head down and keeping a low profile. Like, that didn't work out either. You know, I find myself unemployed, not once. but twice. So like, look, there's risk in everything you do, but the way you mitigate risk is through

education, not like a degree, but like, you know, invest in, when I say education, go to events, get a mentor, join a mastermind, surround yourself with people that are doing it, and have a team of experts around you, and that's going to mitigate risk. It doesn't eliminate it, but it's going to mitigate it. Now, are you using any AI technology to really kind of look at the value, assess value, help mitigate risk mitigation? So yes and no. It's interesting because I just sat through an AI presentation, and I would call myself like, you know, like so many others, like I'm using AI to like maybe help with some

email campaigns and copywriting and messaging and stuff like that, but I'm still kind of in the playing stages, but there's so much upside in AI right now and any type of business, including real estate, including like underwriting and messaging and capital raising and all that type of stuff. But I would also say that like it's still got to be you. Yeah. Like it's still got I could still be you. Yeah. That's where I see the biggest opportunity is if you take like like one of the projects I'm working on now is I have like hundreds of hours of content, you know, from every event I've ever done, from every podcast I've ever been on. on from any Zoom meeting I've ever done.

We're feeding it into these AI engines, and it's going to create a Brad GPT instead of a chat GPT. That's awesome. Yeah. So you started building out your AI. So that's something we're working on right now. That's excellent. Yeah.

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

I don't have a clue to what I want to do with my life. let's just go to college because it's the next step, you know, become a C or D student. You know, you study communications. You know, let me just say like I was going to say something politically incorrect. I don't know. I knew you were talking about something you wanted to talk about some BSD. You study some sort of, you know, gender study basket weaving degree. I'm just being facetious here.

probably going to have people hating on me for that. But, but hey, look, so like just getting some, I'll call it a bullshit degree is, is with everything out there, you know, online and through a mastermise and stuff. It's like, to me, it's a waste of time and money. You know, I would rather see somebody become an apprentice of a business owner and fast track themselves into the business world. I agree. Yeah. Now, how important to you is like going to mastermind? events in these conferences and why would someone who hasn't ever attended and they're too boastful oh why do I need masterminds or why do I need these conferences like I for me I love attending those things for many reasons how important is it to you let me just say let me just be

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

and then I'm here in Orange County attending another one tomorrow. So I'm getting educated and informed on different topics. Call it leadership, communication, negotiation, building a better team, being a better leader, being a better human. But I'm getting more than the content. I'm getting connected with other people that are committed to let's just say commit when when you're around people that are committed to upgrading their human experience in any domain you know whether it's in business or in real estate or in health

or in in in numbers or in you know anything that's possible to do anything valuable there's something there's somebody that can help you accelerate the process and do what I call turn decades into days. And so to me, it's next to everything. It's far more valuable than formal education. I think it was Jim Rohn that said, you know, specialized education, like the kind that you get in conferences and mentorship programs and masterminds could earn you a fortune, where formal education, which was my experience getting an engineering degree and an MBA, will get you a job. Great, great advice. And then for those listening right now, if you're not involved in a masterminds or some sort of business group or a meetup, like, you need to get involved.

This is like, this is everything. This has totally changed the trajectory in my life, allowed me to start a podcast, allowed me to go viral on social media, et cetera. It's all about who you know. It's all about who you know. Now, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? The best piece of advice I've ever received. Well, it's probably going to be repetitive, but it's, you got to invest.

in yourself like I think Warren Buffett said it he said the best the best investment is going to be the one you make in yourself yeah he did say that and you know I I've already said I honestly I hesitated because I was trying to come up with something else but I can't like I that's that's the best advice and for some people that could be formal education like just to be clear like I'm not knocking it in every case like for some people there's certain things that like you need a skill set that could be taught in a formal program, you know, whether it's a degree program or a credit, you know, accredited university or something like that. But what I find, like in the world of business, is it's going to be outside of that arena.

Now, what's the most painful thing or the hardest thing you've had to overcome when you built your business? Well, look, yeah, let me, this is, this may not. not be, I'm going to try to keep it as brief as I can, but this is, this is a great question, and I want to share this thing, because for decades, I've bought lots of buildings, transformed communities. I was named the apartment investor of the year by the National Apartment Association, made a lot of money for myself and my investors did a lot of good work. And then in my mentoring company, I've helped hundreds of people, like achieve financial freedom by communities. I, uplift the properties, make it a better place.

And I craved to be like in the media, right? Because, you know, we're all taught like, hey, there's, you know, if you could get in media, especially national media, like that's good, right? And so have you ever seen like people's websites and things that say like as seen on CNBC, ABC, Fox News? Well, you and I both know that most of those, um, are paid sponsorships. And I've done some of that. Like you pay to be.

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

Oh my God. And they found out that I was his real estate coach. And so they, they looped me into the article. And so I started for the first time, had like negative media exposure. And then the Wall Street Journal called me and said, Brad, we want to do an article on you and your company because it occurs to us that you more than anybody else have made multifamily syndications available to like the retail investor. You know, the people like I, am like the guy or gal that has a job that has a W-2 and you've helped so many people get into multifamily investing and now there's challenges in the industry so we want to profile you and i joe i lost so much sleep i'm thinking oh my god like this is going to be a disaster like it's going to be a hit piece and i went to two mentors of mine that if both household names that everybody would know but i'm not going to mention them and one of the one of the two mentors of mine that if have both household names that everybody would know, but I'm not going to mention them. And one of them said, Brad, do not talk to the media.

Like, they will manipulate you, destroy you, and you're better served to just let them do their thing and ignore them. And the other said, you should talk to them and you need to engage and you need a PR team. So I went with the second option. And I got a PR team and engaged with the Wall Street Journal. And let me just tell you that I flew up there. It was supposed to be a one hour interview. I was there for almost four hours. Doesn't sound like an interview. It sounds like they're drilling you. Yeah.

And I was prepared like it was the biggest interview of my life. And let me just share with you that it turned out amazingly well because they saw I was a human being and not just this guy that like mentored this guy that lost people's money. You know, it'd be like saying like, hey, I go to Tony Robbins events and Tony's my mentor. So like somehow Tony's responsible if I go out and lose people's money or I went to Harvard. and lost people's money, so Harvard's responsible. So the Wall Street Journal, after all these months of doing their investigative journalism, this article came out in July of 2024 this year, and it was actually positive. That's great.

It started off as in Avin told me. They said, Brad, this is not going to be a positive article on you, like, because we've heard things that concern us. But after they really, and I can tell you, the Wall Street Journal, unlike some other media outlets that I've had experience with, the Wall Street Journal is committed to being fair and accurate and balanced. And they told me they would. And so they not only interviewed the one or two people that lost money in real estate, they interviewed tens of people, hundreds of people that went through my program that were successful. And several of those people were quoted in the Wall Street Journal. That is amazing. And so all of a sudden, like, I went from being scared to being like, oh, my God, this turned out actually positive.

And it was a great experience. Like, honestly, like, going up to New York and being interviewed. And then, like, they gave me a tour of their offices. And I saw the poster. This was a few months before the journalist that just got released by Putin. like his poster was all over their hallways you know release evan you know stand with you know that guy evan gershowich yeah yeah probably mispronouncing his name but i learned about him and i became a big advocate of like like hoping and praying that he would be released i'm not saying i support

prisoner swaps but just the fact that like i was up there and became aware of like you know he was a political prisoner for like 480 some days and and convicted the 16 years in prison And then finding out like he was released. You know, I was happy for him and his family. Now, I'm not saying that I believe our government should do prisoner swaps, but I'm just saying I was happy he got to come home. And you were happy that you were there for the experience against. Yeah.

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

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

The most important thing is that you're doing it, you're getting out in the media and you're doing the best you can. You're serving. You're doing God's work. You're like trying to help people. Well, that's what we know, me and my team and I was like, hey, we're going to keep doing good work because that's what we do. Exactly. We buy communities and we transform them and we educate people to buy communities and transform them. And that's what we're going to keep doing.

So you think media obstacles have been primarily the biggest obstacles you've faced so far? Hasn't been like money. It hasn't been, you know, bad land surveys or. I mean, look, there have been challenges, like I said. In 08 and 09, we had situations where we had to put money into deals. And out of all my deals that I'm in right now, and I'm in like 37 syndications, there's a handful that have challenges that were putting money into. And if I didn't keep liquidity and reserve, I would be in more trouble.

But I, at the risk of being called, I don't want to say stupid, but like some people, were like, well, Brad, why do you have so much money just sitting in a bank account when you could be earning a return on it? And I'm like, well, because you got to be ready. There might be a rainy day. Yeah. And there was a rainy day in 2008 and nine. And so I call it having a rainy day fund. And I think that helps your investors. And I think it's smart to have a rainy day fund. And I think I think investors should ask if they're going to invest in a, say, an apartment building. They should ask the, the general partnership team like hey have you have you been through a challenge before and how have you overcome it you know have you ever had a deal that doesn't perform well on everybody that's been in the

business long enough we'll have a deal that doesn't perform well at some point and then the question and then the question is how did you deal with it yeah you know did you give the keys back to the bank and all the investors lost their money or were you able to get through the downturn and turn things around. Have you ever had investors those money? Not at this point. And it's possible, like now, you know, and again, I want to be accurate with that. I've mentored people that have lost money in their deals. But not of my deals have lost money. Now, now, you know, and I got to say that and I want to, look, it's really important to me that I'm accurate. There's deals right now that are, that if I have to sell them today might be less than what I've paid for them. But I'm,

I'm not selling them today. That's the beauty of real estate. Like over the long term, they go up in value, but over the short term, there could be a market cycle. Like, for example, if I bought something at the beginning of 22 where the market was at its highest level, it may be worth a little less today. That was, by the way, I feel like it is at the beginning of 22, but I'm not selling it. Yeah, that might be just in Texas where it really peaked in 2020.

Yeah. And now we're seeing a lot of declines, but I only am seeing decline. in Texas that bottom well i mean i'm in other markets too like like tampa or nash you have any where you bought in 2022 that are upside down or hurting besides in texas well they're like if we had to sell today yeah they we would probably have a hard time there's probably one or two that would have a hard time getting all our equity out are they in only in texas or there are other no they're in different markets like in the sunbelt you know they're just curious to see, where are you seeing the most impacted equity-wise?

Well, look, I've only invest, most of my assets are in Texas and Florida. Okay. So, and then I have a few, like I have, you know, a couple hundred units in Nashville. I have a couple hundred units in some other markets. I have a property in Columbus, Ohio. So I'm not in California. I'm not like on the East Coast or West Coast, except Florida. But even in Florida, I'm not in South Florida.

I'm sorry? Wooden pencil here anyway. No. Not in California. No. None of the deals I buy. That's why I don't buy in California. I like to buy in landlord and business-friendly environments.

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

renovations then i want to partner for somebody that's really good at managing the renovations and and i don't see that happen all the time like you know sometimes you know there's a saying birds of a feather flock together. So you take two big picture guys that are really good at networking and sourcing deals and being on social media and they go out and do a deal together. Well, who's paying attention to the details? Who's paying attention to like walking the units and doing the renovations? So like when I partner with people, and I'm not just talking about the people we hire.

I'm talking about equity partners. Yeah. that are in control of the deal like you need to have a mix of skill sets you can't have all engineers either like i've seen the opposite like i've seen people that are like very financially they're like like four financial analysts will team up and they're like we're the best financial underwriters in the world but we don't own anything and i'm like yeah because you guys aren't taking action you know my it's funny you say that blend because my partner is like the engineer I'm like the sales guy, the networker, the guy who puts the, you know, that's bringing in the deals.

Every business needs a yen and yang. Yeah, like, let's say in an apartment syndication, like say we're going to go out and buy, you know, a $30 million property, you know, and we need to raise $10 million dollars and get a $20 million loan and we're going to buy 200 units or 300 units. Well, first, I know what you're thinking. You might be like, you can't do that in California. That's why I don't buy in California, but you can do that in like. like Texas or Florida are an as well, right, buy that many units for that price point. But like, so what I'm going to look at is I'm going to be like, okay, I know what my skill sets are at this point and what I love to do.

And so I'm going to partner with somebody like you look at a syndication and you need somebody that's able to source the deals, meaning like someone that's in with the brokers and the owners, right? Because it's not just what you know, it's who you know. So like if the brokers that control the deal flow don't know you, you're not going to get as many deal sent your way. So that skill set is like somebody that likes the network and hobnob and and hang out with the brokers just to get the deals. Now, once you get the deals, you need an underwriter. Now, when you get a big company, you can hire an analyst. But when it's just you or

your partners, you need a, you need in the beginning, you need an equity partner that's really good crunching the numbers and going through the dot, making sure all the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed, right? On the acquisition, the due diligence, making sure no stern is. Stone is left unturned. It's usually not the big picture guy that's out there hunting the deals. Right. Right. Then you need someone that's going to raise the money, you know, like the salesperson,

the marketer, you know, the social media guy or the guy that's got the relationships of the gal that got relationships with investors and family offices or retail investors. You know, and then you need somebody that's going to manage the asset after it's closing. And it managed. And remember like about 30 minutes ago, I was. sharing with you. When I got into the syndication business, I tried to do all of that myself. And that's why I was able to do like one deal a year. But now I know what I'm really good at and what I'm what I have an aptitude for and a skill set to do. And so I partner with people to compliment what I

don't bring to the table. So together we could go out and buy big deals and get the money, get the debt, and have all the operations handled. And I have that in my investor teams that I put together. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, that, that, that, only comes with years of wisdom though yeah so a couple last questions um one is uh about your goals what's a personal goal that you have for yourself and a goal that you have for your business well a personal goal is so i'm 57 and call me crazy but like i'm really i'm i think everybody once they hit my age they start not everybody but a lot of people get really interested in longevity like how do we extend our life but not only our lifespan but our health span yeah yeah

I'm big in longevity, biohacking and all this other. So like to me the best, but I can tell you, because I know a lot of the big name people in that industry, right? But the best thing I believe is like you eat right, you're good to your body, you get enough sleep, you get enough recovery. Like I track all that stuff with my aura ring. I'm religious about it. I can see when I'm off.

I can see when I'm on. I can see the habits that make me on and see the habits that make me off. So like my personal goal is is to just keep like my personal goal is to be healthier at 60 than I was at 40. And right now at 57 I weigh I weighed myself this morning. I weigh myself every day. I was 168. And when I was 37, I was 185 pounds. So I'm like 15 pounds, 17 pounds later, 18 pounds later than I was 10 years ago.

20 years now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, what? I said 57. Yeah. And yeah, so I'm 18 pounds lighter in 20 years. And the average American actually gains a pound a year.

Yeah, yeah. So think about that. You gain a pound a year from the time you're 30 to 60, you're going to go from, you know, normal to overweight. Yeah. And unhealthy. And then you start getting like, you know, metabolic disease or pre-diabetic.

And these are like, that's the precursor to like, you know, all the cancers, all, you know, the majority of the cancers, even the Alzheimer's is tied to metabolic disease from what I understand from my own independent research, all the heart disease. Yeah. And so my personal goal is to avoid all that and to reverse it and slow it down. And then my business goal, 10 years ago, I wish I would have started the podcast. So I'm doing that this year in 2024.

10 years ago, I wish I would have started like a Sumrock capital. Like everyone knows, Grant Cardone has Cardone capital. I'm starting that this year. Sumrock Capital is going. The Brad Sumrock podcast show is going. Hiring more people. I'm interviewing more salespeople right now. So scaling up and building more sales and marketing oriented the organization while at the same time providing like I've been really good with fulfillment and delivery in my education business and creating hundreds of millionaires.

but we've we're missing a few things so we're going to be scaling up on that side of the business too on the branding and the marketing uh i'm going to have now with AI i'm going to have my first book done within six months by the end of the year good yeah a lot of the same goals i'm sure we're sharing you know scaling up building your brand yeah and then one last question i have i ask everybody this question when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think god's going to tell you man my whole physiology changed here um what i hope he tells me is i hope he says uh come on in you know because i um you know i was raised catholic but there is a period of my life for decades that i kind of turned away from from all that but you know after going through some business

and personal challenges, you know, I've, I feel like I've come back full circle to, to that core belief in God. And I believe there will be a day. And I want to live my life so that I get into those pearly gates. The goal of that question is to change your physiology and just to kind of like, we come full circle from your morning to what's God? going to do. Yeah. We live our life, me and you both like a life of purpose, life of service, and, you know, that's all we can do. And I know that's how you live your life and you're doing a great job. Well, you know what's interesting and this is kind of a deep subject. I'm sure we'll talk about it once we finish the show a little bit. But, you know, I hear so many people talk like

even in real estate, you know, in the seminar business, build generational wealth with real estate investing or leave a legacy. Like to me, look, I don't have kids. You know, maybe I'll have them someday. But my legacy to me is the people I come in contact with in this lifetime and not just in this lifetime, but in today. Like, if I could make your life better today than it was before you met me, that's the legacy. You know, I was in TSA pre-check in the Miami airport this morning. The line was really long. And there was a late, you don't see that many friendly TSA agents, right? No. But there was a lady this morning that like changed my day and she was smiling and all these

people were like, you know, it was morning. People were stressed out. Some people were still sleepwalking, you know, it was like 7 a.m. I'm bored of my flight from Miami to LAX. And she was just smiling. And she's like, good morning, everybody. You know, you could come this way. And I looked at it and I said, thank you for being so happy.

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

Like give people the benefit of the doubt. I know you asked me like what I what was the question like what do what do what do what do I want God say to me? You know, when I'm in front of the early gates. But you know, I I just hope he says come on in, Brad. You've you've lived a good life. You've you've lived according to my principles. You know, you've lived according to my will. you know, you followed my commandments and you get to come inside.

Let's go. Brad Sumrock guys, soon to be Sumrock Capital. Hopefully he's killing it in the real estate investment game. And if people want to connect to you, how do they connect with you? Yeah, they go to Bradsomrock.com and there's no C in my last name. So it's BRA-D-S-U-M-R-O-K.com. You can find all the information. I got free content to events that I do, you know, periodically throughout the year.

And also all my social media is the same. It's B-R-A-D, S-U-M-R-O-K. There are some copycat accounts out there that have like underscores and, you know, like one different letter and that stuff. None of that stuff's me. So if you get messages for me selling crypto or like precious metals or some weird, you know, like investment stuff, anything. Me. That's a copycat account.

There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that out there. All right, Brad Sumrock on all social media platforms, platforms and Bradsonrock.com. Thanks, Brad. Thanks for coming on. Awesome, man. I had a great time.