Since 2005 Brad has personally helped his Students purchase over 300 apartment complexes involving hundreds of investors, most of whom attended Brad’s training. Many of Brad’s Students begin with no previous investing experience and within a few short years, many have retired and/or increased their net worth by over $1,000,000. In 2018 alone, Brad’s students have purchased over $500M in apartments nationwide.
Brad has continued his own progression as an Apartment Investor since he retired in 2005. He has owned over 3,700 Apartment Units and has invested as an Individual, Syndicator and Passive Investor.
Brad’s passions include his wife Jen, family, travel, health and fitness and of course his Apartments & his Students. His Personal Mission is to help a thousand people retire from their jobs or become millionaires by transferring his 16+ years of Apartment Investing experience to those who attend his training and events.
When Brad is not Mentoring and Teaching, he spends his time with his wife & family, working out, and traveling. The Income from his Apartment Investing has allowed him to live life on his own terms, spend time with family and friends, enjoy two residences (Texas and Florida) and travel the world. Brad wants you to be able to enjoy the same quality of life that he and Jen have. To learn more visit www.bradsumrok.com
Since 2005 Brad has personally helped his Students purchase over 300 apartment complexes involving hundreds of investors, most of whom attended Brad’s training. Many of Brad’s Students begin with no previous investing experience and within a few short years, many have retired and/or increased their net worth by over $1,000,000. In 2018 alone, Brad’s students have purchased over $500M in apartments nationwide.
Brad has continued his own progression as an Apartment Investor since he retired in 2005. He has owned over 3,700 Apartment Units and has invested as an Individual, Syndicator and Passive Investor.
Brad’s passions include his wife Jen, family, travel, health and fitness and of course his Apartments & his Students. His Personal Mission is to help a thousand people retire from their jobs or become millionaires by transferring his 16+ years of Apartment Investing experience to those who attend his training and events.
When Brad is not Mentoring and Teaching, he spends his time with his wife & family, working out, and traveling. The Income from his Apartment Investing has allowed him to live life on his own terms, spend time with family and friends, enjoy two residences (Texas and Florida) and travel the world. Brad wants you to be able to enjoy the same quality of life that he and Jen have. To learn more visit www.bradsumrok.com
Not Real estate investors, entrepreneurs and agents, your wife place unlocking the secrets to real estate investing and entrepreneurship. Welcome through that titanium bolts posted by Rj Bates, but third, here's RJ.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the titanium vault. I'm your host, Rj Bates. Today I'm humbled and extremely excited for everybody because we have an incredible guest with us today. Mr Brad. Sumrok. Brad, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm doing good. Rj, how are you today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Uh, today is an exciting day for the titanium vault. You have done some incredible things, uh, for the people that don't know you. Just going to read a couple of benchmarks or milestones that you've hit from the bio that you sent over. I'm, Brad has owned over 3,700 apartment units, um, as an individual syndicator in a passive investor. And then, uh, just this year alone in 2018 Grad students have purchased over$500 million dollars in apartments nationwide. And that is a, that is amazing. Congratulations on that.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you. And that's a huge accomplishment. I mean, I, you know, our program is going around now and this is year number six and like, you know, if someone would have told me in six years you, you'd be helping people buy a half a billion and apartments all over the country. I'm not sure I would have believed that,
Speaker 2:but, um, yeah, I'm, I'm, so, I'm so excited about that. Yeah. So let, let's go back to the beginning. I think it's so important for people to understand like, you know, how was that success achieved, you know, how did you get your start in real estate investing that it automatically go into multifamily or did you ever start in single family at all?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, my first investment ever was a 32 unit apartment building, so it was not a single family home. I didn't, you know, flip a house or whatever and how this all happened was, you know, like so many people. I went to college, you know, my parents never finished college. They taught me to study hard and get good grades and go to college. And I did all that. And my dad, you know, finished three years of engineering school and his boss was an engineer so they encouraged me to get my degree. I was good at math and science, so I became an engineer and as soon as I became an engineer and graduated college, they started talking about retirement and 401ks and all this stuff. And I'm thinking, man, when does life get fun? You know, like when am I supposed to enjoy my life? And you know, fast forward a few years I wanted to move up in the company. I got an Mba and I over, you know, the sorts story is I spent 17 years in corporate America, five different companies laid off once, fired once, never really made it to the c level position and actually thought about going into law school. And it wasn't until I picked up the rich dad poor dad book, which changed my life and the lives of millions and millions of other people. That book really gave me the Aha moment that I needed to get on a different path and look at doing real estate. So that's Kinda how I got the idea to be a real estate investor and then when Robert Kiyosaki talks about, you know, retirement and passive, you know, getting out of the rat race and he's got a whole game, the cashflow game, right where you trying to get out of the rat race and replace your, you know, your job income with your investment income. And so my investment income was like 10 grand a month and I just felt like it would take me too long to do at one house at a time. And so I decided back in 2002 A, which was 16 years ago. I decided to go straight into multifamily investing. Gotcha. So the first deal you ever take that as a 32 year, that multifamily, you know how first for the people that are listening, how did you accomplish that? Because I, you know, that's incredible. And I think there's a lot of people out there that look at that and say why I could never do that because I don't have the finances to do that, or I don't have the understanding. How were you able to accomplish that? Well, there's a couple things, you know, and I, you know, these are things that I teach, you know, the, the, the simple basic steps. So the first thing is I worked as an engineer and then a commercial, uh, you know, sales and marketing and account management after getting my Mba. So I worked for 17 years and I saved my money, you know, I was one of those kids and, and young men that live below my means and save money for retirement. So from the time I was 22 and so all the time I was 35, I actually saved enough money to make a down payment on a property. Okay. So I never did like a no money down type of deal. So the deal I bought was, you know, just under a million dollars and I put 20 percent down and I got a full recourse loan for, you know, 80 percent of the purchase price. Now with know a lot of people hear that and you're like, well Brad, I don't have, you know, 200,000 or whatever to to, to buy a deal in my answer there is, well that's why you might want to look at syndicating a deal, which, you know, my, my third deal was I syndicate syndicated the 250 unit deal. So you know, the first deal I did was$200,000 of my own pocket. The, the, the good thing about that is, you know, I don't have investors, I don't have to understand sec and raising capital. The bad thing is you run out of money. I need to do a deal number two. So that's why I syndicating deals is so powerful.
Speaker 2:Yup. So how did you learn how to syndicate a deal? Did you go to trader yourself? Is that subsidy you read in books? Did you just youtube it, Google it, or how did you figure out how to syndicate a deal?
Speaker 3:Well, here's the thing too, you know, the answer is I went to a seminar and I hired a mentor and you know, for somebody to say, Oh, you know, that's a waste of time. Everything you need is on, you know, Google and the internet or blogs and facebook groups. The reality is there is a lot of information out there for free, but there's also a lot of misinformation and some of these are like the blind leading the blind. And I see people making posts about like, hey, you know, here's my situation and what do you think I should do? And there's 120 comments and I read these things sometimes and just shake my head because some of the people commenting on it, you know, truthfully, either they're not experienced and they're not, you know, they haven't been through that situation before and they're just giving their opinions. But opinions are worth a dime a dozen. So there is a lot of free information out there, RJ. But the thing is, there's nothing like having an experienced person to be on your team when shit hits the fan and you need to call somebody or you know, to have somebody review your underwriting to walk you through the steps and they're not guessing. They're actually saying, hey man, I'm like, I've done this so many times that I could walk you through this step by step by step. And that's how I started. And now that's part of our business as well. So we invest in apartments and offer also offer that, that type of, uh, assistance for people. Right? And the other thing about it is,
Speaker 2:you know, I've, I've gotten a ton of information just from my own due diligence and asking around, but when you have that mentor or you're a part of a quote unquote mastermind where there's a bunch of people that become a family together, it's not only the information that you received from that mentor, but also the connections and the vendors that they use and the other resources that over the course of their career that they have already built up and they've already vetted out and they've used successfully that they kind of pass along that information. Don't you also feel like that's a huge benefit to having a mentor like yourself or someone else that can help you in when you're trying to get started in this business?
Speaker 3:Sure. It's not merely information or even, you know, there's the information part, there's the handling part, there's the networking part. It's all about leveraging, you know, an experienced in this business, you know, to try to go out and buy, whether it's a 32 unit or a 100 unit or a 200 unit without having an experienced team, you know, I would just say, well, good luck. I mean, and you know, it's, it's, um, it's, it's certainly not a wise decision and you're probably going to make mistakes and maybe you know, not optimize the performance of your deal and maybe even worse. Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's really important to use experience. Lender is experienced. Attorney is experienced management companies that are running the same types of assets that you want to buy, you know, get to know the brokers in the market that you want to buy. And it's, you know, we, we, we call it, you know, a quote and I'm moving my fingers up and down, a good old boy network. But it's not for boys. It's for everybody. You know, it's, it's so ladies out there this, this is for you too. And we have just as many or more successful lady apartment investors and syndicators as we do. Men, so I don't mean to call it a good old boy network, but I think everybody understands the gist of what I'm saying. It's, it's, it's all about not just what you know, but also who you know and that's key especially too, like when it's a competitive market and there's multiple people bidding on the same deal, they're not just looking at price and terms, they're looking at, hey, do we know this buyer and does the buyer have a track record and do we know the lender this buyer is using and do we know the due diligence company they're going to use because they want to make sure that the deal closes and, and the buyer performs. And so that's going to be key is that you're surrounding yourself with people that are well known in the marketplace. Right. So let's fast forward onto your story. You know, you've done a couple of deals at that point though. How, how long did you just maintain being a multifamily investor before you kind of moved into the coaching realm as well? Well, it took me about three years. So what, what happened the way it went with me, as you know, I started with my first 32 unit deal back in oh two. And by 2005 I was able to replace my w two income with investment income and then I actually sold those deals and made over a million dollars in profit and that's when I had the confidence to. And by the way, I never made a million dollars in profit and 17 years in corporate America. My net worth was, you know, I don't know if it was a million dollars or not that it wasn't right. You know, I wasn't a multimillionaire put it this way, after 17 years of corporate America. Um, but after three years of investing in apartments, I had doubled my net worth. I made over a million dollars just from too small, you know, 30 unit deals and that's when I quit my job because I knew at that point that had a skillset that can never be taken away from me and when only get better and I could do, you know, more deals. So in 2005, and I think it was the end of[inaudible] when I, when I quit my job and already retired myself, so I was my first client that I retired and that's one of the things I also learned about mentoring is before you could help other people, you really should help yourself and if you want to call yourself a wealth mentor or a coach or you know, a real estate expert, I think the first person that you should prove to the world that you are able to help is yourself and your own family and you know, so I was able to retire myself, replace a six figure income and only then that I started helping other people with a multifamily investments as a consultant.
Speaker 2:I love that though. You know, you have to help yourself before you can help others. That kind of goes back to the airplane. You know, a story where, you know, if the airplane starts to go down and the oxygen masks fall down, you have to put on your mask first before you can help someone else. Because if you pass out then you can't help the other person and it's the same thing in this, you know, you have to make sure that you understand the business completely and like you said, replace your six figure income that you had in corporate America and you were able to retire yourself and then you were able to help other people. So I think there's a lot of wisdom in that statement there. Um, you know, when you were, when you left that job and you became a full time real estate investor at that point in time, how much of an increase did you see in your productivity compared to when you were working the full time corporate America job? Because I think there's a lot of listeners that we have that are kind of right now in that position of, I don't know if I should actually quit my job where I'm making those six figures or a decent salary. It's so enticing to have that guaranteed income. But what did that do to your productivity?
Speaker 3:Well, this answer may surprise you, but I have never been a full time investor. I'm not, I'm not a full time investor now and I wasn't a full time investor, you know, after I quit my job because I started it. See here, here's the, you know, I don't want to say the secret, but I've always leveraged an experienced team informed me that included, you know, investors management companies. So I've never been my own management company, not for my 32 unit, not for my 250 unit, you know, not when I first had a thousand units. So I've always outsource that. So when I quit my job I started mentoring other people and that essentially became my job. If you think about it, you know, and investing was still something I did part time and forward to today. You know, if you want to say what is my job, you know, we run a multimillion dollar multifamily education and consulting business and yes, I still invest in apartments but I still leverage other people and I, I, I find strong operating partners, many of whom are people that I've personally trained and some are not. But you know, I've gone out and found people that I partner with, so like in the last two years I bought over 1600 doors as a managing partner, but I'm not the guy doing all the work, you know, so that, that affords me the time to spend, you know, I spend 40 to 50 hours a week, probably more, you know, working on my business which is the education and consulting business. So I have never really been a full time investor and now I know some people that have and they've been able to accomplish, you know, phenomenal things. I mean I've done about 4,000 units in 16 years and I know people that have done 4,000 units in four years because they built, you know, their focus wasn't education. It was on buying, you know, as many apartment units as they can. So
Speaker 2:I, your, that I hope I'm not forgetting somebody, but I think you're the third guest I've had on the titanium vault that mainly focuses on multifamily. I've had tip broads and I've had Courtney Peterson and the three similarity or the similarities that I see between the three of y'all is that y'all are very strong in leveraging other people's talents, including using other people's money. I know this is probably part of your training program, so I'm not going to ask you to, to share too much, but this could also translate into the people that are just in single family investments. What are some key tips that you have for on how you can raise and use other people's money?
Speaker 3:Well, the first thing is, is just one thing to make sure all the people listening, you don't have to have all the money. So let's just say, you know, you want to buy a$5,000,000 apartment building. Well, you know, I'm just going to around numbers. You know, you need 20 percent, 20 to 25 percent down, so that's a million down and then you need to get a$4,000,000 loan assuming 20 percent down, you know, it might be more than that, but. So there's not a lot of people that just have a million dollars and so that's why so many people initially, until they hear me speak, they are like, well I don't think I could do apartments or I'm going to play small and go after that for unit or six unit and do owner financing and no money down and all that type of stuff. But the best financing is going to be on a commercial loan where you could get non-recourse and fixed rates for, you know, up to 12 years. And so the, there's a lot of advantages to go in with a conventional commercial loan, you know, the challenge is qualifying for it. So you know, to get the debt, the rule of thumb is to get a$4,000,000 loan, you need a$4,000,000 or more net worth. And so again, you don't have to have all the net worth yourself. Imagine now if you could find three or four or five other people where you go to the lender together and they're not just looking at your financial statement, Rj, they're looking at you and in three or four others that are going to be on that loan and they're going to look at your combined that worth combined liquidity. So this is how we get qualified for larger loans. And then on the equity side, it's the same concept. You don't need to have the million dollars all in your bank account. Imagine if you could find 20 people, and this is just an example where you could find 20 people with 50,000 each and then you pool your money together and there's your million dollar down payment. So that's, that's kind of the model. It's not kind of the model. It's exactly or pretty close to the model that I teach and that I do myself. Now. Where do you find those investors? Well, you don't find them at gas stations and starbucks and you don't have to do network marketing parties and go to your friends and family to come and over to have a party where it's really a business presentation, like if he ever been invited to one of these things where someone invites you to a party and next thing you know you're, you, you know, there's a folding chair and a and a and a presentation and you're thinking, this is not my idea of a party. And there's in there pitching you on some kind of juicer or protein formula that, you know, if you just join and sign up so many people. So that's not what we do. You know, what we do is we look for a accredited and unaccredited but sophisticated investors and these are some advanced topics. Uh, the people listening, you can google these topics that you're looking for qualified investors. And the best way to find these people or people that go to real estate events that are already. I mean, look, if I got to come up to a stranger and convinced them that real estate is better than the stock market or therefore onk, that's a tough sell. If they don't have the right mindset, that real estate's a great way to build wealth. So you want to find people that already buy into real estate. And in my case, I want to find people that already buy into apartment real estate. So most of my students are getting their investors from the people they meet at my training events and it sounds like a plug and a self promotion. But it's true. I mean the next training event, we're going to have like 600 people from all over the country and they're coming for one thing. They're coming to, you know, either learn or meet other apartment investors. And so it makes raising capital easy when you surround yourself with people that are already bought into that thing that you want to do and you know, so whether it's, whether you're raising money for any type of asset class, you know, whatever is the best thing is if you could find people that already want to invest in that type of asset class.
Speaker 2:Right. And I'm perfectly fine with the self promotion there because I think you have a great product. I know I personally know multiple people that have attended your events and it's changed their lives and I've seen them go from struggling to be a single family real estate investor to now they're borderline thriving as a multifamily investor, which is kind of the dream as an investor, you know, you, you skipped the whole single family realm and just now you're, you're flourishing and the multifamily realm. So I, I, I love your product. I love your training program with one of my question would be, so yeah, there's gonna be 600 people at your training event and they're all there. But is there a way do that. Is there a back system where they still can stay connected, were further down the road when they're actually doing deals and they're not at the training seminar itself that they can stay connected and present to each other?
Speaker 3:Well, of course there is. And like, you know, anybody that does a weekend training, uh, I don't like the word bootcamp that a lot of people know what that means. And the first thing I just want to say about that is anyone that promises that you're going to learn everything you need to know in a weekend. Well, I mean, look, I have an engineering degree. It took me four years, you know, and I was on the fast track. There's a lot of people. It took five or six years to graduate and you know, it took me two years to get an Mba. My brother's a doctor and that took him, you know, medical school and residency and all this stuff. So you can't learn everything you need to know about anything in the weekend. So of course there's going to be, you know, ongoing programs for people that want more education, more hand holding, more connection and that, and that's how people were raising money and so, you know, the type of, and this is an advanced topic then I'm going to mention, but when you syndicate a deal, um, which is pooling money together from other people, you got to decide as the syndicator what type of syndication you're going to do. And typically we're doing a reg d five zero, six B, which means that we're exempt from having to register our security. And it also means that we should have preexisting relationships with our investors and we can't do general advertising. And so we can only offer the deals, the people that we already have a relationship with. And so that's part of the process is to build relationships before you find the deals with qualified investors so that when you have a deal, you already have a database of investors that are qualified. Um, I've heard a lot of people say, Oh, if you find a good deal, the money will come. But I mean, look, if you find the deal and then you're pitching it to people you've never met before, well that's prohibited. If you're doing a five, zero, six b type of syndication, a lot of people just don't know that. So there's a lot of people that, you know, just like if you're speeding and, well you don't get caught. But there's a lot of people that, that don't know what they don't know and they're, they're pitching deals to people and they're not. They're probably know some of these people don't even have a securities attorney advising them. So that's definitely a no, no.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So let's, let's talk about the specific event itself. Where is it held? How much does it cost and how long does the training actually last?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So our upcoming training is November 10th and 11th. Uh, this 2018. So if you're listening to this podcast, it's like a week from, from, uh, you know, nine days from now. Right. And I do these three times a year, so I do them in March, July and November. But, so all weekend trainings we do are in Dallas, Texas. So that's sorry, November 10th and 11th. I'm not sure if I said that as dates. Right? But it's November 10th and 1110. Dallas, Texas. It's a couple of hundred bucks depending on your seating that you want. Do you want the VIP seat? It's, I don't know, like three or 400 bucks. And if you want the general admission seat, it's, you know, two or 300 bucks. I don't know what's on our website right now, but that's how you um, that's, that's what you do. And um, I teach the whole event. So this is not, you know, a multi speaker event. And I also see there's so many people that do these events where they have like 20 guest speakers in the weekend. Both you have 10 or 20 guest speakers. Each person is just teasing you for 20 minutes. And I hate to say it that way, but like for me, when I go to these multi-speaker events and there's 20 speakers in a weekend, I get ideas but I don't get anything deep. It's like I can maybe get a couple of nuggets from each speaker. But the reason our events are different is because I teach the entire 16 hours and allows me to go deep. So I, I cover 16 hours of multifamily including a bus door where we actually take the time to put hundreds of people on, you know, 56 passenger buses and we look at three properties in Dallas too are owned by students that I've coached and one is owned by me. And so you'll get to see not only the classroom but you'll get to see a b class and a c class property and you'll get the point out and, and see with your own eyes, you know, the improvements that we're making and the paints and the solar screens and the cedar balconies and the amenities. And so we combine some classroom theory and numbers with some field training. And to me there's no other educational event in multifamily like it.
Speaker 2:Well, I would agree with that, but I have a question, Brad, because you know, I'm, I'm here local in Dallas, fort worth and you had been friends on for several years now. And I always see every time you have one of these events and see all the posts on facebook either by the people that are attending blind yourself. And uh, so this is not a serious question. This is more of a joking question, but I, I do wonder this, you share these pictures and there's hundreds of people standing in the parking lot of these apartment complexes. Do you ever get some tenants that are like, they walk out their door and they're like, Whoa, what the hell is going on here? Are All these people standing at my bargain lot? I've always wondered that. I mean there's just so many people at your events. Does it ever kind of freak out the tenants at all?
Speaker 3:Of course it does. It's kind of funny because we've had like, and the brokers too, like when we started our program that brokers were like, you know, we had one bus and they were like, don't you dare take your boss on my listing, you know, don't disturb their property. Well now we get calls. Brad, could you please take your 200 people caravan to my listing? Because they know that maybe one of these people out of 200 are going to buy their deal. So like that dynamic has changed from like please don't come to please come. Okay. And, but from the tenants it's interesting because we'll have like cameras and you know, it looks like a tape through and microphones and speakers. It's a big production and some of the tenants will come out. Most of them are curious because they're like, what the hell's going on? You know, like what's going on here? They think it's like a movie or something. So we usually get a lot of bystanders and most people don't say anything but we do get some people to come over and ask questions, Hey, what is this, you know, what are you guys doing? And we get some, you know, detractors, I mean we have people that know a lot of the properties that I buy my students by. We'll put in the solar screens so when the window is open, but you can't see who's behind the solar screen because it's like a dark tent. We've got people yelling at them like, you know, so we've had some of that. It's kind of fun and everybody just laughs. We've had people like, you know, give us dirty looks, you know, driving through the parking lot when they navigate their way through a couple of hundred people standing in a parking lot or whatever. But I mean very minimal. Like in the six years that we've done this, we've only had like three or four people that have disappeared and we've never found them again that outside of that. I'm kidding about that by the way. We've never lost anybody. So yeah, outside of that, I mean it's been a very, very, you know, overall. I mean, we haven't had any really negative encounters.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, I'm gonna say this and it's probably going to be the coolest story. Whatever it does happen. I'm a wait for the time to where there's going to be someone that's living in the apartment complex that you're showing and they're going to come down and they're going to hear what you're and talking
Speaker 3:about
Speaker 2:and eventually joined your program and then be one of the best testimonials ever. Were they, when they become a successful multifamily investor, I'm going to speak that into existence. Um, I, I can't wait to hear that happening because I mean, it is, it is a full on production and there's an, as the years have gone by, I mean, I remember back when you first got, well I guess probably not got started, but back when I first started noticing this, you would have like 150 or 200 people and now you're saying there's going to be 600 people. I mean, that's crazy that it's grown to the size that it's grown over the past couple of years. And uh, it's a, it's a testament to your program, into your training. Would that being said, why has this been such an important part of your business and why is, what is your driving force behind doing this for other people?
Speaker 3:Well, for me it's pretty simple. You know, I don't have kids. When I got into this whole business, I was never extremely passionate about, you know, buying any type of real estate. I just wanted to quit my job and replaced my income and apartments where that vehicle for me. So don't get me wrong, I love investing in apartments, but I love even more with investing in apartments has done for me and my lifestyle and my family and now for the people that are close to me and my team and my students and the charities that we're involved with. So it's made, you know, not only a huge difference on my life but on other people's lives. So for me, like I said, it's simple. I'll never forget the way I felt when I was in my early thirties getting laid off and not having certainty about my future. Feeling insecure, you know, where is my, you know, what's going to happen to me in five years, you know, as this next job going to pan out, am I going to move up, am I going to get fired? Like how, you know, should I buy a house, you know, should I buy a car? Like, you know, what's going to happen to me if, if I don't have the money to live the life that I want to live. And all that changed within, you know, a future eras of making a decision to be an apartment investor. So that's my why is it had such a profound impact on my life and that's why I've dedicated most of my professional life if not my personal life as well to our education program because it's, you know, I love buying the deals but for me I felt like I just have a gift to make something that some people think is complicated like buying an apartment building. And I feel like I can, you know, break it down into, into steps that, you know, the average person could. And when I say the average person, I mean the average over achiever, right? Because we're all, you know, the average person ain't going to be listened to your podcast. The person ain't gonna come to a seminar, the average person goes to work and goes home and on the TV and watching football or baseball or whatever the next sport season. So I'm not talking about that person and, and even that person can do it, but they don't have to drive. So I'm talking about the average driven person that wants to change their life and improve it for the better and get out of the rat race they can do. They can, they can do it because I did it and we've helped so many other people. And now I say we, because we got a team of 14 people. So, you know, the average driven person, uh, is, is why I do this now because, you know, that was me. You know, I was, I was an average driven person that they wanted something different and it was willing to make a change. And I want to be available for those people.
Speaker 2:I love it. So my last question for you is, is I think it was probably right around a year ago, maybe a little bit less, uh, you did a post and this is kind of getting into your private life a little bit, but it, you put it out there on social media, so I feel like it's okay for me to share, but you know, rent your, your personal home or residence here in Dallas, fort worth compared to owning it. And you were very passionate about how, as an investor that made financial sense for you and I think this is a hot topic between, especially amongst real estate investors on whether or not they should own their personal home or residence or if they should rent. Why do you feel like it's better to rent that resonance than own it?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm going to answer that, but again, none of my answers are really short. But just, just 100 percent disclosure. I own a house in Florida. Um, and I bought that house in 2015. And prior to that, you know, I haven't owned the House for 10 years. And so, you know, since I became, as I became more successful investing in apartments, you know, to me buying a house is more of an emotional investment. So you know, the House we own in Florida, it's on the beach. I've always wanted the beach house, you know, and so we, we do own this house. But I will say that like you pointed out, we rent. We ran an a plus luxury penthouse apartment in Dallas, you know, we pay a lot more than probably a mortgage payment would, would run us. But here's the thing, when you rant, okay, even from a financial perspective, you don't have to put 20 percent down. Okay? You can move in with one month, you know, most of the time you can move in and, and your pay your first month's rent and you can move in so you don't have to save a bunch of money. And let's say you're going to buy like a$500,000 house. Well so many young couples out there saving for that 20 percent down payment. And rather than taking that$100,000 and putting it into a down payment with a house that doesn't make you any money, and we've all heard this, you know, Robert Kiyosaki would actually call a house a liability because it takes money out of your pocket so you can actually rent an apartment for$2,000 a month or 3000 a month and have a damn good apartment, you know, the, you know, two bedroom, two bath, you know, a class property, you know, and the nice part of town and you can take that$100,000 and started investing. So, you know, for me, when, when people were saying, well, I'm saving the money, buy a house and then I'm going to buy a car with cast. I mean I leased my cars, you know, I, we have this one house and you know, my wife and I are attempted, you know, we, we're like, oh, we should own a house in Colorado. We should own a house. You know, everywhere we travel. We just got back from Dubai and we're like, oh, we should buy something there. You know what? No, we're just going to rent something there. It's like, no, why would I buy a house when I can read it and then I can run it. I can run a different one every time and I can rent something brand new and you know, owning a home, you're, you're experiencing wear and terror and then you got to maintain it and it's like, you know, our Florida House. I mean I love it but I just went out and can you believe I just bought like a weed trimmer? I bought a hedge trimmer, I bought a leaf blower and I'm sitting here thinking I do not want to be spending my weekends if freaking Home Depot and Lowe's, you know, I want to have a lock and leave lifestyle. So a lot of it for us as a lifestyle choice and then when we come into Dallas were coming in there to run our business and I don't want to be going on at home and dealing with, you know, a handyman and a landscaper or doing this or even worse doing this stuff myself. So for me it's just, it's so simple. It's, you know, when I, when I, when I go to move out, I don't have to say, well, you know, what's, what's, you know, how much equity is there in my home or we ended up market or down market, you know, if I sell and I pay a realtor fee, am I going to be upside down on my house? I mean, so to avoid all that hassle, it's so much simpler renting and there's a stigma in our society about people who ran. It's almost like, you know, the American dream that we've all been brainwashed with is you got to own a home and you got to raise your kids in a house and you have to have a yard and a playground will look. I don't have kids so you know, for people to do. I'm not attacking anybody for people to choose to own a home. It's an emotional investment, but I don't think it's a financial one. And certainly if you're trying to scrape up savings for a down payment, I would say put that into your real estate investments. And then when you made a couple million dollars and I hate to say like me and my life and go buy your dream house on a beach or in a or in the mountains or whatever. And that's fine. I gotcha. So my feedback on that would be is I agree with everything you said except for when you are a single family investor like myself,
Speaker 2:I have found ways to take properties down without utilizing the 20 percent down. But so the money that I have, I'm still able to invest it into real estate just through other means. And that's kind of the way I combat that a little bit is I'm still paying less on properties, you know, for example, on my personal home I was able to take it down subject to the existing mortgage and so I captured quite a bit of equity there. But for the most part I agree with your points there. And uh, I just kinda wanted to go over that topic because I, I've seen that that discussion be pretty heated of most real estate investors across the board.
Speaker 3:Well, let me ask you about that because I agree with what you're saying, but you know, most people that are buying a house, they're not looking at it as an investment. They're looking at it as like, Hey, this is where I'm going to raise my family. So I mean, I guess I don't know because I, I could be totally misinformed here, but you know, most people when they're buying a house, are they looking at, okay, I got to get a good deal and buy it subject to and I'm gonna, you know, and they probably make some sense, you know, for me it was
Speaker 2:totally an investment and it just, it worked out where it was like I was taken down the property as an investor no matter what. And we were going to keep it as a rental property. And I just said, you know what, this fits my family, you know, I mean, we could move in here, it's close to the office. It would be an upgrade from where I'm currently living. Um, and we're, we're gonna capture quite a bit of equity and maybe we get also roll that equity. And, and take out a line of credit on that equity or even eventually after a couple of years, sell the property, roll that into a different investment of sorts. So that's kind of how we thought about it. But for the most part, like I said, I agree with everything that you're saying there. I've never once bought a property and put 20 percent down. Um, and so that's just not something in my wheelhouse I'm at or something I would ever personally do because I agree, like you said, it's an emotional decision and that that's just not how my brain is, has been trained. So, um, anyways, Brad, thank you so much for, for everyone who's listening and they're interested in contacting you or finding out more about your training program, what's the best way they can find out more information?
Speaker 3:Well, it's real simple. You just Google Brad Sunroc and it's asking you Mr. Okay. With No. See, that's my website, Brad. Some rock.com. It's my facebook page, Brad Sunroc. It's my instagram page. So all of those ways you'll be able to find out more information about me and what I do. And, um, you know, how you might be able to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Brad, thank you for taking the time to sit down with us. I know you're extremely busy person and also, uh, I want to give a shout out to Brad. He was very kind and supporting our charity golf tournament on October, second this, this past month. Um, he will, he sponsored a, a, I guess the best way to put it was the par five cannon. Um, it was really cool. Um, it, it's everybody on the tee box. You get to put your golf ball in there and you shoot it out of like a potato, a Aragon. And uh, it was, it was a great time. Uh, all the proceeds for that Golf Tournament went to my nonprofit, beat kids cancer and so on, on air. Brad, I wanted to personally thank you for your sponsorship and supporting be kids cancer. Well, you're welcome. And it was a pleasure. I mean, we love, we love sponsoring charities and we do one, you know, that we're really passionate about it. Well, and anything that we can get involved with, um, that makes sense for us and we could stop it, you know, we're, we're interested, so thanks for allowing us to be there. Awesome bread. Thank you buddy. And we'll talk to you soon. All right. Thank you very much for having me on. Bye. Bye. Hi,
Speaker 1:thanks so much for listening to the titanium vault with your host, rj paints, the third for more info and to stay up to date, visit www.podcastonthetitaniumvault.comandonfacebook.com/, but titanium vaults. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review and we'll catch you next time on that time.