Flips, SFR & Multi-family Rentals, Commercial Buildings, Self-Storage, Brokerages, and MORE w/ Bradley LaBrie

[00:00:00] Brad Labrie: My first one, when I bought, I lost everything Tana got murdered we had a national water crisis, so a lot went on there, but but it taught me a lot of valuable lessons. I probably lost my initial investment of, maybe 15 or 20,000. But again it, I internalized that and it helped me to understand what I didn't understand and seek mentorship and seek people that had done things and, had a lot more experience than me.

[00:00:20] Intro: You're listening to the real fi podcast where we discuss time tested tricks techniques. And strategies for pursuing financial independence today so that we can enjoy a better tomorrow financial independence. Isn't about getting rich quick. It's about cultivating a foundation to grow financially, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Let's figure out how to kick the nine to five. Here are your hosts, Patrick and James. 

[00:00:51] Patrick McGrath: All right. Welcome back to another episode of the real fi podcast. I'm your host, Patrick McGrath. And today we've got a [00:01:00] great guest. I'm sitting here speaking with Brad, how's it going, 

[00:01:04] Brad Labrie: pat! I appreciate you having me on I'm doing great.

[00:01:06] And it's always a P. Yes, 

[00:01:09] Patrick McGrath: sir. Yes, sir. Brad, the way we always like to get started here on the podcast is give us a little bit of your background. Where you got started, where you're currently living let the people know who you are and what you're doing.

[00:01:21] Brad Labrie: sure. Yeah. My story doesn't start great. It's not a success story. But when I was 20, I just decided that I wanted to, I thought it was I guess I just, I saw the majority of wealthy people owned real estate. I grasped enough of that concept. But obviously being young I I didn't really fully understand what that meant.

[00:01:38] So I always looked at Dollar value as, my entry, like cheap is good, right? Like how can I get the cheapest and whatever? And and so it, but it taught me a lot of lessons, so long story short on that place. And so yeah, after that experience, I just I started to read a lot.

[00:01:51] I took up mentorships, I went and started to do like internships with people basically for free or cheap. And those sort of internships led to [00:02:00] people, putting a little bit of trust in me seeing that I was a hard worker willing to do whatever it took. For instance, I I went and basically, for 10 bucks an hour, I the person that I knew that owned the most real estate, I said, I'll do anything and everything you want, and that entailed me gutting its properties.

[00:02:12] So I would do that for, like I said, I think it was probably 8, 9, 10 bucks an hour, nothing, but I just wanted to provide value and I never really had. I never really sought for that to become something. But now fast forward a couple years after that, he invited me to be a partner on a flip, which really springboarded me to become a true flipper and be, and master the craft.

[00:02:32] I bought a large majority of his portfolio when he retired. I bought his commercial buildings. He holds some notes for that. I bought his self storage so anyways, so it I never envisioned it to be that but just taking that experience of failing and realizing that it wasn't.

[00:02:47] The thing I was doing real estate, that was the failure is me not understanding and grasping real estate that it's fullest. So I did what anyone that really does anything. You go get a mentor that really understands and fully understands and provide them value. Because I see [00:03:00] a lot of people, say, Hey, how can I get a mentor?

[00:03:02] What can I do a mentor? And mentorship looks a lot more like you just going and, servicing someone's need like going and working your tail off for somebody or whatever that looks like. Rather than just showing up saying, Hey, will you be my mentor? 

[00:03:14] Patrick McGrath: Exactly, man. You've got a whole lot to unpack there.

[00:03:17] From, starting out, failing, losing some money and then going and finding. The biggest person that you knew that was doing real estate and saying, Hey, I'll do anything. Like you just wanted to be around that to get some experience, make a little bit of money and kind of learn from them and then ended up partnering with them and buying a bunch of portfolio.

[00:03:40] There's a whole lot there to unpack. Sure. And I really like to rewind a little bit. Sure. And really see, so where's all this taken place where do you live? Where do you, where are you investing currently? Break that down for 

[00:03:52] Brad Labrie: us real quick. Yeah. I'm we're about like an hour outside of Detroit.

[00:03:55] So kind like the Metro Detroit Flint area is my market in Michigan. Okay. And just [00:04:00] like anywhere in the country, it's a strong market but there, the Midwest is a. Space, I think to invest. I think there's a lot of opportunity. I think, especially in Michigan, there's been a lot of growth.

[00:04:08] And in num Detroit's made a big comeback and whatnot. And but that's where I invest. That's where our entire portfolio is is in that area. 

[00:04:15] Patrick McGrath: Great. So let's let's break down that first deal. Sure. Can you tell us a little bit about that? So you said you realized that, anyone that was wealthy or had financial independence did real estate, so that made you want to go out and do it.

[00:04:30] Let's break this first deal down for people and learn from your unfortunate mistake here. So break that down for us, what was it? What went wrong? And then what did you learn from it? 

[00:04:43] Brad Labrie: Sure. It seems like an eternity go. I don't remember all the details, but, basically, I saw something that was super cheap.

[00:04:48] I guess I just didn't fully understand markets and, areas and things of that nature. And I basically , I traded a truck for it, actually. I don't think I actually put any money down. I just, he had, he owed so [00:05:00] much in back taxes and water bills. I paid that, but I think I just, I think I literally just paid it an old truck for it, something like that.

[00:05:05] And yeah, and then the place had been completely ransacked. All the plumbing had been taken out. They took out all the wire for electrical wire for copper, all those sorts of things. So I hadd to rewire it run new copper, run new plumbing et cetera, et cetera, and then do a little bit of a rehab.

[00:05:18] So that's where about I would guess probably about 20 grand is what I ended up having into it. Okay. Give or take And so yeah and then, like I said, my tenant got murdered. That was a interesting scenario to begin with. And lot to unpack, but it took a long time with the police department and they ended up they ended up actually saying that it was suicide and the family, they hired their own independent and, whatever.

[00:05:42] But so it just, it took a long time. And then during that process, it got broken into again, and they took everything out, once again, cop plumber, plumbing and all that. So it was just, it wasn't even worth it to try to restore it in my, at that stage. It was like, I'm not gonna do that again.

[00:05:57] So that's why I just turned the keys back over to the [00:06:00] land bank and just decided to take it as a lesson 

[00:06:02] Patrick McGrath: walked away. Most people I would venture to say after that first trying experience, not only going with a complete rehab but also having a major tenant issue, having to deal with the police and everything, and then having the property ransacked again and having to go through the whole thing, they would be like, you know what, this real estate thing isn't for me but you got all the worst aspects of it out of the way on the first one, and just decided, all right, I'm gonna keep going.

[00:06:35] All right. So all this happens. You give the keys back. How long after that first deal did you start getting into real estate? Did you start becoming a real estate agent? Sure. Did you know 

[00:06:47] Brad Labrie: what it took me at least a year to get my next deal? I can't remember exactly how long between, but it was definitely at least a year.

[00:06:54] And so I regrouped, of course I had to regroup cause I lost all my money. So now I had to, save up for another down payment. And so I did that [00:07:00] and I did a live and flip after that. It was a good experience, that live and flip. Took me like 13 months close to close, something like that.

[00:07:07] Or maybe it was 11 months, I think it was close. It was over a year. So you know, about a 13 months or so. I ended up doing, fairly well I made maybe something like 30 grand, nothing to write home about, but yeah. But it was worth my time and it taught me a lot and I tried to do too much, so it taught me that I needed to hire out more things and things of that nature, but it was a really good experience, and and so then after I did that The year before I had done some work for this, that particular individual that I talked about. And again I like the stress, this guy's not some like big time real estate mogul. He's just a run of the mill guy. Like he, he owned a few, like back when I knew him, he probably owned like eight or nine places.

[00:07:42] But at that time that was the only person I knew that owned more than, more than just a regular house. So I just, I had worked for him. And then after I did this flip, I said, Hey, can I just take you to lunch? Cuz I do that a lot. Like I enjoy taking people to lunch and just picking their brains and and I just said, Hey man, like I got this amount of money and I can't remember how much it was, but it's [00:08:00] probably got 30 back from materials and 30 gain.

[00:08:02] So I probably had something like 60 grand and I'm like, what would you do with it? And he, I don't even know what he said at that meeting, but a day later he called me back and he is like, Hey, you wanna partner on a deal? So like he had trusted me from my time of, busting my tail for, 8, 9, 10 bucks an hour.

[00:08:17] And. We did that together and the thing about, working with someone like that is and it changed my entire trajectory, honestly, not just making a couple bucks, but we went into this house, it was a two bed, one bath. And he was really he did everything himself and so he could, so he literally, we reconfigured the entire layout and made it a three bed, two bath.

[00:08:38] And honestly, like that just blew my mind. I had no idea anyone could do that. I didn't know it was possible. I'm not sure why, but I just, I never occurred to me that you could come in and add that much value and add, and we vaulted the ceilings, all these sorts of things.

[00:08:51] But but from there on. Every single deal I've done some level of value add. And that's my play. That's why I love single family. Because a it's so [00:09:00] versatile especially in this market, people can, you can buy, you can sell and you can right now you really sell anything.

[00:09:04] But pretty much. Yeah. We do a little bit of multi-family, but I really single family cuz you know, I can do so much. I can I can value add with it and that's our niche market right now, 

[00:09:13] Patrick McGrath: man. That's great. So basically that year in between your first deal going belly up and you doing your live-in flip, you were working for this gentle.

[00:09:25] Who's got eight or nine properties, which, I think for anyone listening out there who has zero properties or one property, someone that has eight or nine properties is that's the mogul, that you're looking for. So this guy gives you some time and then 

[00:09:37] Brad Labrie: you do this.

[00:09:38] I add that just to say that most people I feel like there's this possession or. This perception that like your, your mentor has to be somebody that's, got a hundred million and, whatever, like the, you should find a mentor that's, Robert Kiyosaki or, whatever.

[00:09:52] And I found Bradley Lee 

[00:09:53] Patrick McGrath: or grant Cardone or something 

[00:09:54] Brad Labrie: like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like I found it to be the opposite. Like the people that are the actual doers, you go find a [00:10:00] way to service something that they're doing, go tell 'em that if somebody came to me tomorrow and said, Hey, I'll go clean out your properties for X amount of dollars.

[00:10:08] I would give, like that's a huge need for me. I hire companies to do that. Somebody wanted to do that. I would definitely go over there and show them everything about. Hey, if you could go service that need for me. So I tell people like, if you're gonna go find a mentor, go find a way and real estate's easy.

[00:10:23] Everyone needs somebody to go do a little bit of legwork for 'em, go throw some pain on a rental property, go gut out a property or whatever it is, things that doesn't, don't take like a high level of skill set, just a little bit of elbow grease or whatever. Like there are ways to go.

[00:10:35] And I guess what I'm saying is you don't have to go find a person that's got millions of dollars in real estate. You just gotta find somebody that's done enough real estate to be able to help you get to the next level. 

[00:10:44] Patrick McGrath: Exactly. I think that is a huge takeaway, early on in this podcast is you really don't, like you said, need to find somebody, you seem to find somebody that's out there doing it, or has been doing it for a long enough time because you have zero or little knowledge.

[00:10:58] And if you are [00:11:00] providing value to someone and the value that you're looking in return is a couple bucks, but some knowledge on how to go out and get your own property or partner up on a deal that can take you two or three runs up a hundred over. Those 20, 40, a hundred thousand dollars lessons that a hundred percent, all of us have at 

[00:11:18] Brad Labrie: some point.

[00:11:19] And by the way, I did that, in my spare time, like after work and on the weekends, I would work for him for 10 bucks an hour, I had another job, but so in, in probably similar situations of people are right now, if you wanna find a mentor, don't go pay somebody in my, and I guess there's cases made and otherwise, but no, I would never go pay somebody three grand to be my mentor from in a different market.

[00:11:38] I would go and go work, go tell somebody, I'll just go gut your place out. If you show me how you did your last flip or whatever it is, or Hey, show me how to do it. I'll come work for free or whatever that looks like. That to me is the real way you find somebody that's gonna, you add a lot of value and they're gonna give you thousands of dollars in value, just being in, being around them, seeing the process.

[00:11:58] I think, to me, that's the real [00:12:00] way to see what the next level is. 

[00:12:03] Patrick McGrath: Yeah, I completely agree. That's huge. That's huge. Alright, so you got this flip boom down. You've got a partnership going on now. Single families value add, I couldn't agree. More easy to sell, easy to rent. They're everywhere.

[00:12:20] Exit strategy galore. So what's your portfolio look like? Today. 

[00:12:26] Brad Labrie: Yeah. So it's a mix of multi-family and single family. So after I flipped for a little bit, when I was younger, I got into house hacking. So we we bought a a three unit. We, I use, with my value add, I love value add.

[00:12:39] I stumbled across the two or three K loan, which is the construction loan side of FHA for people that aren't familiar. But that program will actually Lend you the money to do the rehab. So what I did is I took it through unit. It was complete gut, but I walked into it with the same vision that, that previous person that taught me a value add.

[00:12:57] And I saw this 12 by 12 room of [00:13:00] storage and a one car garage. And I'm like, That's my unit. So I added the fourth unit. You cash filled like crazy while I lived there. But I just took that same value add concept. We bought some more, we bought a three unit and a two unit. And then the rest of our portfolio is single family.

[00:13:15] Every one of 'em yeah, every one of 'em is a bur. So yesterday I just bought one with the four feet of water in the basement and Boeing walls and all that. So we we, it's a little bit of a game to us to try and find the we take on some pretty serious projects.

[00:13:27] One of our last ones, we're just wrapping up. They had meth fires in the attic and it just we pretty much take all the condemned properties now. And so we enjoy doing that. I have a full-time construction crew of eight people. So they they, they service our flips, our burs and all that.

[00:13:41] Patrick McGrath: Man, that's great. The. You're taking other people's problems or things that people are not even looking at and turning away from and creating a huge opportunity in building your entire business around that model. Which is huge because there's a niche out there for everyone, there's a niche that people can dive [00:14:00] down on for everyone and yours is, 

[00:14:02] Brad Labrie: and again, like that, this isn't for a lot of people, they don't have the time, they don't, whatever. But I guess the biggest thing, probably take away from my story is I guess the cliche of failing forward, but. There's a power in starting, and I get asked quite a bit like, what should I do with the state of the market?

[00:14:17] I like to, I tell people when I had that first flip, it was it was 2015, I'm not a, big political guy, but that was a big political year. That's kicked off all detentions we have in the world now. And and I'll never forget the big. Real estate guys at the time, like Kiyosaki specifically was like, was shouting from the rooftop.

[00:14:36] We're gonna have a crash. It's gonna be worse in 2008. And I'll never forget during that flip, like I was losing sleep. Like I was taking it to heart, man the economy's gonna crash real. Estate's gonna crash, and I get the lesson of that, that I've taken away is that, and even now, you got people at some point we're gonna have, we're gonna have tough times.

[00:14:50] We have corrections. But man I talk to my team and everything and I'm like it just, to me, it just doesn't, it doesn't matter. We'll adapt like whatever the economy gives me, whatever the real [00:15:00] estate market gives me. We're gonna adapt. We're gonna continue to fail forward. We're gonna continue to push forward.

[00:15:04] And I guess for somebody out there that is, just looking to start, is it a good time? Real estate's there's a power in starting. There's just such a power in starting. Like you start you. I remember reading books, but then when I actually did something and you read the like I did a bur and then I read about the bur and it just hit a whole different way.

[00:15:21] You you see it through the lens of what you just did. You take away things that you never would've taken away with before, and you expand on that knowledge and you'll never be able to rep you could read a thousand in my opinion, you could read a thousand books and you won't be able to replicate that first experience of doing it.

[00:15:36] And, if you were just to read one book and do, would be far spirit than reading all the real estate books out there, in my opinion. And yeah, there's just, there's an importance of numbers, but man, especially if you're doing something like a house hack or something like that's, that house hacking success.

[00:15:50] I don't think we mentioned, if anyone is interested in that, like we have some resource and stuff, but I think it's an amazing first step because it gives you a [00:16:00] little bit of a hedge. No matter what's happening in the world. The worst case if you have a house has, is that you have to take out a mortgage like everyone else, like that's the worst case.

[00:16:09] And so if somebody was trying to, to fail forward, I would tell them, get into a house act now even if the prices are, even if they were the highest they were right now, we are at, in my market. We're closing on 150%. We're housing prices that hit in 2000, the peak in 2007, like we're a hundred, hundred 50% above that now in my market.

[00:16:29] So that's wild things come back. It's only been 12 years. Just fail forward, I guess would be my 

[00:16:34] Patrick McGrath: man that, that's so huge. And I really couldn't agree with you more on that. People out there get analysis paralysis, have to buy the best deal.

[00:16:43] And what's your cash on cash return and your IRR and all these numbers floating around. And at the end of the day, like you said, you really just need to go out there and buy a property. Hit, if you hit a single, like you said, if you break even, with a house ack alone, like you can at [00:17:00] least live rent free or live almost rent free and have one property, and that is going to change your life.

[00:17:09] You're going to see all those things that you've been reading about. Like you said, you're gonna, you're gonna be dealing with tenants and all that's gonna be right there. You're really gonna get a grasp of it. And like you said if you're thinking about real estate as a long term play yes.

[00:17:24] Towards your financial goals, these markets are cyclical. They go up and down and over a long period of time, history doesn't always repeat itself, but the real estate market is shown that mark you're gonna have appreciation. And like you said, 2000. 2010, 2014, 2015, two years ago, three years ago, everybody's projecting that a crash is coming or crash is coming.

[00:17:47] A crash is coming, but right now, housing inventories is lowest in 30 years. Where is this? Where's this crash coming from? 

[00:17:55] Brad Labrie: It blows me away when I go and look at property values and all that in 2015 when I was [00:18:00] losing sleep Kiosaki, and in a lot of those guys that I still respect.

[00:18:03] Again, I don't have any problem with, people like Kiosaki warning of crashes. I know you from time to time, I hear him talk a little bit about it too but it just blows me away. Like in a lot of my, a lot of areas that I directly buy and sell in right now, home values have almost tripled, since that time and it just it's, it.

[00:18:19] It's crazy. So 

[00:18:20] Patrick McGrath: I think about how many deals I passed on for five grand back in 2016, 2017, 2018. I'm like, Nope, I gotta be at 1 65. And they're like one 70 best offer. I'm like now I'm no way. Sure. And today that same place is worth 320 grand. Sure. Like you said, just get out there, just start there's enough resources out there to tell you if you're getting an okay deal.

[00:18:50] Brad Labrie: Real estate. The thing about real estate is it's very forgiving in some yeah, there are definite issues that you can address but the great thing about real estate and the tax code is that it's [00:19:00] very forgiving in that sense that, the expenses that we occur on the property, we can write off against it.

[00:19:04] Yeah. It won't be a direct contribution back to our wallet, but it. It is very forgiving in that sense. It's also forgiving in the sense that if you hold it long enough, even if you bought it at the top, even if you bought property in two, I know people that bought properties in 2005, 2006, 2007, and they still own 'em and they're doing very well on those properties because they just held 'em through the crash.

[00:19:25] Real estate is forgi is, and so for my wife and I, we had a big shift probably three or four years ago, specifically with our multi-family. We just, I was so tired of dealing with, the one-on-one tenant stuff and we sat down and that side of the business. We decided that we were gonna treat it as long term wealth generators.

[00:19:44] We wanna be in real estate for 30 or 40 or 50 years. Like we I'm a thoroughbred, I love real estate. I can't imagine myself not having some level of whether it's developing or whether it's just buying and selling I could do or the brokerage or whatever. But, so we hand it all off to property management because we're [00:20:00] like the cash flow.

[00:20:01] Isn't what we're looking for. Now. We're looking for long term wealth. And it's forgiving. And and I think people forget that when you're, and I can appreciate that when you're there. It's, you're life savings. But man, like real estate is forgiving. If you hold it long enough.

[00:20:13] Patrick McGrath: Yeah. And we're my wife and I are right there at that point now where it was cashflow of cashflow, we're doing everything ourselves. We're painting. We're doing all the renovations. Sure. We're doing all the tenant placements. Sure. We're doing all that stuff. And now in. Three years. We've been able to get to a point where now we're like, Hey, let's look at property management, sure. Let's pass that one part off and just focus on the business now. Sure. Because like you said we're looking at that long term, we're trying to project our lives out and envision our life in the next five years. Sure. 15, 30 years. Sure. And that's the beautiful part about real estate.

[00:20:50] We were just having a conversation on Sunday about possibly moving to another state. And she was like we can sell the house. And I'm like, I'm I don't think I'm ever [00:21:00] gonna sell any one of our houses, even if it's like our personal house. Like we'll rent it out. We'll put it on Airbnb.

[00:21:05] We'll do something, but sure. I don't think I ever wanna sell. I don't think I ever really wanna sell, unless sure. That was the goal the whole time, sure. Unless that was the goal to buy it and sell it. So that's great. All right. You've got a mix of single families. You've got a mix of small multi families.

[00:21:21] You said you had a commercial building in there. 

[00:21:23] Brad Labrie: Yeah, so we got office space. We have manufacturing and we have outdoor storage 

[00:21:27] Patrick McGrath: okay. So I really want to hear about this portfolio deal that you were able to put together. So you said that's from the same guy that you were doing the mentoring with.

[00:21:38] Brad Labrie: Yeah, so it wasn't, it was never really Strategize long story short, he got a divorce. So that'll that, that changes things. And so yeah, he sold me his duplex. He sold me a single family and again, this guy was never, he wasn't some mogul, like he had, probably eight or nine properties.

[00:21:53] His wife got half of 'em. He got half of 'em and I took the majority of his half, I think he sold one of 'em just outright, but but so that, that happened [00:22:00] to be the commercial stuff. And he was willing to hold a note on that particular set of things. And so yeah, like I said, it's a relationship business and I certainly never.

[00:22:10] I never intended to do that. I actually listed the commercial stuff beforehand, cuz I, I really had no intention of buying it. Never really considered it. And then I had it listed and I don't really know what changed in me. But I just thought of it one day when some people were, I think a construction comp.

[00:22:26] Yeah. Yeah. I showed it to a construction company and they had all these ideas and I'm like, what the hell? Don't I just buy it. So approached. I'm like, Hey man, let me just buy it. And you hold a note and you'll make, X amount of dollars. This will be your retirement. And he bought it so 

[00:22:38] Patrick McGrath: nice, man.

[00:22:40] All right. I I really like that. I really like that a lot. All right. We got the, so you said you have storage. 

[00:22:50] Brad Labrie: Outdoor storage. So it's acre and a half. So we, it's tedious. I don't devote enough time to have individual and market it and things like that. My assistant takes care of all that, [00:23:00] but we we rent it to two large.

[00:23:01] So we have a tree company takes up a quarter of it. Then we have electrical company takes up a quarter of it. And then the other half we rent individually to, RVs and boats and cars and things of that nature. It is pretty to have it. Consistently rented. It takes quite a bit of dedication.

[00:23:17] You gotta have somebody market it, get onboarding retention. It can be, some people will only need it for, three to six months for their boat season. Some people will only need it for the winter, for the RV stuff. So it can be, there's a high level of turnover and things like that.

[00:23:31] So we just found. Easier because I don't have the time to be able to devote a ton to like marketing and it's honestly, it's not, so we just rent a quarter and a quarter, it works out really well. , it pays pretty good. It pays very good compared to, and pretty good cash flow, good people.

[00:23:45] I get a lot of business from it, just building those relationships with those people. We charge less than most everyone else. So people appreciate that. And it's a great way for me to meet people. And the majority of the people that store there, have value in [00:24:00] some way to, to what we do here.

[00:24:01] I've found it to be an incredible way to, to meet people, service a need at a price point that makes me money, but also helps me keep clients and helps me. They, I've made a lot of business outside of just, a few bucks a month self storage. So it sounds 

[00:24:16] Patrick McGrath: like you are basically talking about, you said an acre and a half.

[00:24:20] Yep. An acre and a half with a 

[00:24:22] Brad Labrie: fence around it. And and pavement. Yeah. And 

[00:24:24] Patrick McGrath: pavement. Yep. So just an acre and a half outdoor storage, outdoor, basic outdoor storage. And, three quarters of an acre is between two people and the rest is RVs and boats and whatnot.

[00:24:35] Yep. That's great. There's so many different ways out there for people to make money with real estate, if they don't want to. Yeah. Flip houses or deal with, tenants and toilets and all that other stuff, you're gonna have tenants. Most people are just park there, park in their RV or their boat.

[00:24:50] Brad Labrie: There. It's a beautiful thing. They don't complain, they they gen generally pay. Obviously you're gonna take, if they don't pay, you'll take whatever it is they got up there and but yeah, it's [00:25:00] it's an easy way to, to make some pretty good cash flow. Like I said, we could probably maximize that a little bit more For me, like it, it works out really well.

[00:25:07] It pays us very good. Pays us, better than probably if I were to buy a, 10 unit or something like that. As far as, monthly cash flow and and we just, we have people that are dedicated to it. We don't have to, the half that's dedicated to two people, we don't have to get 50 individuals into those people.

[00:25:22] We just deal with two. And and it's a little bit of a discount, but not enough to really make me wanna sit there and say, let's invest the amount of marketing dollars it's gonna take to really fill this up. So 

[00:25:32] Patrick McGrath: that's great. That's beautiful. I love it. I'm looking for alternative ways to expand, our real estate business I've looked into storage James.

[00:25:41] And I have actually looked into possibly buying an acre or two to do RV and boat specific. Yeah. Self storage like that. It's a, that's, 

[00:25:50] Brad Labrie: it's a great location. The boat launch to the big lake is just literally, less than a mile from the building here. And of course those lake properties are high dollar points.

[00:25:59] For our, for [00:26:00] us in our business as a real estate brokerage, it brings in a lot of, higher end clientele and things like that. Like I said, it's been a, it's been a great opportunity for us and yeah. 

[00:26:10] Patrick McGrath: All right. So I love it. All right. So we've got an idea of, the rental properties, the commercial space, the self storage.

[00:26:20] So how long from. The, first flip that just crashed and burned to where you are today. Did it take to build this, mini empire you have today? 

[00:26:33] Brad Labrie: Yeah, a little over eight years. We, it was probably 24, early 2014. I think when I, it was winter. I think it was like January, probably 2014.

[00:26:41] I bought that, that first one. And and so yeah, it's been slow and steady. It's, I I've always taken the approach to everything I do with building a solid foundation. I come from a Christian background and not that, that really matters, it was always instilled from a young age that, you build things on, rocks, you build things on a rock foundation and not in, in the sand.

[00:26:58] That's a parable. And and so I've [00:27:00] always taken that metaphor and applied it to everything that we did. I was always very slow and methodical. It took me 13 months to do that first flip. And then, when I got into the multi-family space, it was slow and methodical and doing it right.

[00:27:10] And making sure that, that, the cash flow numbers met and all that sort of things. But I always knew that all it took was little bit of gasoline on the fire. And and I always, one thing that I, I knew I saw a long time ago was that like, I think, for the last 50 years, the greatest commodity was access to money.

[00:27:28] . And I think probably about, 3, 4, 5 years ago that sort of switch and I saw it pre COVID that this switch was taking place and the greatest commodity next 50 years was gonna be access to labor. And and I always knew that. And the reason that I started a construction company is not that I want, we don't do any we don't do any work for really anyone else, maybe some, clients or whatever, but I always get people asking.

[00:27:48] 'em like, dude, there's no way. But access to money is the easy point. It might not feel like it right now from where people are talking about it certainly didn't feel like it to me now, but there's so much money out there. There's just [00:28:00] so much money out there. And and. If you can build that foundation slowly, it's gonna take time.

[00:28:05] It's gonna feel like it's taking too long. It's gonna feel like everyone else on Instagram's gonna go. It's going so fast. Like I know it, it felt that way for me oh my goodness, these people are doing all this. Don't let it bother you start. If you're not starting start, To me, like you said, like I tell people if you can literally just hit a base hit a base hit an inspection, make sure the foundation is good, get a sewer scope, make sure nothing's wrong with sewer.

[00:28:25] Make sure that there's no mold in the attic, make sure that, all the, all these kind of fundamentals roof's not leaking, but if you just get a decent enough place and you get the ball rolling, that's really all that matters. We'll probably look back on today. Some point, I'm not sure if it'll be recent or at least, 10 or 15 years, and we'll look back like, wow, real estate prices were really that low.

[00:28:45] At some point in the future, that's going to happen start because it's never gonna get easier. Even if we have some kind of a crash that just means that the, that the financing market squeezed. So you're not gonna have the access to capital that we have now. So there's always a problem that was what [00:29:00] everyone had an issue with.

[00:29:01] 10 years ago, they couldn't get, they couldn't borrow money to buy the deals. The point is build a foundation. Now build a relationship. Now get people to trust you now so that when those times do come, you have the access to capital. You have the access to the people that trust you, whatever that is.

[00:29:15] You have the track record to go out there and buy those deals. Because trust me, I, the Mo the oldest story in the book is people saying they didn't have capital, from, 20, 10 to 2015, when all those deals are out there. Starting out it's, prices might go down, but that doesn't mean it's gonna be easier, 

[00:29:30] Patrick McGrath: man.

[00:29:30] Hit it out the park with that one, for sure. I, again, I couldn't agree more with all of these points that you're hitting on because you hear it all the time. Oh, I'm gonna wait for prices to go down. I'm gonna wait for the crash. But like you just said, if you don't have a track record, why is someone gonna loan you a hundred, 200, $300,000 for a rental property that you're not even gonna be living in when you haven't done anything or have a track record.

[00:29:55] That's huge. And like you said, you've been able to build this in eight years, [00:30:00] eight years of, solid work on a good foundation. And here you are. So we like to talk about financial freedom here. Sure. That's why we're all doing this. We love real estate. We love the challenge of building businesses and everything else.

[00:30:14] Yes. But the point is to, someday be financially free. If you wouldn't mind sharing, you don't have to share specific numbers or anything like that, that you're not comfortable with. Sure. But let's say, you said you had 14 different properties with a mixture of single families, some small multi families, one or two commercial buildings and your You're a storage rental.

[00:30:36] So with all that, that you've been able to build in eight years of hard work. Can you give us an idea of maybe what that's worth, what the cash flow is just, round numbers for the people out there. 

[00:30:48] Brad Labrie: Sure. So yeah, what I left out of that story to get here is we did at obtain financial freedom.

[00:30:53] And I do love that this show focuses around it. I was working third shift for the majority of that. I was working another job. I was working my tail [00:31:00] off all day, I basically didn't sleep. And we had, my wife and I had that vision of leaving that job and we did that to reach that.

[00:31:05] So yeah what the portfolio's worth? I don't know. Definitely, a couple million it, some probably about two and a half million is total of what we own right now. So nothing crazy. But we've been able to buy a decent amount of real estate and some of those, we own cash.

[00:31:19] Some of those we have land contracts on some of those. We have traditional financing on a lot of those, we have private financing. Like I said, if you build a track record and people trust you and you have a level character, and you can have some people to corroborate a story, about you.

[00:31:33] There, there is a lot of capital and it for trust me for, six, five of those years, certainly, the eight we talked about, I would not have believed myself. But I did believe in the, if you build a foundation, good things will happen. And so you might not believe me either, people listening, but trust me, if you build that foundation, money will come.

[00:31:54] There are an enormous amount of people out there trying to lo you know, allocate their money and trying to [00:32:00] find good people. Like you be that person become that person. Go find somebody, try if I were telling people, don't go try to find the best real estate person, that has a millions there, go and find the best practitioner that's in the, in the real estate right now.

[00:32:14] And, you can go whatever kind of skill you have maybe you're good at cleaning houses, right? Go clean their flips or whatever it is, and provide that service. And trust me, you'll learn an enormous amount from that. 

[00:32:28] Patrick McGrath: That's great. That's great. So when did you guys actually become financially free?

[00:32:32] Brad Labrie: Probably yeah, that's a good question. Probably in, in 20 17, 20 18, if we looked at strictly when real estate started paying all of our expenses back then. And then that, that term can mean a lot of different things but yeah, that's where I was gonna 

[00:32:44] Patrick McGrath: go.

[00:32:45] I'm glad you chimed in there because sure. So originally financial freedom was having your, business or real estate pay for all your expenses. Sure. So sitting where you're at today. [00:33:00] Sure. What does financial independence mean to you? 

[00:33:03] Brad Labrie: To me, it's changed a lot. I used to look at financial independence and think one day I'll quit my job and sit around, maybe or, some kind of form of that and that it'll pay for things.

[00:33:13] And I am a, I'm a thoroughbred. I love what I do. I could never imagine myself, going in, retiring in a retirement town, on a beach somewhere. I love doing this. So to me, financial freedom means that, It allows me the freedom of choice to do exactly what I, what we wanna do.

[00:33:28] It's allowed me to leave that, a very, a very good job, a job that at least in my area is, perceived as the most coveted company you could work for. And all of that, but it's allowed me to see beyond that. Like I, when I, back when I was younger, I could never see beyond that.

[00:33:42] And I thought that it was a big pipe dream that I could get out before 30 and, and I did it at, I did it well before 30. So I guess it's progressively changed what that term means to me. My wife and I do a lot now in the community. So a lot of the funds that we make we put back into things that really matter.

[00:33:58] It's really changed because it's [00:34:00] changed a lot more from money focused to now okay, how can we do some really cool things over the next 20 or 30 or 50 years? And not make it ma not have it matter about money or just acquisition and all that. And the one that I will touch on is my favorite.

[00:34:14] We bought this house, we are almost done with it. It's a bur but it was the, it's the worst house I've ever been to. It's in a really good area, but or, in my area, probably a B area , but it was the most disgusting place I've been into. And I've been into some, in the kind of the D class area.

[00:34:29] So it was honestly disturbing. And it really I guess pissed me off, just walking through it, just seeing how people could anyway, they they had seven kids living in, it was a small house. There was 13 other animals inside the house. Two of the kids were living in the attic, like an actual attic.

[00:34:42] There were, I walked in there, I probably had a thousand fleas on me within seconds bed bugs. Just honestly just the most assessing place that I, you could ever imagine. And and everyone kinda laughed at me for buying it. Cuz I used to just burn that thing down, man.

[00:34:53] They had meth fires in the attic and just pretty much everything that could go wrong with it. Did, whatever. But we we bought it because we, [00:35:00] just from my past, I wanted to I'm a, women that go through abuse and things like that. It's always been in my heart.

[00:35:05] And one of the things with COVID is. Most landlords have been selling off their portfolio, right? They, their properties are worth a tremendous amount of money. So it's really difficult for renters in general, but also these programs to find single quality single family houses for these women.

[00:35:20] And we saw this place, we saw it as a place that we could resurrect and do something really good with. So we're at the end now and we're we're passing it off to them so that sometimes these women need short stays to get out of situations, to go, wherever they're gonna go.

[00:35:32] Sometimes they need longer stays, but we're gonna give it to this program. It's gonna be theirs. So that no matter how short or long they will have a dedicated place, it's a really good place and a good remote area. So those kind of things is, are what financial freedom means to me. Now. It's like now we get to go do some really cool things that I never would of.

[00:35:51] In the past, it would've meant okay, I can make X amount of dollars on that property, but now we look at it a lot different, like we can really improve an area, help [00:36:00] people out feel really good about it, and just hopefully provide a little bit of joy to people that are going through a time that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

[00:36:07] And so honestly, those are the kind of things that, that I look towards is financial freedom. For myself, it's about being able to do a lot of, lot more cool things like that. And because I wanna do it for 50 years, and I don't really have any more aspirations to necessarily go kick it on a beach, although we do, we love the Virgin, an islands.

[00:36:23] We love going out there but this is, our focus and that's what really brings us true, that's what financial freedom means to us. Yeah, 

[00:36:32] Patrick McGrath: man I love it. I absolutely love it because, I, and I think a lot of people. Would end up doing the same things feeling like, all right, but you have to take care of yourself first.

[00:36:45] Yeah. And have those bills paid and have that nest egg and that cushion. And then once it's there, when you don't have anything, you dream about having millions and millions of dollars and not doing anything because you have to go to work every day. Sure. You're you know, if you don't go, you don't [00:37:00] get paid.

[00:37:00] And then once you build this solid foundation, like you said, where your bills are paid, you have these properties that are mostly self-sufficient then you, and you have this time. You're like, all right I need to be doing something more significant with my time. What better than help the community that has given me everything that I have now, for sure.

[00:37:23] And that's huge. That's one of the things that, that we're talking about doing is in our area, a lot of the properties that are, HUD homes are sure are that they need are mainly for single mothers. Sure. And a lot of those properties and people that are doing that are just old tenants that don't have good properties.

[00:37:44] And a lot of these, like you said these women and these people, those are the only places that are accepting those vouchers. So that's all they can really get. Sure. This next property that we're buying our goal is to. Design the property, make the property fix up the [00:38:00] property specifically for a HUD in the area in hopes that it will go to people just like that.

[00:38:06] Sure. And that's mainly our tenants, majority of all of our tenants are single mother, our single mothers with one or two kids. Sure. I love that. I love that so much. And that's exactly what we're looking forward to doing, more in the future as well is because once you have the ability to, 

[00:38:21] Brad Labrie: yeah.

[00:38:22] And it's such a It builds on itself, like we have within our construction company, that's just, that's a really tough industry. For those that, every, of course everyone complains about contractors, but also don't wanna pay the good ones. So it's always that, but. We have some people to work within our organization that really should own their own companies, but being able to get yourself. So financial freedom and getting yourself to that foundational level and being able to then pour into other people's lives.

[00:38:46] Like people work for us that should have very successful construction companies because they just love the the atmosphere and the things that we do, things like that. It's more than money, of course they're getting paid and that, that's why they show up.

[00:38:58] But, and we pay 'em I had, like I said [00:39:00] I just, I genuinely have this idea that the next 50 years, the greatest commodities is gonna be labor. It's so tough. And the labor market I don't know. I really don't know any really any flipper locally that's able to do multiple flips that don't, that does not have an in-house crew.

[00:39:14] That that's the new kind of. That's a challenge because and that's a whole nother topic, but like for our company within flipping properties, that's why I started that is because you're relying on everyone. Else's timelines, you get a good, you have a good electrician, they're out three, four, or more weeks you have a good plumber they're out, and now all of a sudden you're fitting all this in, you got year long projects.

[00:39:33] And so anyways, if you build that foundation, you can do some really cool things and really change other people's lives. Which is honestly the best feeling. 

[00:39:41] Patrick McGrath: Yeah. I think real estate investors and guys like ourselves, even gals like ourselves get a bad rap sometimes that it's all about the money.

[00:39:50] Literally I'm sure you're well aware, but there are Facebook and Instagram and web and website pages out there dedicated to hating landlords [00:40:00] to hating real estate investors. Because of a select few and it just gets blanketed on all of the good ones. Sure. And every single person that we've talked to on this podcast, and I've talked to personally that invest in real estate is doing it for a greater reason than just money, and. It's always nice to hear what people's plans are. Once they have reached that financial freedom have become financially independent, and majority of the time it's not relaxing on a beach, it's not playing golf all day. It's not going on vacations. It's continuing to do the business, but with wider aspirations and bigger dreams, because we all do this for the passion.

[00:40:44] Yeah. The money's great. The time freedom is even better, but it's the challenge. It's the passion, if you didn't have that inside of you, you would've gave up after that first deal, but you knew that's something that you wanted to do and the challenge and here you are today. I really love that now.[00:41:00] 

[00:41:00] So with that in mind, what obstacle do you see yourself facing Besides labor, cuz we know that's the big one. What obstacle do you see yourself facing to be able to reach that goal and expand it even more over the next three years? 

[00:41:17] Brad Labrie: Yeah. Personally, it'd be becoming the leader that I need to become.

[00:41:21] It's a really it's a really difficult much greater. It's much more difficult than I had anticipated transitioning from being somebody that, is a producer or somebody that is able to really do things in hands on, whether it's flipping, I have multiple different ventures that I've done and I've poured my, whole kind of life into, and then stepping back and being able to be a great leader to help other people succeed in that, in those similar roles.

[00:41:43] So personally, that, that is my greatest challenge, it's it's a role that I really want to be good at. It's a role that I want to genuinely, help people. And it's a role that I have to wake up every day and get better at, it's something that I don't know that you ever get really good at.

[00:41:56] But man, it's it's. It's a gift, to be able to do [00:42:00] that for people. And if people put their trust in you but it's also such a great responsibility and it can be challenging. And personally, that, that is definitely the difficulty, the one that Is probably in a business standpoint is taking the next step.

[00:42:11] I am very adamant about building foundations, and a lot of people ask and, how come you haven't bought, taken down some bigger department complexes and things like that. And definitely something that I want to do. What I've witnessed. A lot of people personally do is going to something too soon without a solid foundation, and there each I work with a lot of people by, apartment complexes. There's a lot of intricacies, a lot of moving parts. And with me starting the, construction side of things, man it's difficult to build a culture within a construction organization. And so that's my next hurdle is going into some bigger stuff.

[00:42:44] We've done some, media, some commercial stuff and things like that, but getting into the larger commercial space. It's definitely something that we are going to do sooner rather than later. We have, quite a few investors that have been trying to push us into that space for some time.

[00:42:56] But probably later this year will really start to dive deep [00:43:00] into larger stuff. So that's those are my two hurdles right now that I face. 

[00:43:05] Patrick McGrath: Great now larger apartments. That's something that I am I'm actively looking and getting into. Sure. And I really wanna stress what you said because there's so many people out there.

[00:43:17] Right now I'm not gonna name any names, but there's so many people out there pushing people to just go from zero experience into a 20 or 50 unit. Apartment building like, Hey, you can find the money. You can find the property manager, you can find the contractor, skip all the steps and go straight there.

[00:43:39] And I think you're exactly right. That is how you get burned. That is how you are risking a ton of people's money, family, friends, all of that, because those are the people that are initially gonna invest with you. Sure. That you're gonna go out and try to get, so you know that's such a huge point.

[00:43:58] You have to have a track record. You have to have the [00:44:00] foundation. Sure. But with these larger apartments deals, I'm interested, what would be your strategy on one? Finding them and then two financing. 

[00:44:12] Brad Labrie: So I already service, I find some, and we, I sell to some of the guys that I know take down bigger ones, so I've been involved with a few of them.

[00:44:19] So I do actually I communicate daily with, I don't know, daily, weekly, certainly with owners of complexes, whether, in just my greater area, maybe a hour to two hour radius around me. So definitely hunting them down. My, my younger brother actually leads that kind of task force for us.

[00:44:35] So we we wholesale a good amount in our area or, we do list some of 'em, but generally it's wholesale matching up, big time investors with good deals off market. So we, we do a lot of that already. Is 

[00:44:46] Patrick McGrath: that through dialing? Is that through yeah, text message postcards.

[00:44:51] Brad Labrie: Yeah. Mostly dialing and just building rapport with people locally. I rub elbows with people all the time and who should, I know just build a reputation of somebody that does what [00:45:00] they say they do that's one of the challenges that a lot of newer people get themselves into is, they, it's tough and it's hesitant, but if you build a reputation of somebody that doesn't close, that gets around real quick.

[00:45:10] And if you build a reputation as a closer and somebody that, that moves things gets things done, people start to talk. And so we've developed that over the years and right now we have a a 10 unit that that we're wholesaling and pairing up a couple of investors that want it.

[00:45:24] And so that's what that looks like now. 

[00:45:26] Patrick McGrath: So you're right now, you're really looking for the right deal for you. 

[00:45:29] Brad Labrie: No. It's the right timing. No. Even if the right deal came right now, it's not the right time. Like we, we got a lot of work to do within, just, organizations like I, we have meetings every day with, everyone within my organization, the leaders of it.

[00:45:39] And one of their, one of their things that they're constantly on me. Hey, what do you think? I heard this is affecting the market. You think it'll hit like the war and they're always, and my position has always been that it doesn't matter that we'll be able to pivot, if the real estate housing market, falls out and interest rates shoot up what are we gonna do to me?

[00:45:56] We're gonna pivot directly to rentals. We're already in it. We have enough niche to it. We'll [00:46:00] just continue to buy rentals. That's our gravy. I didn't mention, but I buy land. And so we're, we, we're building and so we're building rentals. And single family rentals.

[00:46:07] And so that's something that I'd probably doubled down on, cuz I have. I do all that with private money and DSCR loans. Because I have those relationships now, like it doesn't really matter what's going on around me. They'll trust in us to do that. So it's more timing it's getting the construction side of it.

[00:46:24] If I'm gonna buy a multifamily, it's gonna be a significant value add, not just probably rehabbing, it's probably gonna be potentially building, like if they have additional land to build on, that's already zoned, to take a 50 unit to a hundred unit something in the realm of that.

[00:46:39] That's probably what we'll take down, but we have a lot of it's tough, and it, the biggest thing is it's tough to keep a good reput. Yeah. And so we make enough mistakes as a construction company to make me leery, to go put our name on the line on something big, so I like to, if we're gonna make mistakes, I like to make mistakes on my dime.

[00:46:57] If we're gonna make mistakes with people's millions of dollars, [00:47:00] I'm not willing to do that. We have the money, we have the people that, every day, some of these guys, Hey, listen, man let's go take down this one, they'll send me stuff. And I'm like, I'm not ready, man.

[00:47:07] I'm not ready. Like we gotta get really good on the construction side. And then yeah. We'll probably go do some kind of value add outside of just rehabbing. A few units is probably what we'll do. And I've there have been a couple that kind of intrigued me enough to pause before I, before we whole sailed it.

[00:47:21] But it's just not the right. 

[00:47:23] Patrick McGrath: Hey one of the best parts about that is that, it so that's huge. That's that really shows the type of person that you are the type of business that you're trying to have, the type of name that you're trying to have out there, because that answer right there proves that your entire thought process is long term it's long term in your community and in your market.

[00:47:43] It's delayed. Yeah. Delayed that gratification. Yeah. That's 

[00:47:46] Brad Labrie: a hundred percent. It's tough. It's tough. But man, like I just, I've witnessed so many people lose their reputation just way too many, loser reputation trying to get too big, too quick, and locally and could be limiting beliefs I suppose to, but [00:48:00] man, I just I want to, I wanna be here in 50 years.

[00:48:03] That's really my only goal in life, beyond, I have a kid now and so I have a lot of personal goals and, with my wife and all that but man, like my biggest goal and I was actually, it's funny I love to run on rabbit holes, but I was, I met with somebody yesterday, he's done quite a bit in his life, and he.

[00:48:18] He's retired now. So he hobby flips and so he called me and wants me to list his house and whatever. And we just basically just chatted there for two hours, any talked about everything, the house that he wants me to sell and he had he had worked for general motors for a long time, owned a bar owned 50 rentals, whatever, and bought a bunch of commercial stuff, all this kind of stuff.

[00:48:36] And we were just talking about a lot of this and he was talking about all the stories of all these people over the years that he met, and they did a couple, flips or a couple rentals and all of a sudden they wanted to go do something big and they didn't have the, the ability to delay their gratification.

[00:48:49] And so they tried to extract too quickly from these big projects, and so anyways, that's my goal. My goal is to be here in 50 years and have a great reputation, the best reputation possible. And so that's something on my mind every [00:49:00] day. 

[00:49:02] Patrick McGrath: Perfect answer. Perfect. You are dropping some serious nuggets for everybody out there to know that this is a long term play.

[00:49:11] And if we revert back to your story, you even said in the beginning that like the first five years, you just, you felt like it just so slow wasn't happening. It's so slow. The grind is so slow, especially when you're burying these properties. You're buying 'em, you can't even refinance for six months to a year sometimes then by the time you get those funds, you have to start buying again.

[00:49:35] So to get that snowball rolling it takes a lot of time, but then I'm sure from, you said from year five, to year 6, 7, 8, like pew, the floodgate's open and it just started. Really making progress. Man, I think we have really come to a great part in the podcast where we break it down and we we do [00:50:00] the big three is what we like to call it where we're gonna ask you three questions to try to help people out.

[00:50:05] Get to know you that last little bit before we sign off here. The first one we like to call the fi hack. So what is something that you feel is like a cheat code to achieving financial independence? 

[00:50:20] Brad Labrie: House hacking is something we talked about. I think that's definitely one of them.

[00:50:23] The thing, the two things that I, that got me here a hundred percent where I, when I was younger, I guess I. Talk about this part of the story either. But if anyone out there's anything like me growing up in a, a relatively small town, the dudes had trucks and toys and all that kind of stuff.

[00:50:38] And everyone I knew had that kind of stuff. And so when I was younger, I bought a few trucks. I had, fifth wheel and snowmobile. All these kind of things that everyone else had. And at some point, and I honestly don't remember what that point was anymore, but I looked up and I just saw people that were 30 and 40 and still doing that same thing.

[00:50:55] And I'm like, man, that, that can't be the life. I don't wanna go down that trajectory. I don't honestly remember. [00:51:00] But I literally, I had, I remember I used to collect vehicles. I was flipping vehicles back when I was younger. And and I just, I sold, everything, on a dime, I sold everything and I bought the cheapest Chevy co ball that I could buy.

[00:51:11] And I drove that thing into the ground. And so the hack was no car payment, no house payment with house hacking and car payment. And I think if you combine those two things and you look at like the average American spends, I don't know what the statistic is anymore, but somewhere between 50 to 60%, I think just on housing and and cars like that was the house that got the hack that got me here.

[00:51:32] Those two things, and trust me, like you get on the other side of it and you can do what it is. I got a new truck now and those sorts of things we still do house sack by the way, with a kid and stuff. We Although, my wife is very adamant that we change that pretty soon, but 

[00:51:43] Patrick McGrath: oh man.

[00:51:44] So I, I wish I could convince, I wish I would've convinced my wife to do that earlier. Because I'd probably have, another 16, 20 units at this point, but I could never do that. So Touche on you, man. I'm sure that time is drastically [00:52:00] running out though. 

[00:52:01] Brad Labrie: Yeah. Yeah. We also did a little bit of a luxury duplex house hack.

[00:52:04] We got space, she enjoys it. She is getting that like motherly instinct and wanting to grow her roots with the kids and stuff like with, with the family home. And so I can appreciate that, but to just the moral of the story is if you do that for a few years or it can even be just a year or two, you don't have to set a timeline on it. But like I did that. Probab how long did I have that car for man? Maybe three years, whatever, I'm not sure three, four years or whatever, but that car was the symbol of, me getting out. I had this position within the same company that car was made by.

[00:52:33] And people would laugh at me would you make this amount of money? And you drive that beater, a cobalt or whatever. And but I never remember I always remember that. And I I used it as fuel. Man, if I can last this I'll get there, I'll get there, I'll get there, I'll get there.

[00:52:45] And I kept telling myself that, and even even, when I, I just, I even small story, I convinced my mom to let me drive her car to my first date with my wife, cuz I was like, I can't show up in this school ball. But it was just like that cobalt like meant so much to me.

[00:52:57] Because it was like the epitome of me getting to that [00:53:00] financial freedom, and so those two hacks would be would be what I would say was what got me here. 

[00:53:04] Patrick McGrath: That's right. The ultimate flex is what's in your bank account, not what you're driving in or riding for sure. So boom, love it.

[00:53:12] Love it. All right. So this one, we call resources. So are there any books, podcast people that really shaped your, financial independence journey, your outlook on life that is not rich dad, poor dad. 

[00:53:33] Brad Labrie: Sure. Man I'll shout at Chad Carson from bigger pockets is honestly the person that probably in that everyone would know is the person that you know, has shaped me the most.

[00:53:41] I'm not sure when this episode will air, but right now his course is open if there was any course and this genuinely That I would ever recommend. It would be that course. I think he's the most genuine person in real estate period. I think he has the greatest, his slogan is do what matters.

[00:53:57] And that's that's his slogan for his company for everything [00:54:00] talked about in the course. It's and he also talks a lot about he's like anti getting big he's more about let's go small. That's his slogan is, go small so whether it is somebody wants to, do the cash, cash only or grow a big portfolio, doesn't really matter the models and the systems and the things he talks about in that course, I just think are so genuine.

[00:54:17] His book is retired early with real estate. It was the book that hit me at the right time. He's the only author I ever emailed. And from there, like if anyone does go into that course, I'm one of the teacher assistants. I don't get paid or anything for, promoting the course.

[00:54:30] So I don't want people to think I'm just promoting it, but I'll be there. Yeah, I'll be there. Talking about house hacking or flipping, I think is but at any rate, both of them so we'll get to do some one on one stuff. I just, I really think the course is phenomenal. But the, but even if you don't do the course, the book retire early with real estate, I think is the best real estate book out there.

[00:54:48] And Chad Carson wrote it and if anyone cares to listen, he's been on a house acting success a few times. His episode just dropped recently as well. And one of the things that him and I talk about a lot him and I [00:55:00] both played college football is the takeaways we take from football that allowed us to fail and continue to get up.

[00:55:07] And we talked a little bit about one, one second.

[00:55:09] I'll be right back. You're good.

[00:55:15] Perfect.

[00:55:32] Sorry about that. 

[00:55:33] Patrick McGrath: Oh man. You're good. I understand things happen. But 

[00:55:37] Brad Labrie: but yeah, he just really, we talk a lot about kind of our takeaways from football and how we relate it to it, how the failures that we had in, in real estate we were able to say, just get up for another down, get up for another down.

[00:55:47] A lot of the things that we talk about, late gratification we'll practice nine months to play for, maybe nine games in a two or three month period, right? All those instilled delayed gratifications, and not that people have to play sports or, have to, are relating to that.[00:56:00] 

[00:56:00] If you can take those core fundamentals of sports, of delayed gratification putting in the work before, when no one's watching all those sorts of things. So if anyone wants to listen to that podcast or his podcast, I've what is his podcast called anyways, Chad Carson, you'll be able to find it, but honestly he's I think the most genuine person in.

[00:56:18] Patrick McGrath: I'm gonna be checking him out. I'm sure. I've listened to almost all the bigger pockets but the name's not ringing a bell, so I'm gonna go and check him out on Instagram right after 

[00:56:28] Brad Labrie: this. Cause coach Carson, I think is his is his sandal coach 

[00:56:32] Patrick McGrath: Carson. That's a glowing review on my book, so I'm definitely gonna go scope it out.

[00:56:36] Okay. Last one. So I know we touched on this a little. But we're five years into the future. What excites you the most about either your real estate business, your brokerage, your construction business, or being a leader, like just five years into the future, [00:57:00] you're looking into it. What excites you?

[00:57:02] The most 

[00:57:03] Brad Labrie: developing I think is what really what we have our sites on. Like I said, we're starting to do some build the rent stuff and things like that. And so it's our precursor to Potentially building at scale, whether that's commercial or apartments or single family, I'm not entirely sure , but, I've been working with some people that have a lot more knowledge than I do at developing and things like that.

[00:57:20] And that really excites me in the personal space or in a business real estate business, since I suppose personally man, I'm really excited to see my my kid grow up, get into she's rolling around now. She'll be a year old here and this coming month and seeing her walk and talk and teaching her some things, I'm really looking forward to that and the personal level and then, yeah, we we really are leaning into, being a part of this community and so doing some cool things like we did with the wo women's battery program and some of those sorts of things that really excites me as well.

[00:57:49] Patrick McGrath: Man Brad wanna say it's been a absolute great hour. Chatting it up with you. I feel like we probably could have went another two or three [00:58:00] with all the different things. Sure. We only scratched the surface on here. I know I've enjoyed this conversation a ton. I look forward to doing it again. You provided so much value to everyone I've learned a lot.

[00:58:11] I've got some things I gotta check out. So for everyone out there who wants to get in touch with you? I know you've got a couple Instagram pages, a bunch of other stuff going on. What's the best way for people to to reach out and learn about what you're doing and how to get in touch with you. Yeah.

[00:58:28] Brad Labrie: House hacking success dot com and house hacking success on Instagram, Facebook. If you wanna check out and learn more about that you can DMS on there. My, my partner drew runs the majority of that shout out to drew Klingler. If you wanna look him up, people out there as well to talk about house hacking stuff But Bradley Lare is my, you knows my handle sold by lare.com.

[00:58:47] If anyone wanted to get it, get involved with Michigan investing of some sort no matter what that looks like, I could put you in touch with the right people. Because we do have a pretty, pretty solid market. And depending on [00:59:00] what your comfortability is, but for returns, and so you need, if you want turnkey investing, things like that, I don't provide it, but I do have, some connections to make and some, people that do use those companies that you can talk to, things like that.

[00:59:12] I've put a lot of people from I work with a lot of people from coast, coastal cities that, have a lot of money and, wanna pour it into our area. So if that, that excites you too, you can reach me there. 

[00:59:22] Patrick McGrath: Man, it sounds like you need to get a syndication together, down, down the road.

[00:59:25] One, 

[00:59:26] Brad Labrie: one day, 

[00:59:27] Patrick McGrath: one day, one day. All right, guys. Thank you again for listening. Make sure to give us a follow on Spotify, YouTube, apple music, Google, all that good stuff. Leave a review and we'll catch you next time. 

[00:59:42] Outro: Thank you for listening to the real fi podcast where you learn from the investors that have lived, the hard lessons for you to connect with us during your pursuit of financial independence.

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