November 27, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of the Multifamily Real Estate Experiment podcast, host Shelon Hutchinson (Hutch, the Marine investor) interviews Brian, co-owner of SVN Excel Group in Nashville. Brian shares his extraordinary journey, including a transformative Christmas Eve call in 2016 that catapulted his career in multifamily real estate. They discuss the importance of waking up with purpose, the significance of answering your phone, and building relationships with brokers. Brian also elaborates on why Nashville is a thriving investment market and offers advice on navigating 1031 exchanges and developing a strong real estate network. Additionally, he highlights the importance of education and mentorship in achieving real estate success.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:18 Guest Introduction: Brian's Impressive Background
01:07 Early Morning Routines and Mindset
02:12 Brian's Mindset and Company Motto
03:47 The Christmas Eve Call That Changed Everything
07:42 The Unexpected Client and Networking Success
11:16 The Importance of Answering the Phone
14:11 Nashville: A Top Emerging Market
17:31 Building Key Relationships in Real Estate
21:42 Building Relationships with Brokers
22:53 Advice for New Real Estate Investors
25:04 The Importance of a Real Estate Resume
28:05 Understanding 1031 Exchanges
32:22 Creating a Real Estate Investor Network
36:40 Rapid Fire Questions and Final Thoughts
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Thank you to all of our listeners!!! We would love to hear from you!!!
Email me at:
hutch@hsquaredcapital.com
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Visit our website to find out more:
www.hsquaredcapital.com
Join our Facebook Group:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (00:00):
Wah Gwan All you multifamily enthusiast.
(00:03):
Welcome to another episode ofthe Multifamily Real Estate
Experiment podcast.
This is where we uncover themindset, the mechanics, and the
market behind real estate,success.
I'm your host, ShelonHutchinson.
If you've been in real estatewith me for a little bit, you
know me as Hutch, the Marineinvestor.
Today's guest has a story thatsounds like a movie script and a
(00:24):
track record that proved thatsuccess.
Leave clues.
See Brian, he's the co-owner ofSVN Excel Group in Nashville.
He has closed over$150 millionin transaction and have built
one of the, one of the southeastlargest multifamily investor
network.
But what makes Brian's storyunforgettable is what happened
(00:46):
one Christmas Eve in 2016, and Iwon't steal that thunder.
I'm gonna let him talk aboutthat as we get into, as we get
into his story.
Right.
So, Brian, I want to thank youfor joining us today, brother.
Speaker (00:57):
Yeah.
Thank you for having me andappreciate your service.
Appreciate you getting up, earlyto do these.
Podcast before you have to go toyour
Speaker 3 (01:05):
real job.
Oh, yeah.
So this fued my fire man.
I like waking up for example,this morning, my wife and I, we
wake up at 4:00 AM and we went,we went to the gym, just came
back from the gym.
She getting ready for work andI'm here doing some things
before I go to the Marine Corpsthing, waking up early and do
these things that really driveyou close to, towards.
The goals that we haveestablished for ourself is
really exciting.
There's way too many people thatwake up, just enough time to get
(01:29):
ready, rush off to work sometimethey don't even enjoy, you know
what I'm saying?
Yeah.
However, I find that wheneveryou wake up.
On purpose, for purpose becauseyou went to sleep for purpose,
on purpose, all the good stuff,right?
You wake up mostly a clear mindtowards doing the things that
gonna propel you closer towardsyour goals.
It makes life so much moreexciting, man.
So waking up at 4:00 am isdefinitely a catalyst for us.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yeah.
Speaker (01:54):
Yeah, that beats me.
I get up at five to go run andwork out before I go into to
work, but not quite four.
It's all good,
Speaker 3 (02:02):
man.
It's all good.
Maybe later when I retire or Itransition from the Marine
Corps, I wake up at five, butfor now, I need that Extra hour
plus it's also good qualitytime, for my wife as well too.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Brian, before we get into the meat and potatoes of
this podcast, man, do you have amindset mantra, maybe a real
estate quote that really hasinspired you over the years or
drive you over the years?
Speaker (02:25):
So our motto for our company is what really drives
me.
So whether it's, when we do acouple of, learning series a
month at our office for realestate investors, right?
It's free education, all ofthat.
But, we have the mindset that,our goal is to, help you
increase your standard of livingso you can increase your
(02:48):
standard of giving.
Right.
Okay.
So we're all about giving backto the community.
We want, our investors to bethinking about that, at the
start of our, any of ourlearning series, we have either
nonprofit or charities that comein, give'em a few minutes to
talk, tell who they are.
But our whole mindset is wewanna.
(03:08):
Help you increase your standardof living so you can increase
your standard of giving, whetherit's giving to a charity,
whether it's giving to, back toyour family and creating
generational wealth or leavingit for, other purposes.
Right?
So that's kinda what drives meevery day to do what I do.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That is awesome.
Busy morning.
I had to go talk to my boy aboutwhen you set an alarm, you don't
snooze, you wake up.
Because when you snooze, that'sthe first commitment you break
for to yourself on a dailybasis, you know?
So set the alarm, you wake up.
Yeah.
Appreciate the patience.
Brian.
You bet.
So let's get back into it, man.
So you've gone from, real estatestudent into one of the most
(03:52):
connected multifamily broker inthe southeast, in less than a
decade.
Can you walk us through thatjourney and, what did that
Christmas Eve call, teach youabout preparation, timing, and
opportunity in real estate?
Speaker (04:06):
I think, the last two points you made hit it right on
is, right is being, prepared.
I think, my career in,government contracting works,
definitely, prepared a mindsetto always be prepared and be,
ready for anything.
And, then being in the rightplace, the right time, being
willing to answer your phoneeven when, it was a Saturday
(04:31):
night at 6:30 and going out todinner with my wife, the
Saturday before Christmas,right?
And yeah.
And the phone rings and, it's,doesn't necessarily say unknown
number, but it was not a numberI recognized at all.
And so I, I chose to go aheadand answered it.
And, it changed my wholetrajectory of being in
(04:55):
commercial real estate and, inmultifamily.
to the point where I've never,ever had to, really try to dig
for buyers of properties, right.
But that one experience, turnedit, and set my, trajectory in my
life in commercial real estateon the fast track.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah.
That is awesome.
Give us a little more detail,man.
Speaker (05:19):
Yeah, it's like getting on a rocket ship and take off.
But yeah, we were headed out todinner and phone rings and I
knew from my days of traveling,all over the country and all 50
states, a lot of that.
When I saw the area code 3 1 0,I knew that was California, L.A.
Area.
So I went ahead and answered thephone and the gentleman, on the
(05:43):
other line was like, Hey Brian,told me his name.
And he said, he's like, Hey, Iknow you don't know me.
I got your name from aresidential realtor who said you
might be able to help me out.
And he said, I am, I'm in a realpickle'cause.
I've got until midnight tonightto identify properties for my 10
(06:03):
31 exchange, and I sold themproperties here in LA and I
wanna invest in Tennessee.
So can you help me out?
I remember this is a Saturdaynight, 6:30 at night, and I
said, I told him, I was like,you know what, gimme like 15.
To 30 minutes.
Let me see what I can do foryou.
(06:24):
And I remembered when I wentthrough real estate school,
which was just a couple ofmonths prior to this call.
Oh wow.
That, there was a gentleman inmy class and we were talking and
I told him, yeah, I was gonnado, commercial and he was gonna
be doing residential, but inthat conversation, during that
class, he had mentioned that hisstepfather had multifamily
(06:48):
properties.
Right.
And that's what this gentlemanwanted to buy.
And so I immediately dialed himand said, Hey, I know your
stepfather has like fiveproperties.
Would he be interested inselling 1, 2, 3 of'em, any of
what?
And so he said to me, he islike, well, hey, give me 15
(07:09):
minutes.
Let me call him real quick.
So he called him, he calls meback.
He said, yeah, he's got three ofthem, right?
Okay.
So he called me back.
I said, well, can you email methe location, address, all that?
Which he did.
I turned around and called thisgentleman back and said, Hey,
I've got three of'em.
I'm going to email you or textyou the address and the
(07:31):
information so you can give'emto your 10 31 intermediary.
And we ended up offering allthree of those on all three of
those properties went undercontract.
And then the story really getsinteresting is because when he
came out right after New Year tocome and inspect the property,
up until this point I reallydidn't know.
(07:52):
You know much about this person.
Really.
And, so he flew out and I, beingthe good broker that I am, I
said, Hey, I'll come and pickyou up at the airport when
you're flying in from L.A.
And he said, well, you'll haveto come to the private airport.
Okay.
'cause I don't fly, I don't flycommercial.
I was like, oh, okay.
I was like, well, I can do that.
(08:13):
So I went and picked him up andso it's, this guy comes off the
plane, it's him, his wife,couple of kids, a nanny, a video
photographer, all this stuff.
And then I was really like, man,who am I really working there?
who is this?
And, he ended up being, verygood friends with, grant Cardone
and Grant's the one that toldhim to.
(08:34):
So he's the one that said, Hey,I've invested in Nashville.
You ought to invest inNashville.
Right.
from that standpoint.
Yeah.
And so then to make the storyeven crazier is this gentleman,
puts on a big conference inCalifornia once a year.
And so we had closed on hisproperties.
he had his, he said, Hey, whydon't you come out to this, to
(08:56):
my conference?
And, he's like, I'll get you onthe front row.
I'll introduce you to somepeople, and so.
Sure enough, we went out to theconference a couple months later
and he put us right on the frontrow and he got up and told his
rags to riches story rightbefore lunch.
And he was like, yeah, myTennessee realtor is here.
(09:17):
So he said, Hey Brian, why don'tyou stand up?
And so he had me stand up andthen he ended his story.
And then we were supposed tobreak for lunch and we were
supposed to go have a kind of aprivate lunch with a couple of
the speakers and so forth.
And, I got absolutely mobbedbecause there was 1500 people
there.
Yeah.
You know, and they were comingfrom every which direction and
(09:39):
grant and his wife were there tospeak, as well.
And so when all these people inthe audience were like, well, if
this gentleman is there,investing in there and grant
investing in there, then maybewe need to look at it.
And so I, I tell people that'sthe closest I'll ever know what,
means to be a, like a star andget mobbed.
(10:02):
Because I sat there and I, so Itold my wife, you go, enjoy
lunch.
I'll stay here for a few minutesand answer questions.
Well, I was there for the wholehour and a half answering
questions'cause I got mobbedfrom all sides.
And so it came home from that,that conference with a huge,
(10:22):
long list of people that wantedto buy.
Multifamily properties.
And so that's kind of my originstory of how I got into
multifamily.
It's not.
Amen.
It's very unique.
It's not what everybody else,but you talk about getting,
thrown into the fireimmediately.
And then, like I say, I've neverbeen hurting for.
(10:44):
For buyers, you know, for peoplewho want properties.
'cause I started out with ahundred and some of'em right off
the bat.
So,
Speaker 3 (10:50):
yeah, that, that's freaking awesome, man.
All because you answered yourphone, right?
Yeah.
See a lot of people get thisthing confused sometime, right?
Where they want to build thiswork-life balance where they're
so rigid.
And the things that they do on adaily basis, date night, all
that good stuff, right?
And they miss the opportunitythat can help them to propel the
(11:10):
goals that they have set for theestablish for themself and their
family as well too.
Right?
Yeah.
It is a kudos to you tounderstand that, you know, every
time your phone ring, especiallyas a realtor, it's a potential
opportunity.
And you had a supporting spousethat understood Right.
What that means, right.
And that you was doing it forthe family.
That I think that's pretty cool,man.
And even at the conference.
(11:32):
Staying back from lunch andmaking those handshakes, those
personal connections, right.
To be able to build thatrelationship with those people
for future opportunities.
Your wife understood that aswell, and I think that it's
pretty cool because I think oneof the things that a, I think a
lot of us, we miss is theimportance of having a solid
team at home.
And when it works at home andyou have a very supported, solid
(11:54):
team at home, it tell you, itopens it up so much more door.
What'd you think about that?
Speaker (11:59):
I agree a hundred percent with that, and thank
goodness my wife had, experiencein real estate as well, right?
Yeah.
So to me, answer the phone andeven, today, I teach, all the
brokers on my team and that is,one of the very, very small
things, even though it's a verysmall thing that differentiates
(12:20):
you.
We'll be if you answer yourphone.
Yep.
'Cause I go through and I'llgive'em examples, like one of
the latest that, well one of thelatest examples was a lady from
California who owned a, hundredunit property with her two
brothers.
She called me, it was like 6:306:37 o'clock at night.
(12:43):
Right, right.
And.
Answered the phone and she wasshocked and she was like, you
know, you're the fifth brokerI've called so far.
You're the only one that'sanswered my phone.
And the crazy thing about thatis, I visited with her two or
three times, several more days.
We ended up finally signing alisting agreement is like five
(13:04):
days later that day.
We signed the listing agreement.
She told me that finally one ofthose other brokers finally
called her back.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Oh wow.
Speaker (13:15):
It took them five days to call her back, compared to
they lost somebody that answerstheir phone, immediately.
And I'll go to events back herein Nashville and there'll be
people that put on these eventsor meetups and different things,
and they'll introduce me as,this is the broker that'll
answer his phone.
That's awesome.
(13:36):
Right.
And and I went to one of'em theother day and, it was the next
morning on my drive to work.
I had two of those people fromthat event call me and say.
Hey, we're only calling you'cause we wanted to see whether
you actually answered your phoneor not.
They're like, we're like, wedon't have any other question.
We just wanted to see whether itwas true or not.
(13:58):
Yeah.
And I tell'em, I'm like, there'sso many people, brokers that
don't answer your, their phone.
I know it's very small and itseems very silly, but it
differentiates you from yourcompetitors.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Oh, absolutely man.
So you touch on Nashville,right?
So answer your phone you touchon Nashville, and Tennessee and.
I'm trying to understand is itbecoming or it has became or as
the time passed, right?
So a lot of investors arelooking to, are looking beyond
traditional coastal markets.
Now, why do you believeTennessee, especially Nashville,
is one of the top emergingmarkets, right now?
(14:31):
if you can touch on some of the,economic migration trend,
institutional money, all thatgood stuff as it applies to
Nashville.
Speaker (14:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
I get it.
Quite a bit.
And, they'll, I'll get calls ona weekly basis and they're
calling me going, Hey, we knowwe need to be in Nashville.
Everybody tells us we need to bethere.
Why is it right?
What is it, you know aboutNashville?
We just see it everywhere thatit's a great, place to invest.
(14:58):
And it has been for a number ofyears.
Going back to your point, it hasfor a number of years and it
will continue to be that way fora number of years.
Because of the fact that theeconomy here in Nashville is not
just based off of one or twomain industries, right?
So when people will call me, alot of times I will answer their
(15:21):
question by saying, okay.
When you think of top industryin Nashville, what do you think
of?
Right.
Okay.
Industry and that, and a lot of'em will go, oh, it's gotta be
music.
And then I said, well, if I toldyou that's like fifth or sixth,
would that surprise you?
And they're like, uh, yeah.
You know?
And so I said, well, if I toldyou healthcare is by far our
(15:42):
largest Wow, then they're like,uh, I would've never thought of
that.
Right, right.
And so then I'll go down throughand I'll list like the top 10.
And then they go, okay, now Isee why we need to be there.
Right.
And it's that diversity ofindustries in Nashville that
make Nashville, so popular.
But they're still, depending onwhat report you, read or believe
(16:06):
or they're still between a 100and 125 people a day moving
here.
Oh wow.
Okay.
To, to Nashville.
So you know, it's gonna continueto grow.
Oregon Oracle is moving theirworld headquarters from Austin,
Texas to Nashville.
One of the main reasons isbecause so much of the work they
(16:26):
do is in healthcare.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Okay.
Speaker (16:29):
And healthcare is our largest industry, here, believe
it or not, and so, but once Ilist that kind of top 10 and
then they go, okay, thatdiversity in industry That's
what makes it, so popular.
Along with that, we have nostate income tax.
It's a very.
(16:49):
Family oriented, location, hastop high schools, for your, to
raise your kids, there's a lotof draw, to it.
And that's why people, movehere.
Not to get into politics.
It's very conservative, state aswell.
People, that my, probably over50% of my clients are people
(17:09):
from California, New York andlike New Jersey, Illinois, that
are looking to invest in, statesthat may be landlord friendly
and, or they're selling alltheir stuff and moving from,
different states, right?
And so it got a lot of draws toit.
Yeah,
Speaker 3 (17:28):
yeah, no doubt man.
So, relationship definitelymatters, right?
And you started with building apretty key relationship that got
you into a room, which w whichyou take responsibility of
building on, right?
For active investors, right?
You said that the right broker,relationship can make or break a
successful multifamily,investor, for credit investors
(17:48):
or for operators who are lookingfor investments in Nashville or
in Tennessee in general.
What's the difference between,being on a broker's list or just
being there, being on the radar?
Speaker (18:03):
I love that question.
Thanks for asking that question.
Yeah, that is so key.
Because of the fact that.
I do get, several calls, anumber of calls, a week type
thing.
And a lot of it will be somebodythat says, Hey Brian, my name's
Joe.
I've got a group of guys we'reinvesting, we like class, C we
(18:24):
want value add.
We want 50 to 150 units.
Can you put us on your list?
Right?
And that's what they kind of.
That's all they give me, youknow, the information piece.
Okay.
So I will just say, you knowwhat, I appreciate that, but can
we go, into a little bit deeperdive here with this, or, and
they're like, sure.
(18:45):
And I will say, do you have likea real estate resume that not
only has the criteria, but theresume about who you guys are,
what you own, where you own,just more information.
I said,'cause.
I get a number of calls a week,and I really need to try to
differentiate, you from,everybody else, you know?
(19:07):
Right?
Because I, I'm like, if I getfive a week and, the end of the
month, there's 20 people whocall me.
How am I gonna remember youfrom, the other 19, right?
And so I asked him to do that,and then I created a folder for
all of them.
And I kind of remember, criteriahave a big.
Whiteboard too.
I put everybody's names on, so Iknow all of that.
(19:28):
But it really, it's so key, andI was on a different podcast
too, and some folks in,investors in New York heard me
and heard me talk about this.
And so they called me rightafter hearing the podcast and
was like, Hey.
(19:48):
Man, that was great.
We're gonna, we, you've kind oflit a fire under us to prepare
this, real estate resume and allof this, and so they went
beyond.
You talk about really being topof mind for somebody.
They went beyond even the realestate resume.
They actually did a video of thetwo of them.
They're the two kind of partnersof them talking and they're,
(20:11):
they were kinda like, yo, thisis a silly city, silly video,
but we wanted to make sure you'dremember who we were, and they
did some, just being funny,right?
It was truly entertaining.
You know what they did.
And they send it along with thisreal estate resume, their
criteria.
And believe me, I rememberedthem.
(20:32):
I mean, I did two deals withthose guys.
We're working on deal numberthree.
So you talk about settingyourself apart, somebody doesn't
have to go to that extent, butit helps separate.
So that's why I always say to.
People will call me.
I'm like, Hey, if you don't haveone, you know if you wanna see
examples of ones or something,I've got some that I can send
(20:55):
you.
You can see what some of theselook like.
I obviously take out name, allkinds of things, but just
helping them, you'll understand.
So you know, whether it's me orwhether it's, a broker from one
of my competitors, right?
You want to be able to.
Set yourself apart and havethat, broker and a lot of'em
will say, okay, so, how oftencan I call you?
(21:18):
You know, to not be annoying.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah.
Speaker (21:21):
And I tell'em, I was like, I expect you to call me
once a month.
Right.
I want you to call me every.
And I even, I can list people.
I don't know exactly who's gonnacall me on the first, second,
third, because they call everymonth.
They've just Right.
Taken my word to call me andI've told some of'em, I was
like, yeah, you may besurprised.
(21:41):
'cause if you don't call me bythe third, I'll probably call
you.
Oh yeah.
Because I like to check in onthem and see if their criteria
has changed.
Maybe they have brought on somemore partners, so maybe they can
go from buying 50, maybe theywant 150 now.
Yeah, that makes sense now.
Right.
So theirs might change as wellwith them checking in with me to
(22:01):
see, what we have.
'Cause we don't list everythingout on.
Like LoopNet or CoStar or Crexiand all that, we are kind of
known as the team has a lot ofoff market type properties.
Okay.
So that's why I tell people youneed to, please keep in touch
with this, from that standpoint,but.
But yeah.
You know, it's, and I'm like,it's fine to call me, once a
(22:24):
month.
'cause us brokers we're notreally scary people, you know?
And if you are in areas whereyou wanna invest, I'm happy to
go have coffee with you so youcan get to know me and feel like
you can trust me and all that.
I'm happy to, spend time gettingto know you, who you are and all
that good stuff.
(22:44):
So I'm very accessible.
I'm, not scary.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
That's good, man.
Yeah, I appreciate that, man.
So yeah.
For folks who are just startingout, as far as active investors
go, folks who are just startingout, it can be a little bit
intimidating, right?
Because you feel as if you areasking for a favor or you are
asking to be favored.
However, if you are very clearabout what your buy box are or
is, then you are able toeffectively communicate that to
(23:10):
a broker, whether you're brandnew or you're seasoned.
And if you are brand new, to thegame, you don't always have to
go on your track records, right?
Because a lot of you who arestarting off in a game, in a
real estate game, chances areyou are part of a mentorship
group, and chances are you'regoing to have advisors, whether
it be your mentor or otherpeoples in your group, that you
can leverage their track recordbecause they will help you
(23:32):
through the process, whetherthey are.
Helping you with underwriting,setting up property management,
raising capital, all these goodstuff that helps the wheel to
turn as you get started.
So don't be scared.
Take some time to get thementoring that you need.
Create your buy box, and thenreach out to the brokers and
then build those relationship,buy them coffee and, I don't
like to use the word pick theirbrain, but develop a
(23:52):
relationship to where you arememorable and credible.
And from there then you will beable to see more deal.
And a lot of times you are notgoing to win the first, 5 to 10
to 20, maybe 50 deals that youbid on, right?
But as you become a lot moreseasoned, you get to understand
how the numbers work.
The broker get to see yoursticktoitiveness, right.
And that you're not gonna justfall off right?
(24:13):
In the, that you're in the gameand between.
You trying to buy a property onyour own, you might have worked
with somebody else and learned alittle bit more about the game,
what makes you communicatecommunicates better with the
broker.
And also develop a better biggertrack record as well to where
you can become more credibletowards the broker and be able
to win some more deal.
Because look, I've been a coseveral deals where.
(24:35):
The seller and the brokeractually wants to have an
interview with the best andfinal finalists.
Right.
And that happened quite often.
And you get to the best andfinals, sometime you win.
Sometime you don't, most of thetime you don't.
Right.
And sometime you win because youhave developed the credibility
in the market with the brokerand also you sound, as shorty of
(24:55):
closing, with that seller, whatdo you gotta say about that?
Speaker (24:58):
Yeah, you, so you have said several great, great
things.
I really appreciate bringing upon that real estate resume.
Like you say, you may be new,right?
But you pointed out, made thepoint, and I tell the people the
same thing, is, hey, you'reprobably part of a team, right?
(25:20):
Yeah.
So maybe you're in, somebody'smastermind group.
Right.
Whether it's Rod Khleif orwhoever, all the gurus that are
out there doing it, you may bepart of their mastermind group.
Right.
Include that, include who mightbe a GP on a deal for you.
Or, like you say, you takeadvantage of their experience
(25:40):
and include that on your team.
On that real estate resume, evenif you own single family right
now or you've done some fix andflips, right, you'll include
that kind of information aboutyou and your experience, in
there.
Include it all right?
'Cause I tell people.
That if, when I'm representing aseller.
(26:01):
Right?
Why that real estate resume isvery important is because it
helps me sell to that seller ofwhy they should pick your offer
over somebody else's.
You also mentioned having theassurity of closing.
Right.
And so I can't even tell you thenumber of times where.
(26:23):
I have, been working with theseller.
The seller has enough confidencein my abilities to, basically
vet the sellers, vet the folkswho they are.
And I've had a number of sellerswho have taken offers that are
lower and not taking the highestbecause I say, you know what,
(26:45):
this may not be the highest,but.
These guys are closers.
Yeah.
Right.
The other thing I say is don'tbe a serial retrainer.
Right.
Now, there are retriableoffenses, right.
Say you find some structuralissues and or something like
that or somebody sends you maybea, there's a P&L of some sort,
(27:07):
but then you get the realnumbers from property management
and all of a sudden the NOI isoff 50,000.
Right.
You know.
So a lot.
There are some ret tradableoffenses, but don't be a serial
retrainer, that type of deal.
But then that asurity of closingis so key.
You know, again, I mean, I'vehad sellers take.
Lower offers because they knowthese people are closers.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, right.
Shoot, I'm doing the math rightnow.
See what the NOI would be.
Speaker (27:40):
This was on a, four, it's like a four and a half
million dollar deal.
Right.
So look at that.
NOI the NOI was off, it was offmore like 55,000 or something
like that.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
That's a significant value.
Almost like, almost a milliondollars, like$800,000, I think.
Speaker (27:56):
Exactly
Speaker 3 (27:56):
right.
Speaker (27:57):
There are the retriable offenses, don't get me wrong,
but you don't wanna have that,reputation.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
yeah.
I got you, man.
So, before we start exiting thispodcast, Brian, I wanna talk
about 10 31 exchange, right?
So you built a career around oneof the, one of the trickiest
transactions in real estate,which is 10 31 exchange.
Now, what do most investorsmisunderstand about 10 31
exchange, and how can they usethis strategy to keep
compounding their wealth throughmultifamily acquisition?
Speaker (28:26):
It is surprising to me.
There's two things.
When I work with or when maybewhat I'd call, fairly
experienced investors come myway, is a number one.
They don't understand the 10 31.
They've heard of it.
Right.
So many of'em forget or don'trealize, they need to have that
(28:52):
set up before they close ontheir first property.
Where I've had, call and say,yeah, I'm gonna get do this 10
31.
I'm like, okay, so you'vealready got it deranged and
everything.
And they're like, oh no, we justclosed down on that on, like,
you know, two days ago.
And I'm like, you're two daystoo late now.
'cause you haven't set that upwith a, an intermediary.
(29:14):
That's one of the big thingwhich really shocked me,'cause
I'm sitting there thinking, wellif they've listened to podcasts
or they've done, been part ofany kinda groups, they would
know that has to be done, aheadof time.
Right.
But, and then a lot of newerpeople, they don't realize that
Okay.
Yeah, if you 10 31 from oneproperty to another, to another,
(29:39):
to another, you know, it helpsyou, on your tax savings.
Right.
Obviously, the other big onethat, also shocks me with some
somewhat seasoned investors isthat they've, some of them I've
run into have never done a costSeg on any of their properties.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Oh.
Interesting.
Speaker (29:59):
Right.
You know, and so it's kindalike, you know, they'll say, oh
yeah, I've owned this propertyfor five years, or these
properties for five years.
And I was like, well, your CostSeg probably helped you out.
And they're, they look at melike, what is that?
What is that?
Right.
So who's that?
Yeah.
So it's a lot of'em.
It's helping.
But 10 30 ones are just a it wasa huge opportunity, to take
(30:22):
advantage of so you can avoid,paying taxes.
Yeah, yeah.
And once you buy a property andthen you sell it, and then you
sell it and a lot of people arealways, I wouldn't say always,
there's people who question,well, all these real estate,
they never pay taxes.
What's the deal?
Not factual.
(30:42):
And I'm like, that's why theydon't pay taxes,'cause they own
real estate.
That's why it's one of the bestinvestments.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah.
On the grand scheme of thingthough, we do pay taxes.
Right.
We got a property taxes.
Yeah.
Right.
And we create and we creatingjobs for the community.
All the property management, theconstruction management, all the
good stuff.
All these employees, that livesin that the works sometimes live
on the property.
But most of the time working onthe property, they're paying
taxes as well.
And we are providing jobs.
(31:10):
Yeah.
Plus we're paying profitproperty taxes that goes through
to the community schools and allthat good stuff.
Right.
So we may not be paying taxes onour earnings.
Yes.
Right.
Because the governmentappreciate that we are providing
housing.
Especially when you're providingaffordable housing.
Right.
The government likes that.
And for that, there's benefits.
And if you had the discipline.
(31:32):
To where you can shop till youdrop, because that aligns with
your long-term financialtrajectory for your family.
And you assign to the idea ofcreating generational wealth for
your family, then you continueswapping into your drop, right.
And then your family get a stepup in basis.
Right.
However you get to benefit fromthat cash flow, over the years
and, you get to swap the job andnot paying a bunch of taxes.
(31:53):
Yeah.
You get to keep more of yourhard earned money.
Speaker (31:56):
I appreciate you clarifying that.
That's good.
Yeah.
Hundred percent.
Yeah.
I don't want, as far as, uncleSam type tax, from that
standpoint that.
Right.
The normal taxes that peoplethink about, I guess.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Right.
So we do pay our fair share oftaxes through property taxes
and, the employments that we dofor the folks in our community.
Okay, man, I appreciate thatman.
I got you for another threeminutes.
Alright.
Can you tell me a little bitabout your, this investor
network that you've created?
You've led the southeast largestmultifamily invest investor
group.
Yeah.
(32:28):
Why did you create a communityand how has it changed the game
for investors who want to accessdeals, education and
relationships?
Speaker (32:36):
Yeah, it's called, Real Estate Investors of Nashville.
REIN is what it's called.
But it does have, close to acouple thousand members in it.
And, it's, people who are.
Investing and it has newinvestors to those who have been
at it for a few years, those whoare very seasoned.
And so it just helps the newfolks come and, get mentored or
(33:01):
maybe they.
Meet people at this event thatthey end up doing a joint
venture with or partnering with,or, forming syndications with
whatever.
But it helps educate it.
And so once a month, I gettogether and I lead the, I'll
pick the topic that we're gonna,talk on like, so this Thursday
(33:22):
is the one for November and Ihave a panel that we're gonna
talk about insurance'causeeverybody knows what's happening
with insurance on.
Craziness.
But I, then I pick the speakers,I pick the topic.
So it may be maybe how,acquisition may be how to find
your deals.
It may be, cost Seg it may beproperty management, maybe asset
management, whatever.
(33:43):
I've kind of picked the topicsand then, we just have experts
who are, expert or investors,all of that, that want to come
in and love to educate as well.
And, I kind of do it like we'redoing here.
I do it like an interview style.
And I kinda let them teach, butI'm adding.
My 2 cents and asking thequestions and all of that.
(34:04):
And, the group has justcontinued to grow when we had a
few hundred people when we firststarted and now we're up to,
this many, and it just continuesto, grow, but it's all about
education, right?
And they also have the groupseparated to the different
counties have their own kind ofmonthly type meetings.
And then we have a big one, kindof once a month, so.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That is awesome, man.
Build a network.
You also run the from Foundationto Fortune, podcast, what's one
reoccurring theme that you havenoticed about people who have
built lasting wealth and, whatshould our audience take away
from it.
Speaker (34:42):
Probably the biggest thing, it's basically, kinda
like I shared my origin story,right?
It's kinda like people's originstories of how they got started
and that, but to your point, thebiggest takeaway is that I've
found from people is their grit.
And that they've had to overcomethings in their life.
(35:04):
Yeah, right.
You know, many of them werehomeless at 15 years old.
They got kicked outta theirhouse.
They could have.
Oh wow.
They could have went differentdirections, but ended up going
this direction.
But it might have been, theyfound, one of the guys calls it,
you have these differentsprinkles in my life.
It was really like mentors thatkind of guided them, which way,
but almost everybody you lookat.
(35:27):
Has come from circumstances thatwere not ideal and it's how they
have had grit to overcome howyeah, they have fallen down, but
they've got themselves back upand by their bootstraps and,
moved on and you, I think youfirst kinda started talking out
to about mindset, right?
They've learned this mindset ofjust, and having what I call.
(35:51):
Batteries included.
They have the hustle muscle thatjust keep going, keep going,
keep going.
And It seems to be, and theyhave been creative problem
solvers in their journey and intheir life, right?
So those probably four itemsseem to be consistent across
everybody that I've interviewed.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Oh man, that so, got it.
Sticktuitiveness.
Speaker (36:13):
Exactly.
Yeah.
You mentioned that for your son,what you, that is, so, so true.
They went from being homeless tomaking millions and millions a
year now.
The thing is on my podcast, Idon't do just do real estate.
I pick anybody that, I've kindof heard or seen or read about a
little bit of their story.
(36:34):
I love to, really dive deep ononto that.
That's good.
Yeah, that's good
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Man.
Brian, we're gonna get into thefocus run for three minutes.
Yeah.
It's a focus on, the acronymfocus, so real quick answers,
what do you do for fun?
Speaker (36:47):
Golf and, travel.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
So what is one opportunity that changed the
course of your career?
I think we already talked abouta phone call in December
Speaker (36:55):
Yeah.
That, that definitely,definitely changed.
That phone call, and that oneindividual, by the way, has
introduced me to so many otherpeople, not just investors, but
other high level people.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
That is awesome, man.
What is one key communication,tip you'll give to investors?
Speaker (37:17):
I man that there's so many of them.
I'm a big Ed Mullet fan.
Okay.
I love his book, the power ofone more, one more that, whether
it's real estate, whether it'swhatever, but it's the, we were
talking about, it's the power ofone more, right?
Where more, most people arequit.
Maybe it's one more call with abroker, one more property that
(37:38):
you need to underwrite.
One more, so your first deal isright around the corner.
Right.
It is.
So many people underestimatewhere that is, but a lot of
times it's just doing that onemore thing that other investors
won't do.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah.
I just read, the book, FanaticalProspecting, and that's one of a
takeaway is to, yeah, when it'stime to go home, make one more
call.
Yep.
So one more.
Yeah.
A awesome man.
What is something you wish youunderstood earlier about real
estate or people?
Speaker (38:08):
One thing I wish I knew about real estate was to, the
advice I give is invest earlyand invest often.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
There you go.
Yeah.
Speaker (38:18):
I wish I would've started a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Got you, man.
Same here at a
Speaker (38:22):
much, much earlier age.
So same here.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
What does success mean to you today, Brian?
Speaker (38:28):
Success for me means creating that generational
wealth for people.
That's good.
Right?
And you're talking about, makethis real quick.
What gets me up every day too isto help those new investors and
put them on a path that, in sixto eight years, they have enough
passive income.
They can live what I call a lifeby design.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I love that.
Speaker (38:51):
They'll have enough, they'll have enough, passive
income, enough income.
It's not always passive with,yeah, with, multifamily, but
enough income coming in.
They can, choose to livewhatever life.
I have a client that, is rentingat his home.
He spent the last two yearstraveling the country with his
wife and two kids, two youngerkids, and a couple of dogs, and
(39:11):
they've been to every nationalpark, and that wasn't what I
would do, but that's what theychose to do.
But the point is they hadenough.
Cash flow that they could go anddo that.
Right.
And we started out by, helpingthem with their first duplex.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
That is, that's freaking awesome.
I talk about the five freedoms,financial freedom, location
freedom, time freedom, yeah.
Freedom, purpose and freedom ofrelationship.
And Brian, that has beenphenomenal.
And for our listeners who wantto invest in Tennessee, or learn
from your investor group, what'sthe best way for them to connect
with you?
Speaker (39:41):
They can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active on LinkedInright now.
So you find me on LinkedIn.
I'm on.
All the different socials.
You can go to, Excel,A-C-C-E-L-C-R-E.com is our
website.
So you can find me on there.
All my contact information isthere as well.
So yeah, anything, my phonenumber is(615) 260-2121.
(40:05):
I do answer my calls.
So if somebody wants to call meyou can test me and see.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Thank you so much man.
And people, thank you so muchagain for listening to another
episode of the Multi-Family RealEstate Experiment podcast.
I'm Hutch Marine Investor out.
Wah Gwan All you multifamily enthusiast.
(00:03):
Welcome to another episode ofthe Multifamily Real Estate
Experiment podcast.
This is where we uncover themindset, the mechanics, and the
market behind real estate,success.
I'm your host, ShelonHutchinson.
If you've been in real estatewith me for a little bit, you
know me as Hutch, the Marineinvestor.
Today's guest has a story thatsounds like a movie script and a
(00:24):
track record that proved thatsuccess.
Leave clues.
See Brian, he's the co-owner ofSVN Excel Group in Nashville.
He has closed over$150 millionin transaction and have built
one of the, one of the southeastlargest multifamily investor
network.
But what makes Brian's storyunforgettable is what happened
(00:46):
one Christmas Eve in 2016, and Iwon't steal that thunder.
I'm gonna let him talk aboutthat as we get into, as we get
into his story.
Right.
So, Brian, I want to thank youfor joining us today, brother.
Speaker (00:57):
Yeah.
Thank you for having me andappreciate your service.
Appreciate you getting up, earlyto do these.
Podcast before you have to go toyour
Speaker 3 (01:05):
real job.
Oh, yeah.
So this fued my fire man.
I like waking up for example,this morning, my wife and I, we
wake up at 4:00 AM and we went,we went to the gym, just came
back from the gym.
She getting ready for work andI'm here doing some things
before I go to the Marine Corpsthing, waking up early and do
these things that really driveyou close to, towards.
The goals that we haveestablished for ourself is
really exciting.
There's way too many people thatwake up, just enough time to get
(01:29):
ready, rush off to work sometimethey don't even enjoy, you know
what I'm saying?
Yeah.
However, I find that wheneveryou wake up.
On purpose, for purpose becauseyou went to sleep for purpose,
on purpose, all the good stuff,right?
You wake up mostly a clear mindtowards doing the things that
gonna propel you closer towardsyour goals.
It makes life so much moreexciting, man.
So waking up at 4:00 am isdefinitely a catalyst for us.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yeah.
Speaker (01:54):
Yeah, that beats me.
I get up at five to go run andwork out before I go into to
work, but not quite four.
It's all good,
Speaker 3 (02:02):
man.
It's all good.
Maybe later when I retire or Itransition from the Marine
Corps, I wake up at five, butfor now, I need that Extra hour
plus it's also good qualitytime, for my wife as well too.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Brian, before we get into the meat and potatoes of
this podcast, man, do you have amindset mantra, maybe a real
estate quote that really hasinspired you over the years or
drive you over the years?
Speaker (02:25):
So our motto for our company is what really drives
me.
So whether it's, when we do acouple of, learning series a
month at our office for realestate investors, right?
It's free education, all ofthat.
But, we have the mindset that,our goal is to, help you
increase your standard of livingso you can increase your
(02:48):
standard of giving.
Right.
Okay.
So we're all about giving backto the community.
We want, our investors to bethinking about that, at the
start of our, any of ourlearning series, we have either
nonprofit or charities that comein, give'em a few minutes to
talk, tell who they are.
But our whole mindset is wewanna.
(03:08):
Help you increase your standardof living so you can increase
your standard of giving, whetherit's giving to a charity,
whether it's giving to, back toyour family and creating
generational wealth or leavingit for, other purposes.
Right?
So that's kinda what drives meevery day to do what I do.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That is awesome.
Busy morning.
I had to go talk to my boy aboutwhen you set an alarm, you don't
snooze, you wake up.
Because when you snooze, that'sthe first commitment you break
for to yourself on a dailybasis, you know?
So set the alarm, you wake up.
Yeah.
Appreciate the patience.
Brian.
You bet.
So let's get back into it, man.
So you've gone from, real estatestudent into one of the most
(03:52):
connected multifamily broker inthe southeast, in less than a
decade.
Can you walk us through thatjourney and, what did that
Christmas Eve call, teach youabout preparation, timing, and
opportunity in real estate?
Speaker (04:06):
I think, the last two points you made hit it right on
is, right is being, prepared.
I think, my career in,government contracting works,
definitely, prepared a mindsetto always be prepared and be,
ready for anything.
And, then being in the rightplace, the right time, being
willing to answer your phoneeven when, it was a Saturday
(04:31):
night at 6:30 and going out todinner with my wife, the
Saturday before Christmas,right?
And yeah.
And the phone rings and, it's,doesn't necessarily say unknown
number, but it was not a numberI recognized at all.
And so I, I chose to go aheadand answered it.
And, it changed my wholetrajectory of being in
(04:55):
commercial real estate and, inmultifamily.
to the point where I've never,ever had to, really try to dig
for buyers of properties, right.
But that one experience, turnedit, and set my, trajectory in my
life in commercial real estateon the fast track.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah.
That is awesome.
Give us a little more detail,man.
Speaker (05:19):
Yeah, it's like getting on a rocket ship and take off.
But yeah, we were headed out todinner and phone rings and I
knew from my days of traveling,all over the country and all 50
states, a lot of that.
When I saw the area code 3 1 0,I knew that was California, L.A.
Area.
So I went ahead and answered thephone and the gentleman, on the
(05:43):
other line was like, Hey Brian,told me his name.
And he said, he's like, Hey, Iknow you don't know me.
I got your name from aresidential realtor who said you
might be able to help me out.
And he said, I am, I'm in a realpickle'cause.
I've got until midnight tonightto identify properties for my 10
(06:03):
31 exchange, and I sold themproperties here in LA and I
wanna invest in Tennessee.
So can you help me out?
I remember this is a Saturdaynight, 6:30 at night, and I
said, I told him, I was like,you know what, gimme like 15.
To 30 minutes.
Let me see what I can do foryou.
(06:24):
And I remembered when I wentthrough real estate school,
which was just a couple ofmonths prior to this call.
Oh wow.
That, there was a gentleman inmy class and we were talking and
I told him, yeah, I was gonnado, commercial and he was gonna
be doing residential, but inthat conversation, during that
class, he had mentioned that hisstepfather had multifamily
(06:48):
properties.
Right.
And that's what this gentlemanwanted to buy.
And so I immediately dialed himand said, Hey, I know your
stepfather has like fiveproperties.
Would he be interested inselling 1, 2, 3 of'em, any of
what?
And so he said to me, he islike, well, hey, give me 15
(07:09):
minutes.
Let me call him real quick.
So he called him, he calls meback.
He said, yeah, he's got three ofthem, right?
Okay.
So he called me back.
I said, well, can you email methe location, address, all that?
Which he did.
I turned around and called thisgentleman back and said, Hey,
I've got three of'em.
I'm going to email you or textyou the address and the
(07:31):
information so you can give'emto your 10 31 intermediary.
And we ended up offering allthree of those on all three of
those properties went undercontract.
And then the story really getsinteresting is because when he
came out right after New Year tocome and inspect the property,
up until this point I reallydidn't know.
(07:52):
You know much about this person.
Really.
And, so he flew out and I, beingthe good broker that I am, I
said, Hey, I'll come and pickyou up at the airport when
you're flying in from L.A.
And he said, well, you'll haveto come to the private airport.
Okay.
'cause I don't fly, I don't flycommercial.
I was like, oh, okay.
I was like, well, I can do that.
(08:13):
So I went and picked him up andso it's, this guy comes off the
plane, it's him, his wife,couple of kids, a nanny, a video
photographer, all this stuff.
And then I was really like, man,who am I really working there?
who is this?
And, he ended up being, verygood friends with, grant Cardone
and Grant's the one that toldhim to.
(08:34):
So he's the one that said, Hey,I've invested in Nashville.
You ought to invest inNashville.
Right.
from that standpoint.
Yeah.
And so then to make the storyeven crazier is this gentleman,
puts on a big conference inCalifornia once a year.
And so we had closed on hisproperties.
he had his, he said, Hey, whydon't you come out to this, to
(08:56):
my conference?
And, he's like, I'll get you onthe front row.
I'll introduce you to somepeople, and so.
Sure enough, we went out to theconference a couple months later
and he put us right on the frontrow and he got up and told his
rags to riches story rightbefore lunch.
And he was like, yeah, myTennessee realtor is here.
(09:17):
So he said, Hey Brian, why don'tyou stand up?
And so he had me stand up andthen he ended his story.
And then we were supposed tobreak for lunch and we were
supposed to go have a kind of aprivate lunch with a couple of
the speakers and so forth.
And, I got absolutely mobbedbecause there was 1500 people
there.
Yeah.
You know, and they were comingfrom every which direction and
(09:39):
grant and his wife were there tospeak, as well.
And so when all these people inthe audience were like, well, if
this gentleman is there,investing in there and grant
investing in there, then maybewe need to look at it.
And so I, I tell people that'sthe closest I'll ever know what,
means to be a, like a star andget mobbed.
(10:02):
Because I sat there and I, so Itold my wife, you go, enjoy
lunch.
I'll stay here for a few minutesand answer questions.
Well, I was there for the wholehour and a half answering
questions'cause I got mobbedfrom all sides.
And so it came home from that,that conference with a huge,
(10:22):
long list of people that wantedto buy.
Multifamily properties.
And so that's kind of my originstory of how I got into
multifamily.
It's not.
Amen.
It's very unique.
It's not what everybody else,but you talk about getting,
thrown into the fireimmediately.
And then, like I say, I've neverbeen hurting for.
(10:44):
For buyers, you know, for peoplewho want properties.
'cause I started out with ahundred and some of'em right off
the bat.
So,
Speaker 3 (10:50):
yeah, that, that's freaking awesome, man.
All because you answered yourphone, right?
Yeah.
See a lot of people get thisthing confused sometime, right?
Where they want to build thiswork-life balance where they're
so rigid.
And the things that they do on adaily basis, date night, all
that good stuff, right?
And they miss the opportunitythat can help them to propel the
(11:10):
goals that they have set for theestablish for themself and their
family as well too.
Right?
Yeah.
It is a kudos to you tounderstand that, you know, every
time your phone ring, especiallyas a realtor, it's a potential
opportunity.
And you had a supporting spousethat understood Right.
What that means, right.
And that you was doing it forthe family.
That I think that's pretty cool,man.
And even at the conference.
(11:32):
Staying back from lunch andmaking those handshakes, those
personal connections, right.
To be able to build thatrelationship with those people
for future opportunities.
Your wife understood that aswell, and I think that it's
pretty cool because I think oneof the things that a, I think a
lot of us, we miss is theimportance of having a solid
team at home.
And when it works at home andyou have a very supported, solid
(11:54):
team at home, it tell you, itopens it up so much more door.
What'd you think about that?
Speaker (11:59):
I agree a hundred percent with that, and thank
goodness my wife had, experiencein real estate as well, right?
Yeah.
So to me, answer the phone andeven, today, I teach, all the
brokers on my team and that is,one of the very, very small
things, even though it's a verysmall thing that differentiates
(12:20):
you.
We'll be if you answer yourphone.
Yep.
'Cause I go through and I'llgive'em examples, like one of
the latest that, well one of thelatest examples was a lady from
California who owned a, hundredunit property with her two
brothers.
She called me, it was like 6:306:37 o'clock at night.
(12:43):
Right, right.
And.
Answered the phone and she wasshocked and she was like, you
know, you're the fifth brokerI've called so far.
You're the only one that'sanswered my phone.
And the crazy thing about thatis, I visited with her two or
three times, several more days.
We ended up finally signing alisting agreement is like five
(13:04):
days later that day.
We signed the listing agreement.
She told me that finally one ofthose other brokers finally
called her back.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Oh wow.
Speaker (13:15):
It took them five days to call her back, compared to
they lost somebody that answerstheir phone, immediately.
And I'll go to events back herein Nashville and there'll be
people that put on these eventsor meetups and different things,
and they'll introduce me as,this is the broker that'll
answer his phone.
That's awesome.
(13:36):
Right.
And and I went to one of'em theother day and, it was the next
morning on my drive to work.
I had two of those people fromthat event call me and say.
Hey, we're only calling you'cause we wanted to see whether
you actually answered your phoneor not.
They're like, we're like, wedon't have any other question.
We just wanted to see whether itwas true or not.
(13:58):
Yeah.
And I tell'em, I'm like, there'sso many people, brokers that
don't answer your, their phone.
I know it's very small and itseems very silly, but it
differentiates you from yourcompetitors.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Oh, absolutely man.
So you touch on Nashville,right?
So answer your phone you touchon Nashville, and Tennessee and.
I'm trying to understand is itbecoming or it has became or as
the time passed, right?
So a lot of investors arelooking to, are looking beyond
traditional coastal markets.
Now, why do you believeTennessee, especially Nashville,
is one of the top emergingmarkets, right now?
(14:31):
if you can touch on some of the,economic migration trend,
institutional money, all thatgood stuff as it applies to
Nashville.
Speaker (14:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
I get it.
Quite a bit.
And, they'll, I'll get calls ona weekly basis and they're
calling me going, Hey, we knowwe need to be in Nashville.
Everybody tells us we need to bethere.
Why is it right?
What is it, you know aboutNashville?
We just see it everywhere thatit's a great, place to invest.
(14:58):
And it has been for a number ofyears.
Going back to your point, it hasfor a number of years and it
will continue to be that way fora number of years.
Because of the fact that theeconomy here in Nashville is not
just based off of one or twomain industries, right?
So when people will call me, alot of times I will answer their
(15:21):
question by saying, okay.
When you think of top industryin Nashville, what do you think
of?
Right.
Okay.
Industry and that, and a lot of'em will go, oh, it's gotta be
music.
And then I said, well, if I toldyou that's like fifth or sixth,
would that surprise you?
And they're like, uh, yeah.
You know?
And so I said, well, if I toldyou healthcare is by far our
(15:42):
largest Wow, then they're like,uh, I would've never thought of
that.
Right, right.
And so then I'll go down throughand I'll list like the top 10.
And then they go, okay, now Isee why we need to be there.
Right.
And it's that diversity ofindustries in Nashville that
make Nashville, so popular.
But they're still, depending onwhat report you, read or believe
(16:06):
or they're still between a 100and 125 people a day moving
here.
Oh wow.
Okay.
To, to Nashville.
So you know, it's gonna continueto grow.
Oregon Oracle is moving theirworld headquarters from Austin,
Texas to Nashville.
One of the main reasons isbecause so much of the work they
(16:26):
do is in healthcare.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Okay.
Speaker (16:29):
And healthcare is our largest industry, here, believe
it or not, and so, but once Ilist that kind of top 10 and
then they go, okay, thatdiversity in industry That's
what makes it, so popular.
Along with that, we have nostate income tax.
It's a very.
(16:49):
Family oriented, location, hastop high schools, for your, to
raise your kids, there's a lotof draw, to it.
And that's why people, movehere.
Not to get into politics.
It's very conservative, state aswell.
People, that my, probably over50% of my clients are people
(17:09):
from California, New York andlike New Jersey, Illinois, that
are looking to invest in, statesthat may be landlord friendly
and, or they're selling alltheir stuff and moving from,
different states, right?
And so it got a lot of draws toit.
Yeah,
Speaker 3 (17:28):
yeah, no doubt man.
So, relationship definitelymatters, right?
And you started with building apretty key relationship that got
you into a room, which w whichyou take responsibility of
building on, right?
For active investors, right?
You said that the right broker,relationship can make or break a
successful multifamily,investor, for credit investors
(17:48):
or for operators who are lookingfor investments in Nashville or
in Tennessee in general.
What's the difference between,being on a broker's list or just
being there, being on the radar?
Speaker (18:03):
I love that question.
Thanks for asking that question.
Yeah, that is so key.
Because of the fact that.
I do get, several calls, anumber of calls, a week type
thing.
And a lot of it will be somebodythat says, Hey Brian, my name's
Joe.
I've got a group of guys we'reinvesting, we like class, C we
(18:24):
want value add.
We want 50 to 150 units.
Can you put us on your list?
Right?
And that's what they kind of.
That's all they give me, youknow, the information piece.
Okay.
So I will just say, you knowwhat, I appreciate that, but can
we go, into a little bit deeperdive here with this, or, and
they're like, sure.
(18:45):
And I will say, do you have likea real estate resume that not
only has the criteria, but theresume about who you guys are,
what you own, where you own,just more information.
I said,'cause.
I get a number of calls a week,and I really need to try to
differentiate, you from,everybody else, you know?
(19:07):
Right?
Because I, I'm like, if I getfive a week and, the end of the
month, there's 20 people whocall me.
How am I gonna remember youfrom, the other 19, right?
And so I asked him to do that,and then I created a folder for
all of them.
And I kind of remember, criteriahave a big.
Whiteboard too.
I put everybody's names on, so Iknow all of that.
(19:28):
But it really, it's so key, andI was on a different podcast
too, and some folks in,investors in New York heard me
and heard me talk about this.
And so they called me rightafter hearing the podcast and
was like, Hey.
(19:48):
Man, that was great.
We're gonna, we, you've kind oflit a fire under us to prepare
this, real estate resume and allof this, and so they went
beyond.
You talk about really being topof mind for somebody.
They went beyond even the realestate resume.
They actually did a video of thetwo of them.
They're the two kind of partnersof them talking and they're,
(20:11):
they were kinda like, yo, thisis a silly city, silly video,
but we wanted to make sure you'dremember who we were, and they
did some, just being funny,right?
It was truly entertaining.
You know what they did.
And they send it along with thisreal estate resume, their
criteria.
And believe me, I rememberedthem.
(20:32):
I mean, I did two deals withthose guys.
We're working on deal numberthree.
So you talk about settingyourself apart, somebody doesn't
have to go to that extent, butit helps separate.
So that's why I always say to.
People will call me.
I'm like, Hey, if you don't haveone, you know if you wanna see
examples of ones or something,I've got some that I can send
(20:55):
you.
You can see what some of theselook like.
I obviously take out name, allkinds of things, but just
helping them, you'll understand.
So you know, whether it's me orwhether it's, a broker from one
of my competitors, right?
You want to be able to.
Set yourself apart and havethat, broker and a lot of'em
will say, okay, so, how oftencan I call you?
(21:18):
You know, to not be annoying.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah.
Speaker (21:21):
And I tell'em, I was like, I expect you to call me
once a month.
Right.
I want you to call me every.
And I even, I can list people.
I don't know exactly who's gonnacall me on the first, second,
third, because they call everymonth.
They've just Right.
Taken my word to call me andI've told some of'em, I was
like, yeah, you may besurprised.
(21:41):
'cause if you don't call me bythe third, I'll probably call
you.
Oh yeah.
Because I like to check in onthem and see if their criteria
has changed.
Maybe they have brought on somemore partners, so maybe they can
go from buying 50, maybe theywant 150 now.
Yeah, that makes sense now.
Right.
So theirs might change as wellwith them checking in with me to
(22:01):
see, what we have.
'Cause we don't list everythingout on.
Like LoopNet or CoStar or Crexiand all that, we are kind of
known as the team has a lot ofoff market type properties.
Okay.
So that's why I tell people youneed to, please keep in touch
with this, from that standpoint,but.
But yeah.
You know, it's, and I'm like,it's fine to call me, once a
(22:24):
month.
'cause us brokers we're notreally scary people, you know?
And if you are in areas whereyou wanna invest, I'm happy to
go have coffee with you so youcan get to know me and feel like
you can trust me and all that.
I'm happy to, spend time gettingto know you, who you are and all
that good stuff.
(22:44):
So I'm very accessible.
I'm, not scary.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
That's good, man.
Yeah, I appreciate that, man.
So yeah.
For folks who are just startingout, as far as active investors
go, folks who are just startingout, it can be a little bit
intimidating, right?
Because you feel as if you areasking for a favor or you are
asking to be favored.
However, if you are very clearabout what your buy box are or
is, then you are able toeffectively communicate that to
(23:10):
a broker, whether you're brandnew or you're seasoned.
And if you are brand new, to thegame, you don't always have to
go on your track records, right?
Because a lot of you who arestarting off in a game, in a
real estate game, chances areyou are part of a mentorship
group, and chances are you'regoing to have advisors, whether
it be your mentor or otherpeoples in your group, that you
can leverage their track recordbecause they will help you
(23:32):
through the process, whetherthey are.
Helping you with underwriting,setting up property management,
raising capital, all these goodstuff that helps the wheel to
turn as you get started.
So don't be scared.
Take some time to get thementoring that you need.
Create your buy box, and thenreach out to the brokers and
then build those relationship,buy them coffee and, I don't
like to use the word pick theirbrain, but develop a
(23:52):
relationship to where you arememorable and credible.
And from there then you will beable to see more deal.
And a lot of times you are notgoing to win the first, 5 to 10
to 20, maybe 50 deals that youbid on, right?
But as you become a lot moreseasoned, you get to understand
how the numbers work.
The broker get to see yoursticktoitiveness, right.
And that you're not gonna justfall off right?
(24:13):
In the, that you're in the gameand between.
You trying to buy a property onyour own, you might have worked
with somebody else and learned alittle bit more about the game,
what makes you communicatecommunicates better with the
broker.
And also develop a better biggertrack record as well to where
you can become more credibletowards the broker and be able
to win some more deal.
Because look, I've been a coseveral deals where.
(24:35):
The seller and the brokeractually wants to have an
interview with the best andfinal finalists.
Right.
And that happened quite often.
And you get to the best andfinals, sometime you win.
Sometime you don't, most of thetime you don't.
Right.
And sometime you win because youhave developed the credibility
in the market with the brokerand also you sound, as shorty of
(24:55):
closing, with that seller, whatdo you gotta say about that?
Speaker (24:58):
Yeah, you, so you have said several great, great
things.
I really appreciate bringing upon that real estate resume.
Like you say, you may be new,right?
But you pointed out, made thepoint, and I tell the people the
same thing, is, hey, you'reprobably part of a team, right?
(25:20):
Yeah.
So maybe you're in, somebody'smastermind group.
Right.
Whether it's Rod Khleif orwhoever, all the gurus that are
out there doing it, you may bepart of their mastermind group.
Right.
Include that, include who mightbe a GP on a deal for you.
Or, like you say, you takeadvantage of their experience
(25:40):
and include that on your team.
On that real estate resume, evenif you own single family right
now or you've done some fix andflips, right, you'll include
that kind of information aboutyou and your experience, in
there.
Include it all right?
'Cause I tell people.
That if, when I'm representing aseller.
(26:01):
Right?
Why that real estate resume isvery important is because it
helps me sell to that seller ofwhy they should pick your offer
over somebody else's.
You also mentioned having theassurity of closing.
Right.
And so I can't even tell you thenumber of times where.
(26:23):
I have, been working with theseller.
The seller has enough confidencein my abilities to, basically
vet the sellers, vet the folkswho they are.
And I've had a number of sellerswho have taken offers that are
lower and not taking the highestbecause I say, you know what,
(26:45):
this may not be the highest,but.
These guys are closers.
Yeah.
Right.
The other thing I say is don'tbe a serial retrainer.
Right.
Now, there are retriableoffenses, right.
Say you find some structuralissues and or something like
that or somebody sends you maybea, there's a P&L of some sort,
(27:07):
but then you get the realnumbers from property management
and all of a sudden the NOI isoff 50,000.
Right.
You know.
So a lot.
There are some ret tradableoffenses, but don't be a serial
retrainer, that type of deal.
But then that asurity of closingis so key.
You know, again, I mean, I'vehad sellers take.
Lower offers because they knowthese people are closers.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, right.
Shoot, I'm doing the math rightnow.
See what the NOI would be.
Speaker (27:40):
This was on a, four, it's like a four and a half
million dollar deal.
Right.
So look at that.
NOI the NOI was off, it was offmore like 55,000 or something
like that.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
That's a significant value.
Almost like, almost a milliondollars, like$800,000, I think.
Speaker (27:56):
Exactly
Speaker 3 (27:56):
right.
Speaker (27:57):
There are the retriable offenses, don't get me wrong,
but you don't wanna have that,reputation.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
yeah.
I got you, man.
So, before we start exiting thispodcast, Brian, I wanna talk
about 10 31 exchange, right?
So you built a career around oneof the, one of the trickiest
transactions in real estate,which is 10 31 exchange.
Now, what do most investorsmisunderstand about 10 31
exchange, and how can they usethis strategy to keep
compounding their wealth throughmultifamily acquisition?
Speaker (28:26):
It is surprising to me.
There's two things.
When I work with or when maybewhat I'd call, fairly
experienced investors come myway, is a number one.
They don't understand the 10 31.
They've heard of it.
Right.
So many of'em forget or don'trealize, they need to have that
(28:52):
set up before they close ontheir first property.
Where I've had, call and say,yeah, I'm gonna get do this 10
31.
I'm like, okay, so you'vealready got it deranged and
everything.
And they're like, oh no, we justclosed down on that on, like,
you know, two days ago.
And I'm like, you're two daystoo late now.
'cause you haven't set that upwith a, an intermediary.
(29:14):
That's one of the big thingwhich really shocked me,'cause
I'm sitting there thinking, wellif they've listened to podcasts
or they've done, been part ofany kinda groups, they would
know that has to be done, aheadof time.
Right.
But, and then a lot of newerpeople, they don't realize that
Okay.
Yeah, if you 10 31 from oneproperty to another, to another,
(29:39):
to another, you know, it helpsyou, on your tax savings.
Right.
Obviously, the other big onethat, also shocks me with some
somewhat seasoned investors isthat they've, some of them I've
run into have never done a costSeg on any of their properties.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Oh.
Interesting.
Speaker (29:59):
Right.
You know, and so it's kindalike, you know, they'll say, oh
yeah, I've owned this propertyfor five years, or these
properties for five years.
And I was like, well, your CostSeg probably helped you out.
And they're, they look at melike, what is that?
What is that?
Right.
So who's that?
Yeah.
So it's a lot of'em.
It's helping.
But 10 30 ones are just a it wasa huge opportunity, to take
(30:22):
advantage of so you can avoid,paying taxes.
Yeah, yeah.
And once you buy a property andthen you sell it, and then you
sell it and a lot of people arealways, I wouldn't say always,
there's people who question,well, all these real estate,
they never pay taxes.
What's the deal?
Not factual.
(30:42):
And I'm like, that's why theydon't pay taxes,'cause they own
real estate.
That's why it's one of the bestinvestments.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah.
On the grand scheme of thingthough, we do pay taxes.
Right.
We got a property taxes.
Yeah.
Right.
And we create and we creatingjobs for the community.
All the property management, theconstruction management, all the
good stuff.
All these employees, that livesin that the works sometimes live
on the property.
But most of the time working onthe property, they're paying
taxes as well.
And we are providing jobs.
(31:10):
Yeah.
Plus we're paying profitproperty taxes that goes through
to the community schools and allthat good stuff.
Right.
So we may not be paying taxes onour earnings.
Yes.
Right.
Because the governmentappreciate that we are providing
housing.
Especially when you're providingaffordable housing.
Right.
The government likes that.
And for that, there's benefits.
And if you had the discipline.
(31:32):
To where you can shop till youdrop, because that aligns with
your long-term financialtrajectory for your family.
And you assign to the idea ofcreating generational wealth for
your family, then you continueswapping into your drop, right.
And then your family get a stepup in basis.
Right.
However you get to benefit fromthat cash flow, over the years
and, you get to swap the job andnot paying a bunch of taxes.
(31:53):
Yeah.
You get to keep more of yourhard earned money.
Speaker (31:56):
I appreciate you clarifying that.
That's good.
Yeah.
Hundred percent.
Yeah.
I don't want, as far as, uncleSam type tax, from that
standpoint that.
Right.
The normal taxes that peoplethink about, I guess.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Right.
So we do pay our fair share oftaxes through property taxes
and, the employments that we dofor the folks in our community.
Okay, man, I appreciate thatman.
I got you for another threeminutes.
Alright.
Can you tell me a little bitabout your, this investor
network that you've created?
You've led the southeast largestmultifamily invest investor
group.
Yeah.
(32:28):
Why did you create a communityand how has it changed the game
for investors who want to accessdeals, education and
relationships?
Speaker (32:36):
Yeah, it's called, Real Estate Investors of Nashville.
REIN is what it's called.
But it does have, close to acouple thousand members in it.
And, it's, people who are.
Investing and it has newinvestors to those who have been
at it for a few years, those whoare very seasoned.
And so it just helps the newfolks come and, get mentored or
(33:01):
maybe they.
Meet people at this event thatthey end up doing a joint
venture with or partnering with,or, forming syndications with
whatever.
But it helps educate it.
And so once a month, I gettogether and I lead the, I'll
pick the topic that we're gonna,talk on like, so this Thursday
(33:22):
is the one for November and Ihave a panel that we're gonna
talk about insurance'causeeverybody knows what's happening
with insurance on.
Craziness.
But I, then I pick the speakers,I pick the topic.
So it may be maybe how,acquisition may be how to find
your deals.
It may be, cost Seg it may beproperty management, maybe asset
management, whatever.
(33:43):
I've kind of picked the topicsand then, we just have experts
who are, expert or investors,all of that, that want to come
in and love to educate as well.
And, I kind of do it like we'redoing here.
I do it like an interview style.
And I kinda let them teach, butI'm adding.
My 2 cents and asking thequestions and all of that.
(34:04):
And, the group has justcontinued to grow when we had a
few hundred people when we firststarted and now we're up to,
this many, and it just continuesto, grow, but it's all about
education, right?
And they also have the groupseparated to the different
counties have their own kind ofmonthly type meetings.
And then we have a big one, kindof once a month, so.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That is awesome, man.
Build a network.
You also run the from Foundationto Fortune, podcast, what's one
reoccurring theme that you havenoticed about people who have
built lasting wealth and, whatshould our audience take away
from it.
Speaker (34:42):
Probably the biggest thing, it's basically, kinda
like I shared my origin story,right?
It's kinda like people's originstories of how they got started
and that, but to your point, thebiggest takeaway is that I've
found from people is their grit.
And that they've had to overcomethings in their life.
(35:04):
Yeah, right.
You know, many of them werehomeless at 15 years old.
They got kicked outta theirhouse.
They could have.
Oh wow.
They could have went differentdirections, but ended up going
this direction.
But it might have been, theyfound, one of the guys calls it,
you have these differentsprinkles in my life.
It was really like mentors thatkind of guided them, which way,
but almost everybody you lookat.
(35:27):
Has come from circumstances thatwere not ideal and it's how they
have had grit to overcome howyeah, they have fallen down, but
they've got themselves back upand by their bootstraps and,
moved on and you, I think youfirst kinda started talking out
to about mindset, right?
They've learned this mindset ofjust, and having what I call.
(35:51):
Batteries included.
They have the hustle muscle thatjust keep going, keep going,
keep going.
And It seems to be, and theyhave been creative problem
solvers in their journey and intheir life, right?
So those probably four itemsseem to be consistent across
everybody that I've interviewed.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Oh man, that so, got it.
Sticktuitiveness.
Speaker (36:13):
Exactly.
Yeah.
You mentioned that for your son,what you, that is, so, so true.
They went from being homeless tomaking millions and millions a
year now.
The thing is on my podcast, Idon't do just do real estate.
I pick anybody that, I've kindof heard or seen or read about a
little bit of their story.
(36:34):
I love to, really dive deep ononto that.
That's good.
Yeah, that's good
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Man.
Brian, we're gonna get into thefocus run for three minutes.
Yeah.
It's a focus on, the acronymfocus, so real quick answers,
what do you do for fun?
Speaker (36:47):
Golf and, travel.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
So what is one opportunity that changed the
course of your career?
I think we already talked abouta phone call in December
Speaker (36:55):
Yeah.
That, that definitely,definitely changed.
That phone call, and that oneindividual, by the way, has
introduced me to so many otherpeople, not just investors, but
other high level people.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
That is awesome, man.
What is one key communication,tip you'll give to investors?
Speaker (37:17):
I man that there's so many of them.
I'm a big Ed Mullet fan.
Okay.
I love his book, the power ofone more, one more that, whether
it's real estate, whether it'swhatever, but it's the, we were
talking about, it's the power ofone more, right?
Where more, most people arequit.
Maybe it's one more call with abroker, one more property that
(37:38):
you need to underwrite.
One more, so your first deal isright around the corner.
Right.
It is.
So many people underestimatewhere that is, but a lot of
times it's just doing that onemore thing that other investors
won't do.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah.
I just read, the book, FanaticalProspecting, and that's one of a
takeaway is to, yeah, when it'stime to go home, make one more
call.
Yep.
So one more.
Yeah.
A awesome man.
What is something you wish youunderstood earlier about real
estate or people?
Speaker (38:08):
One thing I wish I knew about real estate was to, the
advice I give is invest earlyand invest often.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
There you go.
Yeah.
Speaker (38:18):
I wish I would've started a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Got you, man.
Same here at a
Speaker (38:22):
much, much earlier age.
So same here.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
What does success mean to you today, Brian?
Speaker (38:28):
Success for me means creating that generational
wealth for people.
That's good.
Right?
And you're talking about, makethis real quick.
What gets me up every day too isto help those new investors and
put them on a path that, in sixto eight years, they have enough
passive income.
They can live what I call a lifeby design.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I love that.
Speaker (38:51):
They'll have enough, they'll have enough, passive
income, enough income.
It's not always passive with,yeah, with, multifamily, but
enough income coming in.
They can, choose to livewhatever life.
I have a client that, is rentingat his home.
He spent the last two yearstraveling the country with his
wife and two kids, two youngerkids, and a couple of dogs, and
(39:11):
they've been to every nationalpark, and that wasn't what I
would do, but that's what theychose to do.
But the point is they hadenough.
Cash flow that they could go anddo that.
Right.
And we started out by, helpingthem with their first duplex.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
That is, that's freaking awesome.
I talk about the five freedoms,financial freedom, location
freedom, time freedom, yeah.
Freedom, purpose and freedom ofrelationship.
And Brian, that has beenphenomenal.
And for our listeners who wantto invest in Tennessee, or learn
from your investor group, what'sthe best way for them to connect
with you?
Speaker (39:41):
They can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active on LinkedInright now.
So you find me on LinkedIn.
I'm on.
All the different socials.
You can go to, Excel,A-C-C-E-L-C-R-E.com is our
website.
So you can find me on there.
All my contact information isthere as well.
So yeah, anything, my phonenumber is(615) 260-2121.
(40:05):
I do answer my calls.
So if somebody wants to call meyou can test me and see.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Thank you so much man.
And people, thank you so muchagain for listening to another
episode of the Multi-Family RealEstate Experiment podcast.
I'm Hutch Marine Investor out.
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