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The BetterLife Podcast
Real Estate Investing Kinda Sucks Right Now. What We’re Doing About It
00:48:30
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- [00:00]
A
Why is real estate sucky for you? Why is it hard right now?
- [00:03]
B
Man, oh, man? I think for. For us in the single family space, the hardest thing with real estate right now is people just aren't moving. 65 to 70% of people are locked into a mortgage under three and a half percent or something like that. Great example of this is I bought, and when I lived in St. Louis, a beautiful house, and we paid $750,000 for it. I just had a friend buy a house for $400,000 and. And his mortgage is the same as my mortgage on $750,000. Granted, we put a little bit more money down. He did a three and a half percent down loan. But still like that. Like four or five years ago, you could buy almost double the house for the same monthly payment. And so there's more inventory sitting out there on the market, but there's less inventory to buy for us on the distress side of things. And then when we do buy and we flip it, it's harder to sell. Like, we used to sell everything for the first five years that I was in real estate from 2020-20, mid 2024, we'd sell everything the first weekend on the market. And now, like, I never expect to sell anything the first weekend.
- [01:08]
A
And then on the commercial side, which I'm at, you know, the interest rates are just. They commercial real estate is closely tied to interest rates because if interest rates are higher, then, you know, investors can't make as much money off that. Interest rates go up. That means cap rates are going to go up, which means the values go down. And they're very, very closely related. So, like, there's properties that I bought for, you know, whatever call it $50 million, that today is worth 30 and that, like the. Like, the income could be higher, the profit could be higher, but simply because of interest rates. And there's a lot of factors that are pushing this, but simply because of that, values are just down significantly. Do you see a ton of values dropping in residential, or is that more of a commercial thing?
- [01:46]
B
It's very stable right now. Like, we saw, obviously, a crazy amount of appreciation 2020 through 2023, 2024 and 2025 has been stable, at least in my market. I know markets like Flor have dropped dramatically. Denver, like Boise, but I think the Midwest and even like the Northeast, the West coast, it's stable. It's not increasing at that 10, 12% a year that we saw. But in St. Louis, I think we increased it like 2.3% over 2025 so far. So it's still going up. The harder part is finding the deals and then selling the deals once you complete the flip or the wholesale. And then even on the rental side of things, renting those out right now it's significantly harder to rent properties. But something that's craz crazy like. And you alluded to this where in St. Louis there's an area called the Central West End. It was a nice area and things were trading at a 4 cap, 4 and a half cap in 2022 and now they're trading at a 6 to to 7 cap. Like I mean that's tens of millions of dollars on a 50, 60, 70 million dollar building. That's, it's insane.
- [02:56]
A
Yeah, so that's what we're dealing with right now in, in Texas especially Austin is going through an absolute plum. Large properties, I mean well over $100 million worth of real estate in Austin. And whether it's commercial or residential, Austin's just seen a massive pullback and a lot of that just from overbuilding. They just built too much in Austin over the last few years and all came online at the same time. So that's another pressure right now in a lot of markets is just overbuilding. Now we'll talk about later at the end of the show some of the reasons that that's not going to be a problem much longer. And I think there's a housing crisis coming and we can talk about the reasons for that later. But right now when you over build supply and demand, right. When you over supply and the demand doesn't change or demand stays the maybe the demand drops a little bit in some areas. All of a sudden you have prices that go down, both prices and rents. So our rents in Austin across the city have dropped 20 to 30%. Like rents that were 1400 are now a thousand. Like we've got apartments that we were renting for 1350, we're now getting 800. That's what it takes to fill a unit now is 800 where we're at 13. You take that across 400 units in some of these properties that I've got, then you take the fact that cap rates are way up, which means the value is way down. And that gets a little complex for a lot of residential people. But just know that values are down just naturally. And then you take rents are down 30% or more. It has been a challenging time. And so if you guys are in the commercial world, you, you've probably heard about this and you've seen this happen. I Mean, syndicators like, like me are going out of business left and right. I mean, hundreds of them are just losing everything. Now, thankfully, we have not lost anything yet. We've not lost a dollar of anybody's money. We're still moving forward. We've got solutions and most of the stuff. But there's a few problems that I'm dealing with that are just really, really, really freaking hard. But I will tell you this, like a year ago, we'll say start of the year. Like, I had probably eight, nine large apartment complexes that I was really worried. Like, I don't know how I'm getting out of this. Like, I don't see a path forward with rents down. You know, this happening, this happening, this happening and what I'm talking about, I mean, taxes have gone exploded, insurance costs have exploded. All these things are killing us. And I didn't have a path forward today. That's down to like one or two, like, major problems that I'm having now. I'm not saying we're going to go out and win and make everyone a massive return on some of these deals. You know, some of them were just fighting to survive at this point. And we'll talk about that again today as we get here into the what Cam and I are doing from both a residential and a commercial side and a mindset side during hard times. But dang, it's been a hard year. I still love real estate, but dang.
- [05:19]
B
I was going to say, I noticed your hair has gotten a little grayer over the last.
- [05:22]
A
Dude, my hair has gotten so gray this year. I bet one more year from Now I'll be 100% gray.
- [05:27]
B
I mean, for, for us in the single family space, man, we, we were consistently flipping 2020 through 2023. We were flipping over a hundred houses a year. And honestly, it was easy. Like, we were turning down deals and dude, this year we will be in the 50 house range. But and then also, you have to remember with that, our profit margins have gone down significantly with that. So, like, I'm gonna make. I, I think this year I will make. I'm actually scared to look at how much I've made, but It'll probably be 25% of what I made in 2022. I think 20. It'll probably be 20 25% of what I made in 2022. But it's very important for people to realize, which we'll talk about all of this is that what you see on Instagram a lot of times is not true. And so you have to take everything you see with a grain of salt. And secondly, I think when it's hard, that's where opportunity can be found.
- [06:27]
A
Let's just talk about what we're doing in these hard times. So here we go. Number one, first thing that I'm doing, and Cam, I know you're doing as well, but I'll start by saying it is really leaning into taking full ownership of the situation. And when I say that, I'll tell you a few things. What I mean by that. There are a lot of syndicators, like I mentioned earlier, who are just going belly up right now and they're just quitting and they're not talking to their investors, they're not talking to anybody. They're just disappearing into the night. Everyone's pissed at them, everyone's like irritated, but they're just gone. And then there's other ones that are still around, but all they do is blame the market. Oh yeah, the market's bad and the market is bad, the market's bad. But if all you do is sit there and play victim that it's the market's fault, you live in this disempowered state that doesn't let you say, okay, no, this is my fault, this is my fault and my responsibility. I'm going to own the solution. Yeah, I can't control the market, but I can control what I do. And so one way that I did that is, and again this leads to why we haven't recorded lately is I actually packed my family up, we moved away from Maui and now we live in Austin, Texas because that's where two of my biggest problem properties are right in, in Austin. And this is also a two hour drive to Houston where I have a couple properties that are, that need a lot of attention. And then Dallas and then San Antonio. So I'm right in the hub of all those sort of the 13 apartment complexes that I own here or own. I think 11 are here in within a two hour drive. So I was like, you know what, I don't know how being in person is going to help, but it doesn't hurt to be there to show up, be close to the problem and to figure things out. So anyway, so I, I'm here. I don't know how much longer I'll be here. I'm going to be here until I solve some of these major problems. Come vacation back in Maui for Thanksgiving and maybe Christmas. But yeah, just being on the ground here is, has like both helped my investors see that I'm in. It still And I'm not just abdicating or running away, but it's actually made, like, me feel like, oh, I actually can solve this. Cam, what do you want to say on that?
- [08:16]
B
No, I would say, like, for me, I remember having this moment where it was like, we could go down.
- [08:22]
A
I mean.
- [08:23]
B
I mean, like, we have our rental portfolio, and we're not going to go down.
- [08:27]
A
There's.
- [08:28]
B
We have a lot of protection mechanisms. But I remember thinking, like, I will never forgive myself if I don't go all in on this. And I don't want to be 30 years down the road looking back and being like, man, I was too worried about comfort or I was too worried about going out with friends or going to the beach, even though I love all those things and they're great. Like, I want to say I. I gave it my 100% all, and if things still go belly up, man, I can look at that with pride and say, I tried my hardest. And I felt like up until about three or four months ago, I probably would have looked back with regret. Now I can say full disclosure, like, if things did go belly up again, not going to. We have a lot of protection mechanisms within our business, but if things did, I would say, hey, I did. I did my best. I mean, I. I put in yesterday, I got to the office at 5:45, and I left it at 4:45. So, like, and that's a. That's a consistent thing right now. So I'm putting in the work, man.
- [09:27]
A
I had the same thought. Yeah. That was actually what convinced me to move to Austin for a while, is I thought, like, let's say something did again. Let's say I lose a property or I sell a property at note value and lose investor equity, which is a real possibility. It would absolutely suck. And I'm trying my hardest not to, but let's say that happens. Could I look at my investors and say, I did everything in my power to save this, even though it's the market did, blah, blah, blah. If I didn't go there, like, could I say that I left it all out on the field? You know, I love Tim Tebow's quote about. He said, I don't want to enter heaven well rested. It's like, I don't want to enter a recession well rested. Like, I want to know that I fought tooth and nail. And so, yeah, putting in the hours, I have worked more this year, probably, than the last. You know, like, I would say I worked more this year than probably the first 10 years combined. In Terms of like, hours in the business, which kind of relates to point number two. I don't know if you want to move there.
- [10:18]
B
Yeah, yeah, I do want to move to point number two. But one of the things that I want to say, and this is like, this is a what I call a mystery of just being a human being where, like, I think that we as humans think that we want to be rested and we want to, like, take it easy. I have actually my, like, emotional and mental well being has been so much better when I'm like, I'm working really, really hard. Like, there's something about life. Like, we were made to work really hard. And so like it. Even though, like, yeah, this season sucks. Real estate sucks. Like, I'm pumped. Like, I'm having so much fun working really hard again, where I feel like for a while I wasn't like, it's doing something for my soul. That's. I think it's the way we were designed. It's the way that literally God wired us was like, he wired us to work very hard.
- [11:09]
A
Yeah, it's like there, yeah, there was peace time for a long time in real estate and now it's war time. And like, we're built for war.
- [11:17]
B
Which ties into the second point. And it's a really simple point, but it's keep showing up. Like, for me, actually, it's my. I don't know if you guys can see this. My screensaver keeps showing up. I've got that on the, on my phone and I think there was a text on there. Hopefully it wasn't a weird text or something like that. We'll edit that out if it was. But keep showing up is something that I tell myself every single day. Because there are days where it's like, man, I feel like some days, especially when it comes to buying houses, like, I'm calling all of my agents, all of my wholesalers, working with our home buying specialist team. I. I'm. We're putting in the work and nothing is happening. And some days I'm like, just want to lay in bed and watch Netflix. And fighting against that because I'm such a firm believer that the, the people who win in this season are the ones that just consistently show up. I think that in any aspect of life, like, it's not the best, it's not the smartest. It's the person that shows up day in and day out. And they might have bad days and they might have great days, but they show up. They're consistent.
- [12:22]
A
That reminds me, remember P90X the workout program, like the VHS or DVDs. Tony Horton ended most of those videos because I've done P90X a few times over the years. But he ends most of the videos with, hey, just a reminder, keep pressing play. He's like, whether you feel like it or not, whether you don't even stand up, you can sit on the couch. If that's all you can do, you can sit on the couch, press play, and then pretty soon you're working out because you showed up. And so sometimes you don't wait for all the things to be right in your life. You just show up and then it happens to end. One more quote from Steven Pressfield from the War of Art, and I think he's quoting Stephen King. He says, I only write when I feel inspired to write, when inspiration strikes. Thankfully, inspiration strikes every morning at 9am on my keyboard. And it's the idea of just. You just keep showing up. That's what a professional does. I think part of showing up, too, is, like, you identify what the most important problems are in your life, and you just keep showing up and hacking those away. Just like, you know, attacking that tree with your ax over and over and over. But there's a lot of other trees out in the field. And when things are hard, which leads to point number three, about what we're doing today is eliminating or shutting down distractions, or what I call, like, bridges. Like, I tend to, like, build a lot of bridges to Fantasy island over there. And I'm like, just, oh, here's another cool business idea. Here's a cool idea. Here's the thing I could do. Here's a fun little hobby. And none of those are bad intrinsically, but in hard times, it forces you to focus. It forces you to really focus in. And so, like, I've been. This has been a year of cutting and shutting things down. I mean, for example, you guys have heard me probably talk about for the last couple years, the group that I run that came ham's part of called the 50. I love the 50. It's some of my favorite humans in the entire world. All millionaires, all real estate investors, all crushing it, all excited. We travel four times a year. We work out our problems, and we do cool stuff like helicopters and whatever. But I just shut it down and maybe I'll bring a version of it back in the future once things are solved. And it was super amazing while I had it, but I finally just decided, does this help me solve my biggest problem now? Getting in a room with smart guys of Course, that helps, but I can get on the phone with any of these guys now anyway, so the program traveling every four months and flying helicopters and sports cars, that, at this point in my life, wasn't helping it. So I had to say no to that. And I said no to or shut down a lot of product lines within Better Life within First Deal, I let some team members go. I stopped doing the podcast for the last few months. I mean, really, like, I know, like, we've only missed, like, three weeks now of the podcast, but we haven't recorded one. I mean, Cam, when's the last time you and I did this?
- [14:44]
B
July 21st. Yeah.
- [14:45]
A
Yeah, it's been a long time because, like, in this time is just shut down everything that was not specifically going to solve our core problem.
- [14:53]
B
I shut down Deal Flow, then had, you know, hundreds of people in it. But I felt like at that moment, I needed to focus 100% of my attention to Revel City and our flipping company. And so I. I made the decision to shut down one of my companies as well. And then another thing that I've been doing is, and this is just of recent, but I have an office at my house, and I love working from home because I love my kids running in, and I love my kids coming into the office saying hi, giving me hugs. I love to be able to walk up into the kitchen and seeing my wife and the twins that are only three months old. I absolutely love that. But I also realize that in this season of life is probably not the best. It's to go into an office and grind for 8, 9, 10 hours and not have those distractions. And really, it helps me, too, because then when I go home, I can be fully present versus sometimes when I have an office at the home, it's like I'm fighting between being present with work and present with kids. And it's actually helped me mentally be like, nope. When I'm in the office, it's time for work. When I'm home, it's time for kids and separating that.
- [16:04]
A
I also cut a lot of distractions out of, like, my evenings. Like, for example, I could do jiu jitsu in the mornings or in the evenings, I stop. I haven't done it. I could go out and hang out with friends more often. I didn't. I cut those things out because then they would eat into, you know, family time. So, you know, I don't. My family will never be a distraction and yours won't either. So everything else gets cut first. So, yeah, it's been A season of that shutting down distractions and yeah, it's been good. Number four, this was your tip. I like this a lot. Why don't you share?
- [16:31]
B
Yeah, so. And I think this is so important for everybody that is listening. And it's been a saying in my life since I started real estate. And I'll give you the background of why it's the same because when I got into real estate I was a pastor, had never done real estate before. I was not handy, never flipped a house, wasn't like, didn't get raised in a family that invested in real estate. And I remember feeling so inadequate, like this is like such a tall mountain to climb. And I wrote on a piece of paper and I hung it on my wall. Someone is doing it, why not you? And I think that's a really important thing to remember in this season where it's hard. I talk to people all the time where like I can't find a house to buy, I can't build my systems or you know, my direct mail or whatever is not working. And I feel the same way. So I'm not blaming them on that. But I just talked to a guy yesterday, his company is going to buy 300 houses this year. 160 of those are going to be from agents and wholesalers. About 140 of those are going to be from marketing. And they're crushing it. They're, they're going to turn a multi seven figure profit this year. And so like when I and he's doing the same thing that we're doing and so I'm like he's doing it, why can't I do it? I talked to another guy. Like our callback rate right now on our direct mail is like at 0.23%. It's pretty terrible. But I talked to another guy who's at 0.7% and I'm like, so he's figured it out. Like why, why can't I? Is it the list of these points calling, is it the mail that he's sending? And so I think that's important to remember that like there are people out there that are still crushing it and succeeding in this industry and if they are doing it, why can't you do it? And the answer is we can. We just haven't figured it out yet. And I think that goes back to showing up. As long as we continue to show up, we will figure it out. Yep.
- [18:09]
A
You know, I'd love to take this a slightly different way, but it's the same concept. But Right now, the way that real estate used to work maybe 10 years ago, doesn't always work the same way. What I mean by that is, let's just say you bought a duplex, you put 20% down, you got a 3% mortgage, rents were super high, prices were low, and wow, you cash flowed. A 12% cash on cash return that worked back in 2012, 13, 14, 15, maybe up to like 18, 19. But that doesn't really work as well today. I mean, maybe you find the one off deal cool or maybe you're in a city that works. But I would say, well, how are other people making cash flow today? How is cash flow actually happen? Because people are making cash flow. I know a lot of people making cash flow. They're not doing it the old way. They're usually doing some more. What I call like strategies that are on the fringe, like cash flow strategies on the fringe of real estate. I give you a few examples. There's the like rent by the room, pad split stuff. There's a residential assisted living, there's the brrrr strategy, still works. And especially if you combine brrrr with one of those other things, midterm rentals are going really well right now for a lot of people. Short term rentals in certain circumstances can work, but a lot of times they can't. These are like the fringe strategies. So I just think, well, if other people are buying real estate and making it work well, then what am I doing different? What do I need to adapt? So earlier this year I adapted and I went and bought two of these rent by the room properties. And they're both going really well. One of them, I'm having a fight with the city over whether or not they're going to allow me to do it. We'll see. I'll get through it. I got pad split in there fighting on my behalf. The other one though is going so good. I mean, I just look my numbers. Like I'm almost $2,000 a month in cash flow from one house on average each of the last three months. Like when I average out the last three months, I'm almost at $2,000 in cash flow from one one one property that I paid like 300 grand for. I don't even think it was 300 grand. It was like 200, 220 maybe put like a hundred grand into it. Anyway, that strategy is working for me. So in other words, if it works for somebody, it'll work for you. So if you're like trying to get into real estate, you're new to real estate and you're like, what do I do? Find what's working in your area, listen to podcasts, find out what other people are doing, and if it works for them, it'll work for you. And just as a quick aside or bonus thing, if you want more information on that, I wrote an ebook. It's like a quick to read, maybe 40 pages, but it's called cash flow isn't dead. 20 plus strategies that work in 20, 25 for cash flow. Anyway, super simple. Just like, here's rent by the room. Here's assisted living. Here's other things. There's 20 of them.
- [20:26]
B
You can get it.
- [20:27]
A
You have to go to my Instagram, go to Follow me at beardybrandon. B, E, A, R, D, Y. Beard with a Y. And then just send me a DM with one word. Just the word fringe. F, R, I, N, G, E. Fringe. Not fridge. There's no D in it, just fringe. And it'll automatically. There's like an automation that'll send you the ebook for free. So. So check it out, everybody. And if it works for them, it'll work for you.
- [20:50]
B
Can I play devil's advocate on that just a little bit, though? I would love that because, and you said this before, and I think we're probably going to do a podcast at some point about, like, when to grit and when to quit. But I, I think it's important for people to know this. Yes, it's hard and yes, there are other strategies out there, but sometimes I feel like the second it gets hard, people are like, oh, it's just my strategy. And I need, need to find something. I need to find a different route. And to me, that's not the case a lot of times where it's like, it's hard for everybody. So it's not like, oh, single family is not working. So I'm going to move into multifamily. No, multifamily is hard as well. It's not like, oh, multifamily is not working. So I'm going to move into senior living. No, the sophistication that you have to have in senior living is, is insane. And that's hard as, like, there's no easy strategy. And so I do want to warn people from jumping from strategy to strategy or asset class to asset class, because it's all going to be hard. It's all going to take a lot of work there. There's experts in the field, though, in any of those strategies that are crushing it. And so I'm Still a firm believer that whatever strategy you choose, you still can win in that strategy, I guess.
- [22:00]
A
Yeah. The point being, if anybody's doing it, then it works. Like, again, how are people doing it? That question, how? I always say, how is the most important word in the English language? Like, the most powerful word in the English language? How? It's like, how are they doing single family? How are they doing multifamily? How are they doing this? How are they doing that? Because everything generally works. I think that's kind of the point you're making. It all actually kind of works. I mean, again, short term rentals right now in the Smoky Mountains, I would not jump into that personally because I don't know anybody who's thriving at that right now. I know short term rentals in Maui, though, are printing money for me right now. And so, like, okay, so short term rentals could work just in certain now. Somebody tried listening this going, My short term rentals work great in the Smokies. I'm crushing it. And good for you. So I want to know what you're doing, because it's not working for my friends. Like, most of my friends are down, like, 20% occupancy. And so you got to be aware of what's going on, what's working, what's not, how do you pivot? What are people doing? And this goes down to education. Just always educating yourself, trying to find new ways. And you're saying, oh, you do that. That type of direct mail. That's really cool. I'm going to try that. Which I don't want this to be another pitch for, like, the Better Life Tribe. But, like, that's essentially why I think joining a mastermind of any kind, whether it's. That's mine or somebody else's, is so important because you just hear from a bunch of other people about what they're doing. You get together once a week and you hear people say, oh, yeah, I'm doing this. This worked really well for me. I just bought this house. I use this avenue. That kind of strategy is really, really helpful. I mean, Cam and I now lead the Better Life Call. Every week, we kind of combine one of your deal flow calls with my Better Life Call. And every week, Cam and I just sit there and just work with people and talk to them and group brainstorm together what's working, what's not, how can we help? So, big fan of that. You know, how you deal with maintenance requests as a landlord is such a stark difference between the pros and the amateurs. The best Landlords don't just fix things. They build systems that actually make tenants feel heard. The problems get prioritized and repairs get done fast. And now there's something really cool worth checking out. So Turbo Tenant just released a free AI tool that actually troubleshoots maintenance requests for you. So when a tenant submits a request, the AI reaches out together details like where the issue is, what's been tried already, and even collects photos. It can actually walk tenants through simple fixes, you know, like flipping a breaker or, or, you know, whatever, and drastically reduce that kind of vague back and forth request that drains your time. So if you manage rentals, it is worth a look. Just check it out@turbo tenant.com. that's turbotenant.com. well, man, should we move on?
- [24:15]
B
Let's move on. Number five.
- [24:18]
A
I can start with this one. One thing I'm doing, I'm putting a lot of emphasis right now. Is this double downing? Is that a word? Downing? Double downing on my, like, process of, like, habits, like, goals, habits, disciplines. In other words, like, when things get hard, there's a tendency to try to get, like, lazy because you're just like, it's hard. I don't want to set goals and I want to track my habits every morning. I think this is a time where it matters more to lean in. And so, like, again, in the Better Life Tribe, we do it every quarter. We set goals and then we set 12 habits or actions or what we call disciplines that you're going to then do. And then every single morning, I try to track them. I even hired a coach that through the Better Life Tribe, Jason. He's awesome. Shout out to Jason Atwood. Like, Jason, every week we have a 30 minute call where we go through my disciplines. We did it actually right before this podcast. And he's like, hey, man, you said this is the third week in a row that you didn't call your family. You said you're gonna. It's important to you to call your family every week. You didn't call your family. You missed last week and the week before. What's going on? I'm like, yeah, man, I just, I've been so busy. He's like, well, can we put on your calendar? Yeah, you're right. Yeah, let's put on my calendar. So, like, I'm leaning into the habits and the disciplines. And that also means, like, not just with real estate. It's like, I'm consistently hitting the gym. I don't have a lot of time, right? So I'm getting 30 minute workout, that's. I get a 30 minute workout three times a week. Yeah. And I'm, I'm maintaining. I might not be building right at this point, but I'm maintaining. I'm not hopefully losing. But that time is super important. In fact, I'm kind of doubling up that time. That's when I post on my Instagram. Now is I'm like, I'm at the gym. So in between sets I can create a post and get on Instagram. So I'm kind of two for one while I'm sitting there and everyone at the gym is like, this guy's on his phone on Instagram. I'm like, I'm working, I'm working, I promise. Anyway, double downing on habits and disciplines and trying to just stay really consistent. Cause I cannot control the market. I can't control five years down the road. I can't control other people. I can control what I do and show up to do every single day. And if I just keep knocking out my stuff, I know the results long term I will win and I'll get through this.
- [26:13]
B
Yeah, I love that. And I'm, I'm so aligned in that where I think that a lot of times when things get hard, we tend to shift our focus to external factors instead of internal factors. And like the best thing you can do whether times are good or times are hard. But I just think it's more important when times are hard is to focus on yourself first. And not in like a selfish way, but like saying like, treat yourself. Yeah, treat yourself like what? What can I do every single day to become a better human being? And so like for me, I have a habit tracker. I think everybody should have a habit tracker, but it's like, it's working out. One of the things that I've incorporated into my life is, is meditation and prayer. Like, and, and just, I mean there's something that just sitting there and breathing for 10 minutes does for my soul. It aligns me. Spending time with my family, cutting out things in my life that I don't need. Like, I guess a great example of this is I put my kids down at 8:30, 9 o' clock at night and then it usually turns into like it's me time where it's like I'm just going to veg out and watch Netflix for an hour or something like that. And I realize that that ruins my next day. It doesn't ruin it, but it hurts my next day where it's like, I need to go to bed and get a good night's sleep or, like, write down and plan out my next day so I can wake up ready to hit the ground running. And so, like, focusing on things that I can do to become a better, better person, a better husband, a better leader. That has helped so much in this season. And it's actually really fun going back to, like, the hard things are fun. And I'm. I'm learning that right now, where it's like, I didn't have. Sounds terrible, but between the years of 2020 and 2023, I didn't have to grow a lot in my life. Like, the market was just so easy that I didn't have to, like, work on becoming a better leader. I didn't have to work on becoming a better salesperson or building better systems or, I mean, any of those things. I didn't have to work on it because the market was so relatively easy at that time. And now it's like, no, I have to, like, align my life in the way that I want it because things are shifting and it's getting a little bit harder. And I want to make sure that the best version of myself is showing up for work every single day.
- [28:30]
A
Yeah, I love that. I actually want to make a next point. I want to move on to the next point, which I did not have in our list. So this is going to be point number five. Point five. But you just brought it up. I thought about this. I have been leaning in so much heavier this year into leadership over. I can just take care of this problem myself. In other words, like, when things are easy, you can kind of muscle your way into solving problems. When things get hard, I need more smart people to collectively solve problems. And in order to get smart people together to collectively solve a problem, I have to lead smart people to collectively solve a problem. And so I've been really leaning into the leadership side. And some of that is, like, you know, hired a new business coach who's kind of helped me, like, align, like, all of our systems and processes a lot better, do a lot more, like, personality test stuff, like the PI test. We've been playing with image, like. Like, trying to figure out what does that mean to actually be, like, a leader? Not necessarily a manager. That's a part of it, too. But what does true leadership look like to inspire a team? And that comes down to things like vision and laying out a very clear vision. And I. I've struggled with that. Cause I don't know where we're going the next three years because I got to figure out where we're at, you know, how to solve the current problems. But when you don't have a vision, like your team isn't going to be aligned and, and fired up and moving in the right direction. And so like, I've been just again, leaning into leadership, I guess that's the point I'll make for 5.5 is lean into leadership when things are hard and that skill set will benefit you the rest of your life.
- [29:50]
B
Yeah, for sure it will.
- [29:52]
A
Well, hey, two quick resources I mentioned already, but I'll mention again. One, if you want to see kind of where you stack up in terms of running a business as a leader, I mentioned the intro, but abetterlife.combbiz B I Z Z you can take the assessment. We have an actual, like, you know, assessment. How are you as a leader? I think that's super helpful to kind of give you a roadmap of what you can do in the future to improve. Again, abetterlife.combizz and second resource, if you gu want that habit tracker we mentioned, both of us track our habits, just go to abetterlife.com tracker t r a c k e r ab better life.com tracker. It's just a free copy of the tracker that I use in my own life. So there you go. All right, man, moving on.
- [30:34]
B
Radical transparency. You want to talk about this one?
- [30:37]
A
Yeah. I mean, because I raise a lot of money and I have a lot of partners, but I think it's true in every area of life, even, like, your personal life. I didn't even think about being radically transparent, even to the point of, like, my kids, like, I'm letting them know that my daughter's 9, my son's 5, and my other son's like, you know, 11 months. But like, I, I explain a lot to them, even if I like what's going wrong and I put it in simple terms. But like, I, in my whole life, I'm just trying to say, like, the more open I am with everybody, my family, my investors, my partners, my business partners, my limited partners, like the whole thing, that never hurts. Now, I got some advice a while ago and this is from a guy that I like and trust and respect in the industry a lot. And he hey, man, from this point forward, when things are hard in business, you need to stop talking about what's hard, stop talking about the pain, stop talking about all this because you will get sued from your investors if anything goes wrong because they'll hold that and say, look, you said this was bad and then it went bad. Therefore, I'm gonna sue you. And I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Like, if I don't talk about, if I try to make everything hunky dory happy, that's gonna make them piss. He's like, doesn't matter. Don't say a word. Everything you say can and will be used against you should something go wrong in your life. And I was like, that's just bull crap. Like, I, I, I just like, took that advice and just threw in the garbage. I'm like, I'm just going to be so vulnerably honest with my investors about every good and bad thing. And does that tick off some investors? Yeah. Is if something goes bad at some point, are they going to sue me? Probably. But like, nobody will ever to say that Brandon didn't share exactly what was going on all the time. And my bet is that that will be a net positive. I think more my investor gonna be like, hey, like, like I see what's going on. Like if we lose money, if we lose a deal, if something bad happens, which again is a big if, I think we're solving almost all our problems. But if that happens, they'll be like, hey, we saw everything and we know what, we know what went on here and we'll trust that Brandon's character isn't what failed us. It's just sucky circumstances. So anyway, transparency. Huge right now.
- [32:31]
B
Yeah. Like, being able to sleep at night's the most important thing when it comes to like, real estate and working with investors or partners of like, hey, I know that I did the right thing even when it comes to this single family space and kind of going off off topic here a little bit, but one of the things that the biggest thing that we're trying to solve for in our business when it comes to buying houses is wholesalers that have no intention of closing on the property, locking it up too high, shopping it, and then backing out of the contract. Because we just don't do that. We're putting everything with no contingencies. Cash offer, quick close. But we don't have this grace period to be able to go out and shop it. And if we can't find a buyer, we're going to back out. So our offers are significantly lower than theirs. And I've had multiple people tell me like, well, just start, you know, locking it up high and, and, and seeing if you can shop. And I'm like, I, I just, I want to be able to sleep at night. I want to have integrity in everything that I do. And I Know that if I was lying to somebody about what I think that I could pay for their house, I wouldn't feel great about that. So yeah, that's, that's important. Another thing with radical transparency that I didn't think about when you said that this was one of the things on your list, but I love it is not just outward facing but inward facing being radically transparent with yourself of where you are at. Again, I said earlier, like, I feel like for the first six months of this year I just kind of stuck my head in the sand because I knew it was bad and I didn't want to know how bad it was or I didn't want to think about how bad it was. But like sitting down and looking at your numbers and seeing how much money you're making and how much money you're spending and how long of a Runway you have, like that all is super important stuff like. And I think that we do have a tendency when things get hard to almost self sabotage or make ourselves oblivious to that. And you have to be radically transparent with yourself. I mean that's like the first, what is it? The first step in Alcohol Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous is admitting that you have a problem or something. Something like that. And so like, yeah, like you, you. I think radical transparency with yourself of admitting like, like things aren't going good. Things do right now, not in a pessimistic way, but in a way of like, I need to one, identify that there is a problem. And now when you've identified that there is a problem, you can take the steps to fix that problem.
- [34:47]
A
You know, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous once said, all progress begins by telling the truth. I love that. Point is being transparent with yourself and telling the truth about everything. In fact, that's the first of the six components. We teach a concept all the time called reioa, the Real Estate Investors Operating System. It's something I've been building for the last few years. Kind of how I run open door capital and teach people in the better life tribe. But the idea of reios step one is tell the truth and that is getting your financial truth in order. Like having a one page financial document shows where you're at, what's your income, what's your expenses, what's your budget, what's your net worth, what's your cash flow and then making sure that's updated all the time because if you do not have the right truth, you cannot build the empire off of it.
- [35:23]
B
That is good. I love that. I think that one's really Important. Important for people. Tell the truth to yourself.
- [35:28]
A
You know what else is important? Number seven.
- [35:30]
B
Number seven, building systems. And I, I think this is important. This is one of the ones that I, I had written down is like one of the things right now that I think, and I say I think a lot of people did. I'm just looking at my own life where things get hard. We are doing significantly less volume right now and it turns into maybe not laziness, but just like, hey, I've tried everything and now I'm just going to kind of twiddle my thumbs until deals come along or something like that. That's just unacceptable in my business and hopefully in your business, where it's like, no, this is a perfect time to build systems and to get creative and think outside of the box. Where it's like, yeah, we might not be doing as much volume, we might not have as much work going on, but there's still so many systems that we can build that one will allow us to find more houses. One allow us to flip houses quicker, allow us to get turnovers or tenant turns over quicker. There's a lot of systems that you can build. And I think that this kind of ties in with the keep showing up and someone's out there doing it. Why can't you? But I'm such a firm believer that the people who survive this season are going to be the ones that thrive in the next season. Like, I know that if we, which I don't think we will, but if we ever run into another real estate run up like we did in 2020, 2021, 22, like, my company is so prepared to absolutely crush it. Like thinking about how we crushed it the first time around when I didn't know what I was doing at all and had never been through a hard, a hard market, like, we are prepared to just absolutely thrive. And so I think right now, like working on systems and getting better as a business, we talked about getting better, like the habits to focus on ourselves internally, but also the habits and the disciplines within your business and doing the right thing. I think that's really, really important to focus on right now.
- [37:22]
A
Now, yeah, that's really good, man. You know, one thing I'm working on, that same thing is this business coach that I hired. His name is Gary Harper. He also worked with like, Ryan Pineda and he's worked with a bunch of real estate investors, I think Thatch and Josh, Tiffany High and a lot of people have been on the podcast. So I hired this guy, Sharper Solutions. What they're called. And one big piece of their, their program is to like actual write out the process for like every single thing in your business, every part of your business. And so like every week there's a whole hour long call for the whole year, 12 months long every week. See at the end of the year you have 50 of assuming you take a couple of weeks off of like writing out your entire process. So it could be like how we acquire a deal. It's like need leads. And then it's like moves a little arrow and it goes to, you know, direct mail. But then underneath that it's like direct mail. We order the direct mail from here. We do this. So you, you're handwriting these massive processes out and every week you do a different one with your executive team gets together and writes out a process. And like this year, like we're so focused. I just really defining those processes. So that way you can then look at your process and find out where it's falling apart. Especially in hard times like right now, like when things are difficult, problems are a sign of a broken system. You know, it's like, oh, we're not getting leads. Okay, well what's, show me your system. Well, I don't know, it's up here in my head. Okay, well let's, let's map the system out and figure out where it's falling apart. And so when times get hard, it's time to lean into these systems and processes so you can figure out how to make them better. Then when the market turns around, you kind of alluded to this. When the market gets easy again, dang, that's when you go and just explode. Because you've got the systems dialed. You do it the same way every way. You have a mechanism for seeing where it's broken and where it's not broken and how to improve it. Yeah, that's where legends are made.
- [39:02]
B
A great example is follow ups. When the, the market is great. We didn't have to follow up that well because we had more leads coming through our pipeline and more yeses where it was like, hey, you know what, I don't need to stay on top of this person for the next, next 16 months trying to buy their house because there's another house coming two days later and another house coming three days later, another house coming four days later. I was like, just kind of forgot about those people. And, and honestly, again, if I would have known then what I know now of about like follow ups and how to stay on top of somebody, we could have done Way more volume than we did in 2020, 2021 and 2022. But now it's so important to like really focus on those systems. So the next time around, man, you are ready. Which leads us to the last point is get ready for the next wave. Getting ready and prepared for the next wave.
- [39:54]
A
Part of that for me is remembering that it's a wave. Like when you're in the bad times, you tend to assume times will always be hard. When you're in the good times, you tend to assume it's always going to be good. It's a good reminder like this is cyclical. So like real estate, as long as you can hang on, you're going to be fine long term. And so now's the time to prepare and get ready and get your systems in order. Order and get, and just get ready for the next wave so that you can surf it.
- [40:16]
B
Yeah, so I, I, I'm just talking to a guy, he's been in real estate since the 70s and he's an older gentleman, really great guy. And he made a comment to me, he was like, everything is in a 10 year cycle is essentially what he said. And he said you have two great years, you have two terrible years and you have seven just kind of stable steady years.
- [40:41]
A
And maths.
- [40:42]
B
What I don't think that math quick study years. Yeah, that did not, that was 11 years but was like you want to be ready to make as much money as you can in those two incredible years and you want to make sure that you build the safety net and the systems and the processes to not go bankrupt in those two terrible years. And I think that's so important for people to like right now we're not in those two amazing years. And it's a, it's an incredible time to, to get ready to when we have those two amazing years to just go crazy. But also in the back of your mind knowing that hey, two bad years at some point are going to come, like it's cyclical.
- [41:24]
A
Well, I think that's a good maybe transition then. I want to end this episode with a little bit of optimism because again, we're in a wave, things are down, another wave's coming and a big piece of that is the housing shortage. So I alluded to this earlier, but I'll just kind of finish the thought here is when interest rates were real low back think like 2019, 2021, they built a ton of stuff nationwide because everything was cheap, money was free basically. So people started building a ton of stuff 2023, hit and rates started going up. 24, rates started going up even higher. 25. They went crazy. Maybe have come down a little bit now, but what happened was they stopped building like three years ago. But we still have a. We already had a housing shortage in America. That's why prices are really. Rents have been going up for so long. That is going to get worse. And so most people are predicting somewhere in the 20, 27 range, give or take a year, we're going to have another housing shortage in America. All the stuff that was being built is going to burn off, especially in all the big cities, and we're not gonna have enough housing. What does that mean? Rents are gonna go up again. Prices are gonna go up again. Plus, the government is very intent on lowering interest rates. Trump has said it over and over and over, well, what happens when interest rates go down? Is it people can now buy more? So the people are going to flood the market again. And so prices will most likely go up again. And so I think it's just a good reminder that it is not always going to be like this. Let's get ready for the good times that are coming. And at the end of the day, I use this metaphor, I've used it for years. And that is when a baseball player steps up to bat, right? What do they do? Like when you're in little League or whatever, and you know, you grab three or four or five baseball bats and you swing, you practice with a bunch of them, right? Because it's heavy, heavy. So you got three or four or five big bats, however you can hold, and you're swinging, you're swinging. Then when it's your turn, you walk up to the plate, you drop all the bats but one, and you have one. Or in professional, they have like a thing, they call it a donut. I think, Cam, you probably know more than I am, but, like, they put the donuts big, heavy thing on the thing. Why? Because you accustom your muscles to the weight. And then as soon as you drop the weight, it's like, oh, man, I can really swing this bat now super hard. That's what's happening now. We're swinging with three, four, five bats. So you can choose to sit this time out. You can choose to say, I'm not going to invest right now. I'm not going to try right now. I'll wait till times are easy, easier, but then you won't be strong enough. You will be a weakling when it comes to the market, and you won't have the systems, processes or people needed to knock it out of the park. So the encouragement is, don't use this as an excuse not to invest. I did not want this podcast to be like, oh, yeah, you shouldn't invest. No, now is the perfect time, the best time ever to get in, because now it's hard. It's not going to be hard for much longer. So right now is when you get in there. So focus on the habits, the people, the preparation, the education, and the strength and just keep doing well.
- [44:00]
B
And I think, like, along with that baseball analogy where you're. You're swinging a heavier bat and it makes it easier, there's a. A Russian weightlifting, like, philosophy where. And I remember when I was in CrossFit and I was trying to squat heavier and bench heavier, I remember looking this up, but it was about putting on way more weight on the bar than you can do. Then you literally know you can do. And purposely failing, but fighting and struggling with. And you're only supposed to do it, like, once, everybody, like, couple months, because it's not healthy. But purposely failing and fighting and trying as hard as you can to get that, because that will increase your one rep max, where it's like. And so I think the reason I'm saying that is failure right now is good. If you feel like you're failing, good, because it's making you better. And as long as you keep showing up, even to fail, like, as long as you keep showing up, you are becoming a better, better person, a better leader, a better real estate investor. And in the wise words of one of the greatest philosophers. I know I can't say this because he's a kind of a terrible human being now, but Kanye west, don't kill me will only make me stronger. That is. I mean, I truly do believe. That's a corny quote.
- [45:13]
A
I'd go to Kelly Clarkson. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Fight a little.
- [45:20]
B
It's the difference between me and you, Brad.
- [45:22]
A
Yeah, I know. You're just. You're a little more Kanye. I'm a little more Kelly. Whatever. That's fine.
- [45:27]
B
I actually love Kelly Clarkson.
- [45:30]
A
A moment. Moment like this. It's one of the best songs of all time.
- [45:37]
B
One Perfect. She has like this at the end of this song. What's it called? I'm not a music person. But she's like.
- [45:44]
A
She, like, gets really, really, like a run.
- [45:47]
B
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.
- [45:50]
A
Yeah. So good. So good. You know what else is so good? You know what else is so good? This podcast episode. I missed hanging out with you and doing a podcast. Can't wait to come back to Maui and do it in person. Maybe we'll do one. I'm there on the. On my little Thanksgiving vacation and man, this has been fun. I don't know. You want to have any closing thoughts?
- [46:06]
B
I the closing thought is I still think that real estate is the best way for most people to make a lot of money and build financial freedom. There is no doubt. I'm still 100% convicted in that aspect. Like, it's a. And so I don't want this podcast. I don't want somebody to listen to it and say, oh, Cam and Brandon say that real estate sucks right now. It's still a phenomenal way to make money. And don't let this scare you from investing in real estate. Just let this educate you when you do start or if you are already in it, let it educate you for things that you should be doing right now to, to power through this season. It's like the whole. What is it, the American buffalo story. I think a lot of people have probably heard it where it's like, hey, there's a storm right now and we have two options. One is to turn around and run from it. And I don't think that that'll help anybody at all. Or two, realize, hey, there is a storm. And so we're gonna run straight into that storm and know that we're going to come out on the backside of this quicker, better, faster, stronger. And so take this is. Is education not as something where we're saying don't invest in real estate or be scared of real estate, because I still think real estate is the best option. I mean, I just had somebody in. In deal flow because we still, we're not. I shut it down. But still fulfilling for a year on it. And he sold a house yesterday that he made seven $74,000 on. Yeah. I mean a net profit of $74,000 on. So like there's still. There's still deals out there. There's still people that are crushing it. Just realize it's not as easy as people might tell you it is on. On Instagram.
- [47:47]
A
Well, hey everybody, if. Yeah, my closing thought is hang out with people that challenge you, that push you and that make the impossible look like a Tuesday morning. And so if that means going to local real estate clubs, if it means forming your own little mastermind group of buddies, if it means joining Cam and I every week, Thursday afternoon for our what we call a bottleneck breakthrough call, which is where just our mastermind that we help people with. Either way, just get in touch with people that make the impossible look like a Tuesday morning. When you're going through hard times, nothing matters as much as just having the right people around you. So, Cam Cathcart, thanks for being my buddy and being around me in hard times and keep crushing it.
- [48:23]
B
You too. Can't wait for you to be.