🔥 My Land Makes Passive Income💰

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we've got Brent Bowers with the Landsharks, and he flew in from Vero Beach, Florida to talk about creating passive income to enjoy life on your own terms. And can it get any better than that? If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trang, sales trainer for some of the top wholesalers in the country, and I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires.

Question get all the time is how to become one of the 100 millionaires. The information on this podcast alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. Take consistent action, and you will become one. When you hear a nugget, please type in the comment section after the show, identify your single biggest takeaway, and focus on only that for the next seven days. If you get value out of the show, please tag your friend below, share this episode right now.

That way we can all grow together. And this is a live show, so please remember to ask your questions for Brent to answer. You ready?

Brent Bowers: I'm ready.

Steve: Alright. So first question is, what got you into real estate?

Brent: You know, I always wanted to be, you know, HGTV, you know, kinda displayed it, but I always wanted to be a real estate rock star. I mean, anybody that I thought was successful was in real estate. So from the very early age of 18, since I got out of high school, I was going to Robert Allen, seminars.

Steve: 18. You're going to Robert Allen seminars?

Brent: Yeah. As soon as I got out of high school, I got a credit card from Capital One, maxed that bad boy out, and went to a seminar. It was, like, $5,000. And the guy up there present I thought I was gonna meet Robert Allen. He was not there.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: But, the guy presenting, I was, like, I'm gonna be that guy one day, not just doing this stuff, but also teaching people how to do it and creating millionaires. Like, we're gonna at least create, like, five millionaires today.

Steve: Well, I think since then you've got a chance to physically meet Robert Allen. Right?

Brent: No. I have not.

Steve: Okay. So there may be next month at Family Mastermind.

Brent: There we go.

Steve: Alright. So, obviously, after eighteen after eighteen, you went to that seminar, and, like, the next week, you became a millionaire.

Brent: No. No. No. I went back to mowing grass Okay. Because I was mowing grass in Florida and just just knowing what I just learned, but I didn't quite know how to pull the trigger.

Mhmm. I didn't quite know what step to take next. And, you know, it just took it was like putting a puzzle together for me. I didn't quit. I kept going.

Steve: But they gave you, like, this road map or they kinda, like, gave you, like, a dream?

Brent: It gave me a dream really in the beginning. And and they may have gave me a road map, but, you know, they say when when the student's ready, the master will arrive. Well, I maybe I wasn't quite ready then because I didn't go out and and do anything with it. I I I wanted to, though.

Steve: So you're talking about you wanted to be a real estate rock star. What inspired you at that early age to wanna be a real estate rock star?

Brent: You know, I I I always, like, enjoyed taking something that wasn't very good and turning it into something that was. Mhmm. I I I enjoyed sales, like, when when the hurricanes hit us, back in 1992, hurricane Andrews, my my grandma gave me one of those wind up radios to use during a hurricane. Well, after the hurricane was over, I went door to door to sell that radio because we no longer needed it. So I always enjoyed sales, and I just wanted to put it together with real estate.

I wanna find this junker house and fix it up and then sell it for, you know, huge money. Mhmm. So I was inspired by that. So you

Steve: liked real estate. You already liked sales. When did you actually get into real estate? When did you actually start taking action on real estate?

Brent: 2007 when I bought that first house after I just got my real estate license because I actually thought I needed a real estate license to to get, like, the inside edge on the deals. Like, I'm I'm like, I'm gonna be sitting in the office. All the great deals are gonna come across at my desk. I'll pick and choose what I want and sell the rest type thing. Right.

Steve: Not a it's that's not an uncommon, fallacy. People think that if I get my real estate license, I can do more deals. Yeah. But you quickly learned.

Brent: Quickly learned that wasn't for me.

Steve: Not quite the case.

Brent: I did get paid to buy that first house, though. I did get a actual real estate commission because I was the buyer's. I was my own buyer's agent. I had to borrow the earnest money deposit from great grandma, but I I told her, I was like, look, I'm gonna get about a $6,900 commission check, so I'll pay you back. She goes, well, if you don't, it comes out of your inheritance.

Well, she's now passed. She's in heaven now, but I I never got that inheritance she was talking about. I think she was tricking me there.

Steve: Well, but you paid her back.

Brent: I did. I paid her back.

Steve: So how old were you then at that point then?

Brent: So 2,007. So four, five, six, seven. So I was nine Twenty twenty one.

Steve: Just turned seven. Wasn't too long after. So I mean, a few years. A school learner.

Brent: Three years.

Steve: But, I mean, at 21, though, I think I saw a pretty good start. Yeah. So you got your license, purchased your first house. Yeah. And then from there, it was easy breezy.

Brent: Easy breezy. Like living on easy street. Well, rented that house out and found out really quick what it meant to be a landlord and how to actually, like, screen tenants. Never ever rent to anybody that's got a bad past or a felony on their record. You know, I I had to do a couple evictions then in that house and, Couple evictions.

Steve: Not one.

Brent: Just not just one, but but two. And, I learned that when people are able to pay above market price for rent, there's usually a story.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: Because people with 750 credit scores don't pay above market rent for for houses. I think they do now, though. Well, yeah.

Steve: I think they're 21. Yeah. Different market. But not 2007.

Brent: Not where that rental was at. Not where that Okay.

Steve: So you got your first rental property, and you started acquiring more rentals. I mean, this is 2007. So do you you still own that rental?

Brent: Yeah. I actually just sold it, recently, and I never once made a profit on that house. It did it was a heck of a tax write off for a while.

Steve: So you survived the storm with that house. I did. I actually kill you?

Brent: It did not kill me. It just made me stronger. Right. Couple renovations later, taught me how to be a landlord, a educated landlord. And, no, I didn't buy more rentals.

I I moved to the coast to be the real estate rock star agent that I was gonna be, and 2008 was happening, during this whole thing. And I resorted to driving, tenants around, people looking to to rent houses around. And I would get, like, to the house that I was trying to rent them, like, thirty minutes early to turn on the air conditioner and, like, fan it out and spray Febreze so it didn't stink like dogs and cats. And if I was lucky, I would make $300 that week. If I was if I was unlucky, I got to hang out with people in my car all day.

That was not for me.

Steve: So at that time, still young, though not married, not no kids yet.

Brent: Yeah. I was actually I got married at 21 about the same time I bought that house.

Steve: Okay. So you had some responsibilities, some, obligations.

Brent: I did. But no kids. No kids.

Steve: Okay. So, you're acquiring more rentals or you're right now, you're just focused on your real estate agent career?

Brent: That was the goal. I the goal was to acquire more rentals, but, I wasn't doing too well in the real estate agent side. So I was really just my my main focus was how do I keep the electric on Mhmm. And pay pay pay my rent.

Steve: So you're in survival mode.

Brent: Survival mode. I was, like, burning up shoes on the road. Yeah. Like, you know, they say door knock, I door knock. Like, everything you were talking about doing in real estate school didn't work for me.

Yeah.

Steve: I I hear you because I also started my real estate license in 2007. And, and I got my real estate license because I I was like, you know, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I was like, I'm gonna become this, bear land baron. Right? I'm gonna have all these rental properties and and this and that and forget the w two income, and then I got became a real estate agent, and it all went down to crapper.

Brent: Yeah. Your dreams just flushed down the toilet. Right? So No offense to real estate agents.

Steve: Well, that was definitely not the time to be a realtor. Yeah. So then how what was the transition then? I mean, you how did you survive that then?

Brent: Yeah. So I survived it by, my grandpa said, you know, join the air force. Like, you know, you can get a great retirement. He sold the w two dream to me. Do twenty years.

You retire doing very well. So I was like, okay. So I went to try and join the air force. And guess what? They they weren't taking guys like me at in in 02/2009.

So luckily, the recruiter said, you know, go next door. The army will take anybody. So I'm a very good student. Like, so what did I do? I went next door.

Me and my, my ex wife, my first wife went next door. I signed up. I was literally in basic training by October 2009, Germany, very soon after, and deployed to Afghanistan November 2010. So it was a pretty quick process.

Steve: Why were you rejected by the Air Force?

Brent: So alright. So So I'm I'm gonna get very

Steve: That was not too personal.

Brent: No. You know, when I was 18, I I went out, one night with a friend, and we actually got jumped by about, nine guys. And we fought back pretty hard, and I had nine counts of battery on my record. So the air force defending myself, I was the only one making enough money to not qualify for a public defender, and the state's attorney threw it all out. So I literally had to go to court, for this.

So it's on my record forever, and I've literally had students say, I've seen your record. Like, that that have searched me. I'm like, yeah. It's I'm an open book. But the Air Force, I said, yeah.

We we don't.

Steve: Air Force says we've got standards.

Brent: We've got standards. Go to army. And you don't meet them. So you go

Steve: to the army.

Brent: I mean, is

Steve: it six years commitment? What was that? It was

Brent: a four year commitment in the army, and it was a really cool ride. I mean, one of the best experiences of my life. And they actually, pulled me out of my second deployment to send me to college, be an army officer.

Steve: Got it.

Brent: And, so they they select about a 100 to a 150 active duty soldiers a year. So they saw something in me Mhmm. And made me an army officer soon after, I did my four

Steve: first four year term. And how is real estate happening while you're deployed? I mean, Afghanistan, I I don't picture, you know, great Wi Fi, you know, notaries.

Brent: Yeah. No. No. It wasn't happening. So I was resorting to other entrepreneurship things in Afghanistan.

That's for a whole another podcast. But, you know, I'll tell you what was happening in real estate for me. My tenant was trashing my house, the one rental I had, because I got to come back from, like, exactly a three hundred sixty four day deployment to no money in my account because it all went to a freaking rental, where we could have been, you know, traveling Europe for the my couple weeks I had off. But, yeah, that was all that was happening. When the army pulled me out of Afghanistan the second time for the second combat deployment to to send me to school, they sent me to a place called, Melbourne, Florida, Florida Tech.

So I learned what house hacking was in 2,013 before it was cool, before bigger pockets made it cool. Mhmm. I literally bought a house with my VA loan, no money down, foreclosure, put some sweat equity in it, fix it up, paid a painter to help me because I suck at painting. And my parents helped me clean it, and I got moved in. And literally, I got two roommates, and I was making, like, a $100 a month to live there.

And then I refinanced, pulled cash out, bought another rental, and then it's time to go to, Colorado to be stationed out there and bought a, triplex because I just kept rolling money in in rentals.

Steve: So you're house hacking while in the military?

Brent: Yeah. Yep. While I was in college while I was a college student.

Steve: Alright. So then what compelled you then to to pivot to land?

Brent: So great story. Great great question because what how the journey happened was buying all these rentals, you gotta fix them up. Right? Mhmm. And I didn't I wasn't sitting on a pile of cash when I was going through college.

I was an e five. I was getting paid as an e five and making that $100 a month. So from my house, I was didn't have a mortgage, so it gave me discretionary income. But every time I turned around, my AmEx was maxed out. My Home Depot car was maxed out.

So I was like, I've got to figure out a way to figure out some how to get some cash. Plus, I chose to go to a private school, so I'm paying out the the the pocket for those classes, 33,000 a year. So I was like, man, I'll just I'll just wholesale sell some houses. So I went on PropStream, got the, the the notice of default list and started door knocking.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brent: And this is in Florida. And I kid you, everyone that answered the door looked like they were NFL linebacker. So the door knocking got quieter and quieter and quieter. And then I finally just started leaving a note. And one note, ended up turning into a couple deals.

So I wholesale a few houses, and I was like, this is cool. I gotta get a system to do it. So I found, Wholesaling Inc, Tom Crowell at the time. Mhmm. Got the system going while I was moving to Colorado to to take over a platoon as a brand new army officer.

So I'm trying to be a platoon leader and go meet sellers on my lunch break. So I literally would fly out the gate, thirty minute drive, meet with the seller for five minutes, not connect, not listen, try and get it under contract. Then if I didn't, no follow-up. Just didn't happen. So I was like, I was doing about a deal a month.

Mhmm. Making okay may money, but I heard this podcast where this guy was, like, buying land on the cheap, like, cheap. And he had, like, buyers just beating his door down to get him. And I was like, well, I'm not mailing the the land list. I had a I had, like, 687 parcels I could have mailed.

So I mailed them a simple postcard that said, hey. My name is Brent. I'll buy your land. You want a fair cash offer? I do everything.

No fees. Call me. I mailed 687 postcards. My phone blew up. Like Wow.

I got probably 85 phone calls. Wow. And out of those 85, I returned just like I'm a good real estate investor. I returned all 20, almost 20 of them Mhmm. In the bathroom hiding from my boss and my platoon and because every time they saw me on the phone, they're like, oh, yeah.

Brent's doing another, real estate deal. Yeah. Leave him alone. Well, I I got 20 phone calls in. Out of those two phone call out of the 20 phone calls, I did two deals.

Both netted me $4,500, and that was in my bank account within, like, thirty days.

Steve: Okay. So I

Brent: was hooked. Yeah. Pretty hooked after that.

Steve: When was this?

Brent: This was in early two thousand sixteen.

Steve: 2016. So PropStreams have been around for a while.

Brent: Yeah. Well, no. I I'm sorry. This list didn't come from PropStream.

Steve: I'm saying in general, like, you were door knocking PropStream.

Brent: Oh, Oh, yeah. That was 2,000

Steve: was wrong for that long.

Brent: That was it was called PropStream or PropTrend back then. PropTrend maybe. Got it. Would it I think it was actually PropTrend

Steve: Got it.

Brent: In 2013. But notice the default list. Yeah. But the one that blew up my phone was tax delinquent list.

Steve: So tax delinquent land properties.

Brent: Yes.

Steve: And this is only in your city.

Brent: That was in El Paso County, Colorado.

Steve: Where you were stationed?

Brent: Where I was stationed.

Steve: Got it. Okay. So two deals, 4,500 total or 45 h h. So you got 9 k in your bank account. Quick.

And now you're like, woah. This is

Brent: Can I do this again? I don't think so.

Steve: This is a different direction. Or Yeah. This is a a pivot. Right? You're like, this is a what's it?

Proof of concept.

Brent: Yeah. Proof of concept. And I was like, there's no way this could be that easy. And it kept happening. It kept happening.

I didn't quit on houses. Yeah. I did not quit on houses. Those are still rolling. I got an amazing team back home pumping out deals right now, but the land is what changed my life.

Steve: Alright. So you closed those two deals. What happened next?

Brent: So we started, you know, figuring out how can we systematize this. Mhmm. How can we keep mailing, the these land lists? How can we expand this? So I started buying in other counties.

And that second land deal, I actually it was really cool. The first one, a realtor bought it, like, literally the day after I closed on it. And I I had lined that up because I I didn't want to have my money locked up in this land. I I did I was kinda broke back then. I was broke.

Really, I was. And the second one, I bought, but I had a literally a buyer the next day with a down payment that got my investment out of the property. And then after that, it was pure cash flow, pure profit. And I was and it was $400 a month, and the guy would give me cash every month. Mhmm.

Steve: And I

Brent: was like, how do I

Steve: how do

Brent: I compound on this? How do I duplicate this and systematize this? And and that this is my this is my key to getting out of the military if I get if because I only needed to make it, like, 6,500 a month. That's all I needed to bring in. Mhmm.

So I was like, well, that one's 400. So if I do, like, 12 or 13 of these, I cover my nut and I can get out of the military.

Steve: Yeah. And you're in a situation where you can leave anytime?

Brent: No. No. I had to put it in a packet and request to get out as a whole entire it's just like a three year process to do it. They actually allowed me to do it, and I literally had, like, twelve months. So now it's, like, freak out time.

And, like, getting up at 4AM to get, like, my because I would be on base by 6AM and not leave till about 7PM. So there was no time for business, so I had to really do it early the early hours, like, The Miracle Morning. Mhmm. I read that book as, like, a life changer for me.

Steve: Incredible

Brent: book. I actually have it in my bag.

Steve: So what then was your so you you get proof of concept. You're repeating it again. It cannot have been that easy since then.

Brent: It actually gets easier because the bigger our cash buyers gets, the bigger our waiting list gets for land, the faster we sell it.

Steve: Got it. So there's no struggle after that.

Brent: Well, there's struggle. I mean, there's cash flow struggles. Like, I'll I'll I'll go crazy and I'll buy too much land. 117 parcels here, 18 parcels there, and then we'll be scrambling for money. So I'm still like the, you know, you know, Javier, you had him last week.

I'm kinda like him. I'm not a super in-depth numbers analytical person. I'm, like, the big thinker, and I gotta hire smart people or surround myself with smart people

Steve: Right.

Brent: To figure out the the crazy in-depth stuff, like, how are we gonna pay the bills this month? Because we just sent out 5,000 mailers over here, and we're getting on TV this month and all these things. I just go I wanted to go go go with it. Are you doing

Steve: TV for land?

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, we're we're launching August 9.

Steve: Wow. And any particular market?

Brent: El Paso County, Colorado, and Pueblo County, Colorado.

Steve: Got it. So per predominantly, you're you're focusing on land in Colorado. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. I I I I'm in Florida, Colorado, and Arizona. But we also do radio for land, mailers for land. We used to cold call, but we don't anymore for land.

Steve: Got it. Okay. So right now and then, I guess, basically, you have your houses team Yeah. And your land team.

Brent: Well, no. They're actually combined. They do both because what's really cool about the land, they know it's gonna pay us all passive income. Mhmm. Because so for instance, let's use an example of last week.

My land sales specialist, she is retired. She's a grandmother, and she's always traveling the country. And last week, she sold five parcels of land. And one was, like, $680 a month. One was 400.

One was 200. One was 300. Let's just say that that those five were only 300 a month average. Average of all three were 300 a month each time five. That's adding 1,500 a month to our passive income.

Every single month that we can count on for the next five, seven, some of them are thirty year mortgages. So every time we do that, if we compound that every single week, fifty weeks out of the year, we know that we can take a month off and do whatever, and we're just gonna be paid the same amount. So my team really loves land.

Steve: Yeah. And how does that work then? You got because you got this cash flow. Right? Like, what I see a lot of is a lot of, business owners where they've got the team and they're doing this as active income, and they're taking money out to buy passive income.

Yeah. So it sounds like you got a land business. All that money is going into the the business.

Brent: Yeah. We put it back into land, some of it. Mhmm. And then here's the thing with land. There's nothing to depreciate.

So we still have to buy rentals. We still have to buy like, invest more into a 19 unit apartment complex that I'm a partner in. We still have to we bought our own office building. So those things right there allow me write offs depreciation, what do they call it, cost segregation Mhmm. To where it lowers lowers our tax bar.

So it's almost like the opposite where we're taking out a one passive vehicle and putting it in a tax savings vehicle, but that's also gonna give more passive.

Steve: So you're taking money. That's active income, basically, because you can't depreciate any of it. Right. So you treat it basically as a full taxable income. Yeah.

And you're taking that to buy passive properties or properties that you can have passive cash flow on that you can also depreciate.

Brent: 100%. And we we have to buy a certain amount of like, our the CPA tells me, like, third quarter, okay. You gotta spend this much. And either we'll go out and buy it as rentals with cash or we'll do a subject to existing financing. At the end of the day, we're just trying to get, like, couple million dollars in real estate with that have walls and doors and refrigerators and carpets, things

Steve: we need

Brent: to depreciate really quick.

Steve: Got it. Okay. So you still you're not just a 100% land then?

Brent: No. No. We flip houses. I think we've got we've got three renovations going right now.

Steve: So a lot of people that listen to the show, they're either, you know, wholesaling real estate or flipping real estate. So for those that are listening right now, why should they listen to you about land?

Brent: Well, I mean, I wholesale houses. We wholesale probably one every 10 days because we we kinda like cherry pick. Mhmm. We do, like, the cert we call it the first, second, third look, like, where the quarterbacks, like, okay. Which receivers open?

Do we wanna flip this? Do we wanna keep it as a rental? Do we not wanna wholesale it, or do we wanna wholetail it where we're just gonna throw it on the MLS? So we kinda look at that. I guess, you know, why listen to me is because land allows the land payments that we get every same well, we also flip land too.

You know? Because some of it, we don't wanna buy. You know? We we flip it, because we can't we can't sell or finance all of our land. 90% of it, we do.

But, eventually, we run out of money. Out of I own 259 parcels of land that we're getting payments on. Out of those 259 parcels, we've only had debt on three of them, and it's only because we did a subdivide. Mhmm. So we're doing this without bank loans.

So we're we're kinda like, okay. We'll take from this pot to buy land, this pot to buy houses. So I guess the reason why someone would wanna listen to me is because, you know, your job starts over every time you leave that closing table. You might do a $127,000 net profit on a flip or $80,000 profit on a wholesale. But what I like most is knowing that I know let's say August right now.

I know in September and December or September and October and November exactly where we're gonna get paid on the on land notes if our doors close.

Steve: Got it. So just predictable cash flow.

Brent: Predictable cash flow. That's yeah. You just summed it up right there.

Steve: Got it. Alright. So the problem you're trying to solve initially when you first look at land, you've got all these rentals that you're constantly rehabbing. So any cash flow was basically going right back into the rentals and being cash strapped. You're trying to find another way.

Heard someone on the podcast talking about land.

Brent: Yeah.

Steve: I'll give it a shot, and holy crap, it works.

Brent: I pulled the trigger, like, the next day. That's like, you tell me something that's working. I'm not afraid to try it. And, yeah, that's that's exactly right. And what's so cool oh, like, another reason why the heck anybody wanna listen is because, like, I've got, like, six wholesalers just in Colorado Springs that are always, like, biting at our toes.

Mhmm. And I don't know any other land buyers in Colorado Springs. Like, there's virtually no competition because everyone people listening to the show right now probably have driven by land in the last week and haven't even looked at it because there's no storage units on it. There's no houses to rent. There's no mobile homes on it to rent out.

They don't realize how to make money with it. Mhmm. And all it's that's it's so so simple. You buy it at a massive discount and turn around and sell or finance it.

Steve: Got it. Okay. So then, I don't do any land. Alright? So you coach me.

Right? Tomorrow, I wanna you know, I'm I'm invigorated. I'm inspired, and I wanna start doing land. Alright. What's the first thing I do?

Brent: So the first thing I'm gonna say let me ask you. What's your budget look like? Do you have any funds, or are we gonna drop you in some city with thousand bucks? Like, what what do your funds look like?

Steve: Well, let's just say money is not an issue.

Brent: Money is not an issue. Good. Okay. I'm gonna tell you to go to supercharged offers. Let them take care of all your marketing.

You just need to answer the phone and buy the land at $30.40 cents on the dollar, and then turn around and presale this land before you pull the trigger with either you're gonna flip it for fast cash with a realtor for just, like, sell it to someone else really quickly, or you're going to line someone up with a down payment large enough to cover your investment.

Steve: Alright. Okay. Now let's say I'm doing a deal a month. So, you know, I'm making about 10,000 a month profit.

Brent: In land? No. I But they're not because we we track them. Same TV ad. I could say houses and land on the same ad.

Mhmm. So I'm utilizing like, I get, you know, I get savings because I'm using these systems for a couple different things, and I'm already mailing. I'm already pulling the tax delinquent list, and why not mail houses and land both and also mobile home parks?

Steve: Got it. Okay. So I'm mailing these people. All those systems are pretty much in place. I got people calling.

How is the conversation different?

Brent: I would say it's different because there's not as much motion emotion in the seller because, you know, we buy houses. The the seller has lived there for thirty years. They raise their family there. Their husband, and and they they they their dog, they buried the dog in the backyard. That's emotion.

It's really hard to get that person to sell at a massive discount. Now let's flip it over to the land side. Land seller inherited the land or, husband and wife go on vacation to Colorado twenty years ago, purchased a parcel of land that they're gonna build their someday, maybe, cabin on. Well, that someday maybe never happened, and they've been paying the taxes on it for twenty years. Now they're like, just just whatever.

Just get rid of it type thing. So there's so much less emotion, with the land sale. They inherited it, or whatever. Uncle passed away and gave them the land. All these things, they never laid their head on it at night.

So I would say just simple, less emotion.

Steve: There's less emotion. So it's conversation's similar Very similar. But less emotions.

Brent: Exactly.

Steve: And then, with land, what I always find is fascinating, you know, is all these different ways you can finance it.

Brent: Oh, yeah. There's no rules.

Steve: There are no rules. Right? There's no box. So what are the different ways then that you're acquiring land? Like, someone says I mean, let me take a step back.

What is the average price point for what you're acquiring?

Brent: So, you know, I started with the lot literally, my the first two deals I told you, one was $285, the first one.

Steve: $285.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. $2.08 5. Like Nah.

Steve: 285,000.

Brent: No. No. No. No. And I'll tell you what.

Like, for the listeners, like, I was such a pansy. Like, I wasn't gonna pull the trigger on it because I didn't understand it. So I had to drive to the land. It's, like, an hour and a half away from me. And I always recommend, like, start in your own backyard.

Yeah. Like, two two hour two and a half hour radius because there's power behind that. There's there's there's confidence. I drove to the land. Me and my wife and my, I think it was my son was, like, two months old at the time.

Well, I still didn't know. I was like, this is beautiful. I'm looking at the Pike National Forest. But, like, what's the catch here? So we drive down the hill, and it's, like, literally, god planted a real estate office for me to call because I didn't know how to evaluate.

I didn't know what it was worth. Call it. Realtor answers on a Saturday. Like

Steve: Nice.

Brent: Yeah. She's in the office. She goes, I'm very familiar with the land, that you're talking about. I was like, well, I wanna I need one thing from you. What is the get it done now price?

What can I sell this for? Like, thirty day blowout price because I don't wanna I I want the one year price. I see Lance sit on the MLS for, like, a long time sometimes. Like, either they're not offering financing or their pictures suck or they're asking too much, or they just stuck a sign out front and that doesn't work. So she goes, well, maybe $10,000.

Take you about forty five days to sell it. And I'm like, my my light bulb goes off. I was like like, everything was like oh, like, I drink, like, two Red Bulls immediately. I was like, I'm about to spend $285 and make $10. Mhmm.

So I I hung up with her. Thank you for her time. I sent her call her back. I haven't paid for this property yet. I was, like, not ready to pull the trigger.

And she calls me back. Like, five minutes later, she goes, hey. Is it okay if I buy the land? I was like, what are you offering? She said, $5,000.

And I'm an amazing negotiator. I said, let's do it. And, I was like, when do you wanna close? She said, I can close Wednesday. I was like, four days from now?

It's Saturday. She goes, yes. I was like, okay. So let's do the deal. Send me the contract.

So she sent me the contract. I called the seller. I said, I'll pay you on Tuesday. Bring the deed. So I met the seller, got the deed, brought it to land title, got my $5,000 check the next day.

Yeah. So I don't know where I was going with all that.

Steve: Well, we're talking about the

Brent: app typical price point. Alright. So my typical price point now is anywhere I would say I spend anywhere from 10 to $45,000. And I like to if I'm gonna sell or finance the land, if I'm gonna sell or finance, I wanna make it three x return. If I'm gonna quick flip it, I mean, I'm fine with 10 k.

So seller finance, if I'm I'm paying 30,000 for it, I wanna sell it for 90,000, preferably on a thirty year mortgage at 9% interest because thirty year mortgages, I'm gonna, like, quad like, collect way more.

Steve: And there's no rules on land. Literally. Yeah. So alright. So typical price point, 10 to 45,000.

Are these usually debt free? Free and clear? Or

Brent: So I'm buying them with my cash or for

Steve: a while, they're at a park the seller. Is the seller

Brent: Oh, the seller. Yeah. This free and clear land.

Steve: The most land you buy is free and clear.

Brent: Yep.

Steve: And the only encumbrances is just taxes. Yeah.

Brent: Most of the time, there's taxes, there's liens, little things to work out, like pay pay off.

Steve: So you're buying these things for not very much. You're you're paying your own cash or you're did you sell a finance from the

Brent: Yeah. Have the seller carry back sometimes, 0% interest. We I don't call it 0% interest to the seller. I say principal only payments. I'll pay a little bit more, but I want it to come off the balance every month, and that's where I leave it.

Steve: So what does that conversation sound like?

Brent: Oh, with the seller? Hey, mister seller. You know, what are you looking to get out of this property? Like, okay. They gave me their number.

Usually, the pie in the sky thousand thing. And then I was like, okay. Well, how do you, like, do you what's your plan with it afterwards? What are you gonna do with the money, or what do you need the money for? Like, I and I don't question them, like, where they get defensive.

Like, I I've built a lot of rapport. I've communicated. I I've connected. I've, you know, whatever. We had some couple conversations.

And they said, well, I I mean, am I gonna I'm gonna buy a camper. How much does the camper cost? About 30,000. This was on a $75,000 purchase. So that seller, he agreed to to take 30,000 down and hold the remaining 45,000 at principal only payments, 0% interest.

So he had cash flow for a lot for nine years. Right. And he was fine with that because he was worried about, like, triggering Medicaid if he got this huge chunk of money, like losing Medicaid.

Steve: Yeah.

Brent: So that worked out well for him. So it was a conversation just really I don't I don't think I it was it's it's not scripted. It's really seeing how you can serve that seller as well as pay him the price he's looking for Yeah. Hopefully a little bit more because if you're doing principal only payments, let's let's just take it let's step back a second. Let's say you're buying a $200,000 home at 6% interest.

Well, over thirty years, you pay $4.23.

Steve: So, technically, you could pay

Brent: up to $423,000 for that house if they did 0% interest. Yeah. Because it comes down every month. So you can give a little bit more. So it's really a a win win Yeah.

On both sides.

Steve: But, ultimately, it comes back to just figuring out what the seller wants Yeah. And then giving to them as long as it works for you.

Brent: Yeah. And then if sometimes, they give you what they want, and it's just totally not gonna happen. I mean, and then you gotta give them your anchor and rip their kite right out of the sky. But, you know, it's just, you know, really just doing the slow dance with them and just having that conversation and showing them options and listening to what they have to say type thing.

Steve: And then you mentioned earlier you like to presale a lot of these.

Brent: Yeah. Because I I just I have I get the question all the time. What if I get stuck with the land? What if I can't sell it? What if you had a buyer already waiting with cash in hand or earnest money deposit at the at the title company before you even pay for the land.

Steve: How do you do that?

Brent: To give you an example, we just we bought an, infill I call it infill buildable lots. Like, it was in Colorado Springs. Weird thing because it had power lines going over it. So the only reason why it was still sitting there. So we were paying 16,000 for it.

Steve: Take a step back Yeah. For everyone that's listening. What does infill mean?

Brent: Yeah. Buildable, like, infill lot. It's, like, basically, water and electric are pretty much ran to the lot line. Hopefully, sewer as well. It's basically where a builder can come in and just erect the house.

Steve: Right. So within the city limits.

Brent: Yeah. Exactly. And those are in more demand rather than the rural land in the middle of nowhere, where someone's gonna park their RV or build a cabin one day. So the infill billable lots, we sell them to, you know, the flippers that are tired of, you know, competing for the stinky cat pee houses. They can just build something from the ground up.

Steve: Alright. So and you're finding these, and then, we're talking about

Brent: How to get the money Presold. Yeah. So the so I found a buyer that wants to pay us 35 or I think it worked out, like, 32. Mhmm. That was supposed to be 40, but we found out the power line, so we we knocked some money off.

So, excuse me, paying 32,000. We're buying it for 16,000. Well, my buyer's down payment is 16,000. Get it to the title company. We're gonna use those funds to pay the seller, and now I am the bank, the deed of trust, and promissory note.

I have a deed of trust and a promissory note on this land. We never we never owned it. I just have a note.

Steve: Yeah. At the end of

Brent: the day, I don't I don't wanna own land. I just want the money coming in.

Steve: Absolutely. And then going back to my situation here. Right? I'm starting over. I I've got 10,000 a month to work with.

How am I even finding these sellers?

Brent: The sellers of land? Yeah. So, I mean, how are you finding your sellers for houses?

Steve: Right now, we're just pulling lists

Brent: and skip tracing them. Skip tracing and calling? Yeah. So one of my cold callers in Costa Rica before, I stopped cold calling, there's a whole another story about that. We found a guy that has a 150 parcels of land.

We bought the first couple from him. He no longer liked their prices. Now we have, partnered with him. Mhmm. And we go on the deed and and we wholesale that land or we sell or finance it.

We just split the gross. I never had to buy it. So what I'm getting at, you already have a system that's working for you for houses. Mhmm. It doesn't matter the house or land or apartment complex or mobile home.

It's the same exact seller, same exact thing. You're already you're already you're already pulling list. Grab the land list too.

Steve: Yeah.

Brent: Skip trace that. Call them too. It's no different. Hey. Just wanna see if you'd consider an offer on your land.

Steve: Yeah. So, basically, your point is the questions I'm asking is overcomplicating the matter. Just pull a different list and do everything else the same.

Brent: Yep. Just have your list provide who pulls your list.

Steve: I mean, there's a hand handful of different one. Batch?

Brent: Yeah. Ask Batch to include the land. Yeah. That so there's a, there's a guys in our, I can't think of a, sell my house now. They own a website called sell my house now.

They're in the family mastermind with us. They keep the land leads for free. Yeah. So I was like, okay.

Steve: Because no one wants it. Yeah. It's free.

Brent: I'll take them. Is it free? Yeah. I'll take it.

Steve: Yeah. It's phenomenal. Alright. So I think we have to answer the question here. The whole another story about firing the cold callers.

Brent: Okay. So, it was kind of like a rocky road already. I'm not a good manager. Like, I don't wanna be a dreamer. If I gotta yeah.

If I gotta manage you, I don't need you. So I had, like well, it was really small scale. Like, I had three cold callers, and I was like they were calling me every day about something. And I got down to one cold caller because I like the guy. He's been with me a while, and we we're we're still profitable.

We're very profitable in cold calling. It works well in my business. Brent Daniels, you know, ETP.

Steve: Yeah. It's a pretty good program. Well,

Brent: so this this guy got on my list, my cash buyers list for my houses. And I I blast my cash buyers list for houses to sell on land too, by the way. A lot of people don't realize that your cash buyer list, you got 8,000 people on it. I guarantee you got at least eight or nine land buyers on there. Mhmm.

Spec home builders, whatever, developers. So I text this guy three times, and I I used the batch litigator scrub. Well, he came across as no, TCPA litigator, no professional litigator, no on the do not call. Well, we missed it. He actually was.

So he subpoenaed me. I actually ended up, help my disposition manager was, on vacation. So I went to one of our wholesale houses in Pueblo and the first one I've been to in a while. And I'm standing there super bored. No one's shown up.

We had the wrong address. So I saw this car drive by, and I'm like, oh, he's going to the wrong address. So I, like, chased him down. I was like, are you looking for blah blah blah? They go, are you Brent?

I was like, yeah. I was so happy because I had one person looking at this crappy house. We didn't end up wholesaling it, by the way. We canceled contract on it. So he's like, oh, interested him and his partner, and they're like, they're both wearing sports coats.

I'm like, damn, these don't look like house flippers. But I'm all cool. Whatever. They maybe they're the bank. Maybe they maybe they're just, like, wealthy.

Mhmm. And the guy literally, like, in a movie, pulls out this vanilla envelope and goes, you've been served, and runs away. I totally thought about chasing him and kicking his ass, like but I didn't. I was like, I was stunned. I was like, what the heck just happened?

These two grown men just ran away from me. So they served me for three text messages. This guy got on my cash buyers list. And then Mojo was on one system. Mojo dialer is what we use for our, dialing system for cold calling.

And our cash buyer list is on another, so they weren't communicating. So then we ended up cold calling the guy too because he's in our realtor list. This guy's a realtor as well as an attorney that sues people like me. He got, like, three of us in in my city. So we we basically got hit for, like, $15 a pop.

It was, like, a year and a half battle. I should've just settled with him at the beginning, but he wouldn't.

Steve: 15 or 1,500?

Brent: 1,500 each. Yeah. Now it's gone up. Yeah. It has went up.

So I paid my my defense attorney, like I don't even wanna say how much money, but it was, like, about 20,000 total all combined. Mhmm. So I was like, whatever. I'm just

Steve: done with cold calling. Yeah. And that's you're not alone. You're not alone. So alright.

Some questions here. Glenn Bennett says veterans, let's get it. Josh h wants to know, what does Brent think about other land specialists like Steve and Jill Boutella from Land Academy?

Brent: Guys are doing great. And they also do houses. I mean, they're they do houses in land. Jack and Jill. Jack and Jill Boutella, the Land Academy.

Steve: And then, Glenn has a question. Are blind contracts in the mail the best marketing strategy for land?

Brent: I assume that's what I call my LOL, my land offer letter. I send a a contract, because whenever I get one back, I laugh out loud because I just got a piece of land in the contract less than 50¢ on the dollar. So I love blind contracts. Absolutely love them. I like to change them up with postcards, blind contract.

But here's the thing about blind contracts. No one knows what to offer. It's different in every county. There's 3,300 counties in The United States. Like, do I offer 30¢ on the dollar, 10¢ on the dollar, 50¢ on the dollar?

So you gotta go off of demand, and then you gotta go off conversions. Like, if you're not getting any conversions, you're probably offering too little. Mhmm. So you gotta really track your key performance indicators. So you

Steve: actually have to monitor it. It's not just you can't just turn on LAN, and it's really easy. You actually still have to work it like a business.

Brent: Yeah. You can send a postcard if you wanna get a lot of phone calls. I don't wanna get a lot of phone calls. I want the phone calls to be like, yeah. Let's do the deal.

Mhmm.

Steve: Love that. And then, Bryant, Bristol wants to know, how much feasibility do you do as far as zoning, topography, easements, availability utilities, environmental constraints.

Brent: I don't do any of it if I'm getting it at a massive discount. Now I'll make sure there's, like, no if there's, like, a junkyard on it, like, we'll check it out. Like, we wanna make sure it's buildable. If it's not, like, we basically wanna get it for free. Like, I can tell you in two hands how many times I got land for free.

Steve: Was that like

Brent: it? I'll give you an example. The fee the going back to the environmental issue, we had this, land deal that ended up having a huge, like, building on it. And I say huge. It's, like, probably, like, 7,000 square foot maybe.

And the seller thinks there might have been asbestos and told my acquisition manager this. I said, don't buy it. Just get it under contract. She got it under contract for the back tax amount. We will pay the back taxes and give the seller $1.

We assign that contract to one of our cash buyers that was super interested in that land. He was the only one that made the offer, and, literally, we got we made a $27,000 net assignment fee on it. That was a free property.

Steve: Nice. Yeah. $24.

Brent: And I didn't wanna buy it because I didn't wanna I didn't wanna deal with asbestos. Like, if it's got environmental issues, I don't wanna mess with it.

Steve: Right. So then what does your business look like look like today? I mean, I know you mentioned you got land. You got houses, apartments, sounds like. Maybe some storage.

Brent: What is No storage. No storage. I am a very quiet investor in a part a 19 unit apartment complex. You know, the business today looks like we're we're buying a couple parcels of land a week, on a good week.

Steve: And In Colorado only or nationwide?

Brent: Colorado, Arizona, Florida. It has been a little harder to buy land lately. It's it's kinda turned to a, literally a buyer's market to a seller's market for land. But here's what happens when things get harder to buy, they get become easier to sell. Mhmm.

So I almost now have a waiting list. My my, my land specialist, my retired land specialist, she's a driver. She's a high DI. Mhmm. She loves to talk and loves to go.

But she's always like, can we buy more land? Can we buy more land? I've got people want and then she'll give me the areas. Like, we go off what buyers want. You know, I heard smart person say, like, don't invent a product and sell to people sell a product people want.

Steve: Right. Yes. Incredible wisdom that for whatever reason, we don't know this until we're in the business. Literally. Alright.

So then how much are you wholesaling? How much how many houses? How many land?

Brent: So, we're doing currently three renovations. We got three houses we're renovating right now. We we wholesale probably about one house in the last, like, eight or nine days. So I I generally wholesale about a house every ten days. I mean, there's some weeks we're doing three in one week.

So it's crazy. It's like, it's it's a cycle in my market. Is that in Colorado? Yep. Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

Got it. Grant Cardone just did his, his his thing out there in Pueblo.

Steve: And then Kai wants to know, how are you valuing the land? And it sounded like it was just based purely off the metrics.

Brent: Yeah. I look I don't look at assessed value. I have people call me all the time. Hey. The assessed value is this.

I don't care what the assessed value is. Like, that's a taxing authority. That's how we pay the police officers and the firefighters. Like, we don't care about assessed value. So, the first way, easiest way is call a realtor that's familiar with land.

The second another way is I used priced.com. It's, like, literally, it's almost like PropStream. Mhmm. But it tells you what the land is worth, like, by the parcel, whether it be a half acre or one acre. Another way is little I look at Zillow solds on the plane.

I looked at, like, two different parcels of land because I was like, I was interested in one, and I was just looking at Zillow solds.

Steve: That's funny. So you got we got rid of the cold callers. You got your your your gal who's retired

Brent: Yeah.

Steve: Who's doing this. It sounds kinda like a side hustle, but she's having fun.

Brent: It is a side hustle. She doesn't really need money, but I think it's to get her to like, the money she makes for land, you you know, she brings to Vegas.

Steve: Nah. Well, that's fun. So then what does the rest of your organization look like? Who are what are the, pieces or who are who's in there?

Brent: So the pieces of my organization, I have, two acquisition, people, you know, call them acquisition managers, that buy houses and land. One one just started with us. She's she's just buying houses so far. She's gonna move into land as well. And then I have the land specialist, the my retired sales lady, and then I have a couple virtual assistants in, I have a actually, a husband and wife virtual assistant team in The Philippines.

They're absolutely incredible. The wife, I, and she actually does all of our due diligence for the land. She posts the land. She schedules the photography and the drone and the video. Nice.

All like, basically, the top 10 questions that people ask. Is it buildable? What how do we get there? Blah blah blah. Like, she puts that on all the websites, the land.com sites.

Her husband, Miggs, like, is our just tech genius. Mhmm. He does copywriting. He does our sales emails because we do an education email each week and then a sales email. So we're we're building like and trust.

Who am I missing? We've got an office manager that helps with collections. Here's the dirty part about land. Like, easy come, easy go. There's no credit check.

There's no job check. Like, if they've got a down payment and a doc fee, we're gonna set them up for a monthly payment. And sometimes they they default. You know, we do our best to work with them. So we'll try and collect.

We'll try and get them back on Target. If not, we take the land back and resell it.

Steve: Got it. Josh Ortiz wants to know then after mailing, what is your second marketing source?

Brent: So mailing for land? Like, how do we buy the land?

Steve: Well, after mailing. So if there's if you if you got mail, you stop cold calling. Is there anything else you're doing or or just

Brent: radio. Radio works very well for buying land because what's cool is what I found with radio. We're not buying a lot of houses on the on radio that are in, like, the city, like, the high demand areas. Mhmm. We're buying houses, like, on the outskirts with radio because it's just some phenomenon with that.

It's weird, but we're also buying land on the outskirts with radio. Radio, mail, TV, we actually buy land from from our land for sale signs that we have on the side of the road. We're trying to sell a piece, but people will sell us land. That's awesome. And referrals.

Referrals are crazy. Like, they found that we're the land people, and we're, like, celebrities of land. And people call us, like, realtors bring us deals. Yeah. And we pay the realtor for for bringing us that deal.

Steve: Of course. Absolutely. What, what are the major KPIs then when you're talking about land?

Brent: So I like to track a couple things. I just actually got a KPI report right before I got here. I'm gonna talk about marketing on the sales side first. So we spent in the 2021 a whopping total of $6,200 on marketing to sell our land. That's it.

Steve: I think it's been that a week.

Brent: Yeah. I'm just talking about marketing. So I'm not talking about acquisition for land, but marketing side. And that was to bring in that brought us in a little over, I think, 75,000. So it was about, 1100% ROI is what it turned out

Steve: to be.

Brent: We paid $12 per lead, and that was to sell it. So I know that every dollar I spend, I'm gonna make 1,100 back on the sales side. Now the the KPIs I track on the buy side, how much I send, like, as far as letters, how much I spend to send it and then acquire. So if I spend a $1,000 in letters to acquire a parcel that's gonna make us 10,000, I know my numbers that quarter, I gotta spend 1,000 to make 10,000. Yeah.

So I track them separately, but I I try and keep it super simple too. And Ayan, who I mentioned, she takes care of all those key performance indicators.

Steve: Brent's not doing that.

Brent: Heck no. I don't even understand it. I just like the graph she gives me.

Steve: So then all in all, all in between all your different businesses or between land and and and, houses, what is your monthly overhead?

Brent: About, between land and house side, it would be about 19,000 a month.

Steve: Okay. And then is there any tool that you look at that gives you, you know I mean, it it it sound like earlier you're just re reusing the same existing tools that you had before. So is there any tools that help you, give you a leg up, or is just

Brent: I use a lot of tools. You know, I my CRM is Pipedrive. My team loves Pipedrive. I mean, we use JustCall, you know, to to take all of our phone calls. As far as tools, like, you know, Price and Land, I use price.com.

I'm big on my I I would say the number one key to success for for me and my organization and many of my students that just take off like a rocket is making sure that mail gets out, the marketing gets out, whether you're on vacation sick with COVID, doesn't matter. Like, it's gotta go out. You gotta keep priming that or keep that pump going so you don't have to reprime it when you get back, I think. So I would say resources people, just I would say my team is my my best tool.

Steve: Let's see. Kai wants to know, have you ever had issue with people wanting to keep the mineral rights to the land?

Brent: Yeah. People ask us all the time, does it include mineral rights? The 259 parcels that I've done of land, I've never once had the opportunity to buy the mineral rights. And if I do, I'm keeping them. I'm not even gonna because there's a reason why people aren't selling those things.

Steve: So for the listeners that may not be familiar with mineral rights, can you explain that?

Brent: So mineral rights are basically, like, if they're they find that there's, like, copper or some type of mineral in the ground, it's a huge process too because a lot of people think, like, oh, they're just gonna drive up on my land and start drilling for oil or whatever. You know, it could be anything underneath the surface of the ground. You people don't realize that you don't own below the ground. Water rights too. Like, it's huge in Colorado.

You don't actually have water rights unless, like, it says on your deed. So mineral rights, I guess, the best way to explain it is, like, they come in and drill for whatever type mineral is underneath the ground, and I have never owned mineral rights yet.

Steve: So every time you bought land, you did not get mineral rights? Nope. Got it. And then Jacane wants to know, what are your thoughts on infill lots?

Brent: Love them. I absolutely love them because you can quick flip them. If you have a wholesaling company and you wholesale houses, like, I guarantee you that you've got someone on there that's ready to do a spec house or tired of fighting for the the dirty cat pee house that will build a house from ground up. Yeah. It's funny.

Great example, one of my first cash buyers from my house list saw me selling land on Craigslist. He goes, why didn't you tell me about that? I was like, I didn't think that you guys bought land. So that was an infill a lot.

Steve: Yeah. Not only anyone that's flipping is not that much more for them to build. Right? And we and but we don't know that necessarily. Right?

And then you learn later on. It's like, oh. Yeah. If they're because the process is to flip a house. There are some more processes, but it's not that much harder.

It takes longer. Yeah. But it's not that much harder.

Brent: And you don't have to worry about foundation problems or bad sewer lines or bad roofs if you're building the house from ground.

Steve: Alright. There's fewer surprises.

Brent: And that's me. I could give you give you a perfect example. We just bought a a house in Florida, and we bought it site unseen. We paid an inspector, paid a company to go out there. Guess what happened last night right before I got on the or right before I got on the plane this morning?

Like, it's pouring like crazy. The roof's leaking in three spots, like, in my bedroom, in the kitchen. Like, that's a pain in the butt. Mhmm. Now we have to deal with that.

Steve: Right. So if you were to build it

Brent: I would have built it. Hopefully, that wouldn't happen, but it could.

Steve: So what is your motivation to keep going? What is what is your why?

Brent: You know what? I would say at this point now, the money is covered. You know, the why is, like, I get to see, like, students that, you know, get to tell me, like, hey. I I quit my quit my job. Or a perfect example, I had my support call on Tuesday.

This lady was working at a day care. She got to stay home all summer long with her kids and did a couple land deals and made just a little bit more than what she would've worked at the day care with a whole lot less time. So those type of things are my why now. And then, obviously, I I wanna I wanna always be growing and expanding and improving and and, you know, going to the next mountain top. Like, that's that's gets me out of bed too.

But, I would say my biggest why is just, like, seeing people, like, lives change like mine. Like, I had to I needed this. It had to work for me. I had no choice.

Steve: Yeah. You wanna expand upon that? You said you got a coaching program?

Brent: Yeah. No. It's called the landsharks.com, or Wholesaling Inc. I'm I'm with I'm I'm Wholesaling Inc's official land coach. So, I get to work with Wholesaling Inc, like, one of the the best coaches out there as well as you.

Guys like you. I get to hang out with guys like you.

Steve: Incredible platform, Wholesaling Inc, where I'm coming for you guys.

Brent: Look right at the camera when you say that.

Steve: Coming for you guys. What is your biggest struggle right now?

Brent: Oh, man. I would say my biggest struggle is, like, I wanna do it all. And I gotta just stay narrow, stay focused. I I literally listened to, the podcast you did with Javier last, last week, and I'm like, I just told my team today, like, hey. Let's let's go ahead and start mailing multifamily.

So that's my problem. Like Yeah. Shiny object. It's a struggle. I wanna do every course.

I'm in, like, three training courses right now. Like, I've got several that I haven't even, got to check out yet. So I wanna do it all, like, learn it all, and it's just my kids want time too, and so does my wife. So that's my struggle is balance.

Steve: It's funny, though, because you mentioned Javier. Right? He was on the show last week. And it's like, okay. Well, maybe it's time we get into apartments.

And then I see a post from Stephanie Betters, you know, and she saw how she just acquired this apartment. So I just sent her a message. Hey. How'd you do that? You know?

It's like, well, we're looking for some funding. You interested? Yes. Shiny object syndrome. Right?

Our eyes are bigger than our stomach.

Brent: Yeah. Bitcoin. Another shiny object. Like, there's a reason why they put those blinders on the horses so they'll keep moving forward.

Steve: Oh, yeah. On hun 100%. So then what is your superpower?

Brent: So my superpower is finding people that are smarter than me to help me get my vision accomplished because I'm not the smartest guy. So it's a really easy superpower to have, really. Yeah. And I I found it in the army. Like, the army taught me to be able to delegate things.

And, you know, when I first became an army officer, I still wanted to do the things that I did when I was enlisted, but I I had to become the the director of the trigger pullers and no longer the trigger puller. So that's my superpower. It's like, I can I can coordinate the trigger pulling?

Steve: Yeah. I mean, that and you had great training Yeah. On it. Yeah. Not only did you do you delegate, but you actually got really good training from the biggest organization, I think, in the world on how to delegate.

Brent: Yeah. And and just also, you know, hiring coaches and listening to podcasts like like the Real Estate Disrupters podcast. Like, so it's all a puzzle. I think we we grow every day. It's the reason why we go to the gym.

You can't just go once a month.

Steve: I wish you could, though.

Brent: I'm telling you what, if we figure that out, we won't need real estate.

Steve: Alright. So then what is the greatest lesson that you have learned?

Brent: The greatest lesson, that I've learned is to take the time to really listen to people to make sure they're seen, understood, and they know that you understand their situation. You know? I can tell you many times in my life where I've had to struggle or bad things have happened, it was usually a fact of communication where I didn't listen, where I might have been thinking what I wanna say next, where I was just listening and had someone expand a little bit more on the energy that they gave from that answer. So I would say the the greatest lesson I've ever learned is just listen a little better.

Steve: And, you know, that's something that we focus a lot on our sales training program. A lot focuses on that specific section. So let me ask you, and then kinda put you on a spot here, how much potential income do you think you left on the table because you were not as good a listener as you are today?

Brent: Are we talking about, like,

Steve: In your career?

Brent: Are we talking about, like no. I was about to bring it to, like, where or, like, loss of divorce? Like, not listening to

Steve: Not personal, although that happens too. No. More of the, you know, conversations you have with homeowners, landowners, and so on.

Brent: Probably, I would say, just off the top of my head, couple million dollars. Yeah. 2,000,000? 3,000,000?

Steve: And I would say the same thing too. You know? Like, we do the sales training now, and, I kinda you know, Rafael Cortez, I kinda mentioned him right before this. Right? Good guy.

So, there was a time where he was my competition. Right? Allen doing PPC. Tranteri's doing PPC, and I'm getting my butt handed to me by Rafael. I didn't even know.

Right? I I just know that there's some other wholesaler that's showing up. Yeah. And if I had known then what I know now about being a good listener and paying attention to the homeowner and figuring out not just what they say what they're saying now, but the meaning behind it, what they're trying to convey, what's getting lost potentially in translation, probably could be retired by now.

Brent: Yeah. Right?

Steve: I mean, I don't know how many millions of left on the table, but I know it's multiple. What is your favorite best or most interesting failure?

Brent: Jeez. I would say the my favorite, it's been the and this is this is me extremely vulnerable and, like, personal here is I would it's my most interesting and favorite and the and I've learned the most from it. It's probably, my first wife, you know, leaving on my second like, my deployment when I while I was deployed. Like, she, like, totally left me. And it was a failure of not being present when I was present, not listening properly, and always, like, on the go.

Like, as entrepreneurs, we just wanna, like, bulldoze through every goal that we ever have, and the family gets put to the side. They come second, and and we do it with our kids, our our spouses, our our parents. It's just not putting the people first that are most important to us.

Steve: Yeah. So

Brent: I would say that's probably the most interesting, most, like, pivotal learning experiences I've ever had.

Steve: And I think that a

Brent: great blessing. Blessing. And I

Steve: think that's something that every entrepreneur runs into it because we have our family

Brent: Mhmm.

Steve: And then we have our business. And for a lot of us, our business is our other baby. Right? I mean, we we treat it. It's we get it from walking to running and so on.

And if trips and falls and gets bruised and we pick it up, we have we'll exert all the energy to pick it up. But our family is is there for us, and we don't necessarily take that same effort. Gary Harper is is a friend of mine, and, he says, you know, we'll spend all this money in travel to work on our business, and we'll spend zero money to travel to work on our marriage or our family. Yeah. So you've you've this is your your most interesting failure.

What are you doing to make sure it doesn't happen again?

Brent: Oh, jeez. Now you really are putting me on the spot. I didn't wanna share that part. You know, it's just constantly reminding myself, like, hey. You you gotta be present.

Like, you know, last night when I got home, I left my phone in the truck. Mhmm. Like, that's one thing right there. If you just leave your phone like, I mean, when I was live living in Colorado, I live on 58 acres. We still have that property.

I had about, almost a 2,000 foot driveway. So I would make sure that I ended whatever it was before I part put that truck in park. So that's one thing. You know? Because if your phone is constantly pinging and chirping and ringing while your kids are running up to you to say hello, in my case, I got three of them and a big dog.

They all want to say hi at the same time. My wife just patiently waits. You know, but, that's one thing. Just leaving it in the truck. Like like they say, leave it at the door, leave it at the office.

I'll leave it at the truck. And I'm not perfect at it. You know? Obviously, I'm preaching to myself here. Right.

And then it's just like taking the time, like, to get the babysitter, schedule the babysitter. I'm reading, a great book right now, so called The World Class Assistant by Michael Hyatt. It talks about his executive assistant schedules in his date nights. So another thing I'm about to do right there, like, scheduling date night, putting notes for me, like, do something, like, once a week. And it's so easy to to to lose track of that.

And we're not doing it right now because we just moved to Florida. So it's little things like that. And, you know, one of the greatest investments that me and my wife together have ever made was having a Christian marriage counselor. Mhmm. Because, like, it's almost like a translator.

He's a guy. Like, he was translating what I was trying to say to her and vice versa type thing. Yeah. Men are weed eaters and women are are, like, literally spaceships type things. They're so complicated.

Steve: So I think what you're talking about about, you know, leaving the the phone in a truck, I think is powerful. You know? I I'm not at that extreme, but, you know, at dinner, I that's when I actually charge my phone. I plug my phone in to get charged at that time, and I'm a 100% present at dinner. Right?

So I imagine some of your coaching students are like, Brett, I can't do that. I can't leave my phone in the truck. What will you say to them?

Brent: Can't never could. No. I don't let my kids say can't to me. So why would I let a coaching student say I can't do that? You know, at the end of the day, you just gotta do it.

Like, it's something so easy to do but can be so hard as well. And at the end of the day, like, people know. Like, my parents know. Or, like, if it's an absolute emergency, my wife's phone's on. Mhmm.

And no one gets that phone except for, like, you know, my parents, basically. I'm there with my kids and my wife, and my parents have her phone. Like, who else do I need to to go and, like, pull out of a burning house Right. Type thing. So you can't be all things to everybody.

Steve: So you're saying if I need to get a hold of you, you need to skip trace your wife.

Brent: Literally. Alright. Literally. Done. After five, you know, type thing.

And I'll sometimes I'll go get the phone after the kids go back to sleep if I have something I knew I needed to do type thing. But, you know, like, you gotta give them their time. Absolutely.

Steve: No. I I think that's I think that's an incredible lesson, for every entrepreneur that's listening. What book have you gifted more than any other?

Brent: Oh, man. So it's funny. The reason why I had the miracle morning in my bag, I gifted that to my dad. I'd noticed he only read, like, the first 10 pages. I was at his house, so then I took it back.

I literally Indian gave that. You're not worthy. So I would say I gave my chiropractor the Wealthy Gardener. Great story about a chiropractor buying real estate. And I'm not I don't really gift a lot of books, and those are probably the only two I can think of off the top of my head.

I did let someone borrow my Jim Rohn. If she's listening, hopefully, she'll give it back. My Jim, Rohn, I think, is living a purposeful life living a meaningful life, the special edition that Mhmm. Mark, Mark gave me. But, anyhow, yeah, those are probably the the three.

Steve: Yeah. I love Jim Rohn. I think it's for me, it's a lot easier to listen than to read. I haven't actually read anything from him, but I could listen to that guy all day.

Brent: Yes. Yeah. I listened to it on Audible as well as read the book at the same time, and I got different things from each side.

Steve: Interesting. Oh, yeah. I don't know. Maybe I'll maybe I'll have to check that out. My favorite from him, The Power of Ambition on

Brent: on Audible. Okay.

Steve: An incredible I have to check it out. We actually require that for our team,

Brent: as onboarding. Power of Ambition. Power of Ambition. Yeah.

Steve: Alright. So I want you to think about what you wanna leave, the listeners with. Wanna make a couple of quick announcements? Guys, if you get value today, please like, subscribe, share, comment. We are trying to create a 100 millionaires.

I'm sorry. We are creating 100 millionaires, and the way to do that is to reach more people. So, it helps us reach more people. If you guys like, subscribe, share, and comment. And we got our, two day workshop coming up Friday next week, Friday and Saturday.

If you guys are interested, go to disruptors.com/workshop. See if it makes makes sense for you guys. And you got Ryan Weimer coming down from Boise, to talk about his business, next week. So it's gonna be really cool to hear his story, his journey. He's had a remarkable year thus far, and I think he's gonna clear a million dollars, which is, you know, a pretty admirable goal, right, for wholesaling.

So what are some last thoughts you'd like to leave the listeners with?

Brent: You know, pick a path and run with it. You know, get one thing built at a time. You know, don't don't do the shiny object syndrome. I mean, I'm I know I'm telling people to do land, but that's that's, I don't recommend building two ships at one time, two planes in the air type thing. So I could say the biggest thing is, like, you know, stick to what you're doing, get it automated, delegated, and then go to the next thing.

You know? Because I know we're going to. We're always gonna do something different.

Steve: Right. But you can't serve two masters.

Brent: Cannot serve two masters. That's why I had to get out of the military. I was the worst w two employee. I felt so terrible hiding in the bathroom making a $100,000 in a month. A little terrible.

Steve: Alright. If you someone wanted to get a hold of you, how would they do that?

Brent: Yeah. I mean, hit me up on on Instagram, Brent l Bowers. I also just lost my YouTube channel, like, two months ago, Brent Bowers. So and I'm I'm responding to people. I'm, like, answering questions on there.

So it's fun.

Steve: That's awesome. Alright. Thank you guys for watching. Thank you. Appreciate it.

This was an absolute blast.

Brent: Pleasure. Thanks for having me. For sure.