Business
Brian has acquired more than $400 million in real estate over a 30-year real estate investment career including over 3,000 multifamily units and more than 700 single-family homes, with the assistance of proprietary software that he wrote himself. He's subdivided land, built homes and constructed self-storage, but prefers to reposition existing properties. Find out how he found real estate success and what he does, daily, to keep that success going. Golden nuggets: 1. Start with what you are comfortable with: Despite what gurus tell you, Class C is not the best asset class in the Great Recession. Class A is. Why? Because Class A can cannibalize Class B and Class B to Class C. 2. How do we find deals? Not through postcards, not through guru stuff. Multifamily is made with brokers. It’s a tough business. 3. What’s the top waste of time? Top waste of time is to jump too high, find the right ladder and climb it rung after rung after rung. 4. How do you build a relationship with a broker? It’s simple. Close a deal. 5. There are two sides of the real estate fence. Side 1:Buying real estate Side 2: Raising money 6. Highest impact activities? We are not in the real estate business. We are in a financial service business. 7. Get on the Biggerpockets blog. 8. What is he focusing on right now? Class B and A multifamily properties with value-add components. Value-add = physical and management improvements. 150-500 units. $15-25 million price point. 9. Unfair Advantage? Never lost any investor principal. Job first and foremost is not to lose anyone’s money. Second job is to make them money. 10. Why do multifamily investors fail? They fail because of inexperience and faulty assumptions, one which is “this is kinda easy and it’s simple math.” REAL TALK FIRE ROUND: What is your #1 real estate book? It's a Whole New Business!: The how-to book of syndicated investment real estate What drives you to keep investing and how can we learn from it? What drives him is that he enjoys what he does. It gives him satisfaction to help other people. What was your biggest challenge in real estate and what have you learned from it? He mistimed the market in a multifamily property. Took $15,000 a month out of his bucket for four years! REAL TALK Best Mindset Tip: Show up everyday and give it your all. REAL TALK best habit: Work at it Every. Single. Day! Contact: Website: Praxcap.com Find him on Biggerpockets.com