Real Estate Investing in an Erratic Market with Brandon Turner #547

This is the episode you need to listen to if you’ve been making excuses for not getting into real estate investing. Our interview today is with Brandon Turner who quite literally wrote the book on investing in real estate. He has published many books on the topic including “The Book on Rental Property Investing: How to Create Wealth With Intelligent Buy and Hold Real Estate Investing”. He was also a former host of the Bigger Pockets podcast with over 100 million downloads and of course that’s a show that’s all about real estate. And today our conversation covers Brandon’s story- how he first got into real estate, how as an entrepreneur he keeps work from overtaking his life, how you can choose an investing strategy, how you should approach cash flow vs appreciation, what to do about current housing market conditions, if being a landlord is ethical, and more!

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Do or Die: Spiced Chocolate Stout by Orpheus Brewing! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

 

Best friends out!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am
Matt Is. Today we're talking real estate investing in an
erratic market with Brandon Turner. That's right, we are doing

(00:28):
a deep dive into real estate investing with the man himself,
Brandon Turner. Uh. He quite literally wrote the book on
real estate investing. Well, actually he I should say books
like books with an S, because he's written about ten
of them. I believe. He was also the former host
of the Bigger Pockets podcast with over one hundred million downloads,
where like basically all they did was talking about real

(00:49):
estate every single episode. Uh. You might know him as
Beardy Brandon on all of the socials. That's the first
time I came across Brandon Turner. And he practices what
he preaches as well. Because the latest numbers I could
find showed that Brandon that that he's an investor with
seven thousand four units. That is a lot of doors. Um.
And so we're gonna go ahead and just cut right

(01:09):
to it since we've got a lot we want to
talk about today. So Brandon, thank you so much for
joining us today on the podcast. Dudes, thank you for
having me. This is uh, this is a dream come true.
You know, when I was seven, I said someday I'm
gonna be on how to money, and today it came true.
Thank you for your predictive powers are impressive and the
fact that you knew we would exist. Yeah, the first
question we ask everyone. By the way, Brandon, we you know,

(01:32):
Matt and I we like to splurge on things that
matter in the here and now while we're trying to
be successful investors, save and investor our futures, and so
the thing that we like to sports on are One
of the few things that we like supports on is
craft beer. But yeah, what what is the thing that
that you like to support on in your life. I'm
gonna start this strong by breaking the rules and give
you two uh. Number one, I will buy If I

(01:53):
have an idea to buy a book, I will buy
the book, like, no question. Like if if I'm like
that sounds like a good book, I buy it no
matter what. I bought thousands and thousands of books in
my life because my theory is that almost every book
changes my life in some way for the better. And
then I just bought a three thousand dollar espresso machine
because I want to learn how to make crap. Wow,
yea three thousand dollars espressial machines. Man, you can buy

(02:17):
a personal one for seven grand, But I wasn't that crazy.
Does this thing also give you a back massage? Or like,
what's what for you? It does? They set your schedule
and they like make lunch for you for the day.
It's really great. It's like having a mom. It's awesome,
except for your calling for the espresso, not the meat
loaf mom. Espresso's kind of dive in. Man. Let let's

(02:43):
talk about I'm want to talk about it just kind
of year past your history with real estate here, like
what what does real estate investing mean to you? You know,
like what is it that got you into it in
the first place? John Grisham, do you ever really need
John Grisham books? Like The Firm? Alright? So I read
The Firm. I'm like twenty one years old and I'm
studying for law school, and like, my plan all along

(03:05):
was like go to law school. Well like after college
and I go to law school, become a lawyer, make
a bunch of money, and That's how I'm gonna do
my life. And then I read The Firm, which is
a fiction book about like the Mafia, right, but in there,
John Christian used to be an attorney, and so he
constantly digs at attorneys with this like, you're gonna work
a hundred hours a week for fifty years and go through,

(03:26):
you know, four wives, and you know at the end
of your life you're gonna be super rich and have
no friends. And he just kind of makes this constant
dig at lawyers, and I was like, wait, is that
what a lawyers really like? And then I started looking
into it and then more looking to it that that
is not a lot of lawyers they really like they
worked so hard. And then I'm like, well, shoot, At
the same time, I bought this house just because I
was like it was cheap to by my house. I

(03:47):
bought this cheap house for eight grand, rented out all
the bedrooms to somebody's, and then I sold it and
I made grand and I was like, well, shoot, that's
half the starting salary of a lawyer for the first year.
So I I canceled all my law school plans and
I was like, I'm just gonna buy real estate and
be really is that essentially your first deal was buying
that house and of house hacking renting out the rooms

(04:10):
to roommates. Yeah. Actually even you can even say gold
before that, before that, even I rented a four bedroom
before I knew anything. I rented a four beddom apartment
back in college. And then I went and found like
three other guys to rent the bedrooms, and I was
living for like pretty cheap, and I'm like, well, this
is cool. Well what if I lived on the couch?
So I had rented out in my bedroom and I
just lived on the couch for like six months and

(04:31):
I got to live for so who's that Actually his
name is on the lease, Yes, exactly. Yeah, it actually
worked out really well, and so that was kind of
the entrance. But then, yeah, I did the house and
then I house hacked another one about a duplex, lived
in one unit, rented at the other, and at grew
it from that. And so, okay, your dad and a husband,
and you've talked about how like that that freedom to

(04:52):
be able to spend your time in the way you choose,
how that's a big part too of why you like
investing in real estate. But you've also mentioned that as
an entrepreneur, it's easy to lose sight of the reason
that you opted to take that route in the first place. Right,
So you might say that's one thing, you might go
down the Walter White path, like I'm doing this for
my family, and then you completely rip your family apart.
So how do you kind of maybe keep grounded in

(05:13):
kind of that that reason, that the reason that pulls
you towards real estate investing without going overboard? Yeah, man,
And it is like the entrepreneur curse, right, It's like
you get into entrepreneurship because you want to make money
to have more freedom, and then you end up working
forever and like you forget the freedom that you were
even going for. So exactly, Yeah, you get shackled to it.
So a couple of things that that that keep me

(05:35):
out of that for the most part. Now there are
times where I have to get in and work hard,
but for the most part. Number one, I have learned
over the years that good counsel from good friends like
will direct your life. Right in other words, like when
when I surround myself with other people who have similar values,
and what I mean by that is they they they

(05:57):
value time with their family and not killing yourself with
When I start, I was up with those guys, they
will call you out on it because they're like, hey, man,
you want to go out and get a beer and
you're like, no, can't. I gotta work, And they're like,
what's what do you mean you gotta work? Come on,
you'll run your own business and they'll call you out
on it. The second thing, UH, is I try to
make it a point to like, Okay, this is gonna
sound bad. I'll say never tell my kids know. But

(06:17):
what I mean by that is not like, you know,
you can't have this ice cream, but like if they're like, daddy, daddy,
can you play with me? I try my heart. It's
like if there's too many times in a row where
I have to say no, I have to go work,
then I know there's a problem, right. And and that
is kind of a a gauge right to see like
am I doing that a lot lately? Or is this
just a one one off thing? Because I got little
kids too and six so they want to play all

(06:38):
the time. So it's a constant gauge that I measure,
uh And and I do okay on it. I'm not
the best at it. But the last point I'll make
on that is what I found is as you elevate
your leadership mindset. And that's a big phrase, leadership mindset,
like the way that you approach problems and building a company,
the way you approach your leadership mindset. We'll determine how
many hours you work the the people at that like

(07:01):
with the highest level mindset what I call like the
energy or the brand, right, I think, like the rock
or Richard Branson, they actually work fewer hours than the
person at the bottom, which would be like the pilot
driving you know, flying Richard Branson's plane or uh, you
know whatever. Like the higher you elevate your mindset and
get out of the day to day that d I
Y stuff, the hands on stuff, the more you elevate

(07:22):
and become a leader, the more flexibility you have in that.
So in every business endeavor I do, I'm always asking myself,
how do I elevate the mindset to become a better
leader and less of a d I wire. I like it. Yeah,
that means more time with the kids, more time doing
things that you want to do in, more time with
your espresso machine. Exactly. Oh man, it did it was.

(07:45):
It is a beautiful work of art. You know what.
I like to say that I bought seven thousand whatever.
You rental units just so I could become a barista.
I probably could have shaved out fifteen years, but you
know whatever, I'm getting there. Yeah, I can make you
get the coffee when you come over. Well. Hey, so
on the note of of your kids as well, Like
I've heard you talk about buying a quadplex um as
your method for saving for kids college. Awesome idea. You know,

(08:08):
most folks they kind of just stop for the plan.
What made you choose that less conventional route other than
the fact that this is something that you're really familiar with. Yeah,
all right, So, uh, it was started as kind of
an accident. Let me explain it. The situation. So the
week my daughter was born, we happened to be closing
on a four unit property, and so it was like
her very first outing and like my daughter's, you know,

(08:31):
very first time out in the world. She she comes
with us, we signed papers, we go drive by this property.
It is nasty. Uh, it was a horrible property, but
we fixed it up whatever. But in that process I
remember thinking that week, I'm like, well, what if I
put this on, Like, like what if I was someone
I like Dave Ramsey's calculator. He has like an early
payoff calculator, and I was like, what would my payment
have to increase in order to pay this off in

(08:51):
eighteen years when she goes off to college. And it
had been like, I don't know, a hundred and eighty
dollars a month more, it was like nothing, right, that thing,
that property actually makes a thousand dollars a month in
cash flow. So for an extra hundred eighty bucks a month,
I can have it paid off twelve years early. And
I'm like, well, that means when she goes to college,
that property, which at the time was worth about a
hundred and fifty based on just normal appreciation, it should

(09:11):
be worth about I thought, around three hundred thousand dollars
by the time she goes to college. And we have
paid it off. So not only did I get a
thousand dollars a month in cash flow for eighteen years,
and that goes up over time, I got a mortgage
that stays the same, right, but rents go up. So
not only do I make all of this money every month,
but to it's paid off to nothing and it's worth
three d thousand now the irony is now six years later,

(09:32):
it's worth like way more than that it's worth like
four But that's just the last couple of years have
been nuts with real estate. Right. But that's I mean,
so those two things are cool, right, But the third
piece is the most important. The cashual is great, the
loan getting paid off, and the property government value all that,
the wealth is great, But the real value is that
Rosie gets to see for the next eighteen years, well

(09:53):
now what do we have twelve left? She gets to
see the real power of real estate. She gets to
learn how do all those factors together, How does appreciation
and depreciation and cash flow and all of that stuff
in a real property that she has a stake in
because it's her future. And you know what, I hope
she doesn't use it for college. I hope that I've
done such a good job of teaching her through that

(10:14):
example of her property that when she gets eighteen she's like,
all right, Dad, I want to use that for real
estate instead. I hope she builds an empire with it.
That's so cool. Yeah, My my daughter the other day,
she's she's just her nine, and she was asking me about, well, hey, dad,
how much have you saved up for from my college?
And I thought it was kind of an interesting question
from a nine year old. But she's starting to think
about those things. And the great thing is you have
like a physical, tangible asset that's producing money cash flow

(10:37):
every month, spitting off cash, and you can like she
can follow the progress and when she knows that that
is kind of hers to inherit. Uh, it's that there's
an education common into that. That's really cool. Yeah, it's
huge because you can tell somebody something all day long
and they may get it, but they probably won't. And
especially like you know, try to explain to your kids,
like how like works or like how does stocks work?

(10:59):
Or private actor. It's so confusing, but a kid can see,
Like my daughter is six, she understands very very well
that house is that we own it, somebody else lives there,
they pay money, We pay money to somebody else, and
we get to keep the difference. Like she gets that.
So like that's yeah, that and that's the that's the
most important thing. Like if she learns nothing else from

(11:20):
school and for the a twelve whatever years of her life,
Like if she graduates with that from high school, then
I did my job absolutely, unless unless she decides that
you know, what real estate is not for me his empire,
and uh, yeah, if she wants to be a doctor,
she's got her whole medical like you know, school paid

(11:41):
for now, because yeah, she said, and hopefully then she
gets it like, oh maybe as a doctor, I should
invest in real estate, right, so like the shell invest in,
she'll invest with me in my company and my fund,
and then we all would look at that rather than
just try into a specific practice or whatever. But I mean,
that's obviously that's an unconventional way to say for college.

(12:02):
But I mean generally speaking, you're kind of approach to
life is fairly unconventional, which is, you know, we we
personally think it's awesome. A lot of folks think of
MAUI think of Hawaii as like a vacation destination. But
what made you decide to move there permanently? That is
something that I mean, in particular with the high cost
of living there. It's not something that a lot of
folks do. Is it kind of like the espresso machine

(12:24):
where you're thinking, why not live in the most beautiful
place in our country? Yeah? Man? And so here's how
it started. I'm at a birthday party. This kid's a
little birthday party, and uh, this is I think even
before Rosie was born. And I meet this guy there,
this bald guy, his name is Jared, and I'm like, hey,
you know, what do you do? Is that the awkward
conversation you have it like a kid's birthday when you're

(12:45):
like the old people. And he's like, oh, yeah, I
live I I work in digital marketing. I live in Hawaii.
And I'm like, what, what what You live in Hawaii
and he's like, yeah, I live I live in Hawaii.
And I was like, what do you What do you
mean you live in Hawaii? No one lives in Hawaii.
He's like, yeah, I just put everything on a shipping
container a couple of years ago and move about to Hawaii.
And I'm like, how have I never thought of that,
that you could just move to Hawaii. And so that

(13:05):
was like the kind of like the four minute mile, right,
you know the story, like the like nobody broke the
four minute mile until the one guy did, and then
everyone did it after that. It's like that made it real,
it made it possible. And so then I'm like, okay,
well let me go, let me let me go to Hawaii.
I like Hawaii. I never thought at living there, so
I go there, and and and Hawaii was the only
place I've ever been in my life where I didn't

(13:27):
want the trip to end at the end. Like every
vacation I go on, it's like, oh, it's amazing, but
I can't wait to get home. Right, So, like I
went for a week at a time. I went to
a yeah, a week and it was great, and I
was like at the end of it, I'm like sitting
there at like a cheese shake factory, my flights leaving
in an hour, and I'm like, I don't think I'm
gonna make my flight, and I don't think I want
to make my flight. Like that happened numerous times. Right
then I go for a whole month because I wanted
to learn how to surf and loved that. Uh and

(13:49):
then I go for three months and I loved that,
and every time it was not enough. And so around
you know, the month time is when I met that
Jared guy. And so when I went for three months,
I looked for a property, spent the whole time I'm
on the island of a Waha, who couldn't find anything.
Changed my mind. I was like I had find screwed,
I'm not moving to Hawaii. And then I went over
to Maui just for a weekend, just to stop by,
and I found my house within thirty minutes of landing.

(14:11):
Like I didn't look at I didn't. I'm the real
thing guy, right, make tons of offers, analyze a million deals,
understand your market. I landed, my daughter fell asleep in
the car because there's a baby. I drove around. I
thought an open house sign and I wouldn't stood on
the front porch or one night and I'm like, this
is it, Like I found out, So I didn't look
at I didn't look at a single other house. I
bought a two million dollar house, uh and without looking

(14:35):
anything else. And it was the best thing I've ever done,
because the energy you get from living in Hawaii, it
is next level, Like when you live in a place
where you love and people come to visit and you're
just getting that constant influx of intelligent conversation over a
glass of whiskey on the front porch, like, ah, life
doesn't get better. It's so good. That's awesome, man. And

(14:55):
I think it it just shows like a decisiveness to
um and a willingness to like, and that's what it
takes to be a real estate investor, Like, right, if
you want to be a successful real estate investor, it
does take um a little bit of of daring, of boldness,
and you know, yeah, I'm just saying it does. But
can I jump in real quick here? This is the interest.
I think this will help drive the conversation a little bit.

(15:16):
So I sound like I was really confident at the time. No,
I was terrified. Right at the time. I was like,
I'm gonna I can't spend two million dollars on a house.
Were like, I don't know anything about this, right, So
I called my buddy David Green. David was is the
host of the Bigger Pockets podcast right now. He was
co host with me that we did it together and
now I'm gone. But David said to me, He's like, okay,
we'll walk me through the deal, Brandon, And I'm like, okay.

(15:36):
This property is a three unit property with ocean views.
It is beautiful. It's got like I could rent out
too of the units. I could live in one if
I ever had to. He's like, okay, so what could
you rent? Like what could you rent those four? And
I'm like, well, I could probably get like you know,
three thousand for the back and probably three for the basement.
And you know, he's like, okay, well, what happens if
you moved out and you came back in this whole

(15:57):
thing failed. I'm like, I could probably get four from
my house. He's like, okay, so you're telling me you
can get ten thousand dollars a month and in like
revenue coming in what would be your mortgage payment, well,
like eight thousand a month. He's like, okay, so you're
telling me that worst case scenario here, you go back
to the mainland. You've failed. You're making thousands of dollars

(16:17):
a month in profit, and you have a two million
dollar house in Maui, Hawaii with an ocean view. Now,
thirty years from now, what does the house he goes,
He asked me, thirty years from now, what is a
house in Maui worth? That's two million dollars today. What's
it worth in thirty years. I'm like, I don't know,
probably five million dollars. He's like, okay, somebody just get
this straight. Worst case scenario. You're making thousands of dollars

(16:39):
a month in cash flow, you have a five million
dollar asset. Thirty years from now and you owe nothing
on it. Brandon, is that your worst case scenario? And
I was like, Yeah, that is the worst case scenario,
because when you look at real estate over the long
time frame, over a long time frame, it is really
really hard to screw it up. Right, when you look

(16:59):
it over a long it's really hard. You get so
many things going for you. Uh. That That's why I
love real estate. I love it, man, I love it. No,
I appreciate you jumping in and saying that, and that
helps so much. And then and to have somebody to
bounce things things off of, like Matt and I talked
about that along on the show, because we're literally best
friends and we bounce our money ideas are real estate
investing ideas off each other. And it's so nice to

(17:21):
have someone who can help you, like get over some
of that fear and help you bring out some of
those tangible realities and what is the worst case scenario?
And and typically it's not nearly as bad as you
built it up in your mind to be. But Brandon,
we've got more questions we want to get to, specifically
about real estate investing. Uh. And we'll get to some
of those, especially given what's happening in the market right now.
We'll get to some of those questions right after this.

(17:51):
All right, we're back from the break talking with Brandon Turner,
and uh, you know, Brandon is awesome to kind of
hear some of your personal story how you first got
into real estates. Uh, you're inspiring all of us to
real estate now in Hawaii. But let's talk about some
of the different paths you can take, right because there
are a ton of different options, like like flips, you

(18:11):
could house hack like you're doing there, and why you
can air bb an apartment, single family, you know, multifamily rentals,
Like how do you suggest for folks to figure out
which of those paths is going to be right for them? Yeah,
that's an awesome question. Yeah. One of the actually very
first blog posts I ever wrote my entire life, like
ten years ago, it was called like a hundred in

(18:31):
one ways to invest in real estate. And that was
not a hard list to come up with, Like it
took me like ten minutes, right, So, in other words,
there are so many different ways you can make wealth
and real estate, and I can point to a millionaire
in every single one of those niches. So that that
that sounds amazing, right. At the same time, it's actually
the biggest detriment to a lot of people because they
get into real estate and they get overwhelmed like, oh,

(18:52):
I'm gonna do this or that, or how do I
know what the right thing is? So here's what I
typically tell people. Look, all real estate is is two things.
It's a niche and a strategy. A niche is the
type of real estate you are going to buy, and
a strategy is what you do with it. So the
million strategies out there are the million things you could do.
It really comes down to pick a niche, pick a strategy.
I'm going to flip houses, I'm going to uh buy

(19:15):
and hold or you know, rent multifamily, right, So it's
all a niche of strategy. So the second thing to
understand is once it's that's some simply put, understand that
almost everything works, but it doesn't always work everywhere. In
other words, you might really love the idea of doing
Airbnb for strategy with condos, which is a really neat

(19:37):
strategy that I do. I have a couple that make
up there like little ATM machines, But you might want
to do it in the middle of like you know,
rural Kansas, Like it's just not gonna work there, right,
So certain things work better in certain areas. So what
I typically tell people just feel the fire. Feel the
fire in other words, what fires you up When you
listen to a podcast or a bunch of podcasts about

(19:58):
real estate. This one of the good things about the
Bigger Pockets podcast is we interview people about every one
of these strategies, like, like, there is no focus, it's
just like whatever people do. So which one fires you up?
You're like, like, for whatever weird reason, Like five years ago,
mobile home parks fired me up. The more I heard
about mobile home parks, some part of my soul was like,
oh I like that, And so that is the right

(20:20):
niche and strategy for me is buying mobile homeparks. I
buy a lot of them. Also, multi family like apartment complexes.
That fires me up. So that's what we also do that, Uh,
follow that fire a little bit, and then if you
want to invest local, fine, go talk to some local people.
Figure out what they're doing. It's not like. The great
thing about real estate too is that it's nothing's a secret,
Like there's zero secrets in the industry. It's just like

(20:40):
everyone's doing it. Just do what everyone else is doing,
you'll probably be fine. It's it's kind of like ridiculous,
Like how I don't say easy about how simple it
is because so many millions of people do it. I
think that's a great way to put it right. It
is like the strategies are not terribly difficult to understand,
and so they're so simple you can explain them to
your sevent nine year old Like it's you can have

(21:01):
that conversation. They can understand how and why real estate
makes money. One of one of my questions for you
too is in the intro, Matt mentioned that you, uh,
you basically own something like units. Are you've invested in
sev units? That that can be a daunting number to
some people. They might be like, Okay, if I can't
go big, I should just go home. Maybe I should
stick to the like generic index fund strategy. How do
you suggest people think about building up a portfolio. Do

(21:24):
they need to go huge or can they own just
a small handful of units over time and do well
in real estate? Yeah, let me start by clarifying that
you know the nits, Yeah, I have that, but I
also own a like basically, it's a private equity fund.
We raise money from we have overre like a thousand
people have given a large chunks of money to me.
I go and invest that and then they get the

(21:46):
majority of the money. So it sounds like a really
big number. And almost anytime you hear and investor talking
about thousands of units, it's really they own a small
piece of a company, or they own a company that
owns a small piece of a large portfolio. So it
might sound super impressive, it's not as impressive as a sound.
Uh we I mean it's cool, it's it's awesome. Uh
and we do run. But yes, yes, exactly exactly all right.

(22:09):
So but here's here's the thing. Like I started with
a single family house where I rented with the bedrooms, right,
and then I went to a duplex, and then later
I bought a four plex at one point about a
twenty four unit for like five years into my my journey.
But when you think of real estate, a lot of
people think of it as in linear growth. Like imagine,
imagine you wanted to save money, your money, your money, guys, Right,

(22:31):
so let's talk let's talk just general vice for saving money.
If every single day, you took a dollar and put
it under your mattress. After a year, you would have
three sixty five dollars. That's linear growth, right, every day
you're getting one more. A lot of people approach real
estate that way. They're going to buy a house, and
the next year they're gonna buy another house, and then
next year they're gonna be another house, and there's nothing
wrong with that. After ten years you might have ten

(22:53):
houses and give it a few more years, they're all
paid off and you're a multimillionaire. That's great. But you
could also look at it as exponential growth, which is
like I bought a house, I bought a duplex, I
bought a ten unit, and then I'm gonna buy a
thirty unit. At the end of the day. Like those
first few deals you do, they're not actually that important,
just like the first dollar you saved isn't that important.
It's about the the mindset behind saving or the mindset

(23:16):
behind investing. Right, So I tell everybody, like, yeah, start
with a single family house or a duplex. Don't start
with a fifty unit on a hundred unit. That just
gets overwhelming and crazy. Start with something simple. Get your
feet wet, figure it out and then if you want
to scale two thousands of units down the road, you
can totally do that. But don't get overwhelmed by it.
Just just buy one. See what you think? Well, I

(23:38):
mean you can't just buy any random property, right, Like, Like,
so let's talk about analyzing deals, like, like, what are
the main things that people need to know to ensure
that they buy a good property that will make some money?
You know, Like what does it take to be that
successful real estate investor? Yeah, it's funny. Actually, Business Insider
did an article about me like a year ago, and
they interviewed me for like an hour, and I thought

(24:00):
it might be kind of a hit piece. It was
kind of a hit piece, and like, but the title
of the episode was Brandon Turner makes millions selling a
dream even he thinks real Estate's a terrible idea. That
was the title of it. And I'm like, I'm like,
how the heck did they get that title out of
this thing? First of all, I don't make millions selling
real estate, like I mean selling the dream Like I make, like,

(24:21):
I don't know whatever, half a million a year on
book sales. But even besides that, I never said real
state's a bad idea. Then I listened to the interview.
What they read the interview anyway, and what I said
in there is the quote I used was, you can't
just go buy any random property and make it make money.
You have to do your due diligence. You have to
do your homework, you have to research, you have to
analyze a lot of properties. They took that clip and

(24:42):
they made that the title of Real Brandon Things. Real
State's a terrible idea anyway. Side point they don't trust,
by the way, yeah, yeah, exactly, don't trust journalism. It's terrible.
As I like podcasting anyway. So yes, there are a
million ways to find deals of fine properties out there,
but most properties are not good deals. Uh, you have

(25:04):
to screen. What I like to say is there's a funnel, right,
everything's a funnel in life. It's like you go and
you want to get married, right, you gotta go and
you know, meet a bunch of women, and then you
got to talk to some of those women, and then
you've got to become friends with some of those women.
And then you got to ask maybe one or two
or three of them out or ten or twenty or whatever,
depending I'm not judging and then maybe you end up

(25:26):
marrying one of them. Right, everything's a funnel. Real estate
is the exact same way. Right, you go out there,
there's a hundred thousand homes in your area. Out of them,
there's a thousand that are for sale right now in
the market. Out of them, there's probably a hundred that
figure criteria. You might have to analyze fifty of them,
and you might make offers on twenty of them, and
you might get one accepted. And it's a huge funnel.

(25:49):
But it's not actually that an overwhelming when you think
it takes maybe five minutes to analyze a single family
house to see if it's worth buying. And so if
you just did one a day, if you're just like, hey,
every day, I'm an analyze a deal, it'll take me
five minutes or less. It's gonna plug in some numbers.
Bigger Pockets has some great calculators for it. Uh, he's
plugging the numbers. You're like, all right, this one actually
might work. Let me make an offer, and you get rejected.

(26:09):
You're like, okay, we'll try to get next week, and
you make another offer next week, and then eventually you
get a deal. It's really just systematized. You just work
the system and you get the results. How do you
think about investing for cash flow versus investing for appreciation
because cash flow is is just like a little bit
easier to kind of methodically understand. Okay, if I get
by this property at this price, with this interest rate,

(26:31):
with this much percentage down, this is what my mortgage
is going to be, this is the likely rent and
I'm gonna get you can kind of dial in and
understand what your cash flow is likely to be after
buying that property. Appreciation is a little more speculative, but
it's also the reality for a lot of real estate investors.
So how how do you help people think through um, yeah,
which which method they're investing for? Or yeah, how to
think through that? Yeah? Great question. So cash flow, I

(26:53):
believe if you buy it right now, this is you
gotta be very careful here. A lot of people when
they think of a rental property think, oh, the the
mortgage is a thousand dollars a month, I'm gonna rent
it for eleven hundred hundred dollars a month in cash flow,
and in reality, there's a lot of expenses that go
into owning a rental property. Things break and people leave
and they trash your unit, and like, on average, you
gotta account for all that stuff. But anyway, besides that,

(27:15):
let's say you actually got some real cash flow. Uh,
you know, maybe you rented it for fifteen hundred, your
mortgage mortgages a thousand that includes tax and insurance, and
then maybe your actual cash for a couple hundred dollars
a month. Yeah, that's amazing, and cash flow can give
you freedom. Cash flow leads to financial freedom. Right if
you if you're getting two hundred dollars for every single
unit you own, just do the math. How many how

(27:37):
much money do you need to be financially free? Hundred
thousand dollars a year? Like let's call at ten grand
a month, okay, at ten grand a month? How many
two D units like two hundred dollar per month units
do you need to own? And you just go get them? Okay,
I'm gonna go out and get fifty units. And you
could buy fifty single family houses if you wanted to.
But most people go like house and then maybe they
buy a duplex. Then they maybe buy a ten unit,

(27:57):
and then they buy a thirty unit and boom they're done.
They're there but so that's cash flow. Now, appreciation is
actually where wealth is made. Like nobody's ever like, yeah,
I've I made a hundred million dollars off cash flow.
That's not a thing. You make living money off cash flow.
But the real estate tends to go up in value
over time somewhere three to five percent depending on who
you ask. So you buy that property in Hawaii for

(28:19):
two million dollars, and thirty years from now, I sell
it for five million dollars and I pay the loan
off on that time. So appreciation is like the cherry
on top. It's the wealth. But if you can't hold
onto your property, you'll never get the appreciation. That's why
my buddy David says cash flow is a defensive metric.
It's designed to help you hold on long enough to

(28:40):
get the real prize, which is the property going up
in value and the loan getting paid off. Yeah. Yeah,
cash allows you to maintain that property, because if you
can't maintain it, you're never you're never going to experience
that appreciation over the long haul. And I think, honestly
like it depends to where you live, right like the
market that you're looking at that I think that how
much of an impact does that have on your strategy

(29:01):
because every market is different. So obviously if you're living
in l a versus like Topeka, Kans's, uh, that's going
to impact how you might proceed. Can you talk about
specific markets and how you approach real estate as well? Sure? Yeah,
I mean real estate prices are largely driven by supply
and demand. I mean there's there's natural inflation as well,
but there's also supplying demand. And so what I look
for when I bought a boy real estate, I'm just

(29:21):
wondering are people moving there now? I mean I I
my first ten years investing, I only invested in a
market where nobody was moving. In fact, the population was declining.
It was a really rough area. It was like western Washington,
little county called Grays Harbor, and I still did well.
So don't don't assume you can't invest in an area
that's not booming like Austin. But if you want the

(29:42):
highest chance of your property is going dramatically up and value,
look to where people are moving. Look where where people
are afraid of. Like if there's a ton of crime
in an area and no one wants to live there,
well that's probably not where out invest a lot of money.
You know. That said, there are people who have made
millions investing in those areas. So yeah, the area matters,
But what matters more than the location you invest in

(30:04):
is do you understand the location you invest in and
can you make it work in that area? It works everywhere.
It's just like, for example, we're we're buying a huge
apartment complex right now in Austin, Texas. It's huge, it's
three and sixty nine units, it's eighty five million dollars, like,
it's massive, right, and we're gonna raise all this money
to buy it. And it cash falls a little bit

(30:26):
like maybe two percent the first year. We're projecting maybe
like five percent the second year, maybe like seven the
third year. So it's it's decent return. It's probably comparable
to way with the stock market averages. But it's in Austin,
Texas where a hundred and fifty people a day are
moving and they're only building like enough for fifty people
a day on average. In other words, what does that
mean looking out the five years from now, ten years

(30:46):
from now, when they're not building enough already? There's not enough,
there's not enough housing already, they're not building enough housing
and everybody wants to go to Austin. What does that
mean for supply and demand? That is a bet I
want to take. And so that's why I I for
cash flow, like I'm not gonna buy probably loses money,
but I like buying areas where things are growing. I
got I got you. Yeah, that makes sense. So you're

(31:07):
taking into account like current demographics and what's happening. I
also want to talk about maybe like the market right now,
because it feels a little bit erratic right like market
shifts are taking place. It feels like the Fed obviously
what they're doing impacting rates on on mortgages, which is
kind of dramatically cooled down the housing market and after

(31:27):
on fire a period of like eighteen months, right, So
so how how should like current market dynamics impact how
real estate investors think about it? Because it feels like
a lot of people they wanted they wanted in on
rapid appreciation, but now we're starting to see something shift
and it's like, oh, should I be sitting on the sidelines,
Like how do you think about that? Or how do
you help advise real estate investors to think about that? Yeah,

(31:48):
it's interesting investing in an asset where the government is
actively trying to slow it down. I mean, the government
is vocally publicly saying we want house prices to stop
going up so high. Uh, And that's what they're doing.
They're trying to stop house prices from going up so
high and other prices as well. But I mean, housing
is people's biggest expense. If they can slow that, that
will slow inflation. That's why they're putting a lot of

(32:09):
effort on housing right now. Housing in gas gas actually
makes like the smallest impact on people's wallets, but it's
the most visible because you drive by it a hundred
times a day, right, Like, it actually doesn't make as
big of an impact just people think like it's you know, whatever,
gas pres are higher, Arky, You're putting extra eighty dollars
a month in your bills, but your rent goes up
by six that's a bigger problem. So alright, so the
government is actually be trying to slow down house prices

(32:30):
from climbing so fast. The government does not want a recession.
They probably won't avoid it's probably gonna happen. And let's
say redefine the term for a recession, which they're doing,
which is a whole different story. Right, it's not a
recession anymore because we change the definition. But uh, anyway,
so can you still invest in a time like that?
I mean for sure? In fact, a lot of wealth
is created in times of economic uncertainty for people who

(32:54):
are a smart be they're bold right and three there
adaptive or nimble right. So like if you're intercession, it's
great to invest, not just in real estate, but in
entrepreneurship whatever. If you're smart, nimble, and bold, you can
make a lot of money. So here's what I look at.
Here's why I'm still buying right now our houses. Our
house price is going to level off almost guaranteed. Yes,

(33:16):
there's stills a ton of people who want to buy.
So I don't see a crash like OH eight. I
don't think how the anybody predicts a crash like O
eight because the fundamentals are very different. But are they
gonna level off? Are they gonna slow down? Are we
gonna see a slight dip? I definitely think so. In fact,
I could see a lot of markets dropping five ten percent.
Maybe do I care if the price if I buy

(33:38):
a property right now that makes cash flow from year one?
Do I care in thirty years whether or not the
thing dipped five or ten percent thirty years earlier, not
at all. I don't care. So I invest for the
long haul and I sustain with cash flow. Now that said,
there are certain tactics that would be wary of right now,
right flipping houses, you know, flipping house right you buy

(33:59):
a nasty how as you fix it up, you sell
it for a bunch more money later. There are so
many people that I know who have tried to get
into flipping the last few years, and they buy a house,
they paid way too much for it, they went way
over budget on it, they took way too long on it,
and then made like a hundred grands simply because the
market went out so much. Right like those days are over.

(34:21):
Like like those days are over. However, for people who
are smart, nimble, bold, there is a tremendous opportunity to
be had right now. And because again with the supply
and demand, with the amount of people moving to certain areas,
the lack of housing. We did not build housing in
America for ten years. That is going to hurt us
for the next ten years because they're just simply not

(34:41):
enough of it. And so I'm still buying. I'm still
excited about it, even though the feed is going to
try to slow down things. You can't stop a train
when it's moving this fast, that's true. You can't stop
something that is a basic human need, and folks will
continue to buy it. So that's why we're still investing
and excited about real estate as well. Brandon and we're
gonna get to some sational topics, maybe some higher level

(35:01):
topics when it comes to investing in real estate. Will
get to those right after this. We're back from the break.
We're we're still talking with Brandon Turner talking about real
estate investing and so much good wisdom. Like literally, go
back and listen to those last fifteen minutes if you're

(35:23):
considering investing in real estate but you're kind of unsure,
there's a lot of stuff packed in there. But I
want to kind of ask like a random moral question
here for you, Brandon. The perception of landlords it seems
like it is changing in this current climate, Like, um,
so I'm wondering how do you feel about that? Like
how does that impact your your thoughts on real estate investing?

(35:44):
Because Matt and I we've always said that as being
small mom and pop landlords. We feel like we're providing
a service. We're trying to provide a place that is clean,
well taken care of. Um that, and not everyone wants
to buy home, so there is a need for nice
single family and duplex rental houses out there. People people
want those. How do you think about maybe the kind
of changing of view that a lot of people have

(36:05):
towards lanlords. Yeah, man, it is fascinating. Like when the
pandemic hit right and everyone was all freaked out and scared.
The government went in and was like, Okay, no more evictions.
You know, like a lot of people didn't have to
pay rent and they didn't matter, you couldn't do anything.
But like, it's funny they didn't go and tell the
grocery stores, hey, you have to give away free food,
but they told the landlords you gotta get free rent.

(36:26):
For whatever reason, landlords are treated differently, even though we
both provide basic things. There's grocery stores, there's landlords, there's
car companies, like they're all similar. Yet people like the
government tends to focus on landlords. Again, I would argue
it's because like people know their landlord and so they
put a face to it, and so like they blame

(36:47):
the landlord for their problems. Now, is it immoral to
own thousands and thousands of units? I don't think so
at all. I mean like somebody has to do it,
and if and it takes a ton of uh education, risk, knowledge,
you know, uh whatever, boldness, like bravery to go out
and do that. And if nobody did that, then there
would be no houses out there and never would be

(37:08):
living in caves again. Right, So it's it's an important
service for the world to have smart people that are
making money off of real estate. Now would I go
and buy a mobile home park where rents are three
in dollars a month and people are barely scraping by
and then jack the rent to a thousand dollars a
month and be like, well, you can move if you
want to, but I know you can't afford to Know.
That's a that's a jerk thing to do. Like there

(37:29):
is there is normal the course of normal business, and
then there is like being a jerk and pushing people
because you're basically blackmailing them or whatever, holding them hostage. Uh,
there's a line there. Now are our world seems to
be moving more and more into this like socialism, like
I deserve like housings are right, I deserve this right.

(37:51):
And as that happens, if that if that continues, which
I don't, I don't think it will. I think when
people get older, I think it's just the local minority
of the young people. But if that did continue, a
great the government's gonna be paying more and more money
to us landlords, and we're gonna make even more money
because it's gonna be coming from the government set of people,
and there's their taxes are going to go up and
they're gonna pay a lot more in taxes. Uh So

(38:12):
I'm not horribly worried about it, but there definitely is
this feel that landlords are scum and therefore we should
give you know, we should not charge for rent. And
almost like yeah, I don't have a good answer on
like why didn't want to know about it other than
that I don't. I don't buy in blue states, like
I hardly buy in blue states. I'll buy and it's

(38:34):
not a political thing. It's well, I guess maybe it's political.
I have no problem with blue politics. I just don't
want to be in those states. It's just increases my list.
You don't want it to necessarily affect your money, because
it's going to have an impact. The legislation, what's on
the books is different in in a lot of states,
and that's something you need to take into consideration. There
are certain states that are more landlord friendly, certain that
are more tenant friendly, and it's important to know that

(38:55):
before you buy some sort of three dollar asset that
you're hoping produces cash flow, because if the laws aren't
in your favor, there's a chance that it works to
your disapointage them. Is the rules to the game that
you're playing. You gotta pay attention to that. But I
like what you said to about the fact that it
takes a certain amount of bravery, and like you were
talking about before the break, there was a lack of

(39:16):
that over the past ten years after the housing crisis,
after the crash, because folks did not want to get burned,
and so folks who saw that as an opportunity, who
took that risk upon themselves were rewarded for that. And
so I think that's another way to kind of look
at it. Did you guys here in Seattle that law
they tried to pass a lot didn't go But in Seattle,
they had a law going through the works or whatever

(39:38):
that you were if you were a landlord, you were
required to give equity to your tenant in the property.
Like that's that's the stuff that freaked me out of
the future of Like, you know, if somebody just completely
crazy gets elected to president, if they're like, you know what,
from now on, all tenants have equity in their own
owners properties. Like not only that a nightmare from an
administrative standpoint, but okay, did that mean when the roof

(39:59):
goes bad, that that tenant is paying of that roof,
Like it's like stuff that right, Yeah, And it's going
to get people elected because it's gonna be what people
want to hear. But it's just unsustainable, right, Like it's
it's anyway, the smart people tend to figure the way
through the tax system and through the legal systems and
they make it work. Right. So, Okay, you just hosted

(40:20):
a webinar about the tax benefits of real estate, right,
and so in addition to some of the other ways
that you make money obviously appreciation cash flow, how does
investing in real estate help to ease that tax burden?
Come a can you talk about that for a second. Sure. Yeah.
New York Times put an article, this bombshell article a
couple of years ago they finally got Trump's tax returns

(40:42):
and they put it out there in this like, you know,
bombshell front page all over the place that Donald Trump
paid seven fifty dollars in federal taxes the year that
he like federal income tax the year he became president.
And people were like, that's ridiculous. He makes hundreds of
millions of dollars. And when that came out, I was like, well, yeah,
I'm surprised he paid seven hundred fifty dollars like he
did got a better c p A. Like he should

(41:04):
have got that down to zero, right, Like, because in
real state like this is, that was not a surprise
to anybody who invests in real estate at at a
certain level, because the government rewards real estate investors heavily,
like they give it like that entire tax code, right,
I'm sure you talk about this on the show. The
tax code exists to encourage or discourage activities. They want

(41:25):
you to do certain things, and they give you money
for doing certain things or help you save money for
doing certain things. They need housing, they want housing, so
they give us a lot of rewards. If you are
a real estate person, one of those specifically, uh, and
I don't want to go super deep in the weeds,
but there's a thing called depreciation. It's basically the value
of your property. You get to write off a chunk

(41:46):
of that every single year. Just like if you were
to buy a new car for your business, you can't
deduct the car the first year, you deducted over a
number of years, five years, seven years, ten years, whatever.
So real estate, it's the same way. You get to
deduct a piece of your property every year. Even though
you didn't lose any money, you still get to take
this a little bit of a loss every single year. Now,

(42:06):
what the government has done recently is they've enacted a
number of different changes that have allowed you to take
what you normally would divide up over like give or
take thirty years, and condense it or a bunch of
it all the way down to the first year. So
in other words, like when I when I buy a property,
and let's say I go, let's say I put a
hundred thousand dollars into one of my apartments. Right now,

(42:27):
I go as a as a partner, like I raise
money from people they put in a hundred grand, they're
getting roughly thirty to seventy depends on the deal. Thirty
of that as a loss their first year. So like
you invest a hundred grand and all of a sudden,
your paperwork shows at the end of the year that
you lost seventy grand that year. That's crazy. Now you
didn't actually lose any money. It's all paper loss. But

(42:50):
the government does that allows that to encourage certain actions.
And so that's the rule. But now you can't offset
your W two income with that. Necessarily, there is a
way to do what I do it, so does Donald Trump. Um,
you basically have to be a full time real estate
investor if you want to offset W two income or
you know, capital gains and stuff. But it can offset
passive gains like cash flow. So the question to boil

(43:14):
it all down, I like to ask this question. First
of all, if you earn a hundred thousand dollars a
year from your W two job, you work at a
nice you know, tech company, you make a hundred thousand
dollars a year. I make a hundred thousand dollars a year,
and cash flow, who pays more taxes? By far? You
pay more taxes like I mean, it's not even close, right, Like,

(43:34):
of my income of a hundred thousand cash flow, I
would pay probably zero dollars and taxes on that you
would probably pay somewhere in the thirty or forty dollar range.
It's shocking. Uh. And then when you get into the
fancy like real estate professional world, like, then you can
offset your income. So that's why I make them whatever,
half million on book royalties and another half a million
on other stuff. I don't pay taxes on any of that,
Like I none of that. Now you have to pay

(43:56):
it back someday they call it recapture. But there's ways
to offset that and defer into the future and definitely
until you die. So it's uh, it's fascinating. Yeah. Well,
and there's we could have a discussion about whether or not,
uh those rules of the game are the best rules
out there, right, But that's not that's exactly, that's not
the discussion we need to have. The discussion is like,

(44:18):
based on the rules of the game, does real estate
investing makes sense? And the rules of the game are
are good in so many ways, especially especially favorable from
a tax standpoint. So yeah, I think it's that's healthy
to point out, and that person making W two income,
if they're investing in real estate on the side, they
can still take advantage of even while they have a
day job, some of those some of those tax advantages. Yeah,

(44:38):
it's it's pretty it's pretty awesome. Well. One of the things, Brandon,
that you're kind of known for that when I when
I see you on social media, you're often talking about
like goals or vision setting. This is something that you
like take very seriously. Um and it seems to have
made just this like massive impact in in your life. So, like,
what's your advice maybe for folks to take more control
over their lives. Sometimes it feels it feels like, um, okay,

(45:02):
real estate investing, it's for the gurus like Brandon Turner.
But man, how in the world am I Am I
going to get started? Um So, But oftentimes it starts
with a lot of small steps, right, and some of
those steps aren't even even before we get to kind
of researching deals. There's like an internal shift that needs
to take place. Yeah, very much. So. The way I
look at this, most people in the world live their

(45:23):
life in the back seat of their cab, like they
live like they're being driven around by just like forces
that they don't control. Very few people realize that they
can get in the driver's seat and like drive that
cab themselves and get to the location they want to
get to. Now is a guaranteed you're gonna get there,
And no, there's a lot of other people on the
road driving around, but you don't have to be this
like just blowing in the wind trying to figure out
where're gonna end up. So the first kind of shift

(45:45):
that I try to encourage people to make is that
you have complete control over your actions, which generally speaking,
will guide you towards the destination you want. Again, not guaranteed,
And there are people who have a lot of privilege
and they've got you know, I have a lot of
things that benefited me in life, and other people have
even more, and some people have worse. But generally speaking,
you can control. So that's the first first thought. The
second thing people get overwhelmed by like big goals, Right,

(46:07):
I'm gonna go buy uh, I'm gonna be a millionaire.
I wanna be I want to have a million dollar
net worth or I want to have, you know, a
fancy new car, And they look at that goal and
that's all they think is goal and where I am
today and nothing in between that. So what I'm a
huge proponent of is just working backwards. In the book,
the one thing they call it goal sending too the
now you basically go, look, where do I want to

(46:27):
be seven to ten years from now? Well, you know,
I'd like to have a five million dollar net worth. Great,
what do you got to do in the next year
to be on track for that? Well, let's see one
year from now. If I was if I wan my
first rental property by the end of this year, that
would be pretty good. That'd be on track. Okay, great
to be on track for that annual goal. What do
you gotta do this quarter? Oh man? Okay, Well, if

(46:48):
I want to buy a rental by the end of
the year, I guess this quarter, why don't I go
get pre approved by by a local bank. Okay, great,
So to be on track by the end of the
quarter to get pre approved. What should you do this week? Well,
what if I got together this week? I could get
together all of my stuff, my documents, my tax returns,
my pace stubs, all that, and I'm gonna ask somebodies
who the best mortgage person in my areas. Okay, great,

(47:09):
in order to be on that track, what do you
gotta get done today? And you're like, okay, well today,
I'm going to get a mortgage broker. I'm gonna find
that mortgage broker today. Great. What do you have to
do in the next five minutes to be on track
for that mortgage broker. I'm gonna go on my Facebook
page and I'm gonna ask my family and friends for
a recommendation for a mortgage broker. Now, notice what he
did there. I took a goal of making a five

(47:31):
million dollar net worth, of having a five million dollar
net worth, and that entire goal, all that freedom, all
that fun, all having a amazing cars, and more time
with my family, my my dream life, all of it
hinges on one little action of posting on Facebook, right,
And that's that's the message I try to get out

(47:52):
of that. No matter what the goal is, there's almost
always a five minute or less task that you can
go do right now. Just none of us, we tip
we don't recognize what that is. And we just don't
because we don't know what it is, we don't put
it on our calendars, or we don't do it. So
if you can get that goal far out and then
work backwards to find out what do you gotta do
today and what do you gotta do now that will

(48:13):
change your life forever. Yeah. No, that's great advice, finding
ways to man, Like, that's how you eat that elephant, right,
like one by at a time, you break it down
into those smaller bits and pieces until you can kind
of put pinto paper and take action today right now.
I don't know how folks are going to listen to
this interview and not want to invest in real estate, because,
I mean, we talked about this kind of stuff alliday,

(48:34):
all the time, every day, and it's kind of getting
me fired up as well. Um, I kind of wanted
to I guess maybe ask you maybe more of a
personal question because like you left Bigger Pockets at the
end of last year. You know, Bigger Pockets. It's a
great resource for folks, incredible information for folks who want
to learn more about investing in real estate. But like,
why is it? I'm curious why you made that decision,
you know, like, what are you up to now? What's

(48:54):
the next big thing in your life? Yeah? Man, so
Bigger Pockets. I love them still. I've got my start
through Bigger Pockets. I posted on there earlier. I was
a member of just the site, like on the forums
before it was even a blogger. A podcast like I
got My My, My, My mentor growing up was Bigger Pockets,
and I still use it today. I still love it.
I still recommend it all the time. But there was
a question that somebody asked me about a year ago

(49:17):
now and they said it was a performance coach, and
he said, what do you have to let go of
to truly get to the next level? And that question
just like festered in my mind. I'm like, what do
I what is the next level and what do I
have to let go of? And I realized one the
next level of being a present father and husband in

(49:38):
my family's life, the next level of health and fitness,
the next level of my business, I mean open door
Capital was growing like a is growing like a weed.
It's very very rapidly growing. We've again, we've raised money
from over a thousand people who would rather put their
money with me and partner instead of trying to, you know,
fix toilets on their own. So like it was growing,
and so the answer came back at the end of

(49:58):
that kind of soul searching. Is the thing thing I
had to give up was being the guy in the podcast.
I'm not saying I won't do the I mean, I've
even come back once now and I'll probably come back again.
It's not that to give it up forever, but to
get to the next level I needed to stop being
the guy on the podcast that I was right. So
now this year, I spent three months traveling the country
with my family, even went over to Europe for a while.

(50:18):
I've bought a house, vacation house in Idaho that I'm
spending some time at. I'm like, it's really and then
and then, of course, like we doubled in size, like
our portfolio double this year with Open Door Capital. That
was not a coincidence. That was because I stopped focusing
on multiple things. I shut down multiple businesses all at
the same time, bigger pockets and other things, so I

(50:39):
could focus on the few things that mattered. I like it,
Brandon had. This has been a great conversation. Thank you
so much for sharing your wisdom with us with our audience.
And where can yeah wor can how do money listeners
find out more about you and what you're up to? Yeah, man,
I'm a thirteen year old girl, so I'm very active
on Instagram. You know that's not true anymore, right, Like
I always say that, Like was like, yeah, exactly, I'm

(51:03):
a thirty three year old girl. I'm on Instagram, but
I am a thirteen year old girl on TikTok, so
you can find me there as well. It's Beardy Brandon,
like Beard with a y, Beardy Brandon and then my
if anybody's interested in investing with me again, that's what
I do now. I do the bulk of the work,
and investors get book of the profit. That's that O
d C Fund O d C open Door Capital Fund

(51:25):
dot com. That's right, yeah, and we will make sure
to link to that for folks out there who are
looking to potentially invest some larger sums of money because
oftentimes that's what the syndication deals, uh, which we didn't
really dive into, but there there will be more information
on that up in our show notes. Brandon, thank you
so much for talking with us today and we will
look forward to the next time we talk with you
as well. Thank you guys. Matt. It's always fun to

(51:47):
talk to someone who is like truly an expert. I
thought you're gonna say on fire for the thing and
they're talking about Beard Brandon expert incredibly passionate about real estate.
It clearly shows and the fact that this is what
he's been doing for you know, decades now and he's
continuing to do this. You know, he's also his own company.
He's also passionate about educating people about it. Right, so

(52:10):
even the trends it comes through, It comes through that
he is just he wants other people to understand it
the way he understand It's understands it and to do
well by investing in real estate. And so he wants
to unlock the keys, as it were, for people to
be able to invest in real estate for themselves and
to build wealth. And and we are on board with
that mission. We're not real estate investors on the level

(52:30):
of brain in turn, and that's for sure. But even
even just going the mom and pop route we think
is a win for for lots of folks. But yeah,
what was your big takeaway from that conversation? Okay, so
my big takeaway has to do with the current market conditions.
I was curious to hear what he was going to
say about that because I think a lot of folks
are a little unsure what to do right now because
they're either thinking about buying a home for themselves or

(52:53):
maybe they have a home and they're like, oh, man,
I was going to get into real estate this year,
but you know, the rising prices have been insane, the
cost of financing it's it's been crazy. But his response
to that was that he is not concerned about those things.
He is a real estate investor for the long haul
and over the next thirty years, you know. And he
says that because typically you're looking at thirty your mortgages,

(53:14):
where are things going to be? And I think the
same thing can be true. I mean, we talked about
this all the time when it comes to just straight
up investing in the stock market, right like, we should
not allow and let these day to day, month a month,
even these kind of immediate term year to year fluctuations
impact how it is that we're investing. So he is
continuing to invest within real estate. You are investing your

(53:36):
You definitely have your eye more on real estate than
I than I do right now. But I am still
definitely investing within the market. And so in the same
way that we are still eyes on the prize kind
of thing looking over the course of the coming years
and decades. That's how we need to think about still
thinking long term. Even even if there's a market blip
where real estate is now kind of less affordable or whatever, like,
it doesn't mean you can't still find a good deal.

(53:57):
And I think but one of the things Brandon said
probably might take lasers. He said, most properties are not
good deals. And I think that is such an important
thing for real estate investors to know or want to
be real estate investors, is you have to sift through
a lot of crap in order to find the gems.
And that doesn't necessarily mean that the gym is going
to be a perfect looking house, right, Like he talked
about that quad that he bought like the same week

(54:19):
that his daughter was born, how it was trashed, it
was nasty. I think the gym might smell weird. You
might have to like knock off some of the crap
off of the gym. That that does not mean that
it is not a good investment. That's exactly right, but
but yeah, good takeaway. Yeah, And so if you you're
gonna have to know hone in on an all likelihood

(54:39):
a specific neighborhood and find your niche as Brandon talked about,
instead of trying to cash your net wide and think about, oh,
investing in multifamily and single family and maybe apartment complex
is I don't know, maybe I can do it all.
If you will hone in on something, you will be
able to more easily spot the gem when it appears.
That's right, even if it's kind of like a stinky
gym that needs some work. Actually, those are oftentimes the
best ones, The ones that need your love are the

(55:01):
best investments. You heard it right here. Joel likes the
stinky gyms. Uh, dude, we enjoyed funny enough. This is
kind of like when there is a there's a lot
of talk about boldness and bravery. I feel like during
this episode as well. And the beer we're drinking today
is called Do or Die Spice Chocolate. This is a
beer by Orpheus Brewing, And I feel like this is
it's kind of appropriate, right, It's it's kind of like,

(55:23):
I mean, you're not gonna die if you don't invest
in real estate. But I don't know, maybe if you're
not investing at all, you're gonna see your wealth a
road away with inflation that we're seeing these days. But
what were your thoughts on this particular beer. Yeah, so,
and by the way, not everyone has to invest in
real estate. But no, that's that's why I made my
big take away about the stock marker because the same
as a very similar principle that a lot of folks

(55:43):
were listening are like, yeah, that's all great, but I'm
still not gonna do that, but think about how that
still applies to how it is that we invest in
the stock. The main goal of this episode is to
say real estate investing feels daunting for a lot of people,
and like, let's maybe simplify a break it down with
the help of a guy who knows what he's talking about.
But yeah, my my thoughts on this beer were that
had a little bit of spice, which was nice um

(56:04):
and actually amount of heat yeah, but it wasn't It
wasn't overwhelming, even though I actually kind of like beers
with a lot of heat going on behind the scenes,
but this one kind of had some oatmeal cream pie
vibes going on as well. Those a little little Debbie
ten packs or whatever. This is like kind of that
infused into a beer. I thought in a lot of ways,
So it's kind of fun beer interesting, had a lot
of things going on, which only makes me think of

(56:24):
the Middle Class of Shrinking episode from last week, And
that was my favorite scene from that movie when they
come across the ohmeal cream pie uh in the yard
and they're just like chowing down. Yeah, yeah, oh my gosh,
that was my favorite scene from that movie. But this
is a beer that they made in collaboration with a
chocolate company here in Atlanta. But yeah, it's got a
lot of chocolate vibes going on in this beer, with

(56:47):
like the right amount of chilis and cocoa nibs and cinnamon.
It all just comes together real well and produces this
delicious beer. I'm glad you and I got to enjoy
this one today, buddy, But that is gonna be it,
folks confined Our show notes up on the website at
how the Money dot com. Joel Until next time, Best
Friends Out, Best Friends Out.