Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - How to Build Wealth in Real Estate with OPM | Justin Brennan

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Right About Now with Ryan Alford Join media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.     Resources: Right About Now Newsletter | Free Podcast Monetization Course | Join The Network | Follow Us On Instagram | Subscribe To Our Youtube Channel | Vibe Science Media   SUMMARY In this episode of "Right About Now with Ryan Alford," real estate CEO Justin Brennan shares his journey from family roots in property investing to building a large multifamily portfolio using syndication and other people’s money (OPM). He offers practical advice on leveraging skills and sweat equity, emphasizes the importance of mindset, and discusses transitioning from a W2 job to investing. Justin also highlights his philanthropic work supporting military families and disadvantaged youth, underscoring the value of community, collaboration, and purposeful giving in real estate and wealth-building. TAKEAWAYS Real estate investing, with a focus on multifamily apartments and syndication. The strategic use of other people's money (OPM) to scale investments. The importance of moving money in capitalism and its economic implications. Tax benefits associated with commercial real estate investments. Mindset shifts required for transitioning from a W2 job to real estate investing. Personal background and family history in real estate investing. Philanthropic goals, including support for military families and disadvantaged youth. Practical advice for aspiring real estate investors, emphasizing starting with available resources. The significance of community and collaboration in wealth-building. Viewing money as a tool for freedom and positive impact rather than a negative force.  

If you have access to, quote-unquote, capital, that capital doesn't need to commit. They just need to say, dude, go find a great deal and we'll commit. That's all you need because finding great deals is 90% of the battle. And then it's a matter of just knowing how to run them and put them together. But if the capital's there that can strike relatively quickly, then everybody gets to make money together. And if everybody's making money together, everybody's happy. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month,

Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome. Right about now. I've got a new format here we're working on. Calling it now in 10. We go as long as we want.

We make the rules. Y'all know how I am. I make the rules as we go. What I always do is bring you the best, the brightest, the coolest people. The greatest cats on the earth. I got Justin Brennan. He's real estate. the Britain Pole Capital Group.

And it just seems like a cool dude, man. He's in San Diego today, Las Vegas tomorrow. We don't ever know where you're at, Justin. What's up, brother? How's it going, man? Good day to be alive, my friend. This is true, man. I say any day you can wake up and be grateful for what you got and breathe and everything

that God gave you, that's a good day. What the hell got you in real estate? I stay in my lane for the most part. I have my hands in a lot of things, but once you get to understand it, I'm kind of in the same lanes. They just might have different stripes or something. I am not in the real estate space. I own some real estate.

What got Justin Brennan into the real estate space? I grew up in a bit. My grandmother started it for our family, and she got into apartments when she, you know, was here in San Diego for years. And God bless her soul until 91 years of age, she was driving around her little S-10 Chevy truck collecting rent from all our tenants in San Diego. And then she kind of passed a little bit of that along to my dad. My dad was that trans, I'd say that transitional character.

Ed Mylett talks about it in his book, one more about that person that took the family from zero to hero, completely self-made. grew up in a really bad environment. His dad died when he was three. He got the crap beat out of him by his stepdad, went to Vietnam, came back, and he just saw some crazy stuff in his life. But he was that guy that said, hey, I'm going to start building some homes and doing some things. And I learned construction and development from him. And he took a zero to hero. Basically, he started building stuff all in the West Coast in the United States, big construction projects, multifamily, condos, townhome, single family. You went through four market cycles, made it through all of them, except the financial

crisis of 2008, and that took him down. And he had a massive bankruptcy in 2008, and imploded everything, and I watched that happen. I'd always kind of learned about real estate. My dad always taught us the value of hard work, value of a dollar, and he'd take us on his job sites and make us dig ditches, simply for the purpose of digging the ditch and learning how to grind it out and earn a little bit of money. But what I did learn watching a lot of that stuff, got me into the multifamily apartment space, because I didn't want to go through kind of the mimicking the cycles of real estate markets, which he did, because he would build and sell, build and sell, build and sell. and he would just ride the roller coaster.

I wanted more consistency, which is what apartments brought. I got into more safer asset class and that is apartment rentals. And that's kind of what started it. You buy large apartments, multi-family, and then manage the rentals. Am I hearing that right? Yeah, but we started with one condo. I mean, literally, in the midst the financial crisis in 2010, we bought a $100,000 condo.

And then we turned into a duplex and a four-plex. But then we got to a point where we said, we want to grow. We were trying to do it all with our own money. And that's just the biggest mistake. ever and I try and tell people this because we don't know any better. We didn't understand this game of OPM, other people's money and how to scale money. I had to learn it. It was a learned skill set. And it wasn't until about 2018 after we had about 20 units that we had built on our own and all our capital was stuck in him. And we said, well, we want to grow much bigger, but we can't because we ran out of our own money.

I started looking at this game called syndication and in OPM using our money with some of other people's money, OPM, and how can we go buy apartments together and bigger ones and scale our money? And then from literally those 20 units in about $3 million in assets in 2018, it took us eight years to get that. Within three years, by 2021, we had over 1,000 units in almost $200 million in assets because we learned that skill set of how to scale money. Same money. We just learned how to scale it with other people, and that took us off. I mean to throw us off board here, but when I hear OPM, as long as OPM and not OPP, I'm good. I'm just saying my feeble mind understanding this, and I like to be the voice of the audience here, making sure. When I think of other businesses, venture capital, taking on money,

hey, I've got a business idea and I want to take on money. Is it the same thing, but just name something different in real estate? In a way, because I try and give people the analogy of how this money game works, because it wasn't until a few years ago that I learned this big problem that people have where they either have a job, they're working for someone, or they're self-employed, which simply means if you're a solopreneur, it's not that you have a job anymore. or now you simply own a job because you're a sole entrepreneur. And the whole name of the game, this is a Robert Kiyosaki thing. The whole name of the game is to jump from that into either a business owner or into an

investor role. The whole cash flow quadrants that Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki talks about. But it's just understanding the game of money and how it's not about what you make. It's about what you keep. And so I'd say the biggest problem I found just when talking with people, whether it's high income earners, people earning 50, 60, 80 grand a year, all the way up to multiple. multi-millions of dollars a year is how to avoid taxes. Hands down, that was the biggest problem I kept hearing from people. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm making all this money, but holy cow, now I got

to pay all these taxes. Well, there's got to be a way around this. There's a reason why the IRS puts in place things that people can avoid taxes through legal loopholes. And multi-family apartments is the biggest and best way to do it through what's called bonus depreciation. And you can literally wipe out your taxes for the rest of your life. And it's the craziest thing that people don't understand. That sounds like better than that jillia the month club bonus that car is Brisbane. And it honestly goes back to the founding of capitalism. When you go look at the definition of capitalism, the main part of it is movement of money. And so then I looked into that and I tried to understand like, why is the IRS giving these massive tax breaks to people who move more money when you look at it?

If you move more money, you get more tax breaks. It's that simple. And the only people that move enough money are business owners or investors, which is why business owners and investors get the most amount of tax breaks. And if you're a W-2 employee, you don't because you don't move enough money. And the reason why the IRS wants that money moved is because when you move that money, you create jobs, opportunities, you take risk. And when you do that, you create capitalism, movement of money. And that's the whole science behind it. And if they know if you're moving more money, you're creating more opportunity, which means capitalism grows and moves.

And they generate more tax revenue because of it. That's why they give the people that move the most money, the tax breaks up front. So you do more of that, which is why multifamily apartments, commercial real estate in general is one of the biggest tax writeoffs ever. And it continues to be. Something really interesting you're talking about there, Justin, is you don't learn that in the textbook. The way you just described capitalism and all that, like, I remember my business classes at Clemson, which I barely paid attention to. A test guy and a D pay attention guy. Teachers didn't like me.

They don't teach you that. And that's one of the things like as an entrepreneur now learning. I'll have employees or teammates over time. They'll be like, how'd you do that deal? We didn't make any money on that. I was like, no, but I kept $3 million moving in the business. Money coming in, money going out. I make money with money that's sitting there.

in the short term using a little bit of other people's money at time that I might not ultimately make profit on the transaction with which brought that money in, but I'm making it elsewhere because there's money moving and it's a little different than what you're describing, but it's similar concept, which is totally the movement of money through a business is the lifeblood of it. Same thing with what you're describing on the real estate and taxes side, of course, because that's the way it's supposed to be. I've been preaching this for about a year now with the interest rates thing. And I understand inflation, we need more money moving. If there's there's any problem right now, there's not enough money moving because the interest rates have been high, it's kept on the sidelines. And, you know, refis and other things that would happen, that bring money in, that it just makes the whole thing work. And real estate and real interest rates are tied to that. I get it. We can't have 10% inflation forever and ever and ever. You don't want the other end of that, which is stagnation of money moving much longer. 100%. It's not just in real estate, but if you just take one real estate transaction, you take one 20 unit apartment building that transacts, there's over six.

60 different industries, not people, industries that make money from one single transaction of an apartment building. If you think about that, that's money moving through those different industries, which then jobs, all that stuff happens, which means tax revenue. All that stuff happens as a result of one simple transaction in a commercial real estate building. So why do you think the IRS then gives all these tax breaks to the person that starts that transaction? Because they know that, hey, you'll start it. We're going to get all the revenue from that flow. That's why they do it.

It's not because they love us. Trust me, it's not because they're your friend. They just understand more movement of money, it creates more revenue that comes into them. That's it. How are we helping people every day, Justin? Now, we're using OPM and some of JBM to make more M. I got that part down.

What else are we doing? Somebody asked me this the other day, and I wrote this down earlier this year, because I don't know if you've ever heard this term, Ryan. It was Patrick Bed David that came up with it. He said, there's seven mountains that move people and inspire a nation. And you have to have the business, which helps drive revenue and brings in money for you and your family and things that you're doing. But once you're making money, you can lose motivation.

And so the bigger purpose I would say in life is how are you taking that money or what you're doing in helping others, giving back, leaving a legacy. And so for me, my big three dreams, to be honest with you, is we heavily support the tunnels the towers organization. They basically pay off mortgages of spouses left behind with their kids from first responders or soldiers who die in the line of duty. And they give them a free and clear house because their spouse died who was the provider. They don't have it. They're scared to death and have a safe roof over their head is probably one of the best things that can happen.

So they give them that. So we're a huge proponent. So I want to pay off 10,000 mortgages. That's number one. Number two is the SEAL Future Foundation. My family's big in the military. My dad was Army. My grandfather is a Navy commander of the submarines before he passed. Even my business partner now, former Marine. So we give heavily to the SEAL Future Foundation, which helps transition team guys, seal guys, from kind of that seal life of being a hero and being that camaraderie into the civilian life, which they just don't understand. Imagine being the most elite elite, and then all of a sudden, that's over. And then you have to go into the civilian life where people are complaining about petty crap, and you're sitting there going, bro. I mean, I was just in Afghanistan. You can imagine, right? And so they don't know how to do this mentally, financially, physically. And so it helps them transition so they don't kill themselves because there's an enormous suicide rate amongst Navy SEALs.

It's unbelievable. Most people don't know that. And then the last big one is disadvantaged kids. I was fortunate enough to grow up with a mom and a dad in a middle class, but then became upper class environment. So I was blessed, but most people don't have that starting point, man. And so if you can go in and give a kid who maybe had a really rough beginning, a role model, belief system that they can go make things happen. And it's incredible to watch how that zero to hero journey can happen for them.

And so we give a lot to that. So those are my big three drivers, my family, my kids and all that. Any money and all the money that we're making and doing, you know, the podcast that we created abundance to give a few years ago behind like Mr. Beast, the concept, Mr. Beast. It's all positioned to go help those three main causes. I love those causes. I was hoping you would go there is kind of why I went there. And supporting our troops, people forget freedom's not free.

Anything that supports the men and women that have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the fact that they would ever have to even think twice about a mortgage or suffering or the mental aspect for those that come back, really salute you what you're doing on supporting all of those. I have a father and family that was military. I was not. But my dad was in the Air Force and have a lot of military. in the families. Definitely support you in supporting that. Brennan, what do you tell people in a real

estate perspective? I know you guys are coaching, teaching people how to do what you guys do. Where do you feel like the biggest opportunities are for people out there listening that would want to get into something like this? A lot of people get stuck. I've kind of learned it's all in the mindset. They definitely get stuck with that. I hear people if they're in a W-2 job and maybe they're making decent money, 60, 80, 100 grand a year, whatever it is. And they want to take some of that money and put it into real estate. Maybe they want to start with single family or some rental short-term stuff and then maybe get in some flips or wholesale and properties. And those are all great asset classes, but those also don't give you that long-term generational wealth that people, I hear it all the time. I want

financial freedom. I want more passive income. I want generational wealth. And the only real ways you get even close to that, because there's nothing to truly passive, is through whether it's an apartment building or some other commercial asset. We own mobile home parks. Anything that has a rental recurring money thing to it is going to be great. Heck, great businesses do this, where you can actually create a great business that you're not having to be hands on every day. It just depends on which avenue you love most. For me, real estate's my lane, man. I feel like I came out on my mom's womb learning it from my family because of that, of course, I'm in it. But not everybody starts there. We have so many people, doctors, attorneys, just FedEx drivers. It's unbelievable the amount of people that want to take some of the

money that they've earned and get out of the W-2. They're in a position we're like, hey, in two, three years, man, I want to transition out of this W-2 working for the man and be able to have enough income doing real estate, it's been a dream of mine. How do I make this transition? I hear that all the time. That's actually why we even created the community we did. It wasn't sell mentorships and courses. Anybody can do that. There's plenty of gurus out there, spit and game. It was really how can we create a community of well-trained investors around the United States that are doing deals together, collaborating on money, finding deals, putting them together, co-partnering on them because if everybody's winning and everybody's doing more deals and opportunities, everybody's getting rich and wealthy,

well, good. Now you can actually take that money and wealth and go give back after causes you care about. Maybe it's your church. Maybe it's your family. Maybe it's your kids. Maybe it's traveling. Other things that you love that are philanthropic to you. Money is a great resource for that. Without the money, it makes it hard to go chase other passions you have. 100%. Very few things have been spoken that are more true. Some people like to paint money as bad or something. It enables your ability to do good. Let's not paint it with too broad of a brush. Yeah. I ask people, what does money mean to you? And they'll throw out freedom or tool or other kind of words. And in my mind, when I think of money, I think of choices. If we both have

one dollar, then we technically have the same choices. But if I have a million dollars and you have one dollar, I can do everything you can do. But then I have a million more choices. I mean, that's how my mind works around the money game. And so I see money simply as choices. I can go help more people. I can do more things. I can get back. Obviously, spend time with family, travel, experiences, all those things that are near and dear to all of us. Baseball cards. Baseball cards, collectibles, you know, whatever, shoes. You know, I mean, yeah, for me, I love kiteboarding. You know, I'm a water sports guy, weightboarding, kiteboarding.

I'm in San Diego, right? I don't surf, by the way, but I feel like people, they're like, why don't you surf? I'm like, well, I had a shark problem when I was young. I ask this sort of for myself, maybe he doesn't have a ton of capital, but he's a go-getter. And he gets information. How do you spot these deals? What's a good deal to spot for something like this? I totally get getting in the circles, getting around people, that part, but it's a

Or other things that wouldn't be as obvious as spotting these kind of deals that they might could bring to someone like yourself or other groups? I think you know what I'm asking. Yeah, I do. What people don't fully grasp is that you don't need a lot of capital to start this. What does that mean? I said, well, you have to understand in real estate, you're bringing one of two resources to the table.

And you choose which one you got. You either have what I call the check equity, which is the cash. Or you have what's called the sweat equity, which is the knowledge, the skill set, the ability to go execute. Maybe you can find good deals. Maybe you're a great deal finder. Maybe you can analyze them. Make sure they're a good deal. Maybe you can bring them to the table. You understand how to structure things and put them together. And because of that sweat equity, that knowledge and skill set, you become extremely valuable to people with money. Just to prove this point. Our first deal, I had zero dollars in it. That $100,000 condo, we brought in $25,000 down payment. This was in the

financial crisis. I was getting my ass handed to me. I was a real estate agent in the financial crisis. It was not fun. But I went through it. But I didn't have any money. I just knew we had to buy property. And I had a knowledge and a skill set. I could go find deals. I could analyze them. I could put them together.

I could go structure them and do all that. I could do the property management. I knew how to run. I'd learn this stuff. The skill set of sweat equity. I was at a conference one time and the guy came out and he was asking people, hey, who here in the audience wants to own rental income property? And everybody's like screaming, yeah. And he's like, well, who you're financially right now can afford it?

It's 2008. And like 99% of the hands go down. And he says, here's the secret you're missing. He says, you don't need to have a single dime to own rental income property. He says, you just need to have a friend who has the money to own rental income property. He says, if you can go find great deals, put them together, structure them, manage them, run the show. You become extremely valuable to someone with money. So like the light bulb went off for me and I said, who do I know that's not getting their ass handed to him right now that I could go talk to?

Because I have the ability to go find deals. And then it was my buddy, who's my current business partner. And I went to him and I said, Chris, I don't know how we're going to do this dude, but we need to buy property now. I said, you know and I know. We're like in a dump. We need to go get it. You buy when there's blood in the street, even if it's your blood. It's like the name in the game.

We did. And it was our first condo, man, $100,000. We put $25,000 down. He was the $25,000 down. He was the one that found it, ran it, run it, put it together. We weren't making a ton of money, but it worked. And then from there, we took it and we bought a duplex and then a triplex and a fourplex, all with our own money, like I talked about. But I had very little physical check equity in it in the beginning. Now we do both of that. Now I have a skill set, too. Do you see where I'm going with it? So if you're sitting out there, maybe you only have 10, $10, $20, $30,000 to invest in real estate. And that's it. Well, take some of that capital. because you can do this. And then that's sweat equity. You got to learn how to do this. Then become extremely valuable because now your skill sets up here. You bring a lot to the table from knowledge that you may have a little bit of capital and then a huge pocket of knowledge. Now you can go become a very valuable to people with money. I love it.

It's good advice. You can write the check. It's not easy, but it's simple. We partner with people in our community because some people, they'll come in, they'll learn it. But then they don't have the confidence yet or maybe don't have a ton of capital yet. And that's totally fine. But they can be great deal finders. Being a great deal finder is 80% of the battle right there is finding a great deal.

If you can bring that to the table, we partner with people all the time. We bring them into the co-partnerships, all the general partnership. And we'll co-partner. And then we become the sponsor, basically, helping sign on the loan, raise the rest of the money, put it together, manage it, run it until they get their further knowledge and better knowledge. And then now they're like, dude, I can run this on my own. Sweet. Go for it.

It's like we should do some deals together in South Carolina. Well, you know, I'm going to be out there in North Carolina here pretty soon. We're looking in the Southeast. I love that market. Great market. If you have access to, quote unquote, capital, that capital doesn't need to commit. They just need to say, dude, go find a great deal and we'll commit. That's all you need because finding great deals is 90% of the battle. And then it's a matter of just knowing how to run them and put them together. But if the capital's there that can strike relatively quickly, then everybody gets to make money together. And if everybody's making money together, everybody's happy. 100%. Justin, where can everybody learn more

about what you're doing that were to want to get some help with some of these things and keep up with everything else. Official Justin Brennan on Instagram or YouTube, man. We're trying to put out a bunch of long-form free content. They want to do apartments, get their mindset right. They can go to find Justin Brennan on YouTube. I would love them to check out some of our long-form stuff and see if they like it. I love it, man.

Justin, I like your style. We might could do some deals together. And I do think it's a space that I would like to be in more. I just don't know it. So we'll use your knowledge. I'm not got a capital too. It's more of probably finding some deals. It's got to go look.

Mine's more about rocks, though. I know that I need to turn over. Yeah, people know people to know people. That's like the rule I've learned. You've probably heard this saying, you know, the more hands you shake, the more money you make. Here's my caveat. The only way I'll do that is if you let me, I know you're 6'5, I'm 6 foot and your 200 whatever pounds, but I want to wrestle for that big old thing you have in front of you.

I got a feeling I'm not going to win, but I'm going to sure give a try to it. You can pick me up. I might let you wear it for the day. You can come down. Geez. I'll let you put it on. You can wear it around town. I'll get my best effort.

I'll give my best effort and see what I can pull off. That thing is rad. I mean, hence the, radical. Is it radical? Is that the company? Yeah, radical.

But then the belts got right about now, number one business show on the planet. That's incredible. Yeah. We've been number one on Apple for three years. They can come take it out of my hand if they beat us out of the thing. But we've held that spot. I'll send them the bell when they do it.

You tell me your background, by the way, I didn't know all that with how you got started in the agency field and working with Steve Jobs and all of them. I mean, the Verizon commercial? Like you were the, can you hear me now guy?

It was a national campaign. And I worked on it. That was my very first campaign that I worked on. We spread that word far and wide, spending probably a billion dollars over a 10-year period. And then that spun off into a lot of other things. I worked on all the major smartphone launches and everything. So it was a lot. Yeah, what a great background, man.

What a great background. It was good. Justin, it's great meeting you, great having you on. And we'll definitely follow up after this. Hey, guys, you never find us. Ryan is right.com. We'll have links to all of Justin's stuff. And of course, the highlight clips, how you can learn more about what he's doing.

This seems like a cool guy to do business with. So I tell you to reach out, I think Justin would be a help. He's helping our troops. He's helping the people that make what we do every day possible. So don't forget that. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. I'll write about now.

This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.