OfferMarket Podcast, Episode 4: Real Estate Investing with a Growth Mindset featuring Brandon Diaz

Real Estate Investing with a Growth Mindset: Table Of Contents

0:10 Introducing Brandon Diaz
1:30 Life before real estate investing
2:14 Becoming a real estate investor
3:16 Real estate investing books
4:48 Flipping turnkey rental properties
8:02 Building a rental property portfolio
9:35 Bullish on Tennessee real estate market
11:53 Buying below replacement cost
13:51 Job site shenanigans
22:45 Coaching, mentoring, best-seller
26:23 10-year challenge
31:04 Be patient

Podcast transcript

00.01 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Hello and welcome to the Offer Market Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Sperling-Horowitz, and today we're joined by a very special guest, Brandon Diaz. Brandon, welcome to the show.

00:23 - Brandon Diaz: Thank you for having me.

00:24 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Yeah, absolutely, and happy New Year. Before we hand over the reins to you for this conversation, I just wanted to mention that my first interaction with you was probably just over a year ago, and you were hosting a Facebook Live session and you were touring one of your flips. I think it was in Memphis, and just dropping a ton of knowledge. Right, and I personally appreciated and learned a lot. But there were 50 plus people it felt like who are also participating and engaged, and it turns out that you really like to help people succeed. And I thought that this would be a great conversation. We can learn a little bit more about who you are and what you're focused on. Anyway, I really appreciate you making time for us today. And with that, welcome to the show.

1:16 - Brandon Diaz: Always had great interactions with you Daniel, since the very beginning, it's a pleasure to be on this conference with you, just be able to share knowledge. So thank you for having me.

1:25 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Absolutely. So, Brandon, what were you doing before you got into real estate?

1:30 - Brandon Diaz: Actually, previous Marine Corps. I was an Infantry Marine. I did two tours in Iraq, and one, it was a training tour to Israel, and that was from 2004 to 2008. I was 18 years old to 22 years old, and I was going to college from 22 to 24, but ended up pursuing a career in real estate investing, not just an agent, but real estate investing specifically. And that started in 2010.

01:56 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Thank you for your service.

01:57 - Brandon Diaz: Thank you.

02:00 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: So tell us, how did you get into real estate and what did it look like whether it's flipping and then rental investing?

02:14 - Brandon Diaz: Well, so kind of backstory here on that was I was actually trying to pursue a career in law enforcement. So after I got out of the Marine Corps, the only thing that infantry really translates from the Marine Corps to outside real world was really like security forces of some sort, law enforcement, something of that nature. But at the time, because we were dealing with the 2008 debacle from 2008 all the way to 2010, I really wanted to become a state trooper out of the state of Tennessee where I reside at. I was trying to put in applications during this period of time, and they wouldn't even accept applications. So I couldn't even put a resume and couldn't put an application in. So there was no hiring. So then what I did was I started pursuing that. The Montgomery GI bill was paying for me to go to a community college in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to study criminal justice. But through that, I was introduced to a high school buddy of mine. He's a little older, but he was an entrepreneur himself. He was in real estate, and he started pushing me to start becoming an entrepreneur itself.

03:16 - Brandon Diaz: And then what I did was I started reading books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Think, and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Next thing I know, I was in seminars. These seminars then gave me the perspective that I needed to be educated in more of the investing entrepreneur world because I had more control over what I didn't have control over before, which I can't even put an application in for jobs. So it was like, now I can actually start pursuing a career that would be meaningful to me out in the real world. So then I started off just with probably don't know, Rich Dad Education. I was actually a product, a student of that company and got trained by their mentors and their coaching, spent some money to be part of that. And then I took it very seriously. I took my studying very seriously and just kept growing from there and that's in 2010.

04:05 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Awesome. I'm a huge fan of Napoleon Hill Think And Grow Rich. And also, I think a lesser known book would be like The Master Key to Riches. Have you read that?

04:16 - Brandon Diaz: I have not.

04:18 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: It's almost like more distilled actionable kind of playbook, but also, Rich Dad, Poor Dad is fantastic and I would recommend it to anybody who hasn't read it -- is that Kiyosaki if I'm pronouncing it correctly.

04:33 - Brandon Diaz: Yep, you got it.

Related: Best Real Estate Books

04:34 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Cool. So tell us about turnkey rental flipping, essentially. Is that a good way to describe one of your business lines?

04:48 - Brandon Diaz: Okay, so I just run with that the turnkey rental side. It was an interesting learning curve from the beginning to what we're doing now, what you're doing is you're providing a property for another investor is what you're doing here. You're providing a good, stable investment that somebody being in Memphis, we have really great rates of returns higher than what you would receive in a market like California, like a coastal market like New York City or Seattle, Washington, or like a Miami, Florida, just as an example. But there's plenty of inland cities as well that deal with the same issues where the prices of properties are so high and the rent to the price that you're paying for. It makes sense to one type of investor, but to another type of investor, what they really are looking for is more of a cash flow receiving type investment. So we're in markets like Memphis, Tennessee, where we can provide that where we can sell a property to another investor, where they can receive a high rate of cash flow coming in. And their goal is to have that trajectory of the appreciation of the investment over time. That's what they're looking for.

05:57 - Brandon Diaz: And it's also a much more digestible type investment. Instead of paying $400,000, $500,000 $600,000 for a property, they can purchase a property for at this point in time, as this recording is going on, $75,000, $90,000, $100,000 is what they can purchase the property for and receive rents of $750 $800 $900 $1,000. Just kind of depending on location, type of property. But what we do is we provide a good quality product to that investor because the investor really doesn't want to do anything other than just have their money working for them. Our services, what we do is we provide a product that has new roofs, they have new central heat and air systems, making sure the electrical panels are updated, water heaters are in new condition. The goal is, the big maintenance issues, which I just mentioned. Those are the big ticket items. So if we can at least solve that problem for the next minimum of ten years to going on to hopefully 20 years without having any major issues now, certainly, there's going to be small maintenance issues. You get small little defects in a house or something of this nature.

07:08 - Brandon Diaz: But the goal is to get rid of the entire big picture maintenance issues. Like what I just mentioned, you can provide that good quality product. The end investor is happy, and then we made a business out of that. So we ended up personally, we ended up flipping 28 to outside investors, and it's just a small family owned business. It's me and my brother in law, my wife, and then we have a crew that works with us that we appreciate and we adore. But for the most part, you're actually dealing with a very small company. So we ended up doing about 28 houses last year.

07:42 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Awesome. I understand from our previous interactions that you're also actively involved in buy and hold strategy as well is that also you're taking properties that are in poor condition, fixing them up and refinancing them and collecting cash flow for your own business.

08:02 - Brandon Diaz: Absolutely. What we provide as an investment to someone else. The perspective is why not? Why not provide it for ourselves as well? So we're doing the same quality product. I mean, we have a system. So a lot of our houses have the same color scheme inside of them. We don't get into this mix and match, and it just takes too much time to go to Home Depot and Lowe's and try to figure out the next greatest color. We just use the same color, same tile at this point. It's a system. And what we've recognized is like, your true wealth is in holding these assets. That's why these California investors are buying these houses. That's why these New York investors are buying houses, because people recognize that holding on to assets is better than just keeping money in a bank account and getting lost in deflating dollars. It's better to have it into an asset where at least it's appreciating, and it's at least going with that inflation opposed to having money deflating. Well, that's no different than where I'm at in my life as well. So the perspective is like we can't be selling all houses we need to acquire houses for ourselves because having true ownership of assets is where your true wealth is. So that's something we've learned. And yes, we are doing that for ourselves too.

09:02 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Cool. I totally agree. And I think buy and hold long term time horizons. That's definitely where you accumulate wealth. Tell us about your view on the Memphis market and then other markets that you're interested in and possibly even active in currently.

09:35 - Brandon Diaz: So I'm Super bullish, so I've been in Tennessee pretty much my entire life. I'm super bullish just in the Tennessee market in general. We have an influx of individuals moving to the state of Tennessee that's mainly in Nashville, Tennessee, but that does overflow over to the other cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee, Pigeon Forge area that also includes Memphis, Tennessee. One great thing about our state is that we're a no state income tax state to me, that has MASSIVE VALUE, massive value -- because we only have a few States in the entire United States of America that even fall underneath that category. So Tennessee is just a place that I'm extremely bullish. I also feel like our values are extreme low, extreme low. I mean, if we're in comparison to the coastal markets, that means that technically we can grow another three times. Other people couldn't believe if you talk to someone that's in my local area, they wouldn't believe that we can have appreciating market past three times. But people thought that the same thing in these coastal markets as well, like years decades back.

10:42 - Brandon Diaz: And also out of all some of these first world nations we're comparing to Dubai. We're talking about the United Kingdom, we're talking about Germany, we're talking about Canada, even Canada, just above us. Like the prices of real estate across the entire country are much, much, much higher than what they are even in Tennessee. So not even just a coastal market. If you're just in the middle of Canada, you'll notice those prices of real estate just for a piece of land. You can even buy a piece of land for what we can buy an entire house and land in the city with utilities and everything else included. You can't purchase something like that in some of these cities like Cleveland, Ohio, Birmingham, Alabama, Memphis, Tennessee, just to name a few. St. Louis, Missouri. There's laundry list of places they can purchase -- and that's not going to last forever. You got other people from other countries, they're recognizing that. And eventually, at some point in time, these numbers, I think, are going to go kind of more of like an even scale. Yes, your coastal markets will be a little bit higher, but they're not, like right now, they have this huge drop in prices when I think these are going to start rising up just a bit.

11:45 - Brandon Diaz: And it'll have more of a smaller curve of prices over a long period of time. It'll take some time, but we're definitely heading that direction.

11:53 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Yeah. I absolutely appreciate that feedback. And I was looking at a property that was listed on our marketplace in Memphis, and it was like maybe a five minute drive to downtown, five minute drive to the airport. Five minute drive to what I believe is the FedEx headquarters. And it was like $60,000. Right. And it would rent for probably, like, $900. AS IS.

12:19 - Brandon Diaz: Right.

12:20 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: The replacement cost on a property, three bedrooms, one bath has to be $125,000 easy.

12:29 - Brandon Diaz: Yep.

12:29 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Probably more. So it seems like just I think Sam Zell is a huge or I should say, I'm a huge fan of Sam Zell. He's like an idol of mine in terms of real estate investing. He talks a lot about replacement cost. And if you're looking at a market like Memphis and probably several other, you had mentioned St. Louis, Cleveland, but probably several other in Tennessee, you can buy cash flow for well below what it would cost you to recreate that asset. That's just a smart investment, in my opinion. As long as, like, the underlying governance and trends economically and socially are stable or hopefully improving. Right.

13:17 - Brandon Diaz: Agreed. We couldn't say it better. Yeah, I agree.

13:24 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: I want to go through. I heard a crazy story that you shared and sorry if you've shared it a number of times or one time too many now. But for our listeners and viewers, tell us about the multi unit property in Nashville and the chaos or drama that you had to deal with, or just one of the things that comes along in the day in the life of a rental investor.

13:51 - Brandon Diaz: Yes. So things just happen in a moment. That'll be the start of this conversation. So we have context. We have investments in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is the southeastern portion of Tennessee. Also, we have property in the Pigeon Forge area, some land up there and also Memphis, Tennessee, which is on the west portion where we were just starting to tap into the market and still are is Nashville, Tennessee. So I ended up buying a little triplex apartment over there near the downtown area. Really exciting, because it was like their very first engagement in the Nashville market. It's very hot market. You're dealing with a whole different set of numbers than either of the markets that I've ever dealt with. So it's a big learning curve. So I was extremely involved into this investment. Our crew that I was mentioning in Memphis, they came up, they helped us actually get this investment. I could have done it without them. They actually came to Nashville. We ended up getting an Airbnb. It took us three weeks to rehab an entire 3,300 square foot triplex. It was my fastest time, actually rehabbing a house.

14:53 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Incredible.

14:54 - Brandon Diaz: I was there to assist and help and everything else. And it was a lot of hard work. Once that was completed, you still have loads of small knickknack type stuff, like just painting your trim. We're keeping this in our own portfolio. We're in Nashville, so we want to make sure the finished work is, like, really detailed type stuff. So my wife, who's again, my business partner, we decided to get some air mattresses. We got hot water and everything else. But for the most part, it's an empty house there. And we're just there just to just finish out the work, because we just have limited time to get this entire thing out. So we're just working very hard. One day I wake up and I'm just kind of getting a late start on the day. What ends up happening is my wife goes out to go grab us breakfast because we don't really have much to cook or anything like that. So she goes, grabs breakfast. She comes back and she goes and heads off to the shower. I'm in the kitchen. I'm just eating. And we have a basement. And from the inside of one of the units, you can go down in the basement.

15:51 - Brandon Diaz: It's old, like 1930s house, like 100 year old home. So where I was standing at was in the kitchen and right around the corner, you have stairs that go down to this basement. The door kind of sticks. It's a little sticky door. So you don't like when you go, it's a basement door. So it's not like the perfect door here. And I was sitting there eating breakfast, and all of a sudden, I just see the door open. There was kind of a blockade, like wall. So it was like a blind spot there. But I just saw the door open, and I was kind of just bewildered by this little door opening, and I was just watching it. I kind of walked towards it without really thinking anything. Next thing I know, I'm face to face with an individual, in hindsight, didn't know this. But in hindsight, I didn't think about it. But someone's breaking into our property. And by the time I hooked that corner, I was less than 3 feet, 2 to 3 feet away from this gentleman. And he's entered into our property at that moment in time, I did not know if I was part of a home invasion.

16:48 - Brandon Diaz: I didn't know if I was part of a robbery. So the very first reaction I did was I just went and kicked into action and snatched him up and to protect myself, making sure he didn't reach for a weapon, ended up getting to a nice little scuffle with him, pinned him to the ground. We call the police. He went to jail after that. So one for the good guys. A little bit of story on this individual, actually. So he did plead out. So he pleaded in his case to accept a drug rehabilitation program where the state, the word that they used was recidivism. It's not my main vocabulary. A lot of people know this word, but not in my main vocabulary, meaning that it's extremely successful program. They set him up with a job. They set him up with a counselor, he gets drug tested weekly. There's a bunch of stuff that he has to maintain, and if he's successful, he has to be on this program for seven years. If he violates that within 7 years, then he goes automatically to jail for 7 years, he was facing 5 to 25. He was facing a felony, aggravated burglary charge was what he was facing.

18:01 - Brandon Diaz: And so he pleaded out. I actually have a tenant that has went through that program, and he went through it successfully. I love him. He's a great guy. Some people just need a second chance. This individual had a pretty extensive background, but this is his last chance. And if he doesn't succeed in that, then he'll probably go to jail for whatever the case is. But I was very happy to hear that there's at least some programs out there to at least help them out. And I do know people that have went through that successfully, but that's actually the back end of this story. So I'm rooting for the guy.

18:39 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Yeah, absolutely. It's good to hear there's that type of program in place. And hopefully, thankfully, no one was hurt, and I'm sure he got to experience what it's like to get into a fight with a marine, right?

18:56 - Brandon Diaz: I haven't used my marine skills in a long time. I've been out for ten years, plus at this point in time. But I gave him everything I had

19:04 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: That's fair enough sentencing. I'm kind of joking, but good at that program exists for sure.

19:11 - Brandon Diaz: Exactly.

19:13 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Thanks for sharing that. And I know that you've shared it a number of times. I'm sure people have asked. So let's talk about your typical way of financing a deal, briefly. Are you working with private lenders or how does it work?

19:33 - Brandon Diaz: So when we started actually getting into turnkey investing, previous to that, I was dead set in own capital own cash. So what I did was a lot of wholesale deals. So I'd have a lot of liquid money in the bank account. Also, we have other sources of money that we make money from, and what I would do is either pay for properties cash or I would owner finance. I would negotiate owner financing transactions. What I did realize, though, when we started doing the turnkey stuff was I wasn't able to grow just using my own capital, and I wasn't going to be able to grow just using specifically only owner financing techniques. So we ended up starting using a lot of private funds in order to purchase properties. And I noticed that it was actually a lot easier to do it that way, because now the negotiations easier because I get to talk cash, cash transactions, close quickly. I also can raise capital for the rehab, so I can pretty much getting into this for no money. And again, if we're flipping the property perspective that these are all still learning to this day twelve years later, still learning some things that we understood were that our rates of return were much higher because we're leveraging money to do so, number one.

20:45 - Brandon Diaz: And even if we acquire property. Over time, debt goes down over time, especially if you have a principal paid off, not on private money -- usually they're interest only loans are a little bit higher interest rates. But if we can at least acquire property, so the goal is at least acquire property, then refinance later. Then now we can structure debt where it gets paid down over a period of time and appreciating of the assets. You get this wedge strategy where that's where you can make a lot of money. And I've noticed that a lot of the properties that we've had, I still have properties in my portfolio since 2014. It looks like I paid nearly nothing for these properties because of the appreciation on the properties and other properties like that. So yes, we use a lot of private money, and it makes it a lot easier to raise capital for rehabbing, scaling a business if you understand what you're doing and then it's acquiring a negotiation tactics. A lot of people, they want cash, they want to get out of the property.

21:51 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Sure, I'm glad to hear that. And our audience is quite fond of the BRRR strategy, and that's basically what you're talking about. You're buying it using other people's cash or hard money or private loan, rehabbing it, renting it out in your rental case or flipping it and then refinancing it. Right. The appraised value, I'm sure, is substantially higher than what you're investing ultimately, and it creates equity for you.

22:16 - Brandon Diaz: For sure.

22:18 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: So I want to make sure we hit all the boxes on the checklist here, Brandon, and thank you very much again for joining the podcast today. We talked about the adventures and flipping and renting and tell us about your coaching, your speaking engagements, and the book that you wrote in 2015.

22:45 - Brandon Diaz: So I actually started actually coaching and mentoring in 2012. So I started my real estate investing in 2010. I acquired my very first year in the business, I was able to do an owner financing transaction of 14 single family homes in a triplex apartment for 17 units.

23:02 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Wow.

23:02 - Brandon Diaz: Well, no money down on that again. That was 2010. I wish I still had that portfolio. I do not anymore. But that was my very first interactions of holding property 2010, 2011 I'm wholesaling properties. I'm starting to rehab houses, so my experience quickly out the gate. -- and by the way, in 2010 wasn't easy. It was a lot different market than it is now. Houses sell a lot faster than they used to sell back then. Your buyers in the market weren't as heavily as they are in this market today. But in 2012, since I was a product of the company that I had mentioned earlier, they had asked me to come on board and start training and facilitating and getting other people up and running. And I absolutely fell in love with that.

23:19 - Brandon Diaz: The word I like to use is addicted to that process. Now you deal with someone that never really thought that they could even flip a property or get into real estate at all. And all of a sudden they even acquire just a simple, small little property that's cash flowing just a little bit and their world lights up. They become addicted themselves. Next thing you know, they're studying like crazy. They have better habits. I deal with all kinds of different people from high up on the economic food chain to people that are just like trying to get out of situations like I had gotten myself out of when I first got started.

24:22 - Brandon Diaz: And just to watch someone's journey is because I recognize that I'm going to watch these people over a decade period of time. And if I'm going to even higher than that 20 years, 30 years, and in that process, what does someone start off with and what they look like ten years if they actually go for it is extremely fascinating to me.

24:43 - Brandon Diaz: So I love helping people, but I love helping people that want help for themselves that actually are desiring and that want it that are not full of excuses. So I started that in 2012. Through that, I learned so much about myself. I learned a lot about communication. I learned about what people needed for themselves.

25:02 - Brandon Diaz: I learned a lot about investing in general that helped me out with my business. And in 2015 I wrote a book called Principles of Winning. I became a best selling author on Amazon. And what it was basically talking about is what's the difference between a successful person and a non successful person? And what it was basically talking about was how they adopt certain principles in their lives, like principles like the word dedication, whereas a non-successful person claims dedication. But really it's as far as they're willing to get comfortable with. And as soon as it gets uncomfortable, they quit. And then they come up with excuses after that. And that becomes their principle. Whereas a successful person, when they're dedicated, they persevere past that point of comfort and they don't care what anybody thinks or what's said about them. So it's really just giving its perspective in these principles for us to adopt and build philosophies for ourselves. So that way we can grow. And that was in 2015.

25:56 - Brandon Diaz: I am now doing events now for other companies as well, more in the Christian entrepreneurship. I'm really heavily into the faith based position here now really doing, like, biblical entrepreneur type stuff. I feel like we could add a lot more to that to our businesses that I didn't really think of before. So that's now my position and where I'm growing. But yeah, I absolutely love it and enjoy it and having a great time.

26:23 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Awesome. And I think it's super impressive. Everybody's talking about the ten year challenge, right. And before starting this episode today, you and I were discussing and you made a really good point that you're not really focused on what you've accomplished in the past. You're focused on what you want to accomplish moving forward. I think we both agreed that it's also really important to live in the present and enjoy the moment. But I think it's very impressive the ten years that you've covered. And from my vantage point, it seems like you've helped a number of people out who have you to thank for probably a much happier and healthier quality of life.

27:17 - Brandon Diaz: If I may, I do get a lot of thanks and a lot of credit, but I always wanted a person to know that it's them that makes it happen. I can be a catalyst. I can be a guiding tour, certainly. But a person makes the decision, and they do it themselves, for the most part. I talked to a lot of people, and they also like to take a lot of credit for what Brandon Diaz has done in his career, and they were helping hands. But ultimately, if I didn't make the decision or make that effort and willing to endure all of that to be where I'm at right now, and not to say that I'm on this high pedestal or anything like that, I'm just growing. Still, I like to think of myself as still a learner, but I do recognize that I do have value to others in the position that I'm in. So making that statement here. But I want people to recognize that it becomes ultimately you, you are the one that makes things happen. If you don't make the choice, if you don't make the change, if you're not willing to sign the document, if you're not willing to purchase the property, if you're too scared to do that, then you're too scared to grow.

28:16 - Brandon Diaz: And so I like to give people perspective on what that really means. And yes, I get thanks a lot, but I always make sure my students know ultimately you're the one that made this happen. All I am is just a helping hand. That's it.

28:28 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: I think that's a great way of thinking about it, and it resonates with me. Certainly. Now, where do you want to be ten years from now? And how do you go about setting your goals for that? And then the final question? The final thing that I would love for you to share is what one lesson would you share with your younger self?

28:53 - Brandon Diaz: I love this question right now in this position in time you had mentioned earlier about being in the present right now, I'm a newlywed with my wife. We've talked about this and that's everything at this point that's my family, that's who I love and cherish and adore. So my future, ten years from now is what that looks like presently and in a growth aspect of just being a wonderful husband, a wonderful family member, providing and making sure that we have wonderful experiences over the next ten years. So that's on a personal side, on the business side, real estate is always going to be in my repertoire. If that's the proper word here, it's always going to be there. I know it like the back of my hand not to say that I know everything about real estate still growing. Always like to mention that always just recognizing where I'm at personally today. But real estate will always be there. We're getting more into more of a turnkey aspect of things. By the way, it's kind of more of a time value of money and time respecting our own time and value of our own self. Sometimes just rehabbing houses can be very time consuming, and there's maybe even faster ways to start receiving that revenue.

30:08 - Brandon Diaz: So real estate is always going to be there for us. Obviously, I mentioned the biblical entrepreneur side. That's something I'm looking forward to growing. And the other side of it is I'm really fascinated with cryptocurrencies and kind of the digital assets, digital real estate, digital assets of things. I've been involved in cryptocurrency since Bitcoin was first starting hitting $8,000 a coin, and right now it's at $40,000. So in Ethereum I was in Ethereum when it was a couple hundred bucks. So I've been fascinated with those ever since those numbers. And now I'm looking more into, like NFTs, which is a big hot topic at this point in time, but definitely I'll call it called falling victim of that falling involved in all that, which I'm just fascinated with the field of that and just overall just enjoying the overall growth of just my happiness, just being happy in general, just enjoying the process.

31:04 - Brandon Diaz: And then you ask an amazing question. I love this question. If I could go back 2010 or 2009 right before I got started into real estate investing, what's the one thing that I wish that I could advice that I would give myself and that would be to be patient.

31:20 - Brandon Diaz: One of the key principles that investors need to recognize is patience, because it takes time for money to grow. It takes time for you to grow, your learning to grow, it compounds. And we like to think of compounding after it's compounded to a bazillion dollars or something of this nature. Right. But at the beginning stages, it's just small, little gross, and that is compounding, but it doesn't grow fast enough during this period of time. And when I was a kid, I was very zealous. I was a very zealous type individual. I wanted that million dollar portfolio with massive amounts of income coming in so I could drive the Bentleys and everything else and have these big fancy watches. And now I realize I can purchase all those things, but I actually don't want to purchase those things because I'm still in my growth phase that I'd rather just keep investing and growing now, it's less of those items, but more protection of my family. And if I had made mistakes in the past, and if I would have gained huge amounts of money, like massive amounts of money, I could have probably made mistakes during that period of time, gotten addicted to materialism type stuff. Then where would my journey have been right now? I wouldn't have this philosophy I do with my newlywed wife.

32:34 - Brandon Diaz: So it happened for a reason. It needed to grow the way that it grew. So that way I could grow as an individual. That way I can understand better that way my investments could grow. But we need to recognize that as investors, that we have to be patient. And that was something I didn't understand at the beginning that I do now. And that would be the advice I would give myself

32:54 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Fantastic advice. Totally agree with that. And if we can put like a caption on this conversation, it would be like "growth mindset", right? Like the "principles for growth mindset". And I think patience is an absolute pillar of that. Brandon, I really appreciate this conversation. It's been really fun watching you grow and mentor and thank you for collaborating with us and sharing your insights today for our audience and wishing you all the best in this new year. And Congratulations on your recent wedding and everything that you have in store over the next year.

33:40 - Brandon Diaz: Daniel, blessings to you. Thank you for having me on. You're doing great. Looking forward to catching up with you later, too.

33:45 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Absolutely. Take care, Brandon.

33:46 - Brandon Diaz: Thanks, man.

33:47 - Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Bye.

DISCLAIMER: This episode of OfferMarket Podcast has been brought to you by OfferMarket, a leading investment property marketplace. If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe, visit OfferMarket.us, follow us on social media and spread the word. All investments involve risk of loss. Nothing contained in this podcast should be construed as investment advice.

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