WS589: Getting A Free Roof Before Closing with Brandon Abbott

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication.

And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:24.1] WS: This is your daily Real Estate Syndication show. I’m your host Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is Brandon Abbott. Thanks for being on the show, Brandon.

[0:00:32.4] BA: Hey, good morning, Whitney. Thanks for having me.

[0:00:34.7] WS: Glad to have you on the show. You have some expertise that I know the listeners and I can learn a lot from. A little about Brandon: He has 10 years in the construction industry, 10 years in the insurance adjusting industry. I mean, both of those are such good skillsets that we need in this business. Three years in the multifamily industry as a passive investor and an operator with a portfolio of over 2,200 units and nearly 275 million dollars.

Brandon, thank you again for your time this morning and sharing with the listeners. Give us a little more about who you are and maybe your all’s focus and highlight, obviously the group that you are with and let’s jump in.

[0:01:12.8] BA: Yeah, definitely. I’ll give you a little bit about my personal background. Who I am, where I live, and what I’m made of. What I’m made of is my family. I have a wife, Ashley, and I have four daughters. Everybody usually gases at that, “Four girls! That’s crazy.” It’s a blessing, I promise. I have high school down to elementary age. I have one getting ready to get her learner’s permit in two weeks, so that’s a big step and the right direction and I have two that I have birthdays coming up soon. They’re growing and excited and then have a couple of dogs. And we live in West Columbia, South Carolina which is where my other business partner with passiveinvesting.com, that’s a group that we are partners in. Dan is also located in Columbia, South Carolina and our other partner, Danny Randazo. We formed passiveinvesting.com and we are a real estate syndication group in multi-family. We purchase and operate assets in the South-East and been doing that for quite some time now and loving every minute of it.

[0:02:14.3] WS: Awesome. Well, Brandon, I know your specialty is really just looking at properties, assessing the CapEx and numerous areas and the insurance issues too just because your previous background, which is just incredible value to the team that you’re a part of, no doubt about it.

But let’s jump into some of those problem areas that you know to look for that maybe we don’t, you know? When we’re assessing properties, we’re looking at properties, doing walkthrough’s or accessing CapEx and things like that. I’d love to just dive in there and really bring out your expertise a little bit and help the listeners and myself to just understand better what we should be looking for.

[0:02:51.0] BA: Our team is broken up into three sections. Dan, Danny and myself. I’m in charge of acquisitions, so I actually talk with the brokers and build that relationship, meet with them, have coffee, go on the tours and build that personal relationship because that’s very important. First of all, that’s from an acquisitions stand point, you’ve got to build credibility, confidence and they have to have confidence in your group’s ability to close properties and just they have to like you as a person, really.

That’s the first step in the acquisitions processes building those relationships. It is a very small industry. Brokers know brokers and sellers knows sellers and buyers and everybody talks and reputation precedes you. And my recent article that is on our website about good name’s to be desired above many riches is something that we believe strongly in. We don’t like to waiver or nickel and dime people. We like to commit and make it as easy as possible and the purchase process. And part of that, making it easy as possible during the due diligence, is looking ahead at any particular problems that you might encounter before you put it under contract. Because at that point in time, that’s pretty much done and if you miss something, that’s a large consequence.

You may have to go back and re-trade the property, re-trade and go back to the seller and ask for a lower price or concessions or anything on that nature. We like to underwrite conservatively, so that we can absorb any type of unknowns, what we like to foresee any unknowns possible.

The way I do that is I look at the property in depth, while in there. One of my biggest tools that I use is a drone, I send that up and I look at the roofs and the overall lay of the property and I can go all over the property and stay in one spot or sitting in my car, for that matter, and check out all of the property and kind of drainages. Because from that level, from that bird’s eye view, you can see any kind of erosion issues that are happening on the property or different patterns like that. The only issue you run into with the drone is if it’s in a flight path of a major airport, you have to have clearance from the airport. But I usually flying at tree levels, you know? Or a little bit above that. I don’t usually run into that issue.

But that’s one of the tools I use. I want to look for any potential issues that we have. We want to include that in our CapEx in our underwriting because that’s money that we need to account for. If the roofs need to be replaced, I want to know about it. If there’s drainage issues, I want to know about it.

And that comes from the construction background, just having that knowledge, I’ve done everything in the construction industry, every step I’ve actually done myself and so I understand how it works and what’s behind it and what are the pieces and what’s the process and I can just see that vision and it also helps when putting together the budgets because I know how long it takes and how much I should be getting charged. And so, when somebody comes with a really crazy estimate, I  know that it’s a really crazy estimate and it’s not going to take as long as they say.

[0:05:53.0] WS: Let’s jump into a few of those things there. And talking about a drone just for a second. I don’t think anyone’s talked about using a drone on the show before. That’s interesting. I’ve heard that about you all before and I’ve heard you all talk about it and using a drone, when should we invest in a piece of equipment like that? Who should have a drone?

[0:06:10.8] BA: I think whoever is touring your property for your group. If you’re doing it yourself, definitely bring a drone along, it’s a small investment. A decent drone, I use a DJI Mavick Pro. They have the Mavic 2 out now with a little bit better zoom camera but the Mavic works just fine. I think I paid around $900 for that. But what you can do with that is pretty much endless because we talked about inspecting the property. But once you put it under contract and you’re syndicating the deal and you’re wanting to make a presentation to your investors, well, we can use drone footage, more decorative drone footage to put into our presentation.

It’s not only a tool to build CapEx. It’s also to build marketing. Pays for itself, halfway through the first deal that you’ll ever use it for. From the insurance aspect, there is technology with those drones where I can actually plug it into a software, it will take the drone off, it will fly it around the entire asset, taking photos at preset locations and it will build a 3D model of the asset and I can import that into estimating software and I have macros prebuilt for whatever I want to do.

It imports the 3D model, I click on my macro and within a minute, I can write a $400,000 roof replacement without ever breaking out a tape measure. There’s a lot of pros to that. That does take a little bit of experience though.

[0:07:32.6] WS: The software will actually fly the drone for you to take those measurements?

[0:07:36.3] BA: Correct. You have to go in and tell it where any obstacles will be so it pulls up a satellite image for you, just pinpoint a tree here and a tree here. But the drone has obstacle avoidance too, so it’s not going to just slam into something. It knows when it’s getting close and it will stop or –

[0:07:51.3] WS: It’s not going to self-destruct?

[0:07:52.9] BA: Right, correct, yeah. That same software, once I read the estimate, you can actually just pull satellite images and you don’t need the drone and it will import a 3D model with measurements into the software as well. That software for anybody listening is called Xactimate. It’s pretty pricy. Something it’s about $1,600 per year for a subscription. But it’s invaluable. We’re using it right now on a few assets. It’s definitely worth the money.

[0:08:22.1] WS: Is that something that anybody can do as far as the insurance or like the quote there, you know, to replace a roof, is that something anybody could do or is that something you could do because of your insurance background?

[0:08:33.5] BA: I definitely can do it because of my insurance background. But it’s like anything else, I’m of the mindset that the only reason you don’t know how to do something is because you’ve never done it before. Someone else learned it at some point in time, so why can’t you also learn it? That’s just my methodology. And they have videos out there. They have YouTube videos to show you how to do it, how to build roof systems and really, the hardest part is drawing the building and sketching it out. But if it’s imported from a satellite image, it’s really kind of easy.

It’s not rocket science. Nothing is rocket science. Even rocket science is not rocket science, you know?

[0:09:06.8] WS: I wanted to ask you quickly about the drainage issue. You said you can see that from the drone. How easy is that to see and why is that important?

[0:09:14.8] BA: Say you have a retention pond or there’s maybe some areas that are washing out. From being up high, you can kind of see the areas that are washing out, where you may not notice it just walking around the property and you definitely are going to notice it with where the broker’s going to take your property, right?

They’re going to take you to the most pretty spots and you may not want to walk through the weeds with the copper heads and stuff like that and check out to see if there is drainage. It’s a very safe way to just get up there. And another good thing like I mentioned in the marketing, you can get up high and you can stand all the way around and you can show everybody what kind of businesses are around or you can do that on Google Maps too. But it’s nice to have that live video, it makes it look more professional. It’s just a good way to get literally a bird’s eye view of what you’re about to put under contract or make an offer on.

[0:10:01.0] WS: Sure. It brings things out that you’re going to see that you need to investigate further.

[0:10:04.4] BA: Correct. Exactly. It’s the edge in a world of there’s a lot of people wanting to buy assets out there, it’s a competitive market. Why not give yourself an edge over other people, you know?

[0:10:17.2] WS: What are a few you CapEx things that maybe you know to look for that potentially other people may not be looking at when they’re buying properties?

[0:10:25.3] BA: Sure, I mean, you have the normal ones that I think most people buy multi-family and know about and that’s your plumbing and your electrical, you don’t want aluminum and you don’t want any polybutylene, that’s the gray piping. It’s really not the piping. It’s the fittings that‘s the issue. It’s the polybutylene fittings, Those are kind of common. But once you get into the 80s, 90s, we usually buy Class-B, Class-A assets now, we’ve kind of shifted that and we can talk about that a little bit later if you want. But those are some things as far as the infrastructure of the bones.

What type of solid floor does it have Does it have Gyp-Crete or is it subfloor, Gyp-Crete, they use like a fiber board they put down over the top of the trusses and they pour a very thin layer of self-leveling concrete on that. That’s Gyp-Crete. And in older assets, ‘86 assets, they were broken up, there’s been repairs and you may run into issues, it’s going to affect whether you can do glue-down laminate or you had to use floating laminate because if you have to go in there and prep the floor, even though glue-down laminate is more expensive, by the time you have all the floor prep because your damaged Gyp-Crete underneath of your glue-down, it’s cheaper just to go floating and just go over top of all that mess. Factoring in different things like that.

Are the windows fogged up? Are there any broken seals on that, especially with the old aluminum windows, sliding glass doors? The biggest one is the roof and that’s one that most people do not bring a ladder out and check out first thing.

[0:11:49.2] WS: Personally, you mean, bring a ladder out and check firsthand?

[0:11:52.4] BA: Right. Because I mean, I don’t go to tours wearing a suit and tie. The brokers do, I’m not that guy, I’m collared shirt and pair of jeans. But even in that, I don’t really want to break out 20-foot extension ladder and climb up on the roof. That’s where the drone comes in really handy. And so, you can look for any kind of storm damage or anything that you may have to deal with coming down the road.

[0:12:11.5] WS: Yeah. I would love to be able to see the roofs first hand, but personally, I do not want to get up on a three-story roof, you know?

[0:12:19.6] BA: Nobody does. Three story’s rough. Yeah, exactly. Ironically, I was insurance advisor for many years and climbed a lot of roofs and ironically, I do not like heights. We go to New York City and my wife wants to go to the Rockefeller Center and I’m up against the building, I just don’t like it, ut mentally, I think I can survive a two-story fall so it’s good, you know. We’re 65 stories, you’re done for.

[0:12:45.5] WS: You mentioned shifting from say, Class-C product or 70s or early 80s product to now, you all are shifting to say Class A, Class B products. Could you elaborate on that and let’s talk about that a little bit?

[0:12:57.8] BA: If you’re starting on syndication, you have to have your criteria set. You got to know what you want to purchase. You can’t just say, “I want to purchase apartments.” Okay, well, that’s a big category. You narrow it down. Whether it’s numbers of units or cost of the asset or I know there’s other criteria as for financially as far as ROI are concerned but as far as what year, what vintage is it?

Is it value-add or is it core? Core being it just performs or cash flowing. We started out as value-add. Most people do. It’s a great industry. But we saw early on, we started with upper C class for our first asset which required a ton of CapEx. It’s great, right? You’re like, “I can do this,”and we were blowing everybody’s price out of the water because I’m a pretty hard negotiator on material costs. So, we’re using our volume to directly negotiate material costs with manufacturers and not going through any distributors. It’s all great and all that.

But what we found with the C class, that neighborhood has a reputation and no matter what you do with it, it takes time for that reputation to go away. It will eventually and if that’s your model, that’s fine, I’m not trying to discourage anybody from reclassing a property. But I just want to warn people that it’s not just a simple matter of putting in granite and painting it and putting a new exterior and replacing all the windows and then magically, all your tenants are just wonderful tenants that pay their bills on time and never have any criminal activity or anything like that.

Because it takes time and people in the neighborhood, they know that neighborhood. They’ve lived in the area for their whole life and they’re like, “That place, well, my friend lived there 15 years ago and this happened and this happened,” and it has nothing to do with you but it’s a stigma that you have to overcome. We found that the best way to do that would be to de-occupy the units and then re-occupy it with your desired demographic.

That is harder to do from a syndication standpoint because of returns, right? You want to be paying those distributions. And it’s a lot of work. I mean, my word, it’s just tons of work and coordination and contractors, having contractors literally like babysitting. I mean, it’s just constant putting out arguments and discussions with your onsite team. And the contractors is just – on the group, again, this is a decision we made personally, this is not anything that I’m saying everybody has to do because it’s most certainly not the case.

We started seeing that we could purchase assets that required less CapEx. Maybe just a little bit of paint, maybe just replace the formica with granite. Something we could do really quickly, a couple of thousand dollars. And we could command maybe $150 rent increase as opposed to spending $12,000 and getting a $250 rent on it. You see where the difference is, your return on investment is so much greater on the smaller and it’s easier to implement your stabilization period is less.

Then we found out that if you didn’t do anything, you can get assets that are just cash flowing and you can come in and they’re just ready to go and you can make money without touching it and you just buy it and then you make money. That’s kind of our evolution as a company, which proved to be very valuable coming into COVID-19. And there’s some key factors in that we can discuss that we did not plan out that way. But it just worked out well.

[0:16:13.3] WS: Yeah, I mean, it’s a mindset shift now, right? All this in focus on value-add for a while, but could you elaborate a little just on the mindset behind the difference and purchasing that Class A product versus the value-add. Are you still going to have any type of value-add component or is it just they’re stable, they’re cash flowing from day one so why not?

[0:16:32.6] BA: Well, we are not turning down value-add properties but it’s definitely, we’re not going after the heavy lifts where we just pretty much rebrand the property. We definitely don’t want to do that. Our group looks like a mid-2000 to 2015. Maybe even further, if it’s stabilized, 2018 product. Again, we’re looking at something that’s doing well. It’s well maintained, there’s no issues on the property. But just a little bit outdated, so we can just modernize it a little. Just a little bit of paint. We’re still looking at those.

But the class A with COVID-19, let’s say you were planning to make increase rents by a $150 per month. Well, now your tenants are maybe haven’t been able to go to work so that’s all put on pause and how long is it going to be until you are able to implement those rent increases? Your guess is as good as mine because we just don’t know, right now.

So, from a risk mitigation perspective, we like the Class A’s right now. At this point in time with COVID. And we also have just flattened our rent increases and that is the way we are underwriting. So that’s why we like the class A’s right now more than the value-adds.

[0:17:41.9] WS: When you say flattened your rent increases, does that mean 1% growth or 2% growth or just zero?

[0:17:48.8] BA: We had one that we just recently purchased that we all had projected that $9 increase in the first 18 months. And here is the thing: that was our original underwriting before COVID. And again, it just happened to hit at the right moment and we’re thankful. It was like the deal that was made for COVID-19 because literally two days after we signed the contract, lockdown and we just close last Friday on this particular asset and thank the Lord everything worked out well but it was hard.

We had to deal with a lot of obstacles but if there was one deal that was designed to go through that, it wouldn’t be this one and I am thankful for that.

[0:18:23.7] WS: Wow, congratulations. I just want to say that because I know your other team members and I have talked to them as well through this process and you all have worked so hard to make that happen and it’s a big deal to have closed during all of this. So, it shows your level of work ethic and professionalism. So, congratulations to that.

[0:18:40.5] BA: Well, to speak to that, being able to close through this has really helped us. I talked in the beginning about your reputation to brokers. It has put us in a lead position in our markets because they’re like no one else did that or was able to close the deal on time in the middle of COVID. So, it was kind of like, “Oh passiveinvesting.com, that’s pretty impressive.” So, when you are in a deal and you’re in best and final and the broker is encouraging you the seller to go to a specific buyer, your name is going to come up a little bit more.

And they are going to encourage that seller to pick you because these guys get it done. And so, that’s the thing you got to remember is each transaction is remembered by the brokers and the sellers and it will come back to either compliment you or to insult you later on. So just always remember that when transacting.

[0:19:26.7] WS: Yes, I love it when a broker calls us and says, “We’d love for you all to make an offer because we know you can close.”

[0:19:31.6] BA: Yeah, it’s great yeah. It is where you want to be. Reputation is everything. It’s everything.

[0:19:37.7] WS: So, I know that because of your expertise and you’re part of the team like you all even have gotten some free roofs lately. There’s been some creative things or ways that you’ve done that during the contract process. I love for you to talk about that a little bit.

[0:19:49.6] BA: Sure. And this is where insurance savvy does come into play. But anybody can do this. Everybody has an insurance policy on the property. The seller has an insurance policy on their property. So, for instance we had an asset in the South-East that we put under contract one in our due diligence we do a closer inspection and I am looking specifically for wind or hail damage to the roofs. That is damage from an insurance’s anything that is sudden or accidental is what’s caught.

So, any slow leaks or anything like that. Leakage and seepages is not covered. So, I am not looking for that. I am looking for storm damage, broken shingle tabs, dented gutter downspouts from hail, you can see it on the fins of the AC units where the hail hit that, you get up on the roof and you do that 10 by 10 test section. If you have 15 hail impacts in that 10 by 10 you have a claim, okay? So that’s step number one, I find the damage. If I have damage that I will need to find a day to loss.

So, this gets a little technical so bear with me. So, you want to know what the policy period was of the seller. This is an asset we are getting ready to buy. So, when did they put the insurance policy on the property. Now, I have to find a storm event within that policy period that lines up with the damage that I found because they are going to say, “Well, that happened before the insurance policy. So that is not a part of our policy.” so I’ve got to prove that I happened.

And you can get on NOAA, the weather agency and find hail reports. I use CoreLogic, you can pull lightning strike reports. It can tell you where every lightning struck and how much radius it had and how many volts it put off.

[0:21:24.1] WS: That’s called NOAA?

[0:21:25.3] BA: That one is called CoreLogic. It will tell you the centimeter of the hail, how many miles away it was from the actual address. So, it is very detailed and I print those reports off and I send them off to the insurance company. So, in cases where we are putting something in our contract, we already put it in our contract, we inspected and found damage. I found data loss that I can use. I have the seller file a claim against their insurance carrier. Not mine. Theirs.

They own the property still and we get the insurance company to agree to replace the roofs. They have to under that policy and it is on the seller’s insurance policy and a lot of people like, “Do they not want to do that because of their claim history?” Well, they are getting ready to sell the asset. So, the loss runs is what that’s called for that asset are going to disappear from them. So, they are not really worried about it and I get free roofs.

You are going to be short in deductible, most sellers will not pay the deductible. But if you can get a roof replaced it is going to cost you $250,000 and you just have to come up with $10,000 with your deductible that is a win in my book so.

[0:22:27.7] WS: I am going to gladly pay that deductible.

[0:22:29.6] BA: Exactly. That is a true case scenario that we have implemented an asset in South-East under contract and then there is the other aspect of once you own a property. So, I can elaborate on that like we just had some storms roll through the South-Eats, tornadoes in Tennessee and South Carolina and everybody’s like, “Oh, I hope nothing happened to your assets.” And I am like, “I hope something did happen to them.” As long as nobody got hurt, I see the value in it because that is why you have insurance policies.

And so, the first thing I do I send someone out or I got out myself and I get up and inspect it. I have one – I got a roof replaced in Tennessee in one of our assets that is starting in a couple of days. And so, the entire complex is getting brand new roofs. That is a huge value-add because when somebody goes to buy that, the first question they’re going to ask is how are the roofs and if they are 20, 25 years old, the mortgage company is going to make them escrow money to replace the roofs because they are going to have to replace it within their hold period.

So, if you come in and they’re like, “Oh, the roofs are brand new. I just replaced them last year.” Great that’s excellent. That’s money that you are going to see in your sale. It is going to come back to you that you did not spent. The insurance company paid for that. I am working on two more in our South Carolina assets with the same type of thing.

[0:23:47.2] WS: Could that delay closing if we were say trying to get the seller’s insurance company to pay for that fix?

[0:23:54.2] BA: Yeah that is a good question. So, what we want to do is just get the insurance company to commit to replacing the roofs before the deals close. But we don’t necessarily have to have the roofs replaced before then because then we have an amendment to the contract where the seller assigns the rights to the claim to us as the buyer and that’s fine. That is normal. I mean if you were selling a house the same thing will occur. I mean you just transfer that over and they just write the check. It depends on the amount of the check. They get a little fishy. They’re suspect when you start writing big checks over a couple hundred thousand dollars.

So, they do title searches and all of that and they write the check to whoever held the title and then you just have it transferred. But no, it has not delayed closing ever. We never had a deal go past closing and well, we had one but that was because of a neighboring dry cleaner that possibly contaminated the soil. It didn’t end up being that way. But that was the only delay we ever had in a closing.

[0:24:50.6] WS: That’s just great to bring up. I know in the last asset we purchased or actually two ago, it was very similar thing. It was roofs and quite a bit of siding that was replaced by the seller’s insurance. So, yeah. It is something definitely to be thinking about when you’re going through that process, right?

[0:25:04.7] BA: And most people don’t think about it. It is natural to me. It is the first thing that comes to my mind and I forget again that people just don’t have that perspective really because they have been in the industry and I am always looking for that free value-add, if you will.

[0:25:18.9] WS: So, Brandon, what’s been the hardest part of the syndication business for you?

[0:25:23.5] BA: The hardest part starting out is the reputation and the credibility in the industry. When you’re new, we liken it to a jet taking off. You burn most of your fuel in takeoff but once you’re in cruising altitude, you are really not burning that much fuel. You’ve gotten up to cruising altitude. That initial ascent is difficult because you’re new and nobody knows who you are. There’s big brokers who have been dealing with all of these big names and these developers and these purchasers and buyers and national REITs and they’re like, “Who are these people? Are these just tire kickers?” And so, you really have to be able to legitimately talk a good game and I say that because you don’t want to ever inflate something that is not true about yourself.

But you do want to put yourself in the best light possible. You need to point out your strengths, you need to be able to talk a good game. They are going to ask you questions and whether you know it or not, they are testing you out. They’re asking you question and they’re going to go away from meeting and have a discussion with their broker buddies about whether this group is legitimate or not. And they’re going to know, “Well, I heard from so and so that this group is brand-new.” So, that’s the hardest thing getting into it.

But once you get into it, you just need to make sure your first deal, you better close it, you better close it seamlessly and you’d better close it on time if at all possible and don’t nickel and dime too. It is not worth saving $10,000 on a deal. And you feel you got a good deal and then everybody on the other side is mad at you and you’ll never do another transaction again.

So, you have to remember, what is the value of arguing over something? You got to look at the big picture.

[0:26:52.6] WS: What is a way that you all have recently improved your business or maybe you personally that we could also apply to ours?

[0:26:58.0] BA: Yeah. So, again it is being able to shift. I think that is what makes us a successful company with new technology, you see companies that aren’t able to look at the future and are unwilling to change the business model and they die. You have to be able to change with the times. You have to see what’s out there. You have to have a vision, you have to take initiative. You have to see the problem and not just the problem but the solution.

So, you know that is what we are constantly doing. We are constantly evolving. You have a goal and that is your goal. But as soon as you see a change in the landscape, you have to be able to adjust that goal. And one thing that I will tell everybody listening is you have to set high goals. I see this with so many people and it is like if you aim for the wall, you’re going to hit the floor. If you aim for the sun, you’ll at least hit the moon. You have to aim high.

Don’t set mediocre goals. Set ones that are to you unachievable, but they’re not or else you wouldn’t have set that. So, set very high goals and take action. You got to take action. So many people want to do stuff and they talk about it. My wife will tell you, I can’t sit still. And so I don’t like idle talk. If I am talking about it, it probably means I am going to do it. It’s just a matter of hashing out the details in my mind. So again, just being able to shift with the landscape and take action.

[0:28:15.1] WS: What’s the number one thing that’s contributed to your success?

[0:28:18.0] BA: I would have to attribute that to God. Because I personally feel that nothing happens apart from him. Any knowledge that I have assumed is because of His hand in my life. So the fact that I could tell you an hour long story of how each step moved me into a different industry and the hardships that we went through and when I look back in that and I see a planning.

And so I am thankful for the knowledge that I have but I don’t attribute it anything that I myself have done. So there by the grace of God. I will tell anybody else out there I am where I am by the grace of God.

[0:28:52.8] WS: I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for sharing that, Brandon. And how do you like to give back?

[0:28:57.2] BA: As a Christian, I give back to my local church body, that’s where I find in the scripture that I am supposed to. I’ll give you a little bit of my personal theology. The reason why God makes people successful is so that they can help others in need. He didn’t give you the knowledge that He gave you just for your own personal benefit. Yes, I do benefit. And I am thankful for that because there are people that are wealthy and there are people that are not.

I am not going to pinpoint why people are not, maybe that’s the Lord’s will for their life. But I am thankful that He has given me success and I am thankful that I am able to use that to benefit others that have a need. That is all there is and that is what I find in the New Testament. It is the model that I follow. So as far as different charities, I know a lot of people give to charities, but I am pretty strict about just giving to the local assembly.

Obviously, there are other things that we work on and that we help out with and with time too. Our company is called passiveinvesting.com. That is for a reason. We want income streams coming in while I am sleeping. So, that means that I have more time to go help out. We like to travel. I’ve been to Papua New Guinea a couple of times and we plan on taking our kids on a few mission trips and building some schools and putting in some runways and stuff. I love to get my hands dirty. So that is how I like to give back.

[0:30:10.4] WS: Nice, well tell the listeners how they can get in touch with you and learn more about you and also the summit coming up.

[0:30:15.6] BA: Yeah, definitely. Well, passiveinvesting.com, you can go to our website that’s pretty easy just passiveinvesting.com. That is our company name as well. A lot of people get it confused and they’re like, “Oh, the passive team or the passive investing team” It is the passiveinvesting.com team. And actually, I’m branding the dot com. So that is important to remember. My email, [email protected] you are welcome to email me there.

I am on Facebook as well. Whitney mentioned the summit coming up that is June 11^th through the 13^th. So, the Multifamily Investor Nation Summit was doing virtual summits before it was cool. So, now with COVID everybody is doing Zoom and Zoom is an old hat for us. So, Dan, my other business partner with PassiveInvesting heads that up and that’s coming up again, June 11^th through 13^th so you can get some great content, great speakers about all kinds of aspects of investing.

And real estate, all kinds of speakers from the comfort of your own home. There is two rooms I believe going this time, they are recorded. So, if you can’t get one live, you can get it and you can ask questions live. So, it is a great opportunity. I am telling you, there is a lot of content. I’ve been to a lot of conferences and listen to a lot of speakers and this one, I have learned the most from and I know I am partial to this because I am a part of it but it is really a great conference.

So that’s Multifamily Investor Nation Summit, June 11^th through the 13^{th. A}nd there’s a promo code, it is “Whitney,” you just type in Whitney, you get a $100 off and all of the proceeds for the summit go to Whitney’s non-profit. So, that is something that we discussed on prior summits with the Multifamily Investor Nation Summit and Whitney. So, we love what he is doing and we love to help out where we can. So, make sure we use that promo code Whitney just spelled Whitney, type that in and we’d love to see you there.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:32:02.4] WS: Don’t go yet, thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show.

Subscribe too so you can get the latest episodes. Lastly, I want to keep you updated so head over to lifebridgecapital.com and sign up for the newsletter. If you are interested in partnering with me, sign up on the contact us page so you can talk to me directly. Have a blessed day and I will talk to you tomorrow.

[OUTRO]

[0:32:43.2] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to The Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

[END]