Real Investor Radio Podcast

Craig Fuhr (00:12)
Hey, welcome back everyone to Real Investor Radio. I'm Craig Fuhr joined again by the great Jack BeViere. How are you today,

Jack BeVier (00:19)
Good morning, good morning, great to see you.

Craig Fuhr (00:21)
It is good to be back in the studio so much going on Jack they say there are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen and I feel like we're just kind of living that every day. It's like Christmas Day every day when I open up my Instagram feed. Never really know what's going to be happening out of the White House and in the world but a couple of things Jack we attended the National Association of Home Builders show in Vegas last week Dominion financing had

two booths there, one in the South home, one in the West hall. And I got to be honest, it's my first time at that show. And I was blown away. I was blown away by the quality of people that were coming up to the table and talking about new construction projects and both single family and mostly single family, but you know, lot of multifamily guys as well. And it just seemed like full steam ahead, man. I didn't feel any

any sort of hesitation or hey, we're going to kind of, you know, break out the golf clubs and see how things shake out for the next six months. It was like, no, man, we've got lots we're building. And we're excited. And we talked to guys Jack, all over from all over the United States. I think there was I heard that there were 70,000 people there. I was kind of shocked to hear that number, but it was jam packed. And what were your takeaways?

Brentin Hess (01:15)
you.

Yeah.

Jack BeVier (01:40)
Yeah, it is the biggest conference that I have ever attended. It's got all four halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is just the humongous place. Like you walk into one of the halls and you just start walking in a straight line and you look up five minutes later and you're still walking in that same straight line. Like the place is just humongous and is just like jam packed with every home builder, vendor, you know, material supplier.

Craig Fuhr (01:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jack BeVier (02:05)
and every all the latest and greatest building technology is there and they go all out, right? Cause this is the national association of home builders, international builders show. like they'll, they'll build, they'll build houses there. Like you're there's like, you know, they're doing construction for like the week prior within the hall. There's like water features that are like, you know, as if you're in, know, that should be in front of the Bellagio, right? And like inside this, inside this show. like,

Brentin Hess (02:07)
and then go.

Craig Fuhr (02:21)
Yeah.

Jack BeVier (02:31)
the whole industry just like goes all out for it. And as a result that like attracts a lot of, you know, small and regional builders. It's not like the shows dominated by the publics. It's a lot of small and regional builders. And as a result there, you know, they're very active, you know, industry professionals, the kind of guys that we love to lend to. So it's a good room for, for both, you know, RTL and DSCR lending. know, one of the things that I really liked, like one of my, the, the, that I've never like,

dug into this, like, at that show, there's like a big chunk of a couple of the halls, where it's all the Chinese and Vietnamese and Korean like, manufacturers. And it's like, if you want, and it's literally, and they've got all got this like white motif booth, like as if it's the same, know, it's the same word.

Brentin Hess (03:04)
All right.

Craig Fuhr (03:07)
Yes!

yeah.

Everything's in like,

you know, Chinese or some Asian language. Yeah, it's wild.

Jack BeVier (03:21)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But if you want to go, like you want to go get a, you know, you want to get a, a can full of, you know, a shipping container full of, know, this particular tile or whatever. Yeah. Like that's literally the place to go get it. You're talking to the folks who, you know, work in the, in the manufacturer in the, factory in, in China. So, you know, for, people who have like, you know, we've talked about like, Hey, we use the same skews. Like we should just be importing.

Craig Fuhr (03:30)
ran it.

Jack BeVier (03:47)
you know, whole houses of skews, like, that's the literal place to go do it.

Craig Fuhr (03:52)
Yeah, I mean, if you want a knockoff Mowen faucet, you're going to get it there. If you want windows, granite, I mean, really anything. was shocked at the volume of suppliers that really just took up like the, I would say in the hall that I was in, they were taking up a fourth of the hall. You know, maybe a little less, but definitely no shortage of suppliers. for

Brentin Hess (04:07)
Thank you.

Craig Fuhr (04:17)
anyone listen. I will say Jack, it was it was always good to know that we've got listeners out there. One guy walked up to our booth and said, I know that voice anywhere. And he was looking right at me. So I was like, What do think of the show? And he was like, Man, it's it's must listen for me. It's probably he said, it's probably one of the only podcasts that I listened to on a routine basis. So for that one listener, Jack, if you can just make a difference in one person's life, you know, that's why we do it.

Jack BeVier (04:44)
Small but

dedicated fan base.

Craig Fuhr (04:46)
Yeah. So Zelensky came to the White House, got his ass booted out the front door. And then the bond market sort of went crazy over Europe saying that they're going to underwrite the entire thing. I think basically what they said was no. And James Carville once, you know, famed political strategist for Bill Clinton said if he wanted to come back as anything, Jack, it would be the bond market.

because it has the ability to influence anyone. And I think that what we saw as a result of that was some pretty favorable five year pricing on the treasury. And the phone's been ringing off the hook with guys looking to refi at better rates than we've probably seen in about 120 days. So what's your take there?

Jack BeVier (05:28)
Yeah. So like back in October, the five year gets down to like three, six, which is great, right? Like, you know, we're printing like low to mid sixes, DSCR loans, and then it just took off, right? And so the winter just sucked because the five year was up at like four, three, four, four. And that just meant that, you know, that you're printing seven handled DSCR loans and like, no one's buying eight and a half caps in decent neighborhoods, you know? So like that doesn't actually cover.

Craig Fuhr (05:37)
Yeah.

Jack BeVier (05:56)
So not a great time to be a borrower over the past this past winter. I mean, we still did. You gotta keep, you know, you gotta keep cash flow moving, but, you know, not, wasn't thrilled about it, but, you know, with the five year round four, which is where we're, I think we're sitting at right now. It's, the 13th.

Craig Fuhr (06:13)
Yeah, it was actually

under four for the last few days 3839.

Jack BeVier (06:17)
Yeah, I'm, I'm shoving stuff to the closing table right now on our real estate side, because I'm, nervous about, I have no idea whether it's going to keep going down or shoot back up. And, but I know that this is like good enough. So, I'm trying to push everything to the closing table right now. So yeah, we'll, we will see what happens. There's a little bit more concern of a potential recession with some of the policy changes and you know, the white house seems comfortable with that. They're talking about, Hey, there's going to be some short-term pain, but you know, it's, it's.

Brentin Hess (06:39)
Yeah.

Jack BeVier (06:46)
You know, that's how adults run the country. Is there, you know, kind of perspective on it? And, but that may mean that, that we do have some, short-term pain, which, know, paradoxically is, you know, good for borrowing because it brings those rates down and makes our debt service coverage better. So.

Craig Fuhr (07:03)
I agree. If you're looking to refi on any of rentals or even purchase rent ready stuff right now, now would be a good time. Reach out Craig at the Dominion group calm glad to help. That's my shameless ad for the show jack. Alright, so we've got a great guest today looking forward to talking with Brenton Hess. Brenton is a longtime real estate investor.

owner of the Maryland investor network, which we will discuss and actually a famed poker player jack high stakes only. So if anybody wants to challenge Brenton, would say bring your money and he'll take it off. So Brenton, welcome to the show, man. It's great to have you.

Brentin Hess (07:44)
Hey everybody,

glad to be here and I'll be the one giving the money away at poker. Jack takes my money all the time. So let's not give the wrong impression that I'll be taking their money. I'm very good at donating.

Jack BeVier (07:52)
Mm.

It's a revolving door amongst the table. So that's why it's a fun game, because you never know who's going to walk out the winner or the loser that night.

Brentin Hess (07:55)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Craig Fuhr (08:01)
So man, it's great to have you on the show. Why don't you give us just some background of what your life has been like over the last decade? I've known you tangentially for a while, Jack, and you are much closer. Give the listeners just a brief bio on what you've been working on and what you're excited about.

Brentin Hess (08:19)
Yeah, I'm Brenton Hess. I am born and raised in Maryland and actually in Pasadena, Maryland. And I still live here and I work here and this is where I'll be probably forever. And I'm 31 years old. I have three kids, another one on the way next month. And then I started this business about 10 years ago and I started with a lot of college debt, a lot of time, no money, of course.

Flipped my first house with a mentor who had a lot of money and not a lot of time and did one in 2014 and then did a couple in 2015 and then eventually one of my own and then did that really poorly and lost it all and questioned everything and then bounced back and then last, I'd say five years have been a pretty steady doubling of rate. And just to fast forward, in the last year, I flipped over 100 houses.

I bought some rentals, small multifamily to a strip mall that I work out of and just like little singles. So that's kind of my landscape. I, like you mentioned, run the Maryland Investor Network, which we'll talk about. I flip houses for a living and buy rentals. And that's pretty much it at this point.

Craig Fuhr (09:26)
Not bad for a guy who I would still card if he came into my bar, Jack.

Jack BeVier (09:30)
Yeah, so Brenton Brenton's very modest he he got actually I think got his start in college and he created the the Towson University real estate club and it became like the biggest club on campus. You had some you had some cool events and got had some pretty cool guests just like brute force of entrepreneurship to know mention that.

Brentin Hess (09:50)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. That's a great memory. Yeah. So really passionate about like collegiate real estate clubs out of happenstance. Like I went to go join mine in college and they didn't have one. So a buddy of mine, Shaq McCray and I just started one out of nowhere. Next you know, we had hundreds and hundreds, we had thousands of members, hundreds at weekly meetings. And then we expanded it to multiple universities. Next you know, we had these real estate clubs at all these universities in Maryland with

a ton of people and I was just skipping classes and driving down and recruiting and going to their club campuses and acting like I was a student. It was a lot of fun. And we eventually brought everybody together and had like this big event with Gary Vaynerchuk and like somehow like put it on. And it was just a wild time of entrepreneurship. Yeah, well, an entrepreneur of the year at Towson when I was headed out and really got the bug. But one thing I didn't mention in my journey is I was working at

the Department of Defense. had a W-2 job. It was part time while I was in college full time. And I worked there for five years. I was going down the W-2 path while like winning Entrepreneur of the Year at college. It was quite conflicting. as the story has been told, I did leave and leave the W-2 and jump in the real estate and took a step back to take couple steps forward type of thing early on in the 20s. Accounting. Woo.

Craig Fuhr (11:10)
What did you study in college?

Brentin Hess (11:12)
And I did I got a master's in business. Yeah. So I was I did that. And to escalate like my rankings in the W2 world, like that's really the reason why I did all that.

Craig Fuhr (11:23)
What was your, what was the sort of the impetus or the idea to get into real estate investing? Like how did that come about?

Brentin Hess (11:30)
It was before I'd say it was all that sexy because in 2014, like you didn't have the Facebook groups and the podcasts and the bigger pockets and all that stuff. HGTV. But it was was still sexy enough where I was born and raised in real estate. My parents have a real estate brokerage and I just didn't want to like follow exactly in that footstep. But I wanted to be in the industry. I was born and raised in the industry. So I found a realtor in their brokerage who could

essentially had a lot of money and could mentor me and we both want to flip some houses. So we kind of just went about it that way. And that's how I got started. I knew I wanted to be in real estate somehow, but not so much the agency side.

Craig Fuhr (12:10)
So the first one you did

was not that great of an experience for you.

Brentin Hess (12:12)
That was

what you would expect. mean, where you're going out there and you're meeting with subcontractors and running in the material. I was doing the material runs from Home Depot and Lowe's and I was just learning it in the trenches. So it was a good first experience if you're in the game like that. But it's so impossible to scale like that. So, yeah, I didn't know at the time. But yeah, that was my first one.

Jack BeVier (12:36)
What was the journey from there? mentioned that like, what were kind of like some of the stumbles, that, you cause you've found, you've landed on something that's working extremely well for you, right? But like, what were some of the stumbles along the way? you started doing it where you were like, you know, the guy learning on the ground in the trenches. What'd you pivot to after that?

Brentin Hess (12:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, well,

actually, was so flipping and so challenging in so many ways. I'd say the big three is acquisitions, construction and lending. And all three had incredible challenges. And so therefore, I kind of went to what was perceivably easier, which was rental. So I was flipping a couple just to kind of pay the bills. And then I started building this big rental portfolio in Baltimore City with

a really good friend of mine, Austin Carroll, who you know, and we started building this. Well, we quickly realized and maybe some of the listeners have fallen in this trap. If you go chase that passive income, passive income so quickly, and you leave that active income behind, whether it's a W-2 job or it's flipping houses or wholesaling or you're working as whatever, then you'll find that you'll have trouble sustaining the rentals. So we went little hot and heavy on the rentals.

And I just eventually was realizing that you can't live off of that money, especially when you're in growth mode and you're buying. So I had to figure out the flipping. So I kind of went back to the whole flipping thing and said, okay, if I'm gonna do this, I don't have a lot of money. I start getting loans. And that's where hard money lenders started being more popular. And so started doing the hard money lending route. And I take other people's money as promissory, no debt and tie them together with none of my money in.

Hard money lender might say, gotta bring 20K to the table, then front the first draw and blah, blah, blah. So I would fund that gap money with 50, 70 grand of other people's money at maybe like 1 % a month while I had it and promissory note it. So I kind of figured out the lending part, but then the construction part was really challenging. I had a contractor who like ran off with a bunch of money and I wasn't checking on jobs and we were doing multiple at once. And next thing you know,

I have these properties that I have to sell short and I have a couple hundred thousand dollars of construction money that was gone and not done. I wasn't checking on jobs. So as soon as you figure out the lending hurdle, you learn a hard lesson in the construction hurdle. then now my hurdle is kind of the acquisitions. I can talk about those three buckets there because thankfully lending is so accessible. mean, anybody can call you guys.

And the economy has been so strong and then construction wise I have a great contractor here locally Aaron Alberti who I run everything through And I said I would never do that again where you run everything under through one contract I'm not gonna put all my eggs in one basket, but I'm four and a half years straight of putting all my eggs in Aaron's Construction basket. So at this point my hurdles acquisitions, so it's just how I can

the lending's there, the construction's there, I got to figure out acquisitions and that's where I've been focused on and I'd say those are the big three buckets, acquisition, lending, construction, how they've evolved for me over time.

Craig Fuhr (15:47)
Jack, go back to the, I think we deal with a lot of borrowers. We speak with lot of investors who have a very similar story where they probably started off with a flip or maybe a rental. They work a W-2 job. I can think of three guys right now that, you know, they get up to like 25 rentals and they're like, not really making any money off of that. You know, I thought I would at three to $500 a month cashflow, but that's a

you it's kind of vapor, right? And so you and I have talked about that a lot, Jack, like, when do you when do you really start to capture any income from an appreciable portfolio that's managed well, Jack, like, you've often I've heard you say before, it's 10 years before you really, you know, before you're making any money off of the thing, like, what is it what it

Give us give us a scenario by where you could actually take income off of a rental portfolio.

Jack BeVier (16:47)
Yeah, so yeah, I agree. don't think that there's really, it's cash flow, it's literally cash flow negative, right, during that growth period because you've got this off balance sheet equity and you may have a couple hundred bucks a month, the free cash flow on any particular property, but the act of finding the deal, all the soft costs associated with stabilizing the property, all the financing costs, that's all cash flow negative, right? And then, so, know, and most folks either,

have that w two that funds that exercise, or they figure out a way to float it until the refi. And hopefully they're buying deals that are good enough that they can recapture that cashflow through the refi proceeds without over levering the house, which is a really tricky, you know, thin line to walk. And if anything goes wrong in the deal, there's like nowhere to run, you know, cause you can't, can't get more, you know, higher leverage than 70, 75%. So

without being forced to sell the property. So it's like a very tricky balance beam to walk on the cashflow side building the rental portfolio. then, so say you do that though, right? Like, say you execute that to perfection, like $200 a month, $300 a month of free cashflow, and it's never more than that, right? Like anyone who's like, oh, you're just not buying well enough. I get $500 a month.

Craig Fuhr (17:50)
Yeah.

Jack BeVier (18:06)
I posit that you were lying to yourself about your expense ratio, that you're not factoring in the turnover costs, releasing costs, vacancy, and all the reserves that you should be setting aside. like 200, you know, $200 a month is a great deal. And that's on a razor's edge, right? Like $200 a month isn't shit. Like you get, you get a, you get a $3,000 phone call, like whenever, right? So you can just get unlucky and like that completely evaporates. like, you know, when, so

You're just kind of operating this rental portfolio on a razor's edge for a very long time until rent increases give you a little bit of spread over a very long period of time, right? Like, you know, five, 10 years and you've paid debt down. so like, you know, you're, you're like either relevering the portfolio because you've paid a ton of debt down and experienced home price appreciation.

And that becomes the cashflow that you can get, but that's like, that's a 10 years down the road, you know, scenario. or you have to just like kind of harvest equity along the way and like, you know, you know, add 10 to your rental portfolio and then try to, try to add 10 in a year and then sell two of them because you actually have to monetize that, that equity to, keep the cashflow moving. So, I mean, I think that we've made.

Like when I look back on it, we've made much more money in terms of home price appreciation in our rental portfolio than we have the cashflow off of it. And if you put it just enough of them together, like, the cashflow number like seems, good, but, the variability of operations and like having a bad expense year, can like just make that evaporate so quickly that I wouldn't want to like set my life up around it. Right. So it's like, it's the retirement plan.

Craig Fuhr (19:40)
even even on a even on a portfolio,

even on a portfolio the size of dominions, it can evaporate pretty quickly.

Jack BeVier (19:47)
Yeah, we'll have a we'll have a great year and then the next year I'll have like almost no cash flow, like just because you know, expenses went up faster than rents did and I you know, and it and it's and you know, there's not enough cushion, there's not enough cushion there. Now I have a ton of equity in the portfolio. And the next year I may have a great cash flow year. But you know, but if I'm like trying to build my life around the cash flow from my levered rental portfolio. Nah, like it's once you get it paid off, right? Like it's a retirement plan.

And it's a great one. And think it's a phenomenal one. like, yeah, like we don't count on any of our rental portfolio cashflow in our like projections. We're not like, yeah, and that we'll get it. And we'll get some money off of that portfolio. And we'll let's think about how to spend it. We're like, now let's see if it comes like, and then we'll maybe we'll pay down some more debt with it.

Craig Fuhr (20:33)
You know, thousands of investors all over the country, Jack. Have you ever met anyone who lives off of the income from a levered portfolio?

Jack BeVier (20:42)
I mean, yes, like, yeah, like, like, I think, like our friend Mark Owens has 100 and he still has had had I think he's selling everything now, but, but he was living off of it. But it was like, have 100 to like live modestly because

Craig Fuhr (20:56)
And he did,

and he did live modestly. This is not a guy that was like, you know, with the fast cars and the McMansion and stuff like that, right?

Jack BeVier (21:01)
yet.

Brentin Hess (21:01)
In

over 10 or 15 years.

Jack BeVier (21:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. So yeah, now it's a retirement plan, not something you can take the wife on vacation with.

Brentin Hess (21:13)
Jack follow

Craig Fuhr (21:14)
Go ahead.

Brentin Hess (21:15)
question where How would you measure the balance between? Buying the rentals but not buying too many to where it will start affecting somebody's act like actually have any negative effect on their their How they live today when they're trying to build for the future

Jack BeVier (21:30)
Yeah, sure. So like we did an analysis on it because I was like, Hey, how do I, I was trying to figure out how to manage this cashflow thing. This was like 10, 10, 15 years ago, 15 years ago. And, and I started added up, I just went through all of our, all of our financials and was just like literally broke it down, like line item by line item, every thing, every dollar that we spent in the, in the, activity of adding, of adding a rental to the portfolio. And at that time it was about 15 grand.

It was like, cost me 15 grand to add a rental, like a negative cashflow to add a rental. and fast forward to today, that's probably 20 or 25. you know, realistically. And so that's the math we started using was like, all right. So like, if I go make 30 on a flip, cool. I can, I can, I can make, if I make 30 on a flip, like net, net, net. Well, first I have to pay taxes, right? So like, let me reserve for taxes. And then like,

So that ends up being that basically for me, for us, was like flip one, rent one, or, you know, flip one, keep one, sorry, flip one, keep one, flip one, keep one, because we'd make 30 grand on a rental paid, you know, 10, 15 in taxes. And that was, and that net cashflow allowed us to, uh, allowed us to, to afford all the soft costs associated with keeping a rental. And then we had to feed ourselves doing something else entirely, right? Like that was just to run the real estate business. like.

We just, we, you know, we've lived very modestly for do still do live like pretty modestly. Uh, I still drive a 2012 Prius man. Like, uh, she's paid off. She's paid off, but, uh, uh, but yeah, it's not like, you know, it's not like a living lot, like building a rental portfolio is not something that you're going to like live large while you're doing that. I think it's not a thing.

Craig Fuhr (22:54)
Yes you do, and it is sweet.

Brentin Hess (22:54)
Yes, yes.

through the snow.

And

one more follow up, the tenancy duration, like you mentioned that in the past so many times, how many years do you need to keep a tenant to where you find that that run, that stretch was profitable?

Jack BeVier (23:18)
Yeah, yeah, sure. So in a part, well, so like the single family housing REITs, their turnover is 25 % a year. So the institutional owners of like, you know, $250,000 houses in the suburbs of Atlanta, those tenants stay for four years. The math that I've run is that if they if you have a tenant in a house and they stay for anything less than three, you definitely don't make any money.

because the turnover costs are so high on houses versus, you know, 600 square foot apartments, that like, just give it all back on the turnover cost. like, I think like three is like the bare minimum. If you get a tent, if you've got a house and like the tenants turning over more frequently than three years, you're not making it. There's no way you're making any money. you know, you could be losing money actually like owning that rental portfolio. You know, it's just a, just a cashflow suck, which is why the hood is so hard.

to build a rental portfolio in because you tend not to get high tenancy duration in bad areas because they don't want to be there either. So anyway, we've been pushing our tenancy duration up every year. It gets a little bit longer. I think we're up to a little over seven years is our average tenancy duration right now. And that works. And that doesn't even scream. That just works.

Craig Fuhr (24:30)
I would say for folks listening to get out your number two pencils and write that one down, that's, I don't think that most new landlords, take into account, tenancy duration and the importance of it. You've, I've, I've heard you say what you just said several times. And, as a previous landlord myself, that was absolutely the case. If it was anything less than three years, you're just giving everything back.

Jack BeVier (24:54)
Yeah, it sucks.

Brentin Hess (24:55)
So you kind of have

this tenancy duration measure of you're looking for five plus years and then you have this portfolio like asset duration. Like I need to hold this thing for like 10 years to where I really start feeling the positive impacts of my personal life. So you have kind of two points of measurements for like profitability that are not often discussed. Just the reality.

Jack BeVier (25:18)
Yeah, I think those are two important ones,

Craig Fuhr (25:20)
Brenton, when do you decide that you're gonna hold one versus flip one?

Brentin Hess (25:25)
Well, I always look at it from a flip perspective first, because I've in this point of my life, I'm chasing stockpiles of cash, like just really trying to pad pad myself. So I've always looked at flip first, but in the event that it's, of course, a multifamily that I'm keeping it. And if it's a single family where I feel as if I could have trouble selling it.

And it would be OK as a rental, like even like at this point in my life, like if I could think it could be somewhere around a break even rental and I verse like selling at a loss and it kind of fits what I'm looking for in the areas I'm looking for. I'll convert it to a rental. And then if it's something weird where just the appraised value is so much higher than the resale value and I know that I'll be a good steward of the leverage money, levered money, then I will go ahead and rent that. So like last year, I

Purchased over a hundred flips and only Like three rentals like that was my but right now We're talking the last 60 days I've gotten like 25 rental units about one to one for flips. So it's been It's been a lot different this year, but just out of luck

Craig Fuhr (26:40)
All

single family or some Maltese in there as well.

Brentin Hess (26:42)
Yeah, Maltese

to like a couple of five units, three, a four unit, a three unit. And then the rest are like single family rooms. I predominantly like Baltimore County, like they're all Baltimore County. They're all Baltimore County. Both sides.

Jack BeVier (26:55)
So what have, I mean, as inventory has been, you know, as inventory has been kind of the tough part, the hardest part of the business, you know, finding deals, you'd seem to have really excelled on that front. mean, brute force and networking, you're just like a, you know, just a born and bred entrepreneur. like, not surprised by it in any way, but like, what are some of the, what are some of the ways that you've been able to consistently find inventory to keep your guys busy?

Brentin Hess (27:21)
Yeah, so like I mentioned, I'd say over the years there have been three struggles. It's the money, the construction and the acquisitions. And when I didn't have the access to money that's available now, just by calling Dominion, and I didn't have the construction that's available to me now with Aaron, I never had the challenge of acquisitions because I was always busy, busy enough or plate was full. So...

All the money was tied up or just barely getting through the construction on these. I don't want to take one more. And it's been interesting over the last four years where my only job is to sit behind a computer and find deals. mean, because I mean, yes, I still have to flip them and see them through to the finish, they take, it's just, it's been interesting to be able to like, you talk about taking an ax to a tree, finally being able to do the same thing over and over again, year over year. And I'm seeing that compound. It's kind of like,

time makes you look like geniuses. Like I'm looking at it like, whoa, this like I'm getting really good at these acquisitions stuff, but it's cause I've actually had to, that's all I do. All I do like the lead generate all day long. Really, that's it. So it's a time on task for acquisitions. If I had to break it up into like where I find deals being wholesalers, about a third from wholesalers, a third from realtor relationships and a third from.

the direct to seller stuff that I do or auctions or whatnot. So I'd say it's about like a third source by me, a third source by wholesalers and a third source by realtors. I have a strong community of realtors that I have relationships over all these years. So again, time on task and being in the business, I host events, I go to events. So.

I build a lot of relationships with wholesalers and realtors. They bring me the deals with like the realtors. I always give them the backend listing at full commission. I try to make their life easy. Once you work with me once, it's like a drug because you might've done 10 hours as a realtor in this transaction total and you made 15, maybe a five grand when I bought it as like a finder's fee or some commission. And then another 10 or 15 grand when I go to sell it with full listing commission. So you might make 15, 20 grand in like 10 hours and we turn it.

over really quickly and I try to make your life easy. So that starts to, they start to get more. So next year, you know, like one year you do one with one realtor, the next year you might do two or three because they're like, wow, this was awesome. I want to get you more deals. And like, that's how this thing compounds year over year. And I've doubled my acquisitions year over year. In 2020, I got like 12 and then it was like 28 and then like 42 and then a hundred. And then this year, hopefully somewhere over that.

So that's kind of been the journey and nothing, no special sauce that nobody knows about. It's just about like rubbing shoulders and building relationships.

Craig Fuhr (30:03)
I would say that for the folks out there that are, Jack, we talk about the sort low transaction environment around the country lately. I think a lot of newer investors, know about all of those acquisition methods that Breton just discussed, but they don't spend enough time to really work their way through it.

you know, you could as an investor, you could say, Yeah, I'm gonna start calling 10 realtors a day or a week. And I think what I what most people find is that didn't really amount to much. I I'm going to give that up before it produces fruit. And I think that the fact that you've stuck with it, Brenton over such a long period of time, it's clearly paying off. And so

That again is another great tip. you choose one method of acquisition, you've really got to stick with it, especially if it's going to be from a referral network.

Jack BeVier (30:54)
How many hours a week do you spend? Like how many hours a week do you work?

Brentin Hess (30:57)
work at least 12 hours a week, Monday through Friday. Yeah, what would my work say? And then on the weekends, pretty consistently, like on and off. Now, whatever that amounts to, 70 maybe. One of my routines is like, I'm with the family in the morning, I get into the office at 9.30 and then usually do my closings at 9.30.

Craig Fuhr (31:02)
What would your wife say?

Brentin Hess (31:27)
It might have a couple hundred closings in a year if you're buying 100, selling 100 type of thing. And rentals, so maybe more. So like always got closing. So closings are like 930 in the morning usually. Then I set this computer and just climb out of whatever administrative stuff, the team. I have a few employees and then try to analyze deals and talk to people on the phone all day behind a computer. And then I get home around six, maybe sometimes seven, don't know, somewhere in that range. And then with the family, put the kids to bed.

And then three, four nights a week after I those kids to bed, I'll go and do the night shift from like 8 39 o'clock at night till one in the morning, 12 midnight. I'm firing emails off past midnight, three, four nights a week consistently. And that's that night shift, getting like four hours of deep work in. Nobody's bothering you. It's just incredible. Then it sets you up for the next day. And that's been my routine. And it's not something I want to sustain, truth be told, but it's a season of life for me right now.

Jack BeVier (32:22)
No, it's impressive, man. I don't think a lot. think a lot of people are like, his acquisitions are really hard and you know, I can't find any deals, but they, they're not putting in the work, you know, like just, there's nothing, no short, no shortcut for that. You know, that's awesome.

Brentin Hess (32:34)
Yeah,

I do believe that it's the time on task with lead generation. How much time are you going to put in the right activities over a certain period of time? And it's easy for me to see that now looking back hard in the moment. That just being very purposeful with your hours. I sit behind a computer to analyze deals all day long and talk to people on the phone all day long. That's it. I mean, I don't even get in the car half the time. I my office is 30 seconds from my house. I don't usually leave the street.

but like once or twice a week. mean, I just, so, you know, so people say, oh, you're probably out in the field. Nope. Just trying to find deals.

Jack BeVier (33:07)
That's cool.

Craig Fuhr (33:07)
You mentioned

that your folks own a brokerage. The realtor network that you've developed, is it mostly from the brokerage or is it really across the state?

Brentin Hess (33:15)
Yeah,

I'd say half and half. So like half my realtor deals come from the brokerage, which is a heavy concentration. And then the other half come from any broker or any realtor and any brokerage. very agnostic and I've done my hardest to like make that known. So.

It comes down to hosting it. I'll have events catered just to realtors and bring them in the room and teach them how to find deals and what it looked like to work together. And I want to educate them and equip them on how they can go out there and do this with off market deals with distressed sellers so that we can work together like a little win-win. And if they don't bring the meat of deal and they bring somebody else's deal, so be it. But I'd like to be like educational resource for the realtor community locally. And that

I might get a call from a realtor from a class that I taught three years ago and I'm like, wow, that class, didn't make any, I taught it for free. I didn't charge anybody. I didn't make any money specifically in that moment. But three years later, I might have made $55,000 on the flip.

Craig Fuhr (34:18)
Do you generally just go into a brokerage and do a training event there or do you hold those offsite and invite the brokerage, the Realtor community to them?

Brentin Hess (34:28)
I

usually hold them off site and invite them to me so I can capture as many different people as possible even from other brokerages. That's kind of been my strategy. But it's not something that pays off quickly. takes them a little while to find a deal. And you got to keep reminding them that you're their investor and you're the go-to. So they might find a deal nine months later and forget that you taught that one class nine months ago.

So you got to stay top of mind too. So there's more, like we pump them in a database and we send them emails and newsletters. Like there's more touches and communications to stay top of mind throughout the year to capture.

Craig Fuhr (35:03)
Yeah, I think that's critical. I can't tell you how many realtors I met when I was investing. They were like, yeah, yeah, man. Thanks for that. That's great stuff and definitely want to work with you. And then it's just a top of mind thing at that point. They kind of forget that, you know, almost the moment that they walk out the door at times. And so the fact that you're that that that follow up that you do, I think is very critical.

Jack BeVier (35:26)
What's your team look like? You mentioned you have a couple of employees. What do they do?

Brentin Hess (35:28)
Yeah,

I have one full-time person on acquisitions locally here in my office. I have a full-time assistant and then a handful of VAs that support both of them. And then I have somebody who's full-time with the Maryland Investor Network, Kelsey Balak. So I have three employees, two on

credible homebuyers side and one on Maryland investor network side and then a handful of VA's and that's pretty much it.

Jack BeVier (35:57)
Is your acquisitions person, they're the one going out in the field looking at, you know, you know, taking pictures, doing evaluations, checking on checking on things out in the field.

Brentin Hess (36:04)
Yes, yep. So my acquisition guy,

yeah. Like we sent out, I sent out mail. Continue to try like PPC, pay per click and Google ads and the SEO and the paper lead. I keep trying that stuff and he would run those calls and appointments, but I'm not super successful in that. I've done a little bit better in mail over the years and other things. But yeah, anytime I have like a lead that needs chasing, even if a realtor brings me a lead and goes, here, can you just run this person down? I just.

send that information upstairs and he runs that lead and he'll take the appointments and he does all that. So yeah, I try to run everything through him at this point as far as that needs follow up. He's got a CRM with a ton of follow ups every day and stuff like that.

Jack BeVier (36:40)
Yeah, yeah, okay.

You ever miss it by the way? Like I did, or I do like.

Brentin Hess (36:48)
Thanks

Craig Fuhr (36:50)
Jackie,

we were talking about that in Vegas, man, just getting out there and looking at that looking at houses.

Jack BeVier (36:52)
Yeah, like,

yeah, like when I was in my 20s, like I drove houses, like I got to know Baltimore, like block by block. was the, you know, it was the funnest thing, like driving foreclosures, breaking into basements, kicking indoors, like, you know, just, just being out in the field is like that was, it was really fun, right? Like, so you get a little like, Oh, hell yeah. Dude, I have a, if you're, if you're a DFS bar where you get this from us still. So like when, when REO was like,

Craig Fuhr (37:09)
Jack, remember the keys, like the specific keys that like for...

Jack BeVier (37:19)
the source of inventory, right? Like you'd see that, you you'd see that a piece of paper with the blue tape in the window. You'd known that the asset preservation company had been there. And so like they all, they all had, you know, the system for that had to be that they had every house or houses on a certain predefined set of key codes, right? And so there was the three, five, two, four, one, that key code was that was the HUD key code, right?

Craig Fuhr (37:19)
Nothing.

Brentin Hess (37:20)
you

need.

Craig Fuhr (37:43)
Yes.

Jack BeVier (37:45)
And the 76667 was another one that was like very, very popular. So we went, I'd go on the field asset service company websites and order the whole set. And I was, and I had these key rings that had every key code that the asset preservation companies used. So if it was a foreclosure in America, one of these 53 ring or keys on this ring would get you in that house. And, I

Craig Fuhr (38:07)
One of the greatest

giveaways of all time,

Jack BeVier (38:09)
Yeah, yeah, Just enabling so much trespassing.

Brentin Hess (38:13)
Nowadays, break the key

Craig Fuhr (38:14)
So.

Brentin Hess (38:15)
in the lock. So you're the second guy in, your keys might be good, but they're not good.

Jack BeVier (38:17)
That's right. Yeah. Put it in there. Yup.

Yeah. I got good real good with a credit card. Like that shit was fun, man. I loved it. I loved it. But, now, but, but now I'm behind the computer all day like you like it's I'm behind the computer all day. It's the highest of best use of my time.

Brentin Hess (38:23)
Eh.

Craig Fuhr (38:25)
Brenna.

Brentin Hess (38:27)
Yeah, I like the computer work. I don't know.

Yeah, right. I like the computer work because you know you're probably making more money than driving in traffic. I mean, that's just the fact that you're leveraged.

Jack BeVier (38:37)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Craig Fuhr (38:40)
Still love

walking through shitty houses though, Jack.

Jack BeVier (38:43)
I

go to all of our, so I get my little fix by every two weeks, I go check out all the houses that have turned over in the past two weeks just to make, well, know, ostensibly I'm doing it to make sure that like, Hey, it's, it's a really heavy turnover, maybe we don't want to spend that money. Maybe we just want to like, maybe want to flip this one instead on the turnover or like do a, you know, or like make some tweaks to the scope or add central air. So

Ostensibly I'm like scoping the turnovers to decide what we're going to do for it. But really it like gets me into the field for like four hours every two weeks. And I can like look at some houses and get my little fix, you know, keep me going.

Craig Fuhr (39:18)
Bretton, I want to jump into the Maryland investor network and all the great things you're doing there. But man, as I speak with you and you know, can can help me but to look at how young you are. I mean, it's you have to almost pinch yourself at times that you're doing a couple hundred transactions a year now. And I would love for you to just talk frankly about like what that feels like for you.

to the listeners who, know, many who are probably already there, many who we've spoken to, but like a lot of guys who aspire to that, you know, what's it feel like? What's it feel like to juggle all of that plus a family? You know, yeah.

Brentin Hess (39:54)
I appreciate the kind words. I I have done the American trap where income raise expenses raise. Like kids are in private school and we got our forever home and getting as the family continues to grow, you have to keep getting bigger vehicles. so what's amazing is how

how many people are in my world, the more transactions you do, the amount of people you get to communicate on daily basis and on your team and how the income kind of spreads. And so I love how that has grown. I don't love how I let my expenses grow. So I feel like I need to continue to do more every year and it's still a chase. There's no point in this where I'm sitting here like, man, I'm just, I'm so comfortable financially. It's always a, how do you do more than better than last year? And how do you keep

How do you keep finding the spread between your personal expenses and your income, and especially after taxes, and your time? So I do, feel like really spread thin with, and chaotic in my head all the time with the amount of transactions and how I have more employees than I ever have and direct reports. So like, there's nothing about it that's, it sounds really sexy on the outside, but it's like incredibly like challenging on the inside. And I wouldn't work.

like to one or midnight, four or five, three, four or five nights a week. If I didn't have to, I really wouldn't. So I'm just barely hanging on by a thread, but I've done it to the point where I'm hanging on like income is definitely going up. So it's working, it's worth it. It's a ton of work. It's not for everybody and it's challenging. And you got to watch falling into a trap with the expenses, but we want to live a certain life too. And I'm willing to work hard for it.

So that's kind of the honest truth behind how I feel right now.

Craig Fuhr (41:42)
No, I love the transparency

there. It's and in the 70 plus episodes we've done, we don't always capture that, that transparency of, know, we, and I talked to a lot of guys that, that are doing, you know, 1000 transactions or they own 4000 rentals. And, and we never really hear the, the, the work aspect of it. You know, it's, it all sounds glitzy, I think.

Brentin Hess (41:58)
is

Craig Fuhr (42:08)
most of the people that listen to the show probably aspire to get to that. But I don't think they understand that it's always like a tightrope, you know, you're always just

Brentin Hess (42:14)
Yeah, definitely doesn't equal

happiness. Like not saying I'm not unhappy. I'm very happy and I believe that we choose our happiness. So like work and all shouldn't affect happiness. But I do believe that somebody could be happy doing just one or two flips a year, run their W2 job and they don't need to flip a hundred houses like me. Like I don't think that anybody needs to be like that. But if you can, like I do it pretty lean and I found a pretty big spread. So I'm making, you know, I am making money every year.

it's not something that I'm going to sustain forever. I just know I'm not. So it's a season of life. It's like, okay, everything starts a line. Like lending is available and the contractor's there. If I can just find a bunch of deals, let me just run this until some one of those three things stop working the way it has. And then I just have to reevaluate. And that's perfectly fine. But I'm gonna milk it while it's going well.

Craig Fuhr (43:02)
Jack, what about you? mean, obviously a much larger platform. What is it? Do you ever feel like the pedal is never to the metal that you're kind of on that same tight rope? Like, you know, you've been doing this a long time and thousands, tens of thousands of transactions. Do you still feel the same as Brenton in many ways or is it different now because you've got, you know, so much help behind you?

Jack BeVier (43:30)
yeah, I think that, I think it's a personality driven issue. Like I've tried at different points in time. I've tried to take my foot off the gas or I have taken my foot off the gas and said, Hey, you know what? I'm going to be a little bit more passive here. Just be the business owner and like, try to be a little bit more of a coach and not be pushing. And man, I was just like, became incredibly unhappy. Like I was probably miserable as my poor wife. Like I was probably miserable as hell to be around because like, I like to do deals. I like to grow the business. Like

Craig Fuhr (43:45)
Mm-hmm.

Jack BeVier (43:56)
That's where I find my joy. once we stay still, I get bored. Like that's just my personality. It's like a, you know, it's a glitch in my personality, right? So like, just can't, frankly, we literally just can't help ourselves. Like I just become unhappy if I'm not pushing. And so, you know, I think that's just frankly a coincidence, right? Like that's just like a, you know, the fact that you end up having a growing business is an emergent behavior.

of the fact that the, you know, that the, human being can't help but wake up and be a certain way. Right. And like, so I don't, as a result, I don't think it's a nearly as special as other people think it is. Cause I'm just like, it's just what happens. Like I, you know, this isn't like some mountain top that I'm like, you know, climbing towards, yeah. Reaching for like, this is just how I am when I get up in the morning.

Craig Fuhr (44:36)
reaching for, right.

Well, I asked you

many years ago when I think you probably you and Fred probably owned, I don't know, 500 houses. I was like, what's what what are you working towards? And you're like, it's not a number thing. It's just a it's a platform. See how big you can build it. And that's the that's the underlying challenge, not a number of units or a particular income or any of those things. It's just, you know, how far can we take it?

Jack BeVier (45:05)
I do think though that finding the nature of the journey that makes you happy is like the point. There is no place of happiness or there's no number associated with happiness. That's just not a thing. Fred could have retired a long time ago, but this is what he likes to do. I could have retired a long time ago, but this is what we like to do. And this is where we find our happiness. like that...

You know, that, and now I'm just like, kind of fully leaned in on that idea where I'm just like, Hey, stop fighting it. Stop buying into the bullshit of like, Hey, if you're working in, or, you your business that you've somehow failed. Like, no, I like doing this. Like I like being the architect and pushing things forward. And that's where I find my happiness. Like if I became passive and played golf, like I would actually be miserable. so anyway, yeah, that's it for me.

Brentin Hess (45:39)
Thank

Craig Fuhr (45:40)
Yeah.

Brentin Hess (45:53)
Yeah.

Craig Fuhr (45:54)
Well, I'll tell you, in spending time with guys like you, who have that same mentality and have been doing it for so long, what I find a lot of what I take a lot of joy in is like the time that we got to spend together in Vegas and just seeing you surrounded then by the group that you've put together by the group of, you know, employees, if you will, put together and taking great joy and also seeing them succeed as well through all of your efforts. so

That to me has been a stunning thing to watch since, I've known you for so long. And I even spoke to you about it in Vegas. It's just fun to watch you now surrounded by the better people who help keep the wheels turning.

Jack BeVier (46:36)
Yeah, that's been like the most recent, like a new stuff for us is like really growing the employee base, like never done that before. No idea what I'm doing. just figuring it out and making tall them, you know, trying to make an all the mistakes along the way, but trying to only make them once. and, so yeah, that, that's like, that's what's challenging and interesting and keeps, you know, is, is that it's new, right? Like that this is a new thing that I have to now figure out how to do. Like that's where that's, that's fun for me. Right. So,

Craig Fuhr (46:56)
Challenge.

Brenton, could you ever imagine Dominion Financial being 200 employees?

Brentin Hess (47:05)
I'll tell you what, it's amazing the growth that Dominion's had and I think it comes down to the people that you get to communicate on a daily basis, like where you get that energy. I love the people that we get to talk to on a daily basis. I'm sure each one of all of us can attest to that. And that's what kind of keeps you going. You want to talk to them more. And by talking to them more, you grow more and you hire more, you do more. So I think it comes down to the people you're talking to every day.

I'm impressed by Dominion's growth. And Jack, I remember you sending me the the personality assessments when you're doing the hiring and stuff. I mean, you've been you've been trying to figure you've been figuring out this hiring and stuff for a long time.

Jack BeVier (47:40)
Yeah, it's hard.

Craig Fuhr (47:42)
And somehow or

other they hired me. That's crazy thing. Yeah. Brenton, I think it comes down to that sort of networking at heart, which you obviously are. And Jack, do we want to keep rolling here you want to start a new one?

Brentin Hess (47:43)
To the wolf.

Jack BeVier (47:55)
Yeah,

no, I want to let's talk about Maryland investor network. If I'll give a little background. like it's a Maryland investor network is a Facebook group that was started by Mark, right? Mark Owens, who we've had on the podcast previously. Great guy. And shit. Well, we got to Mark on here. Yeah, for sure.

Craig Fuhr (48:08)
No, we have not. But we should. We I think we invited

him. He said no, no, I'm just kidding. We'll have to reach out to him.

Jack BeVier (48:15)
That's not true. Yeah, works great.

But anyway, so Mark created the Facebook page and was just running it as an admin with some other help and then eventually transitioned it over to you, Brenton. And I feel like you like, you know, at the time you were, you were continued to grow it, weren't exactly sure what to do with it, but you had this vision of like what this thing could be, what this community could be. And...

Brentin Hess (48:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jack BeVier (48:38)
But you're like, but I'm not doing it for like as a hobby or like to pound my chest and be like, I'm the admin of this big group. Like you're like, no, this is a business. Like we need to make this thing a business, but you had a really clear vision for how to turn this social media page into a real viable business, which literally there is no barrier to entry, right? Like anyone can go create a Facebook page tomorrow. but you figured out how to turn that into a real community and an income producing community for you. It's a real business at this point. and I think that's just remarkable.

So tell everybody a little bit more about the group and that process and that vision.

Brentin Hess (49:12)
Yeah, thank

you. And you were in the early days. I mean, I called you and said, hey, I have this idea. What do you think? And then you gave a lot of helpful feedback, even just by supporting it as like the feedback I really needed to hear. then Dominion's been one of our first preferred vendors of the Maryland Investor Network and continues to be a top supporter. So we I really appreciate that just from both like your from your help, Jack, and then also from Dominion's help.

on getting us launched. And what we did was we said, you know, why don't we connect the community members of our local real estate investor space with businesses that we can vet and put them in front of them. So it's kind of like this, how do you put the Rolodex of everybody they need to know for this industry in their pocket?

And by doing that work, it's going to require employees and to run the community, it's going to require employees. So we have to monetize this if we're going to have it mutually benefit everybody in the community. And I said, okay, well, I'm either going to let this thing go. I'm not going to do all the work for free. So I need employees. And if I'm going to have employees, I have to monetize this. I'm going to monetize this. How am going to do it? So it benefits the people paying, the companies paying, we call them preferred vendors, and then also the community themselves.

So we figured out this business plan where through events and through social media and through our backend ways that we're basically trying to matchmake people with community members, with vendors for anything they need from start to finish in the real estate investing space. And we're keeping it locally, geographically here in Maryland. And we are now expanding into other regions and areas. So if somebody's listening to this and they're like, you know, I'd love to be the one who runs this community.

I want to get all the intrinsic benefits of being the face of the community, but I don't really understand the business model and I don't really want to take on overhead and employees and all that stuff. Well, maybe we'd be a great match because we're actually looking to expand this in other areas because it's done so well here.

Craig Fuhr (51:13)
Bretton, think so for the folks listening, how many members are in the Facebook group currently?

Brentin Hess (51:18)
Yeah,

over 25,000. And we do really well with vetting. Some bots have gotten in, but we do pretty

Jack BeVier (51:24)
How big was it when you got your hands on it though?

Brentin Hess (51:27)
That's a good question.

Like 17,000, I'd say about four years ago, Mark said, hey, I'm kind of selling my properties, getting out of the business and running this group is a lot of work. I want to keep the integrity of it. I trust you. So here you go, Brenton. And I took it all in and I'm like, ah, this thing is a lot of work and a lot of drama and a lot of problems. I don't really want to do it unless I have employees running it and it makes money. So that's kind of how it was born. And it's growing quickly and

I mean, we have a massive event happening that hasn't been announced yet. But on May 1st, we're to be doing a big event for an award ceremony at Maryland Live Casino. So you're going to be hearing about that soon. But we've gone from like meeting 30, so people in a room once a month to like having a three, four, five hundred person event at the casino in just like two years. So we're really trying to bring that community that's online, offline and in person.

And we're watching the dividends of that.

Craig Fuhr (52:27)
Brenton, what's your take on of the 25,000 members that you have, what's your take on how many of them are actually active investors as opposed to those who are just still trying to sort of figure it out and working on their first deal?

Brentin Hess (52:42)
Every time I

try to figure, it's a great question, Craig. Every time I try to figure that out, I quickly am realizing how small our industry really is because you see a lot of the similar faces, but there's so many others that are on the sidelines for either ready to get in or just for entertainment or they're vendors. So as far as actual investors doing deals, man, I I'd say...

Craig Fuhr (52:57)
Yeah.

Brentin Hess (53:10)
maybe like a thousand, 2,000 have done like a deal in the last year out of the 25,000, something like that. And out of those, maybe three to four to 500 might actually come to a big event.

Craig Fuhr (53:15)
Yeah.

You know, I would say for folks listening, and I have to imagine that we have folks listening that are in the network. If you're sitting on the sidelines and you're not going to one of these events that Brenton puts on, you know, I think for a lot of people that are that that are maybe sitting on the sidelines, they've maybe done a deal or two. It can be a little overwhelming. can be a little intimidating. And I'll say that I've been to a few events and it's not.

it's not intimidating at all. It's very approachable. bring, you bring guys like Jack and Aaron and legal and all of these different really, really top notch vendors into the room who are 100 % willing to work with investors. These people are really set up to work with investors. And so if, if you're sitting on the sidelines and you're in the network or you think you want to just join the Facebook page and get into the network, I would highly encourage everyone to go out.

and really enjoy, frankly, the events that you put on.

Brentin Hess (54:20)
Thank you.

Jack BeVier (54:21)
Do you think that you could have, like when you got it, there was a big chunk of folks in there. And that's impressive in and of itself, right? Because like, and I feel like the level of administration needs to be really high at the beginning in order to encourage the right community and make it not an annoying feed to watch, right? Like, if it just becomes like all really crappy wholesale deals, yeah.

Craig Fuhr (54:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, like a yard sale.

Jack BeVier (54:47)
or just a bunch of like, you know, drama and bitching and stuff like, you know, that that's not those, that's where like most Facebook groups die. Right. And like, and lose momentum. Right. Or when you have, know, there's like this thing where like title companies will like have a Facebook group, but they're really trying, you know, they're like so self-interested, like that it like, yeah, it's just not authentic. Right. And everyone just smells the lack of authenticity. Like Mark.

The way Mark ran it and the other early admins ran it really lent it to being such a successful community. This is a question that I thought of. That you are thinking about expanding this to other geographies. How are you planning to tackle that? Building it up to 10,000 folks from zero.

is like, you know, step one, get 10,000 members step two monetize it, right? Like, like step one's kind of hard. Like how do you, how are you thinking about, how are you thinking about tackling?

Craig Fuhr (55:42)
That's a big one.

Brentin Hess (55:47)
Yeah,

that's a great question. It's a two prong approach. It's either starting a group and taking what you've learned with a good operator and being able to go with quality at the same time as quantity in a Facebook group. like, if I had the same Facebook group with the Maryland Investor Network, so 25,000 members, I had the 2,000 that actually did a deal in the last year. Equally as valuable to you as a vendor.

Jack BeVier (56:15)
Mm-hmm.

Equal is not equal. Yeah, yeah, that's why the people are on there, yeah.

Brentin Hess (56:17)
So like it doesn't have to be quantity if you have the quality.

And if you have the quality, the quantity will follow the looky-loos and I want to pick up a deal, personal deals in there. And then you start tackling on like in-person events and then you start building an actual brand name, then people will just subscribe and be a part of it. So I think you can go from an organic starting approach, zero and just get the right power players in there. And that takes a fair amount of effort, but it...

won't take 10 years the way that our group has needed to get to where it is. Or you can go out there and acquire an existing community. So those are the two pronged approaches and we look at them equally. it's whichever we can do is where we are.

Jack BeVier (56:48)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Fuhr (57:01)
talk more about the live event.

Brentin Hess (57:04)
Yeah, we're going to be having an award ceremony. We're here in the next probably week. From the time we're recording this podcast, we're going to send out a list of like 15 awards that the entire community can nominate other people for. So like the Investor of the Year, the Rookie of the Year, the Preferred Vendor of the Year, and even some like funny ones like Most Likely to Overpay for a Deal.

most likely to post an overpriced deal. So we're going to have some funny ones too. So we're going have 15 and then we're going to run it like the Oscars where we're going have the community vote for, people's names in. And then we'll have out of that, the top five will be the nominees for each category. And then we have a committee because I don't want to be the one deciding. I want to be one vote on the committee. And we have a committee which

Jack BeVier (57:34)
Whenever a price deal, that's funny.

Brentin Hess (57:59)
Jack, you don't know this, but you are on the committee because the committee is comprises of multi category preferred vendors. So any preferred vendor who's in at least one, more than one category, so two or more, and you have short term hard money lending and long term DSCR and refinancing. So you are on the committee and our committee is like, I think we have nine on that committee.

And you're one of nine. So you're one ninth of the vote. I'm one ninth of the vote. And once we have our top five nominees in each category from the community, we will all vote on the committee and the winner will be announced like Oscar style or at the Maryland Live Casino on stage, walk out here, the five nominees and here's the winner. And just some fun and a big party. And it's going to be at casino.

Craig Fuhr (58:48)
big CPA firm that's going to hold all the nominees tightly in check so that no one knows. So I'd love to throw in for one category, would be the craziest flip story of the year, like Jack and I love a crazy house story. were sharing war stories in Vegas together of like the nuttiest houses that we've walked through. And Jack, think would take it easily based on a couple stories that I heard.

Brentin Hess (58:51)
We might have you here head of security.

Craig Fuhr (59:16)
We won't go into them now, man, no one loves a crazy.

Jack BeVier (59:20)
don't think the statute of limitations

has run out yet. I'm not sure if I get to tell that one yet.

Craig Fuhr (59:23)
I don't

think you do. I don't think you do. But, you know, I will tell you one of the funniest stories that Jack has ever told me is when you walked into the house and found all the change, Jack. Like, yeah, it's a crazy story. Buckets and buckets of change that were, I guess, collected over the years in previous owner. But that sounds exciting. Honestly, I love the idea of it. What are you doing to get the word out about it? Just put it out on the group or?

Brentin Hess (59:25)
the idea.

Yeah, we're

going to start putting on the group and we're going to send out our emails and we're going to start letting people vote for people and we'll come together as a committee anonymously, virtually, so it's not like extra commitment. And then we'll have our winners announced that day and we'll maybe have Craig Fehrer, head of security with the briefcase and the trophies. then.

Craig Fuhr (1:00:11)
see myself more as an emcee than a security guy. I'm a lover, not a fighter, so.

Brentin Hess (1:00:13)
You look like a security guy till you smile then

you're like, oh, he's a lover. He's not a footer So yeah, then we're gonna have I think a good time I don't know just came up with I was what you know I don't watch the the Grammys and stuff that stuff but I I'm Familiar and I was like, why don't we do something?

Craig Fuhr (1:00:30)
Yeah, I love it. That's a great and and what a great venue to have it at to that. The stage and the setting there is fantastic. It's a great, great venue to have it. So do what do you like getting staying on the topic of Maryland investor network? What are you excited about? In terms of its growth in terms of obviously the events that you're putting on over the next 12 months, what are you really excited about?

Jack BeVier (1:00:31)
be fun.

Brentin Hess (1:00:56)
Yeah,

our events are, I mean, they're leveling up. I mean, the way that we're running them and how we're running them. like, this is just super exciting spin. I mean, just keeping the community together, but like from even just from a entertainment standpoint, like awards. I mean, these are just fun ideas that can bring hundreds of people together. And it's a ton of work on our end.

Craig Fuhr (1:01:18)
Is this all your crazy ideas and you just make Kelsey, know, figure it out.

Brentin Hess (1:01:21)
Kelsey, she

does all the figuring out, that's for sure. she is fantastic. And she's, so she's gonna do all the figuring out, we're gonna go have a good time and businesses are going to benefit from it. We, a big event like this, we don't usually make money or goals like break even because of how expensive it is with sponsorships and such. But we, I get a lot of energy out of kind of bringing life to like in-person events again, especially since COVID. I used to run like the,

Craig Fuhr (1:01:24)
Alright.

Jack BeVier (1:01:26)
She's fantastic. Yeah, she's fantastic.

Brentin Hess (1:01:49)
mundane monthly meetups and they kind of just lose steam. But if we can have like four awesome events a year and there are some education, but also some like just big party gatherings. I think we take this a community to the next level and people aren't going to be like, wow, I hired him as my property manager. I did a low end dominion because they were talking. They heard Jack on stage. It's really hard to track return on investment. But I know people are benefiting from this.

I know that it only takes one or two pieces of business over the course of a year and it makes it well worth it. I think that it's a great business model and none of us are retiring off of it, but it does bring energy to our investment space and we're gonna have awesome events and we're gonna continue to the market, investor network as far as a community, try to get people off the sidelines. We're having an event for geared to just newbies like zero to one, how do you go from zero to one investment deal and bring them off the sidelines.

really trying to help people here and then do some matchmaking in the background. So got some good stuff planned.

Craig Fuhr (1:02:50)
You know, one of the things I used to love in the early 2000s was the Maryland area. You know, they'd rent some ballroom at the Pikesville Hilton and, you know, it started off small, by 2004 or five, they had to rent all three and there would be 500 people in a room. And that can be intimidating and daunting if you're a new investor to walk in and sort of rub shoulders and meet people if you're not that type.

But man, I learned so much from those live events, whether it was the speaker, whether it was going to the guy in the room who appeared to be the, you know, the, the, the most experienced guy in the room. met my mentor in that room. And I missed that post COVID. I think the meetups, you know, the meetup.com sort of tried to fill that void, but I don't see, you know, and I've spoken on stages around the country at, at Ria's that have always been fantastic.

But what I I miss that post COVID and I think you're really filling a very, very necessary void there for not only experienced investors to go meet other guys, better operators learn from them, but also those folks that are just trying to get off the sidelines.

Brentin Hess (1:03:58)
Thanks. Yeah, we're starting to feel it. It's again, one of those things in compounds over time. like, wow, like over the last couple of years, look at these players that have just come out of nowhere and like, we know they started at one of our events. So yeah, it's impacted lives. It's kind of like the real estate club. I guess I never thought about that. I'm like doing the real estate club all over again.

Craig Fuhr (1:04:16)
It really is. It's it's that great model that that you know, and frankly, I think a lot of those guys lost their way when they tried to monetize in ways that I don't think benefited a lot of investors in the room. But I don't see you doing it the same way. I really love the fact that you bring in better, better, know, better vendors to speak to whether it's the most experienced guy in the room or the least experienced guy in the room. I think everyone gets something out of it.

Brentin Hess (1:04:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, community is very important to be able to get in this business, to be able to sustain this business. mean, it's just staying relevant. So difficult the amount of people that come and go and how easy it is for you to go from top of mind to not top of mind. It's you got to be on social. You got to be in person and we deliver both.

Craig Fuhr (1:05:05)
It also illustrates something about you that I think it's important that I think many investors fail to understand is that it's a large pie. You know, you're basically bringing in competition into a room, you're probably training up some new competition. And the fact of the matter is the pie is large. There's deals out there for everyone. Not everyone needs to do 100 deals a year to feel more successful. In fact, I still believe you can do four or five and really make a difference in your life.

And so I love the fact that you had that big pie mentality when it comes to networking and really teaching others.

Brentin Hess (1:05:41)
Yeah, yeah, all three of us all believe in like the abundance mindset. I agree.

Craig Fuhr (1:05:47)
Jack, did you know that you were going to be a part of the committee? don't think that was a, I don't think he's taken no for an answer on it. So.

Jack BeVier (1:05:50)
Sounds good.

That sounds fun. Sounds fun.

Brentin Hess (1:05:54)
I think

Craig Fuhr (1:05:55)
You

Brentin Hess (1:05:55)
it's yeah,

it's bringing some energy, bringing some fun. Jack, you sit there and click his vote for 15 different categories on a sofa while watching the Orioles in a couple weeks. So I'm pretty sure he's a yes.

Craig Fuhr (1:06:03)
You

Jack BeVier (1:06:09)
Yeah, yeah, looking forward to it. Looking forward to it, yeah.

Craig Fuhr (1:06:09)
Well, he hasn't said no yet. So

Brentin Hess (1:06:12)
Yeah.

Craig Fuhr (1:06:13)
Any final thoughts there Mr. Bivere?

Jack BeVier (1:06:16)
Now, Brenton really appreciate it, man. known you for a long time and I've been extremely impressed to watch your career develop and now a leader in the space. So it's really fantastic. So appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today. It was a pleasure.

Craig Fuhr (1:06:31)
Did you win the auction that you were bidding on by any chance, Brenton?

Brentin Hess (1:06:34)
Got canceled.

So no fun entertainment there. No, it got canceled. But I appreciate being on here. It means a lot. I was the college kid with College Dead. I was the kid who went to his first meetup and sat in that room and felt overwhelmed and didn't want to work the room. And actually, I'm pretty sure Jack was one of the first ones was Jack you were speaking at with the Investor Fuel and Carl Lohse and was at the Baltimore.

Jack BeVier (1:06:40)
you

Craig Fuhr (1:07:04)
Bye.

Brentin Hess (1:07:04)
City, I'd say like 2018, 2019. And that's what really started like realizing like, got to take the in, I got to really do this to the next level as far as like building relationships. And that's why I started to get close with you, Jack. And I'm just a byproduct of the people around me and hard work. So thank you, Craig. We've had our moments of.

hanging out and talking over the years and Jack, we've had ours and so many other people. So that's kind of how it is. It takes a community and wasn't that long ago that I was thinking about like quitting the business. You know, here we are. So anybody just hang in there. Tom. No, but yeah, would say like when I lost it all in like 2018.

Craig Fuhr (1:07:42)
What would you have done if you quit? You're unemployable at this point. You're not going back to the W2CPA job.

Brentin Hess (1:07:55)
I was like, you know, I go work for something. I go work for Dominion. Maybe I could run something for them. So that's what I was that's kind of what was thinking and kind of hung in there just long enough to get some lucky stars aligning the economy and the 2020 boom and plus and then Aaron and the construction. It all kind of came together. So I got bailed out. I don't want anybody to sit here and be like, like it was a linear path to 100 flips in a year. It's not.

Hang in there.

Craig Fuhr (1:08:23)
Love the stories of perseverance, Jack. Love it. Well, most of us.

Brentin Hess (1:08:25)
We all have them,

Jack BeVier (1:08:26)
Absolutely.

Brentin Hess (1:08:29)
Thank you guys for having me. was really fun talking with you and breaking some news with you.

Craig Fuhr (1:08:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that may be a first Jack that someone's actually broken some news on the podcast. So we'll to get this out far and wide quickly gab to our producer gab. Brenton honestly man, it's so cool to see your trajectory. It's just great to have you on the show can thank you enough for taking the time to be with us and know how busy you are. Get back to your applesauce in the pouch.

Jack BeVier (1:08:39)
Heck yeah, first announcement, yep.

Craig Fuhr (1:08:58)
haven't already completed that and I think your dinosaur chicken nuggets are already done so you might want to get to those for lunch.

Brentin Hess (1:09:03)
right here. Yeah, that's

still my kids lunch. That's that's life these days.

Craig Fuhr (1:09:08)
All man. Hey,

hang out. Don't don't disconnect. We're just going to end the show here. I'd to thank everybody for tuning in. As always, love to hear your thoughts. You can reach me on LinkedIn, Craig Fuhr fu HR comment in any platform that you're on. love the comments and we'll see you on the next real investor radio.