3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 179 - Building Communities and Changing Lives Through Affordable Housing with Brandon Cobb

• Derek Clifford • Season 3 • Episode 179

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Brandon Cobb takes us on his unlikely journey from medical device sales rep to real estate mogul managing over $22 million in new housing construction annually. After a pivotal moment where Brandon was fired from his medical sales job, he was motivated to take control of his financial future. With no background in real estate, Brandon partnered with the right people, continuously educated himself, and persevered through failures to build an incredibly successful real estate investment and development business.

- Brandon shares key insights on making the shift to entrepreneurship, finding mentors, continuously learning, and building partnerships.
- Learn Brandon's approach to efficiently scaling his fix-and-flip business and making the strategic pivot into real estate development.
- Discover how Brandon aligns himself with local governments to provide affordable entry-level housing and build communities.

If you want to learn how an average guy went from scrub tops to business tops, tune into this inspiring episode with Brandon Cobb.

Connect with Brandon thru the social links below and learn more about his business:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hbgcapital
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hbgcapital/
Website: https://www.hbgcapital.net/

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Welcome to the three degrees of freedom podcast, where we explore lifestyle engineering with our expert guests to bring you in alignment with your own three degrees of freedom, location, time, and financial independence.

Derek:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back. And today we are joined by Mr. Brandon Cobb. He's an experienced real estate fund manager who left behind a career in the medical device sales business to pursue his passion for real estate development. And he's been featured in major industry publications like Forbes. Now he manages over 22 million in new housing construction annually, specializing mostly in the affordable entry level homes, which is a huge Like need in this country right now. We can talk about a little bit later on. He's got to focus on partnering with local governments and he definitely models success by surrounding himself with experts and always being a continuous learner. So Brandon, a lot of what you're got going on here is a lot of the things that I have going on as well. So you're a man of my heart, which is really amazing. How are you doing today, man? I'm

Brandon:

fantastic. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure. I'm excited to dive in with you today.

Derek:

Absolutely. Same here, man. So I'm going to start like we, how we always start with all of our guests, which is which of those three degrees of freedom, which is location, time and financial, do you feel that you're the strongest in right now? And which one do you want to develop a little bit

Brandon:

more? The time thing is big for me. I love to travel and I don't like being bogged down into, one particular spot that I got to go. So I feel like the time thing relates to the location. So I took probably 40 days off last year to travel, go have some fun. I did realize that anything past. 10 days, I get a little bit stir crazy and I'm like, dude, I need to feel productive. So for all those people dreaming out there that like, I just want to retire and sit on a beach forever. It's not as great as what you think. You want to feel like you're making some kind of contribution to society, like you're being productive and you're making some kind of difference in something, whether that's your family lives. your kids lives or your work environment. But for me it's definitely the time I do feel like I have that on lock and I get to do the things that I want to do with the people that I want to do with them with when I want to do them.

Derek:

Well said man. And I agree with everything that you've got there. And I think that time is the true currency when it comes to living these days, right? Before I don't think that there was that much clarity and a lot of people were just going out there, to earn a paycheck and the paycheck and your net worth or wherever your bank account was, that was like the true indicator of success. But I love that you've got the insight now that really it's. How much time you have as the true indicator of success. And I can see that's something you've definitely focused on. And I really, I think that's an amazing thing and a great way to go about thinking about it. Yeah,

Brandon:

no I'm very blessed. I'll have to say that.

Derek:

Yep. Yeah. Especially, I, same here, man. I love it because I I was talking to my parents I talk to them every week and I was talking to them about like, how. incredibly fortunate we are in this age, day and age to be able to work from anywhere, with the internet, because back when they were our age, at least my parents, they didn't have this opportunity at all to be able to do something from anywhere, right? As long as you're, you're crushing it and doing what you need to do with the time you have when you're working. The internet is allowing you to build scale and be able to do it from anywhere. So I just, I think that's an amazing thing just to underscore

Brandon:

there. Yeah, you've never had a better opportunity to do that. I really think that the first key to unlock that time door is actually the location. And I remember being on an airplane reading the four hour work week from Timothy Ferris for the first time, and he talks about how to win your time back through negotiating and trying to win your boss over to what you work remotely, if it is a job that you can work remotely. And he's hey, If you're in a job that you can't work remotely, go get a job that you can work remotely. But it was really fascinating to hear him walk through that process of, Hey, here's how you do that. Get them to buy into a week. And when you get that week to yourself to work remote, make yourself two, three, four times more productive, force them to put you at home and then be like, Hey, it's. You've got, the reason I'm so productive is I don't have to drive to work every day and I don't have to get ready. I can immediately wake up and work. I've got an extra hour every day. That's another five hours a week. I'm not getting distracted by coworkers who were coming over and wanting to talk. The internet ain't blah, blah, blah, make a case to try to get that. And so if you are trying to unlock that time, cause if you do then have a little bit more control of your location and time, that makes it easier to unlock that third one, which is the financial, right?

Derek:

Man you, you've definitely nailed our brand right on. This is exactly why we have people like you on the show, because it's exactly the way it started with me, is you go out there and you try to enable some location freedom, which everyone has access to. Yes, it may take time and effort and energy, and even if you have kids, or if you have an employer that won't allow it, there are certain things you can do where you can become locationally independent. Part time, right? Like you can do it for the summer when your kids are off, right? So you can plan to spend two or three months in Portugal or in Greece or in Europe, as long as your work situation allows you to do that remote thing because COVID opened up the doors and now it's on the table, right? This remote working thing is now on the table for almost every job out there. Not every one of them. I definitely understand that, but this is a part of it. And then, like you said, you start to crave once you have that location freedom, you start to wonder, man, how can I have this all the time? And then your brain starts going into, how can I get that financial freedom to enable this? And then once you have the financial freedom, your brain starts going to, how can I do this so that I'm not tied to the desk? While I'm in Greece or Portugal, right? And so that's why we talk about these distinct three layers of degrees of freedom, each layer that you unlock will help you enable the other one. And it's not, it doesn't come all at once, or it shouldn't come all at once. Because if it does, you're waiting way too long and you should not be doing, but you should be previewing what your life is like one degree at a time. So that you know how you're going to go there, what you're going to do when you get there and to motivate you to start thinking outside the box to get there faster. So anyway, I think I'm preaching to the choir here. And what I really want to do though, is I want to focus on you though, Brandon. So can we talk a little bit about your career change from medical sales to then going into real estate development? Like they seem like completely two different. Industries. How did that happen?

Brandon:

Yeah. So if you told me seven, eight years ago that we'd be building these neighborhoods and working with the local planning commissions and doing these developments, I'd have looked at you like you had seven heads. I really didn't have a specific desire. I do feel that I've got a unique story and that I didn't have this horrible experience in a double W two. I never had this dream to be an entrepreneur. There was no like, I'm gonna, show my boss and, I've had enough with the corporate gig. I'm gonna go. I loved my job in medical device sales. I didn't want to do anything else. I was a young guy, mid twenties, wearing scrubs, everything the single day, you're out in public, walk around, grabbing lunch, everyone's Ooh, are you a doctor? Made me feel special. I thought I was cool wearing scrubs every day. I got to be in the OR. Working side by side with orthopedic surgeons. Wow. Like how cool is that training hospital staff on how to use my product. And most importantly, I felt like I was making a difference in the patient's lives. I'm very intrinsically motivated. I wanted to make a difference. And so the fact that I was getting to be in these surgeries with, a lot of athletes and older demographic rotator cuff tears. laboral tears, ACL reconstruction surgery, selling allograft tissue. I loved what I did. I had an absolute blast. I have no desire. And I, and to this day, if I still have that job, I don't know that I would have been an entrepreneur. I'm not a natural entrepreneur. So for all those listening, you don't have to be a natural entrepreneur to get into this. I'll never forget my life changed in this one day. I had this amazing power trial, one of the lines I carried was power equipment like drills and saws and stuff, successful trial over at Meharry Hospital, I'm in the OR with the doctor and I could not have had a better day, the other cells are up in the room that was carrying a line of implants like, anchors and stuff, completely different than The reason I was in the room, which was for the equipment, he ticked the doctor off and the doctor literally said, Hey, do y'all do you carry this line of other line of stuff? There's these sports implants. And I'm like, yeah, I carry that stuff. And he's I, I want to check out your stuff. I had a meeting set with my boss and it was a Friday at a little after 4 p. m. at Starbucks. It was one of those days in June where spring is like knocking on the door, right? Like winter's phasing out. It was one of those sunny days where you wanted to sit outside and have a cup of coffee or just enjoy the weather, right? And I sit down excited to tell my boss the amazing news. And he fires me. And I was completely shocked. I didn't know what to do. And after a few hours of the shock wearing off, and, a lot of phone calls to friends and family I realized something. I, it was a big life lesson that I'll carry with me to this day. And that was, Nobody's going to look out for my financial well being, but me. You can be as loyal as you want to a company, work as many as years, climb the correct ladder, everything. But at the end of the day, you are a number and the company has to do what's best for the company. And for that day, what was best for the company was letting me go. And so I'll carry that lesson with me for the rest of my life. But I, had, I'd done a couple of things, right? I had. Live well below my means. I had saved money. My rent was one 10th of what my income was. So I did all these things right. And I had this nest egg saved up and I said, you know what? I'm going to give myself six months. Let's try this whole entrepreneur thing out. And if it doesn't work out, I'll just go back and I'll get another sales job. And that's how I started my journey.

Derek:

What a journey, man. I love the story around. the excitement and the energy and the passion that you had in this job. And then this is like that disappointment feeling that you're like, Oh man, it's on me. That's what I like to tell people also out there is that, your financial future, when a lot of people take a W2 position it's okay to do that because a W2 position can be a building block for something else. Like it can always be used for something, right? But at the same time, if you rely on it, that's actually more riskier than not depending on yourself or not trying to go work with, other individuals who you can partner with on real estate investing or something like that, right? Trying to think for yourself. The risk there is totally inverted when people think that a W 2 is something they can totally trust.

Brandon:

Yeah, I love what you said. There's, you, it's okay to be in a W 2. Just don't depend on it. Because I'm going to be honest with you, entrepreneurship, it is not cut out for everybody. Thank God that I was a young, single guy. I've learned how much a guy Could do. And, after blowing through literally all my savings and going close to a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt, that's when the real entrepreneurship started learning because I wasn't just blowing through all my reserves. I was actually learning how to build a sustainable business. And I can't tell you how many times, probably three years into the process, thinking to myself, man, dude, how nice would it be to just. Work from eight to four or five every day and be off for four or five hours and have a couple hours in the morning to make breakfast and not have the stress of wondering how I'm going to pay other people's paycheck and hire people or fire people. I'm like, I can see the attraction. to a W 2 because I was working for three years, not making any money. So don't think that there's nothing, there's something wrong having a W 2 job. But to your point, I love what you just said. Figure out a way where you're not reliant on it by creating those additional revenue streams.

Derek:

Such good insights. So when we're talking about this transition from. medical sales to now doing real estate development. How did you, now we found out about how you left the medical sales, but how did you get into real estate development? Again, this is like a brand new field. And to be honest with you, real estate development is in my mind, one of the most tricky and most, it's one of the most difficult things to be able to do. At least that's in my mind. I just, for your knowledge, I just go in and buy, multifamily apartment buildings that need some TLC do some value add component, operate it for a little bit, implement a business plan and then sell and do that over and over again. But I have a lot of respect for people who can build up, these apartment complexes or these communities or these developments catering specifically for a specific type of tenant. And so I just want to get a little bit more background on how you were able to do that go directly into development.

Brandon:

Yeah. I think it's funny. We've seen these crafts where it's like what people think your journey was like, and it's like a staircase that's just straight up. It's three steps and boom, you're there. And it's like what it's actual and you go through this. Huge abyss and down in the water and like up this giant mountain and it's years long and it's what it's actually like. And so that's the reality, right? It didn't happen overnight. I gave myself this six month ultimatum and I, at the time I was trying to start multiple businesses. Again, I'm not a natural entrepreneur. I'm like, okay, what am I good at? I was like I really like life coaching and Tony Robbins stuff. Maybe I want to be the next Tony Robbins. So I was doing this life coaching thing, trying to get that up. And at the same time, I'd had a lot of people reach out to me asking, Hey, how did you break into medical cells? So I was like, Oh, let me create a course. I'm not breaking a medical device cells. And then I also had this. Online, motivational blog that I was trying to take it off. And then real estate was this other thing. I knew that in the whole real estate world that I needed a mentor. I needed a partner who knew what they were doing. I was willing to put in, money and and sweat equity to, to make it happen. So I started going to a bunch of real estate meetups and that's where I met my partner, who is to this day one of my best friends and a good partner. We were the only two that showed up. He was, he had a portfolio out in Colorado Springs, a lot of Airbnb's. He was flipping a lot of properties. His now who his wife was going to school here in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and he wanted to get an operation up and running here. We met and I just got back from Colorado Springs. So we talked about doing the incline and, garden of the gods and all the cool stuff in Colorado Springs and started talking about business. And that led to a conversation of, what, what would. Something look like here. And he said this is what I need somebody to do. And I said, I'll do it. Let's just give this thing a shot. So committed to the process. I think six weeks later, we put our first house under contract. I ended up selling all my retirement accounts to get the money to buy this thing. Cash ended up flipping that property, making about 30, 000 on it and going, man, beat my ultimatum, my six month ultimatum by about eight days. So I said I've made money now myself, I guess I got to keep this train going. He and I agreed that we wanted to dump all the profits back into the business in the form of marketing. And I joked that it was at this point that the marketing machine was born. And that marketing machine looked like something out of a Batman scene. If you've ever seen the scene where the Joker is dealing with the mafia and he slides down the big pile of money, turns around, looks at the mob boss. on fire. That's what we were doing with marketing dollars. We, I was going out, I was driving for dollars every day. And the course of about five weeks for about five hours a day, I would go out and I would drive and I would put dilapidated properties into this app called Spottio. And then we would, he'd pay to send the mailers and I'd answer the phones and using my background in sales, I'd go on the appointment when I'm over. And so that led to doing three, four or five deals. And we just kept dumping. All of the profits back into the business, hiring people, masterminds, coaching, fast forward, we'd built this business up doing about, 3540 fix and flip projects per year, started our own construction company, was running out of our own money. So started raising a little bit of private money when we knew what we were doing, and we got into development, or I guess you could say spec new construction when we had an opportunity to buy this house for less than what the. Land was worth. It was like halfway burned down. We ended up building that home faster than we were rehabbing a property around the corner. And we made three times as much money on it. It was at that point we were like. Why are we flipping houses? We need to be building houses. So fast forward again, we got, 20 plus, builds going on. And again, we're running out of our own money here. It's hard to scale. So our capital company, HBG Capital was born. So at that point when we were able to really pull a lot of our funds out of the projects and use it for business operations and supplement it with investor funds and create a win for everybody to make money. That's when the growth really started. So we're all spread out all over the place and we're going, man, wouldn't it be easy if all of our builds were just in one or two areas that we showed up to every day instead of spread out onesie, twosie all over the Nashville, Tennessee market. And then it made sense. Now we see why these national home builders want to go in the same areas. Cause if you're showing up to the same spot every single day, if the contractor is getting all this bulk work and they only have to, Go to one spot. It just, it's so much more operationally efficient. So that led us to going out and looking for land opportunities that we could build multiple homes on. And we discovered this process where you could go and find these four or five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 20. 30 acre tracks and add value to the land through the rezone process, taking it from one or two or three or four houses to 100, 150 homes. And that is our value add strategy. Similar to what you guys do. Y'all go in and renovate the units to force appreciate the rents, to create more net operating income, to increase the value of the asset. We force appreciate the value of the land through that rezone and entitle process. And That's basically how the whole development business was born from that.

Derek:

Thanks for sharing that whole story. That's a, that's an amazing thing. I do have to mention too that when you got started in Colorado Springs, that's actually where I went to high school. Which is really, which is very interesting cause it's not a huge town at all. And so when you mentioned Garden of the Gods and, the downtown area and everything and the Air Force Academy all those things are, they're just. The memories are coming right back. But thank you so much for telling the story because it's a very logical progression that seems like it didn't have a direction. But looking back, it was a clear, building process to get to where you were. But what I love it is that you guys were nimble enough to be like, Hey, let's ask the question. Why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? And then the answer was. Let's just do it. And so it's led to the machine that you have today, which is amazing. And it explains why, you're able to work with these municipalities and local governments to help with the zoning reclassification so that you can go from the low density housing to high density in the, in those different areas. So if you don't mind me asking, I want to get into a little bit of the details here to give some of the listeners who maybe know a little bit more about this or are curious how do you guys identify what is a good place to potentially rezone? Like, how do you guys look at all these spots out there and with your, your connections with the city governments and municipalities, how do you like try to go about that conversation and be like, this is an area that we want to develop because X, Y, Z.

Brandon:

Yeah, it starts with aligning yourself with the local municipality. Some are developer friendly, some are not. And our strategy is we want to be an entry level housing. Right now, less than 10 percent of homes that are being built. are for first time homebuyers. You just can't find any affordable housing, but you've got 35 to 36 percent of the home buying population. These millennials that are at the right age, they're having their first kiddos. They want to buy something. They can't find anything. So that's why you hear in the news that there's this huge imbalance of like affordable, entry level housing. When I say affordable, I'm not talking about like section eight or government housing. I'm talking about first time homebuyers. That, that millennial buyer, what we'll do is we go in. identify the areas that we can, that are good for that, right? Where can we find homes that are, 350, 360, 000 in our market? It's hard to do that, but there are markets where that's happening, right? The demand is pushing towards the affordability. We then go and we'll sit down with the planning commission or the mayor, whoever we need to, there's usually some kind of liaison between the planning commissioner, whoever, to figure out what. Is the vision for the community. What's lacking? What are the citizens complaining about? If you had additional tax revenue, where would it be invested? What are the areas of land that are not the highest and best use? What do you guys want to see rezoned? When, where do you want to see it? And they'll work with you. They'll tell you. And so we'll pull out a map and they'll show us. And so when you understand their needs, when you've come to the city first and you are aligning yourself with what they need, it's a whole lot easier to get things pushed through. And after you've scratched their back a couple of times, they'll scratch your back. They'll help you out if you bring them an opportunity that maybe doesn't perfectly align with what they want, but they realize that you're too much of an asset to not. Help out. So that's where we get our ideas of what it is. Now, as far as what areas, it's interesting. There's a lot of different apps that you can use, but an easy way to explain it is when we're in a municipality somewhere, a city, we like the suburbs because that's where all the demand pushed after COVID and that's where a lot of the affordability is. That's where a lot of your first time homebuyers are. There's an app called Landglide. And there's a bunch of different apps, not just this one, but when you pull up Landglide and you're looking at all the parcels of land, it's like a giant puzzle. And you can see all the pieces that fit together. There are some pieces that are much, much bigger than the ones with all the little bitty tiny pieces. And that's typically what we're going after. Obviously, we want to be probably within, 15 minutes of an interstate within 10 minutes of a grocery store. It's got to have something there, right? Some restaurants, some kind of, coffee shops within 10 minutes. It can't just be out in the middle of nowhere, right? And it's got to have access to the city sewer and water. Without city sewer and water, you're not going to get the density. It's got to be in, it's got to have some kind of story where there's going to be something there, and it's usually one of those Big puzzle pieces that we're looking at. And that's typically what we're going after when we overlay that with what the city wants. Obviously we're looking at big old green square right here in the city is like, Nope, that's a park. We're never going to do anything with it. Then, obviously don't go after something like that. That's typically how we're finding these parcels is through, overlaying that with what the city wants to see. Yeah,

Derek:

Imagine that Brandon, that the way that you can best serve cities to have them help you and build a good partnership is by asking questions and listening. Isn't it? It's incredible. It's like that's universal advice that helps in every industry and in every situation as well. Just being curious and wanting to learn more about how you can serve other people. This is how it's coming back to serve you and your investors and the cities all at the same time, which is a, which is an amazing thing for people to really think about. So yeah, can I ask you also when it comes to the housing technology, new housing technology, when you're doing some of this ground up construction is there anything that you've seen? Because a lot of things have been done the same way they've always been done, but is there anything that you're seeing or anything that you're working towards that are really cool innovations that are coming for the home building process or for what you guys are working on for building these communities?

Brandon:

I'm sad to say the construction industry, we have not innovated in like a hundred years. We're the, like the last major sector to innovate. Look at what like the tech sector has done just in the last 20 years. We're still building homes the same way we did a hundred years ago. Obviously there's always like new tech that's coming out. I, I love to see that. I think that the way the industry is going and to directly answer your question, we're not doing anything special. We're trying to build a affordable. product, which means a lot of the super cool bells and whistles are going to be left out because you're trying to deliver that affordability. But there are some really unique things. Here's where I see it going. So right now, modular kind of has a bad taste in people's mouth where it's manufactured somewhere else and it's shipped to the site. But that I think is the future right now. There's companies right there that can build four or five different boxes, ship them out to the house. And if you've got the foundation set, they can literally assemble these boxes. Like you're building a little Lego set with your kids and you can have most of the home. Done. That to me is where the future is going. You're going to be able to assemble these things so much more quickly than what is currently the process. If you can automate it right now, I would love to see like these robots that, maybe SpaceX or whoever is, coming out with build these things, if you can remove the human error from it. Oh my God. That's where most of the problems come in with construction is you've just got so many different problems. Yeah. Yeah. Parties that are human that are building something and you're always going to have mistakes if humans are doing it. So if you can regulate it in like a factory where you've got these controls in place and it's copy and paste, I think that's. That's where the future is going. There's some super cool, like smart home technology we've done. And some of the nicer homes that we've put on the market where, you walk in and you say, Alexa, turn on lights and the lights come on. The AC comes on, the fireplace comes on and there's like smart home technology, right? That's, a hot topic right now. You're seeing a lot of energy efficient. The government has incentivized a lot of builders to get some energy credits back from the government if they can make it reach a certain level of energy efficiency through the foam and everything. Not super cost effective right now to do that. It typically costs. More money to make it energy efficient than you get back in like the tax credit. So there's still some work that has to be done. The 3D printing is cool. We're still a long ways off of making that efficient. So all this to say. There's some work that still needs to be done. There's some companies like boxable that have 50, 60, 000 houses that are ready to rock and roll and you can get them and they fold up and they go. I was at the IBS show last year and saw the boxable stuff and got to play with. That's pretty cool. But I think the sector is headed in a way where, you're almost going to be able to get like a house in the box.

Derek:

Yeah, I've actually seen a lot of those. Back when we were in Austin for quite some time and in Austin, there's some people that are doing some pretty cool stuff out there where you have interlocking sections of houses that you can buy. So Austin's this great startup scene. But I can tell you a little bit more about that later on, but basically you can buy like specific modules and you can add like a balcony or you can add like a, you can add like a, an extra living room to a module that they have and just slides right in place. So as long as you have a solid foundation, there's a hookup thing that needs to be there and everything, but it can be delivered anywhere and they all fit within, standard road. or most road requirements, right? And so it's really cool. What innovations are coming out there and, along that same vein, Brandon, you definitely know your stuff here on this. Obviously there's a huge demand for, I don't want to say build to rent, but new units, new supply that needs to come on the market. Can you talk a little bit about the future of, housing in general and why, what you're doing right now is just what the market needs or just what the United States needs.

Brandon:

Yeah, it's really, it boils down to just basic supply and demand. I'm not an economist. I got a 19 in school. I'm like this guy that is not supposed to be able to pass a a basic ACT exam. I'm just looking at numbers right here. I'm looking at the number of units we currently have on the market. The number of. Buyers we have, like I've mentioned, you've got over 30 percent of the home buying population that, they're millennials, right? They're having babies. They need housing and they're looking for that entry level product, right? In our market, that's like about a 350 to 375, 000 house. And if you look at the amount of inventory that's coming on the market, new and old, it's less than 10 percent of the inventory. So you just don't have that imbalance. And I think that. I think there is going to be a huge demand for rent because if people can't buy things, what are they going to do? They're going to be forced to rent. So just simple supply and demand statistics will tell you that, we're there. As far as, how many units short, some people say 4 million, some people say 7 million, so it can range. But what you're really looking at is, all right, Let's say, on the low side where, you know, 4 million and we're only able to get about 1. 5 to 1. 7 million units on the market per year, you know that there's a catch up period, you're not going to be able to have 4 million hit and catch up on a year. So it's going to take a little bit of time here for the supply to catch up with where the demand currently is. And obviously. There's some volatility here because interest rates and supply chain issues are going to fluctuate significantly, depending on what the Fed or, what the market's going to do. I don't have a crystal ball. I'm just looking at. Basic numbers right now. And right now, first time home buyers, entry level housing has a good runway.

Derek:

Yeah. Said there. I want to underscore everything that you said and help reassure people out there that even though it seems like the housing industry right now is taking a little bit of slowdown because of the interest rates, at least right now, as we're recording this, it's the it's Q1 in 2024. And I just want to underemphasize the fact that there still is a demand shortage. Or I'm sorry, there's very high demand, but a supply shortage. And the fact of the matter is that there is very much a need for more housing. And as long as you're partnering with the right people, like Brandon here, you're going to do extremely well because these guys know how to fit and serve that demand well. They've been doing it for many years. Brandon, it's amazing stuff what you're doing but if you don't mind, I want to head into the final segment of the show, which is called our rapid round. And it's five questions that we ask every one of our guests and they're meant to be answered in about 30 seconds. And then after that, I'll give you an open floor to find out. How we can get in touch with you. Does that work for you? Let's do it. All right. Question number one. Name any resource that was or is still essential in your journey to pursuing your freedom.

Brandon:

I'm going to go back. If most of the listeners are, W2 and are trying to, break out of that in one way, shape or form, whether it's entrepreneurship or passive income, it starts with mindset. And that's the number one most important thing. And the book that really changed everything for me was Think and Grow Rich. That book gave me the mindset to break out of my thinking, which is what kind of catapulted me to where I am today.

Derek:

Yeah. It's one of those classic books that just don't go out of style, right? Like it just, it will never go out of style. And it was written in like the early 1900s, or something like that over about a hundred years

Brandon:

ago, something like that. And quick tip. If everyone's looking for great information, a little hack is a lot of the older books that you see, especially the ones that are kind of classics have been around. Those tend to have better information because the people writing those didn't have some course or agenda that they're peddling. A lot of self help books today. It's Oh, here's the awesome book and then buy my course or whatever. So their intent back then was to truly Pass on applicable knowledge that will change your life to the next generation. That's why I'm a big fan of a lot of the older stuff out there.

Derek:

Well said. Said. Number two, if you woke up and your business was gone, and all you had was 500, a laptop, a place to live, and some food, what do you think you would do first to rebuild where you are now?

Brandon:

First I would identify who I wanted to sell my products to and I would find those communities and I would add value. Look at what is currently servicing that market and find ways to differentiate. Way

Derek:

to go, man. Said. Number three. What does your self reflection and goal setting practice look like if you have any?

Brandon:

Oh man, yeah, actually I do. There's a whole kind of guide to this. I've tweaked what 10x is easier than 2x from Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy's book. They've got like a whole guide. I've tweaked mine a little bit, but I break everything down into body, being, balance, and business. Those are the four areas I focus on every year and every year I try to make some kind of progress in each of those, so like for, my body I think I'm trying to stay around 185 pounds this year for my, being, I think I'm trying to do something with my get a little bit more spiritual, read some spirituality books, something that I have not done before balance. This year I'm trying to create a couple's trip with friends and family. I already do an annual mom, son trip, father, son trip, brother, sister trip. So strengthening those relationships and then, business, obviously, we can talk about those goals all day, but I said, I've got certain

Derek:

goals that I want to hit in my business. I got to say right now, first of all, it's really impressive that you know those right up front and it's. The beginning of the year, I'd encourage the listeners and the audience here to get the clarity in your business and your goals so that you can just recite them if they're asked right in front of you, just like this, like Brandon. So well done, man. Number four, what are the core work habits that you attribute most to your success or parts of your personality?

Brandon:

The core four work habits that I attribute to my success. If you have not done a time audit where your alarm goes off every single hour and you write down an Excel sheet, how many minutes you spent on whatever activity it is for an entire week. And I'm talking about all the personal activities and then gone and labeled those, what you would. Pay someone to do it. So it's going to be a 0 per activity. It's going to be a 10 per activity. It's going to be a 50, 100, activity. And what's going to happen is you're going to find that you're not spending very much time doing the 10, 000 per hour activities. I try to do a time on every six months to a year. And look at outsourcing all the things that are not 10, 000 per hour activities. That has been a huge resource for me to do that. As far as the other three, let's see, hiring strategic partners. I don't hire employees. If I've got to train somebody best thing you can do for your business if you bring somebody in that can teach you during the interview process how to perform and manage the position better than you, you will be wildly successful. Do not hire anyone that cannot teach you how to perform that position even better. And number three. Being around other business owners, the entrepreneur journey is lonely. Things that always go according to plan, having people that you can lean on during the tough times and get advice from to push through is important. Having people that you can reach out to for advice on how to properly grow your business, cause they've done it. That is the next thing. So those are three tools that I'm currently using right now. Very

Derek:

cool, man. I love it. I actually I was looking for one, but you hit it out of the park.

Brandon:

I thought you said four. I was like, wait a minute. Did I miss that? Cool. I thought you said four and I was like, let me try to come up with some.

Derek:

So I said core. Oh,

Brandon:

core. Okay. I thought that said was four and that's my bad.

Derek:

I'm going to take all the value you had there, by the way. That advice on using like doing a time audit on yourself is incredibly valuable. There's apps out there, like you can use toggle or there, there's plenty of things that you can do out there to log your time, but it is a very revealing exercise again, encourage everyone to do that. So great advice. Alright, last question I have for you for today. What tool or process has become one of your most important to time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use every day?

Brandon:

Oh man, we already covered the time audit right there. I do that with employees. I'll tell ya, I'm a big fan of traction from Geno Wickman. Sitting down and ironing out every single quarter. Where are the gaps and inefficiencies in the business? And if you've hired the correct people, they'll be able to identify those, but making sure that you're committed to the process. I love Nick Saban's new book that he came out with, he's retired he's the go for college football coaching, and you'll hear him talk about in this book over and over again. The process, he ignores the scoreboard. He literally talks about how he doesn't look at it and he's just committed to the process. Whatever that looks like. If you've got some goals, write down that process, call it chop wood, carry water. Another great book about that and commit. To the process. If it's calling a certain number of people per week, make sure you're making those phone calls. If it is having whatever weekly agenda that you need to adhere to, make sure you're doing it. If you know you're supposed to do something, have something that you can measure and commit to the process to doing it

Derek:

well said, man. I think that's an awesome note to end the podcast on. Dude, thank you so much for coming on. This has been an amazing experience for me to hear from you and such great conversation. Wisdom and lots of great, useful takeaways for the audience for, and for me selfishly as well. But before we go, Brandon, why don't you tell the audience a little bit more about how they can find you?

Brandon:

Yeah. If you're somebody who's a, listener of Derek's podcast here and you're interested in building a legacy, if you're trying to make an impact and retire you can find more information on our website, HBGcapital. net. That's Harry Bob Gary Capital. dot net. I joked that the dot com was stolen. So we got the dot net, on that website, we've got a free ebook, 100 questions business owners ask before investing. And I wrote that book because I got a call from one of our investors was some really bad news. And he asked if I would be able to help one of his friends out of a bad situation. He lost some money in a real estate transaction. And I said, sure, I'm happy to help. What became very apparent on that phone call that he did not know what he was doing. He's very green. And as a result he did not secure his investment to the property correctly. There was not the right legal paperwork. Anyway, there wasn't a whole lot I can do, but I said, if I could prevent this from happening from just one other person, what would I do? And questions are powerful. If you've got the right questions. Those unlock the answers that you need to make an informed decision. He just did not know the right questions to ask. I wrote that ebook. It's completely free on the website. 100 questions. Business owners ask before investing. You can add on a website and grab it.

Derek:

Sounds good, Brandon. Thank you so much for coming on the show, man. Really appreciate you being here and for the audience. Want to thank you guys also for tuning in and listening all the way to the end of the show. We really appreciate you and everything. That you're doing by listening and also participating. Hopefully you can get out there and thumbs up or or comment, or subscribe, do anything you can to interact with the show so that we can bring on more incredible guests, just like Brandon and also expand out so that the algorithms allow us to reach more individuals like yourselves to listen to the show. So Brandon, once again, thanks for having, thanks for coming on. Really appreciate it and have an awesome week.

Brandon:

Dude, I will. Derek, it was an honor. Thanks again. Of course. Yeah.