Wake Up to Wealth - The Secret of Investing in Dirt with Brandon Rooks

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

In episode 29 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Brandon Rooks, the CEO of Rockstar Capital Group, as he explains the importance of building strong relationships with investors and the strategies that have helped him maintain a stellar reputation in the industry.Tune in to hear their insightful discussion on wealth, investment strategies, and personal growth.TIMESTAMPS[00:01:36] Navy veteran's journey to real estate.[00:05:34] Investing in dirt.[00:09:00] Becoming your own bank.[00:13:01] Profitable real estate investments.[00:18:09] Disrupting the real estate industry.[00:19:36] Investor care and capital raising.[00:25:04] Raising capital effectively.[00:28:04] KISS method in investment strategy.[00:33:42] Creating wealth through action.[00:36:06] Freedom through passive income.[00:39:06] Fastest path to wealth.QUOTES"But I will say every investor out there, the lifeblood of growth of the real estate investor is your access to capital." - Brandon Brittingham"If you help enough other people achieve their goals, then you never have to worry about your own." - Brandon Rooks"People wanna feel important, and my investors should feel important. Our success is based on them investing with us." - Brandon RooksSOCIAL MEDIA LINKSBrandon BrittinghamInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittingham/Brandon RooksInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockstarcapitalgroup/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandonrooks1/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcg-rockstar807hp/WEBSITEBrandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/homeRockstar Capital Group: https://www.rockstarcapitalfund.com/

This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. Hey, what's up, everybody? We are back with another episode of Wake Up to Wealth. And I can't say enough about all of you guys for just a few weeks ago, we hit number one in the United States in the investing category. We leapfrogged Dave Ramsey, which is pretty amazing

considering how big of a show that guy has. And we are staying between number one and number three and that's all because of you guys supporting the show so I just wanted to give a huge thank you to all of you guys out there and today we've got my homies coming on today and it's also a sponsor of the show uh Brandon Rockstar Rooks what's up brother? Living the dream, brother. So Brandon has seen real estate from a lot of different sides, been in the investment side for a really, really long time, but has seen multiple facets of this business. Very interesting story.

It's, you know, besides him being a homie, one of the smartest guys I know in the investment space, for people that don't know you that are listening to this, give us the high level, like you're a little bit about your background. Went in the Navy right out of high school. Read two books while I was in the Navy, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. And when I got out of the Navy, I did not want to do anything with electronic warfare, which is what my specialty was. I was an anti-ship missile defense operator, saw three tours in the Gulf, I'm considered a combat desert storm Navy veteran. But I came out

and I just went into sales and I've been selling since I was a kid. It's just, I was born to be a salesperson and got out of the Navy, sold MCI long distance, cars at Greeley Dodge in Colorado, started a mobile disc jockey business. Then I got head hunted into in-home water treatment sales. Then I got headhunted into the mortgage industry and became a loan officer in Kansas City. That was where my foray into the real estate world happened. I've never made a cold call in the real estate arena. I just basically sent letters out to all of my clients that I had when I got into mortgage business and started doing refinances and purchases.

And then I got connected with investment lending and just started crushing it in the early 2000s. And I was just, I was funding investment loans left and right. And it was really because of the method. Rather than me trying to figure out how much money I could make on the loan, I just charged all of my investors a 1.5% rate and then gave them a par rate. So I was beating every lender in the country by a point on the rate. And that in turn meant that even when we had the real estate collapse in 2008, all the clients I had helped

didn't lose their properties because I gave them stellar rates and I convinced them, don't just do zero down or 5% down, throw a little extra down because of the rate I'm giving you. Everybody got to keep their properties and it's really where I started to build my investor base in the real estate arena is by making those choices. But got headhunted over into the full scale, large development sales at Lake of the Ozarks. And I had about $86 million in projects under contract with a hedge fund group out of California. And that was 07. And then we all know what happened in 08. And my whole world came crumbling down, right? Lost everything, had to file bankruptcy, but I did not let any of my investors lose their money. And there was a lot of people had deposits of my look, I don't care if it takes me a year, five years, 10 years, as soon as I can

make up the deposits you put down on that, I'm going to make it up for you. And I did that. And that built my reputation as being someone that stood behind the investment. So that's kind of when I got into real estate. And it kind of sucked because I'm like, start from scratch in 2010, but I jumped back in and started helping people just buy some little lots as kind of like a buy and hold strategy. Then I got back into connecting with renovators and builders that I knew from around the country and I started helping investors start investing in fix and flip, turnkey renovations and new construction.

Long story short, in 2015, kind of at the peak of when I was selling turnkey rental properties, I sold 954 doors across the US. And then I saw the prices start to climb and the rates were still doing good, but I saw the cap on cap return, cash on cash and the cap rates start to come down. It came down below the number I was comfortable with. And that's when I moved into raising money

and private capital to actually invest in the builders. And that kind of shifted and changed. And that's where I met today. And that high level is we basically came down to now all we do is investors invest with me. I lend it to my strategic partners in the Southeast, but we are in and out at dirt. So I found a way to cashflow on land.

We'll talk about that a little bit later in the podcast. So that's kind of where I'm at. Love sales, dumb luck, got into being a hedge fund manager, so to speak. We're now sitting at about probably around $75, $80 million in capital raised, and all we do is invest in dirt. Yeah. So, yeah, you've done a lot in a short period of time. And so where do you think the turning point was where you said, man, this investment,

and I'm asking for a reason because there's so many facets of real estate that don't go into the investment side of real estate. And I just, I feel like if you are selling real estate on the retail side or you're a loan officer, you understand this business, but if you're on the retail side or you're a loan officer, you understand this business. But if you're not investing in it, you're essentially like a damn transaction coordinator, right? Which look, there's nothing wrong with that.

I made a ton of money selling a ton of real estate, but I realized a long time ago that being on the investment side is where true wealth is built. Like where did you, was there a moment? Was there a transaction? Like where did you, where did you kind of pivot and say, man, I got to get on this investment side and I really got to learn and do and understand this? You know, I had invested myself and bought some of those turnkey renovations and that was a great path to setting me up for the next place. So I did do those and then I had maxed out my mortgage loans

that I could do under Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, whatever. And then I raised some capital and we went into some larger scale projects and we did buy multiple units. I think at one point, in 2021, I believe I was probably sitting at either owning or being a fund manager and investor in each of those funds and had about 500 doors. So that was because owning real estate is the quickest way to wealth that there is a lot of tax advantages and benefits. But I hit a point where for me that we were able to sell out of all those doors and basically become the bank, which I liked.

I liked that better. I liked being the bank because, you know, usually the banks always win, maybe not SVP out there and get San Francisco. No, but I mean, there you're, if you at everybody that's that's that's listening to this. George Anton wrote a book called Become Your Own Bank. And I read that in my how long goes that been? It's been a long time. It was probably I'd say 10 or 12 years ago, it might even have been longer than that. And it gave me the idea of becoming a lender, understanding the debt model and understanding how banks work.

To your point, banks traditionally don't lose. Right. Yeah. And you just keep recycling the money, right? So investors invest with us. We lend it to our strategic partners. Like I said, we're in and out of dirt. So we're funding lots for new construction builds. When you're in the new construction arena, you know you're A to Z, right? And you've pretty much got it all done. When you get into a fix and flip

or a rental or a burr or any of those types of things, there's a lot of unknowns that can happen grabbing an existing property. Then when you go in to start turning it, just things could happen. I gravitated more towards, okay, what is a constant? What do we know? And you know that the dirt is usually about 20 percent of the value of a property on average. Sure. Right?

And then so we did the lots and then my partners that I had got into a little bit different scale where we kind of fell into it, but we'd learned that you could take large pieces of ground and just get it fully permitted, shovel ready, engineered. So like the plat map and how many lots there are and what the size of the dots and then sell it off to the national builders which you've got some experience with this and just make a killing and that was really it we fell into it we would build those developments at one point in time. And because our build cost was so much higher than like a national builder, we had to work three times as hard to make this profit.

And we learned that if we did it right, and we just got all this ground ready and then sold it to the builders and they could put shovels, equipment on the ground the next day and start construction, we actually profited more. Yeah. You make more. So we didn't have all the carrying costs. We didn't have all the unseen that could happen, the labor shortages and the supply chain. None of that. It was just in and out of dirt. Dirt never changes. It just becomes more and more valuable. And that's what we learned. So the profit margins my strategic partners have are on average 40% to 60%. So they take a piece of ground from start to finish and their profit margins are on average 50%. So with that and

how we've structured our strategic partnership, they pay us a really strong interest rate when we lend them the money for acquisition, entitlement, and soft cost, which mostly banks won't do. Right. Right. They're scared of them. Banks want mostly banks won't do. Right. Right. They just want them to buy the ground. Yeah. Buy the ground, put the money down, carry it out.

And then that's where you get into trouble. So it, and I'll, we can talk more on that a little bit later, but effectively, even if I'm charging them between 20 and 30% annualized return, which I know sounds too good to be true. But if you understand how that works, by the time they get that ground ready and sold off and they have their, let's call it 50% profit, the interest rate that I charge for that 12 months actually becomes about a 2% interest carry on the entire project.

Yeah, it's nominal, but a bank still won't do it. That's why you have alternative investors like us. Much like you, we get to proudly say that we've never missed a quarterly distribution. We've never paid less than the preferred interest that we've offered. We've had six profit sharing interest quarters in a row. And what we've helped in LTV, which is another important factor, is this 75 million that we've raised for my strategic partners, they're now sitting on $1.5 billion of retail ground in their pipeline. So at 50% of that, that's 750 million.

So I've got a 10% LTV against the profits that they're expecting. So it's a man, it doesn't get much better than that. So this is, you know, this is obviously a very profitable niche that you you've discovered and and really been able to leverage it and make it work really well. You know, how did you figure this out? and really been able to leverage it and make it work really well. How did you figure this out? When you think investing in real estate, you don't wake up usually and say, hey, I'm gonna go after dirt and figure this out.

It's a great play. I've done it, not at the skill you've done it, but to your point, we were doing developments and I had a couple nationals come knock on our door and say, hey, before you start that next one, we'll buy the ground from you at X. And I said, shit, I can't build the houses

and make that much money, right? So how did you, I mean, how did you figure this out? Was it a deal that you did? It was just an idea you had? Like, how did you get to this point? So it was a combination of a few things and we called it a little bit of dumb luck It was just an idea you had? How did you get to this point? It was a combination of a few things and we called it a little bit of dumb luck that we kind of fell into it, but fell into it and then realized that it was like a light bulb

moment. It was one specific piece of ground. It was a piece of ground that we called the Oneida Parcel out in Charlotte, North Carolina, which by the way, our strategic partners, we're operating in the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, and Texas currently. But we have the ability to scale this across the country with, and we sell to 14 of the top 25 national builders in the country. And they're always begging us to come to their markets like, I can't raise capital fast enough, you know, you have to give me some time. But it was one piece of ground. It was going to be 99 Townhomes.

We picked it up for $3 million from the bank, a legacy lot from the 2008 collapse. And no sooner than we bought it, Ryan Holmes, their rep, Tim Samuels came to us and said, hey, we were getting ready to buy that ground. And our partner, Lindsey Jarvis said, well, you're too old, too fat and too slow, I guess. And he tracked us down and he's like, look, if you ever want to sell it, call us first. And we were sitting on it. We were building other stuff, single family homes and some scattered lots and some smaller parcels we're working on.

And it was about every month or so Tim would kind of come reach out, hey, you haven't pulled a permit, you haven't started. He goes, yeah, yeah, we're getting to it. But then one day, you know, he was just persistent enough. Lindsay said, fine, you know, come sit with us, make an offer. I assume Ryan Holmes is on your back about trying to figure out how to get that piece of ground. And I'll keep it short for the podcast, but he brought an offer.

And it was like, what the hell? This doesn't make any sense. The offer was over $6 million. And we're like, man, even if we, like you said, even if we built the project all the way out to the end, we were going to make like, yeah, we're going to make like 20,000 a door, but this made us make 33,000 a door and we never had to build anything. And it was that light bulb moment. It was just like, why the hell would we ever continue building when we could do this? So we just started going after more ground. And it wasn't long after that Tim Samuels was let go from Ryan Homes, which he'd been there for years.

And he was known as the godfather of land in the Carolinas. And they let him go to replace him with some young buck out of college, you know, thinking that this guy could do the same things that Tim would do. And they didn't have to pay him, you know, $350, $400,000 a year. Well, when they did that, they lost 1600 lots that they had LOIs on. And some that were under contract because they let everybody know that Tim was no longer with the company and those sellers were like, well, Tim's not there. Right.

He's the guy. Yeah. That's a sales lesson. That's a lesson for any business owner out there. If you've got a guy that's known as the godfather of anything, don't you ever let him know. Similar story to me, right? I was with a company and he thought I was running too hard and too fast. And so, well, I think we need to kind of part ways.

And that didn't work out so well for him. It worked out great for me because it was kind of like that door that opened. Well, shit, I don't have a job and a silent partnership in this anymore. I'm going to have to go to work. But that's okay. That happened in December of 2016. And the next year I reached out to my investors and all the investors reached out to me like, hey man, where are you at?

And I said, well, I couldn't call you, but you could always call me. And I made almost a million dollars the next year helping people invest in real estate and with some of the contacts that I had. But you just don't let go of the guy. But that was what it was that one piece of ground. And then Lindsay Jarvis being from New Zealand just doesn't have all these preconceived ideas and notions of how business works in the US.

He's like, he just started asking questions. Well, then Tim came on and says, Tim's got, I got an idea. I can reach out to all the guys like me in these other markets. They can find us the ground. If Rockstar can continue to raise money so that we can get this stuff locked up or put it under contract or control it, then we can grab ground, do all of the soft cost entitlements, get it fully permitted, and then we can take it to all the builders.

And it was just, you know, the circle we run in. We're like, there's never a can't. It's like, how can you? 100%. And we just decided to do something different that nobody else had really done. And we've actually just recently been called a disruptor in the industry. And we've had two top execs from top 10 builders in the country leave their company recently to come join our operation. Like you guys are sitting on the line. This is brilliant. And I also just found out that if you ranked us for the amount

of lots we control currently that we've like, we control them or own them, we would be ranked as the number 16th builder in the country for lots, the amount of lots that we own. We currently have pipelines about 56,000 and about 33,000 that are locked up tighter than a frog's asshole. Sorry. No, you can. They're used to me. But I turned it into, okay, for me, it's always been about my investors. How do I make my investors money? If I help, same old Zig Ziglar thing, if you may help enough other people achieve their goals, then you never have to worry about your own. And I also kind of do the Walmart method.

I'm generous to my investors. I couldn't make more than I make by structuring my management fees and operations differently. I could take a higher GP profit, but I don't. I've always been focused on making sure my investors make like about a 15% return annually or better. So that means I structured everything so that they win. And anybody, and you know this and anybody that you talk to, it's my investors first. I take care of them first. And then I never have to worry about my income, which is now, it's a healthy seven figure income, not bad for a kid with a GPD. They grew up blue collar. But

it's really about just taking care of my investors and the business model we have. There's just so much profit in it that it allows us to do that. But yeah, it's been fortunate, very fortunate. So one of the things that, granted, you've had to be really good at raising capital to get to this point, right? So now I, and look, you know, I could be go against the grain and say this, but I do believe this. I don't think everyone is good at raising capital. I think there are certain people who are good at it.

Obviously the treatment of your investors of being a good steward of their money is one thing, but I would say every investor out there, if you're listening to this, in any niche you're in, the lifeblood of growth of the real estate investors, your access to capital. So if you don't think you're the guy

or the guy to raise capital, you get somebody on your team that can do that, right? And learn this because I just, it's, it's so important. What do you think for you, right? You've been raising capital for a long time. Like, um, what made you good at it? When did you develop the skill? Obviously you're consistently developing it, but like, where did that start of like, ah, I, a path for me to grow is being able to raise capital and then kind of, where did that start of like, ah, I, a path for me to grow is being able to raise capital and then kind of, when did you jump in and

what do you think has made you successful doing it? Cause obviously $75 million for, for anything to raise is not easy to do. It, it's a few key principles that, that I think is attuned to my success is one, and so anybody that is in the capital raising space, all my business is from referrals. It's from my existing investors that I helped make great investments and stood behind and jumped in the trenches if something had to be fixed during all those other things. I've never let a call, email or text go unanswered in the same day. People want to feel important and my investors should feel important. Our success is based on them investing with us. And you know my hours that I just, I just, I'm wired.

No drugs, no cocaine. It's just natural energy. I'm up around five in the morning and then I don't know what to do with myself if I'm not working to be honest with you. So it's just reaching out to my investors, keeping them abreast of what's going on, doing some regular quarterly reports,

doing some special reports or memos when things go awry and all the MSM is touting all this doom and gloom, investors get nervous and is their investment safe? It's just about being present for them and making sure that they feel, know, and understand that their investment is solid and that I've got their back. And it's not to say we haven't had some hiccups. And the hiccups usually came with the renovation properties and the fix and flips. And I've had a couple of renovators that, you know,

I did my due diligence and homework and I always dipped my toe in the water with them first. And we've had a couple that went bad. And for the most part, I was able to rescue, rectify, bring the investors capital back, and even some with, if not just the principal, maybe some extra interest. And because I didn't quit until I made it right. But there was a handful that I had to write a check to, and it's just my integrity, which by the way, they pay. So to me, if I help that person find an investment, that's my responsibility and I want to protect their principles. So I've had

to write some checks and that's okay with me because that's what an investor should be able to rely on is if they're working with someone that's helping them invest, they need to be able to count on that person. And it doesn't bother me in the least. I'm not just one of those guys that said, oh, well, investing is a risk. You knew it was a risk when you went into it. So sorry, you're out $30,000, $40,000, $50,000. I just didn't sit well with me. So I wrote a check. Didn't have to do it a lot, but you know, yeah, I tend to get long-winded. So I'm trying to cut myself so you can answer all the right questions.

Yeah, no, no, I appreciate that. Do you, for someone that's listening though, that might be like, they're early in their journey of just like, what do you think it is that is one skill you could give somebody that's listening to this that says, I want to learn or get better at raising capital? What's a piece of advice you'd give them? Follow up one, go, you and I have talked about this before. There's business inside your business, whatever it is you're doing. You know, if you're in the real estate investment arena, you've either invested or you've created connections or you've worked with some investors.

You have to one, have something that's worth raising capital for, right? I believe that you wanna keep it as simple as possible. I've seen so many operators and fund managers just complicated crap out of their offering. I gotta stop doing that right there. That is probably, listen to what he just said. I was literally on the phone with two people yesterday

that wanted to start a fund. And in the first five minutes I said, I'm confused, which means an investor is going to be confused. And I said, if you can turn this into a simple debt offering, you're going to target a fixed return with some upside that you can spell out. Simple, people say yes. Complex, people say no, because they don't understand it.

That's a great piece of advice. Yeah, it is. And if you're going to raise capital, you need a structure. I would recommend for someone just getting in, probably go to a 506B if you've got some people you've worked with, because that will allow you to bring in some non-accredited, sophisticated investors. Also make your offering feasible. I see guys that come out like, well, it's got to be 50,000 minimum. Well, guess what? A lot of people don't just have 50,000 laying around and if they're a good investor, they've invested it. So my offer has always been like 10,000 minimum, a thousand dollar shares. I want to make it so that you can use

qualified or non-qualified funds. So self-directed IRAs, Solo 401Ks. Yeah. Just make it so that anybody that wants to invest has the ability to invest. Now, 506B has some drawbacks. It drawbacks for me because we started to grow. Preston Pysh.(001195214274 506Bs because you set a number, you can only have 35 non-accredited investors. Once you hit the number or your date, you close it. And we learned that because we're growing, we learned that a Reg A Tier 2 worked better for us because there's no cap on how many non-accredited investors we can have. Which by the way, all of my non-accredited investors we can have, which by the way, all of my

non-accredited investors are just simply referrals. They're family members or the friends of my accredited investors that now say, you've never missed a distribution. You always come through. I feel comfortable referring some of my family because a lot of it, think about this, if you're raising capital, your investor might invest, but they might not want to tell anybody else about you until they've got a tried and true tested performance. They want to see you perform for a few years. But make it simple. You don't need A class, B class, C class, and if someone puts in 100,000 more, 100,000, they get a higher return.

Good. Unclutter that shit, right? Keep it simple, stupid, right? The kiss method. These things work. So we kept it simple. Everybody earns 10% preferred. All the investors get 60% of all the leftover interest that we earned in a quarter. And after management fees and operation costs, which my management fees and operation costs is like 3% of the total capital raised. Which is low. For as big as you guys are. Yeah, it's raised. Which is low for as big as you guys are. Yeah, it's low. Yeah, especially for as big as you guys are.

Yeah. And, you know, yeah, well, sometimes, yeah, we work our asses off, though, too, though. I should be hiring more, but I'm also, this is a family legacy, you know, and it's my family that works for me because I really don't trust my investors to just anybody. I've seen companies blow up where someone came in, yeah, let me come in and raise capital for you. And, you know, they come in and then they've got their own little side thing and they start swindling your investors. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is, the funny thing is where Brandon and I are in a lot of the same circles and rooms. And I'd say the last three ish years. The one thing that I always hear from a bunch of people is and look, I'm not painting everybody with the same brush.

I'm just telling you guys in our circles, what I hear consistently is myself and him are the only two people delivering on all of the places they invested their money. That's what I hear consistently the last few years. You're not wrong. It's hard to go wrong with a guy named Brandon in our circle. So if you guys are listening to this, you guys know me, you know, I won't let anybody sponsor the show that I don't trust.

I will not recommend anybody that I don't trust. And frankly, if you have invested with me or you've reached out to me, you know that the only other person I've ever recommended outside of myself or one of my partners is Brandon's fund. So if you guys are paying attention and you're listening to this and you want a place to park money, um, he's somebody that I trust. And that's one of the reasons why I asked him to come on the show and talk to you guys, because, uh, there's for a lot of people out there, the door is closed for

you to get on investment in investments like this. And he created something that you guys could do, which I think is great. So if someone's listening to this and they're like, Hey, I want to invest with you. Then what's the best way for them to reach out to you? Best way is you can go to our website, rockstarcapitalfund.com. You can email us at info at rockstarcapitalfund.com or reach out Brandon at rockstarcapitalfund, whatever. So that's the easiest way to connect with us. And it's so important everybody knows it's not pressure. We don't capture your email and start blowing you up. I'm of the mind that if you'd like to invest, we'll help you,

but we're certainly not going to chase you. And I'm not going to blast you with a bunch of emails and texts and all that stuff. It's just not us. We're 100% referral only anyway. But we are an evergreen reg A offering and we're like a lending offering, which means people can invest with us. They can add to their investment. So when you get your distribution, it's like, man, I want to add a little bit more. They have a redemption option, 100% redemption option. I do say we've got to stay for at least 12 months and see how it performs.

But if you had to pull your money out, you could say, man, I invested 20K, but I need 10K really bad. As long as you've been in the year, we can get 10K of that back to you. And it doesn't cost you time. You get all 10,000 of it back, right? Because like a bank, it's just as long as your money's with us, we're gonna keep it working

and paying you interest. But we've been averaging 15% returns to our investors. We hit 16.5 in 2021. We'll probably hit 17% next year. So I would just say that if you're earning 15%, 16%, 17% a year and you decide to get out, shame on you because that's beating the stock market. But again, it's all about helping our investors start to earn consistent returns. I don't charge fees to our investors.

I make my money from what the fund does. So my investors aren't paying me. We're earning together. I have seven figures invested. I have shares and ownership and we have equity ownership in the companies that we are lending to on that ground and on that dirt, which is good. More stability for us. I've found a way to diversify, even though it's three companies, they're in multiple states and multiple areas. So it's still diversification.

And for now with what they're doing, there's no reason for me to go and lend to anybody else because I'm not just gonna lend to anybody. That's for damn sure. Gotta have a proven track record. And it's gonna get to a point where we'll start to hit that point where we can take on some new people to fund or support, but it'll be within our organization

and it'll be an affiliate of who we're working with. But long story short is the only way you're ever going to start to create wealth, which is why I love this Wake Up to Wealth podcast, is you've got to take action. You can't just read a hundred books and jot down all these notes and talk about what you're going to do. You know what? I just got in and did it.

Just like you. You're like, idea? Boom. How do we act on this idea? Let's make it happen. And you know what? There's going to be some failures. But if you remember some of the basic principles of investing, diversify,

right? Do your due diligence so that you bet on the jockey, not the horse, right? And I've seen people invest with people and they just didn't do their due diligence. One guy recently just ran off with about $23 million and he'd been turned out it was a policy scheme and he had a record and he was in one of our networks and the guy that just didn't vet him. It's like, holy shit. Just do your homework. Make sure someone has a proven track record. Anybody could open a Reg D or 506B or 506B. Anybody can have a great idea. A pro forma. They could put anything they want on that pro forma. But yeah, you know, you got to see someone that's been in the thick of it and done it.

And more importantly, make sure they got skin in the game. You know, when you're working with somebody that's wanting your capital, are they also invested in their own shit? So that's really important, but anybody can start to have wealth, but you've got to put your money to work. A lot of people have this concept or idea of they start making money and, ooh, pay my house off. I never pay my house off. That's a tax deduction. Plus, if anything never did go bad, we have a black swan event and something some way, chip reform, you know,

went to hell. Guess what the bank doesn't want? They don't want your house if it's fully mortgaged. But if you own it free and clear, they're like, well, there's some money we can take from you. So, you know, God, we could talk on this for hours. You know, we could have, we could probably do a full day on real estate. That question about it. The last question I'll ask you, it's the same question I ask everybody. It is, and it can be whatever the version is for you. What is waking up to wealth? What does that mean to you? You know, to me at this stage in life, it is freedom. Don't get me wrong. I'm at this desk probably 10, 12 hours a day, but I love what I do. If I wanted to go take two weeks off and go to a little bit with my wife, I can do that.

And waking up to wealth means I've achieved the level of where my passive income exceeds my earned income. I can do whatever I want to do. Doesn't mean I'm gonna do it. Doesn't mean I'm gonna go get stupid and start buying a 100 foot yacht and buying houses all over the country. I still live as if I'm a blue jeans, blue collar,

poor kid, so to speak. And when I do invest, I invest in, I don't just invest in things like this. Sometimes we all have to figure out to spread our money that we make a little bit. So, and I think you've seen some pictures. I got a nice little room on the other side of my desk here. Those things that I have in there, I could sell for more than I paid for them.

But it's the freedom to not be worried about, are my bills paid? Can I take off for two weeks, three weeks or four weeks and the company will still run and I have someone behind me that helps take care of that, you know, and now that we can pretty much go from anywhere in the world anyway, so I'm accessible wherever I go, you know, but it's that freedom of just, you know, not living paycheck to paycheck. And also, I feel like I've built the right thing. My investors, you're a rockstar investor if you work with us and you're not just an investor, you've really become a friend.

So I have 518 really good friends, and that was built up from, matter of fact, I just did the numbers on this the other day, I think we're gonna put it on our website. 2017, I think it was 70 investors that I was working with. And from that time to now, we're at 518, with $75 million. Think about that for a minute. Some of our people are $10,000 investors, some are 100,000, some are seven figures. But we don't lose a lot to attrition. I mean, our investors stay with us and they keep bringing us more investors.

So do what's right and waking up to wealth won't be that hard. And by God, by all means, it's not going to happen overnight. Social media, Instagram, and Jason. Oh my God. It is guys, it's going to take time. Do the right thing. Put in the work, invest smartly, start to put some money aside. Investing yourself is one thing. And a lot of people that are do that and investing in your business is one thing and you've got to do that, but you should start cutting out some money and having it go to things like Brandon's, you know, Brittingham's fund,

having it go to stuff like ours. And Brandon's in real estate, you know, hard assets that generate revenue and plus has tax advantages. And then, you know, I'm a bank and we lend on dirt and there's nothing that you can do to fuck up dirt. You know, it's just like, it just keeps going up in value. So again, it's just being really smart, taking your time. And there's so many things to choose from. But I will say this, and you and I both know this, that the fastest path to wealth is through real estate in my eyes. So many other unknowns when you invest in the stock market, you can't control what's going on in the stock market. You can't control what's going on in the world and everything going on in the world affects

what's going on in the stock market. So just be smart and sure, throw some money in Bitcoin and crypto and throw some in the stock market, but you'll find out time and time again, real estate has always outperformed both of those things. So yeah, that's kind of it. Freedom, waking up, I can do whatever I want to do. That's a good one. So I just want to say thank you again.

Thanks for coming here, pouring in knowledge. Look him up. He told you how to get in touch with him if you have any interest in investing with him. But thank you for coming and giving us a ton of knowledge today. I appreciate you being on the episode. Man, always happy to get on with you. And I guess we'll be seeing you in San Diego, right? Yes, sir. I'll bring Dylan with me to that one too. Thanks, brother.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way we have good updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time!