- 03:17 – James Brown’s background: From graphic design to real estate investing.
- 05:18 – The allure of real estate investing: Control, flexibility, and long-term wealth-building.
- 12:42 – The Nomad Investor strategy: A simple yet effective approach to building a real estate portfolio over time.
- 16:37- Accumulating long-term rentals through continual investment
- Linktree: https://linktr.ee/partnerwithjamesbrown
- Website: https://www.realhomesolutions.org/https://www.realhomesolutions.org/
- Podcast: https://www.unitedstatesrealestateinvestor.com/this-month-in-real-estate-investing/
- Website: https://hybridrealestateinvesting.com/category/podcast/
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/exitstrategiesradioshow/
- FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/exitstrategiessc/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxoSuynJd5c4qQ_eDXLJaZA
- Website: https://www.exitstrategiesradioshow.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmelette/
CORWYN:
Do you want something more? More meaningful moments, opportunities, deeper relationships, and memorable experiences? Do you want to make a difference? If you said yes to any of that, a career in real estate could be the opportunity you’re looking for. Guiding people through one of the most important decisions they ever made. The purchase or sale of their home can be both rewarding and lucrative. Exit Realty’s revolutionary compensation model, training, and technology provides you with the tools you need to start and build your successful real estate career. Call Exit Realty Lowcountry Group today at 843-619-3005, that’s 843-619-3005 or visit join.exitlowcountry.com and make your exit today.
Good morning. Good morning and great morning to you all. Guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show Hey, I’m your host, Corwyn J Melette, broker and owner Exit Realty Lowcountry group in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina, and also partner in Exit Realty, New Horizons in Columbia, South Carolina. So guys, look, I’m super, super excited. We are off to a fabulous new year. Yes, we are. And I’m super excited to be on this journey still with you. So we have not forgotten what we’ve done in the year prior. And we are yet continuing and increasing our value to you. Because we are going to as we are today continue to bring you the best, the brightest, the most connected the most knowledgeable people to serve you, to give you information, to inspire you. And trust me motivate you to do something that you have not yet done. But that thing that you wish to do. So guys, today is no different. We have with us none other than James Brown. So hold on before you get up to get down. I want to make sure that you understand and know that James is the co-founder. Yes, of Real Home Solutions. He’s a realtor. That means he’s part of my people. He’s part of my tribe, y’all. I need y’all to hang in there. He’s an investor, creative financing coach, guys, he’s the author of Hybrid Real Estate Investing. And he is also kindred spirit, host of the show: This Month in Real Estate Investing. James, how you doing today?
JAMES:
I’m doing great, man. I’m glad to be on and to find a kindred spirit like you said.
CORWYN:
Yeah, you part of my tribe. We’ve got a realtor, oh I’m in . That’s it for me. That’s all I need. So James, tell listeners high level about you, who you are and what it is that you do.
JAMES:
Boy, we could go deep on that. As far as finances and real estate. Let me just give me my background. I was a graphic designer for 25 years, and I wasn’t getting where I needed to go. I had no retirement in my future. So I was like, I gotta do something different got into real estate investing started learning, spent a lot of time just figuring out all the different options and what was going to be a good fit for me. And so that’s I got licensed to help facilitate deals and also connect with people like yourself, you’re an agent. That’s the high level.
CORWYN
So tell me James so you got off into real estate investing? How long have you been investing and doing creative financing and things of that nature?
JAMES:
Yeah, I guess it was about 2017 The I got it in my head, I gotta do something. I was gonna just add real estate investing in which was my plan all along. And I bought a house with my brother and an ex and then my own house in 2006 about my own house and I was going to leverage that the equity that I was going to build in that to buy real estate investments. ‘06 was a bad time to buy and then have any equity built it’s so it took a while to come around to where I did have equity.
CORWYN:
So what I heard in that is you caught, figured out then found out because sometimes it is like boom, rock drop right in your lap if you will have real estate is a long ball game. Now sometimes we may have short gains, but it’s a long ball game. Yep. So that’s what I picked up and hurt out of out of what you were talking about. You had this like I got to do something. And real estate wasn’t tractive I’m assuming probably because, you know, I mean, we all look at the business and say it’s very lucrative. And it can be, but it does require work, which, you know, we know. But what drew you to that being like? Absolutely, it is the first thing and then tell us about the thing that you did?
JAMES:
Well, real estate specifically, because you’ve got control over what you’re investing in, when to get in and out. And there may be a delay. It’s not like just pull your stocks and you’re off. You’re good. It’s not real liquid. But it’s like you said, it’s a long game.
CORWYN:
So the second part of that question is, what was your first deal? What type of property? And how did it go? And what did you learn? Because I know there’s something good in there, what you learn? Oh, yeah,
JAMES:
Every deal is different. And you know, I always learned something. When I first started learning about real estate, I was like, most people like, oh, you go buy a rental property, single family home, right? That’s what most people think. And that’s what I thought, or do like my dad, he suggested, I think real. I might have been in high school or first year in college, you should go buy a duplex and live in one side. Great idea. I didn’t do that. But I did buy a house with my brother and I went there. And then I started going online and 2017. We had a lot of stuff online free education. I was checking out like, what are all the other ways to invest? Like you and I talked before the show started like multifamily investing, self storage, like that. And I joined a multifamily mastermind to really get my head around that model, both on the operator side and the passive investor side. Because that’s totally separate things for your audience. That may be I’m sure you’ve talked about it before. If you’ve got a busy job, and family, being a passive investor might be a good fit. For me. I was like, I got the bug. For one. I was like, this is cool and exciting. And eventually I’m like, my graphics business was waning. And I was like, I’m going all in. Let’s do this. I’ve had many panic moments where I’m like, What am I doing? It’s not easy, being a full time investor. But so then kind of along the way, and my business partner, Toby, he’s really good at researching different one, where we land, at least initially, was rent to own. It’s cool, because we’re helping people become homeowners, we’re helping we work with individual investors that want to be passive, but want to date. So investors make money as well. Everybody’s happy. And we’re facilitating putting the deals together. Our first deal to get back to your question was our investor, we partnered with my mentor in Minnesota, Jesse Mills, he had a buyer that wanted to rent own, the buyer had a real estate agent that didn’t have a full two years income agent, he picked out a duplex or investor bought the duplex, and he lived in one side, and then within it was less than a year and a half, I think he was able to get a loan and buy that and buy a single family home for him to live in. So it turned out the two rentals. It was cool. And he walked in because of the period in the market, he walked into a lot of equity, or investors was still good. That was, I think, 60 grand equity, that he was able to go do whatever it was.
CORWYN:
So a lot of people miss that. This thing is always for an investor. And for the investor mindset, it is always just about the numbers, there’s no personal feelings in is sometimes not about getting all the money. It’s about getting the right amount of money. Like you said, in that situation. That buyer brought the deal together, the investor made some money, and they still had the buyer position. So the buyer actually made money as well. And everybody wins, and everybody moves on to the next thing and continues to go. So there’s a lot of times that people miss that. So you’re an author, wrote a book Hybrid Real Estate Investing. Tell us about that book, one, what inspired it? And number two, what is a key point that you hope that listeners or readers will get from that boat? Well,
JAMES:
it’s basically about our model with rent to own. And I just do want to point out, I thought this was all going to be about numbers and just being a cold businessman when I got into real estate investing, and it’s not I mean, it’s a people business, and it takes a team to do it. And with rent oh, we’re helping people become homeowners. That’s really fulfilling for me. They’re really grateful. And I feel like our investors cool thing about rent to own is you’ve got somebody that’s got a owners mindset. renters, typically they don’t care about the property. They might be good people will not punch holes in the wall or leave in the middle of the night but when they have the intention of buying and they’ve got some money paid up Aren’t, they’re much different person living in that home. So we like that our investors like that every investor I talked to whether they’re brand new, or they’re far down the road, they’ve done a lot of investments, safety and security are the key, they don’t want to lose their money, right? This model is really set up for that. And so that’s what the books, basically about just the mechanics of it, and the reasons why we like the rent to own model over other things, not to say we don’t like other ones like, we raise money for multifamily investments, self storage, things like syndications, we like those, as long as we’re partnering with an operator that knows what they’re doing.
CORWYN:
That’s very fair, very fair. So what I heard in that James is you guys identified a model that you can work to perfect for your use in works, you can get your numbers together, you can calculate the investment and understand the return within a reasonably short amount of time. And in turn, you now have the better tenant, which is a tenant that wants to own it. So they’re going to take better care of it on the front end, which is a different animal. Because, you know, we completely understand that being in the industry and being in the business, sometimes your tenant just really doesn’t have any concern for your property whatsoever. I mean, personally, I’ve just had a tenant, that unfortunately, we had to remove from my property, and in turn, they trashed it. And I gotta send somebody in, and they got to pull all the flooring and stuff out of it, because they completely trashed in the entire house. And those things happen, they do, they left debris everywhere, I’m sending someone in now again, to trash it out and take carpets and all that stuff out. Because I’m after replace all that stuff in it. And in turn, if they had an investment, some ownership, if you will, some skin in the game, then the outcome possibly could have or would have been different. Because now it’s not somebody else’s house is their house. And in turn, they feel they have different emotion of what happened that is attached to it. So you have also contributed to other guides and other books and things of that nature, you are a thought provoker, you’re a leader in the realm and space of real estate investing in size. So James, again, I really appreciate your time on the show today. What do you if you had to say to someone, hey, you know what, you should do this. And this is why you should do this. What would that those two things be? What should they do? And why should they do it? Well,
JAMES:
I have to approach it like, like I’m a doctor, right? And ask questions and figure out what their goals are, and what they’ve got to work with. If they’ve got $10,000 to invest? Well, that’s limiting. So maybe they do a crowdfunding kind of thing. It’s time and money, right? If somebody doesn’t have the time to learn this business and focus on one specific model, that’s where maybe it makes sense for them to be a passive investor. Those are the questions, I have to ask people, and they have to start asking themselves like, what realistically well, how much time do I have? How much effort do I want to put into this? And how much money do I have as I get going? Right?
CORWYN:
Okay, I know that your base is a client, clients tend to be busier professionals, those are the ones because they don’t have time for this. They have their niche, what they do what they specialize in, what have you. That’s what makes the money they got it down to I literally just repeated this earlier today, anything that you do repetitively, you should have a system or process for it. So they legitimately have their entire everything they do professionally, a work was down to this. And they all they need to do is manage that. So coming outside of that requires a completely different skill set. And you’ve already mastered it. So it just makes sense that they will say Well, hey, you’ve mastered this already. I’m gonna keep doing this, Here, take this and do whatever it is that you need to do. So you work for a number of investors that are really more passive investors that invest in projects that you identify, and things of that nature. Am I correct?
JAMES:
Yeah, that’s my main thing. If somebody wants to be active, I can help steer them in different directions. If I was in my 20s, and I wish I would have understood Nomad investing, at least that’s some people call it that or you buy a home owner occupied low interest rate, low amount down. When you’re able to buy another one, you move into the next one, turn that first one, just keep it your loan doesn’t change. It’s still a low interest rate, and you had that low amount down. If that’s all somebody does, and they start doing that when they’re in their 20s and don’t mind living with other people, you’ll be just fine. They won’t even have to do any other investing. That’s all they do. That’s a good model. If you’re younger, and okay having roommates, but the sooner somebody gets going, that’s somebody that’s they’re starting out, they’re not going to be saying accredited investor that might be a good fit for working with us
CORWYN:
was interesting to even bring it up because I’ve had that conversation some months ago actually with someone and we were going around, and just the same thing. So I like that term. I’ve never heard that term before Nomad investor. But that is an option. And you continue to go and grow, turning each home into a rental. But along the way, you have a roommate who’s helping you pay the bills wherever you are. And so it’s offsetting your expense to live, which allows you to continue to save, and to continue to invest and just keep going. And one day you look up and you have a portfolio of 20 – 30 or more houses, because you’ve just bought houses for years over year, etc. That’s impressive. And then all that property is generating rental incomes, as you go to the next one, you do a long term rental, even if you did short term renting, you do a rental for that unit, and then move on and keep going to the next thing. And those simple hacks. Oftentimes, we miss real estate investing doesn’t have to be the big investor going out and buying a bunch of apartment buildings or a bunch of single family or multifamily, whatever it is they don’t win. And fixing and flipping on and off renting and all this stuff on a day to day, it’s as simple as what we just talked about, starting with one giving you a roommate, going from that to the next one to the next one to the next one to the next one. And then you can accumulate the same in the same time period
JAMES:
take that many rentals, especially once they’re paid off to be financially free. It’s amazing. And it’s not rocket science.
CORWYN:
So that’s true. And it doesn’t require any surgery that sometimes people I mean, it’s you can reroute your mind, you can reroute your mindset, because that’s really all this is. It’s just a mindset to look to do something different than what you’ve always done. It’s easy or should be fairly easy to reroute. So James, we’re quickly getting to the end of today’s show. And I don’t want to let the opportunity pass for you to tell our listeners, hey, this is how you reach me, this is how you find me. So if you don’t mind, share your content with our listeners. So they can be sure to reach out to you and ask any questions they may have and perhaps figure out how they may be able to work with you in the future.
JAMES:
Yeah, they can go to link tree, linktr.ee/partnerwithjamesbrown, I’ve got a bunch of different links on there. And if they’re just looking at investing to see if we’re a fit, they can go to hybridinvestor.vip. And if that doesn’t pop up, put the www in there. I don’t know why sometimes pop ups
CORWYN:
Good deal. Well, we will make sure that we share all this stuff with our listeners and for our listeners, guys, please make sure that you go if you miss that just then please make sure you go to our social pages. And or make sure that you go to our website so that you can get that information, do this episode or listen to this episode again, and then connect with James. Matter of fact, let’s say it the right way, James, let’s say partner with James Brown. So you guys, please make sure that you do that. So James, I want to thank you again, for taking time out of your very busy schedule I know to be here on the show with us today. I really appreciate the effort. I really appreciate the insight and the information that you’ve shared with our listening audience. So if you don’t mind, I tend to ask our guests this question. I call it my mic drop question. And it is that 50,000 foot 2020 view 360 degree. So basically, if you can look back over your life up until this point, at the highest level with the broadest view, with the most clear eyes, knowing what you know, now, if you had something to go back and do either differently or do sooner, what would have been?
JAMES:
I would have bought an investment property way sooner. Like when my dad said I’d be Plex. I did buy a house with my brother. So that kind of got things started. But yeah, just get started. There’s a lot of different ways and there’s people like you and I that can help people figure that out and overcome the uncertainty and the fear, fear and having the right mindset to overcome that
CORWYN:
James look here. I appreciate that. I appreciate that insight. And I appreciate that share for our listeners, guys, please do not let the words that James is giving you today fall upon deaf ears. Please do not allow this quote unquote opportunity to pass you by. Please make sure that you reach out to him. But make sure that you do something make sure that you take this information today. Maybe it’s confirmation for something that you’ve been thinking, believing, wishing or hoping or dreaming about. Maybe it’s just the spark today that encourages you to do something different. Make it useful. Let’s employ it. Let’s put it to work. And let’s make it do quote unquote what it does. Alright, so James again I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being on the show for being a part of exit strategies radio show family. Again, I so appreciate your time.
JAMES:
Right on Thank you.
CORWYN:
So for our listeners final Tom, you know How do y’all know how I feel? Y’all know what I say ya know, always put the two of those things together and I say it to you this way I tell you that I love that ain’t change. I tell you that I love you. And I mean it. I tell you that I love you. Because we’re going to get it. I love you all. Let’s make it great.
