Fire Yourself: Financial Freedom & Multifamily Investing with Bronson Hill

Christian (00:00.726)
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. We are joined by a true expert in the multifamily investing in capital raising, Mr. Bronson Hill. He’s a managing member of Bronson Equity, a general partner in 2,500 multifamily units worth over 250 million. He’s also the host of the Mailbox Money Show where he shares insights on passive investing and how he’s raised over $45 million for real estate and private equity deals. Welcome to the show, my friend.

How about you just introduce to the audience who you are, your background, how you got here, and just currently what you’re doing.

Bronson Hill (00:36.332)
Awesome, Christian, great to be here, man. I think like a lot of people, was a professional and I worked a lot. I worked in the medical field. I was in medical device sales, making a good salary, making over 200,000 a year. But the thing that I didn’t have was control over my time. And so I kept looking into how I actually do this whole thing. As Warren Buffett would say, you know, unless you learn how to make money while you sleep, you work until you die. And so I started really just studying passive income. I started buying single family houses. I realized for me,

it wasn’t getting me the cash flow that I really needed to get. Because if I buy a rental house or two, maybe it’s 100, 200, 300 a month, but it wouldn’t have to get so many and it would just become another job. If I had 30 houses or whatever, that’s just like replacing one job with another. And so I started learning about something called syndication, which is basically just pooling together investor funds and going after bigger deals. And so I think it’s honestly easier to buy 100 unit apartment complex than it is to go after a three or fourplex often because you get better management. It’s just there’s a lot of streamlined things in there.

And then also we’ve shifted a little bit the last couple of years to do not just real estate, but really focus on cash flow investments. And I can talk more about that. Private businesses, car washes, we’re buying an e-commerce business as we’re recording this. just really, know, oil and gas, things like that that provide a lot of cash flow that really allow you to do what, you my book behind me here says, fire yourself, right? How you actually fire yourself from your job and still have cash coming in.

Christian (02:00.211)
love that. Well, let’s talk about that book too. mean, that’s interesting. You know, your book Fire Yourself, it’s all about financial independence, right? How someone can gain that. You know, what’s the first step that you would say for someone looking to escape maybe the nine to five?

Bronson Hill (02:13.154)
Yeah, so really, think there’s two things that are really transformative when it comes to getting to the next level. I was able to 20x my net worth in like four years and be like, well, how do you do that really? Well, it came from like the rocket fuel, I it’s really it sounds simple, but it’s really getting in the right room. So it’s networking and it’s education. So the networking piece is like, there’s a saying by a personal development guy, Jim Roney says, you’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, right? So I can look at that almost every area of life.

and say, I’m overweight, if I’m out of shape, I just need to get around people that are in a different place than where I’m currently at. So if I were look at my friends, probably similar eating habits, similar wealth habits, similar spiritual practice habits. I want to change in those years. I’ve got to get people that are 5, 10x where I’m at. And that just will generally pull you up because you’re just looking at things very differently. So that’s a big one. And then the education piece is just being willing to read, being willing to research, being willing to look into new things, being a learner.

A lot of people, most people get to be in their 30s, 40s, they stop reading books. The average American reads 12 books and 50 % read four books a year or less. And last year I read 90 books, right? So I’m just really trying to see I can read about 60 books a year. So it’s like, if you can continually push yourself to meet new people, and not just meet but try to add value to them, and then you continually try to learn. You’re just learning what’s out there. You see somebody doing something, man, that sounds interesting. What is that? Or you’re just generally a curious person. With those two things,

you’re going go very, very far. I think just, you know, it sounds crazy to have raised $45 million. We’ve done all these different investments. Some have gone phenomenally well. We’ve had some challenges in some. But it’s like, there’s so much learning that’s happened in there. I think that’s the thing you have to look at. It’s not about the goal or raising the money or getting the, I call it the yachts and Mai Tai lifestyle, where you just have this great Instagram lifestyle. It’s about becoming the person that you want to become. And that’s more than money. That’s more than achievements. just, are you becoming somebody’s getting better, a little bit better every day, every week, every year?

Christian (04:09.589)
That’s right. I couldn’t agree anymore. You have to master yourself, right? And you have to build discipline before you can actually build wealth long-term, right? I a hundred percent agree. So let’s talk about that too. You you’ve raised over 45 million that you just mentioned, right? I mean, what are some of the key factors, you know, that you’ve done to successfully raise that money in capital for real estate deals?

Bronson Hill (04:30.926)
Well, think a lot of people, everything’s hard until you do it. And I remember when I first started, that’s just the hardest thing is you get started. And so again, I was a medical sales guy. there were people knew my friends and family knew me as medical sales, bronzer. I was, you know, it is medical sales. So I had to kind of tell a different story about who I am. I had to start to change the image of how people saw me. So what I did is I started just calling up friends and family and people I met and just say, hey, I’m talking about real estate, just kind of talk about what their goals are and what they’re looking to do.

Christian (04:34.954)
Okay.

Bronson Hill (04:58.05)
And that was really great. learned a lot about it. And then I started just putting a little bit of information out, having emails that would go out every week, every month. Hey, here’s what I’m working on. Here’s these events I’m going to. And then I actually started in Los Angeles. This was about six years ago. I started a local meetup. I partnered with somebody who had a meetup. And I said, hey, you’re doing a real estate meetup. What if we did one on multifamily real estate investing? And I said, you just show up and I’ll do all the work. And they said, that sounds like a great idea. can do that. So it’s amazing just my partnerships.

And then in that room, that’s where I found my first investor. Just some guy came up to me and said, hey, I do one of your deals. And I think it’s really interesting, Christian. We think we have to be an expert before we put ourselves out there. But there’s a big difference between being a leader in the space and being an expert. I was a leader because I was in the front of the room, and I was leading a conversation, just asking questions and kind of doing an interview with somebody who was up there in front of 40 or 50 people.

you don’t have to be an expert. And that’s the thing. We don’t realize that if we’ve been studying, looking at some, we might know more than 95 % of people. And just simply by asking questions and being somebody who’s intentionally doing that, people will want to reach out to you. So that’s how I got started. And then over time, there’s ways of just trying to create more value. Through the book was one way. It was a lot of work. it just has become an Amazon bestseller now. I think we’ve got.

1100 reviews and so it’s like, you know trying to get out there just try to find things that can add value whether it’s through YouTube or other sorts of sources or our show the mailbox money show and I just what you guys are doing here and so when people look at you and they say hey I get value from Christian or from Mike, you know, they’ll say hey that’s somebody that I feel like I know like and trust and so if you’re willing to give stuff away for free and just so that people can get to know you they can see who you are and see what you’re about they’ll reach out and a lot of times they’ll be like I trust you just because of who you’re associated with and the value of added to my

Christian (06:23.007)
Mm-hmm.

Christian (06:38.547)
I love that. I couldn’t agree anymore, my friend. That’s awesome. So I know you said you were medical sales, right? So I’m interested to know, I know the audience as well. I mean, what inspired you to transition from medical sales, right? Going into real estate investing and how did Bronson equity that you have right now, you know, how did that come to life?

Bronson Hill (06:56.044)
Yeah. So basically, kind of for me, I knew I wanted to make a switch just because I’d always said, you know, I’m good at sales, I some awards and sales, but I just I want to do something where I have control over my time. And I just I didn’t, you I got maybe a couple weeks off a year, but just harder to take vacations, harder to travel. And again, I’m out hustling for it. So whenever you know, if you had a job like this, you’re working and then your boss after the end of the sales every quarter is like, hey, you know, did you meet your quota? If you did, it’s like a slap on the butt. Good job. Go do it again. Go do more.

And so kind of, it is this grind, it’s this rat race and a of people can relate with that, whether it’s their own business or especially if you have a boss and you can have a great, even if it’s a good boss, it’s like you’re still kind of really pushing yourself. And so I wanted to have something that had an element that I could generate more wealth for longterm. And I found these bigger deals through syndication, I could do that. There are deals I raised, you know, I’ve raised money for. And the biggest thing that took the biggest jump for me was I kept my job for a while. I raised 100,000 for an investment.

And then I just kind of kept trying to find, well, what can I do? How can I grow? I kept putting things out there. And then I found a partner who I basically just kind of went up to them. There was at this expensive networking event. It was a cruise. Actually, it was an investor cruise. It was like $6,000 or $7,000 to go. And I almost didn’t go. I like, there’s a lot of money for me to go. And so I went. And I remember pitching this guy. He was a leader in the multifamily space. And I said, hey, how is it going in this area of your business? He would teach people how to raise money, but they weren’t raising as much money themselves.

And so said, hey, what if I came up, I just kind of started asking questions. What if you had somebody kind of creating in this space with you? And it really led, I wasn’t planning on going this way, but it led to a partnership where he’s like, yeah, let’s do it. So then we partnered together and we did several deals together. had 1,000 one-on-one phone calls while still working my full-time job. So imagine I’m.

doing a lot of driving in the car. So I’d take him at six in the morning. I’d take him at noon. I’d take him between drive at home. Sometimes I’d take a Tuesday off and just do 20 calls back to back. You’re about things that, especially if you’re not feeling well, it’s a tough day. But I think just being willing to do whatever it takes. that’s, I was willing to say, OK, I’m going to do this for a couple of years like this. And then I know there’s going to be a payoff at the end. And so to me, sometimes you have to say, if I’m working 40 hours a week, am I willing to work 60?

Bronson Hill (09:00.206)
and do some of these other things, or maybe even dial down so my W2 is a little more flexible, because I said, well, I’ll do 25 here, and I’ll do 30 on this other thing. I was able to do that, and it allowed me to really create something with a really bright future.

Christian (09:12.117)
That’s awesome. I think there’s a big misconception too, where everyone just immediately wants to almost quit their day job, right? And it’s like, think if you, there’s so, there’s no excuse. I think you can always find time with what you’re doing as far as your work to also learn a new skillset, get involved in business, right? Put your reps in because there’s never really the perfect time, right? In anything. And just like you said, imagine if you never would have took that opportunity, you know, why you are still working, you know, medical sales to start getting involved in real estate, right? I mean,

That’s definitely a story, the fact that you put in that much time and sacrifice into it and it definitely paid off. It definitely paid off. So I’m interested to know, know, what do you look for in a multifamily deal, right? You’re heavily invested in multifamily. You know, what is your buy box? How do you manage your risk? You why don’t you talk about that?

Bronson Hill (09:48.941)
Yeah.

Bronson Hill (10:01.934)
Yeah, so we did a few multifamily deals last year, three or four. We took about a two year break. We’ve kind of been getting back into it more and more challenging just with cash flow. Honestly, lot of people, we really three things, three problems people are trying to solve as they come to us with. They’ll say we’re looking for cash flow appreciation or tax benefits or maybe a mix of those. And right now, it used to be the tax benefits were pretty good. So we’re having more challenges there because of the Trump era tax stuff has gone down to 40 % from 100%. So there’s not as much depreciation.

Secondly, there’s not a lot of cash flow. I do think it is a great, you know, it is still is a great long term investment. And so, you know, we do have other cash flow investments we’re doing, we’re doing oil and gas, a lot of businesses, but in multifamily, we’re typically looking at deals that, you know, have generally longer term fixed debt, or we just feel like, you know, it’s a much more conservative approach. We got burned in a couple deals where we put less down and valuations change, you know, just overnight, lot of people realize that single family has been pretty stable with a lot of multifamily properties.

went down by 30 or 40 % in value over two year period. And so if you put 20 % down, you’re upside down. So just about no matter what you did. So I think having stuff that you’re putting 30 or 40 % down, have a pretty strong operator you’re working with. And so we work with different partners. So I think in general, we always love the things population, job growth, income growth, those kind of things. But those things can change as well. So I think it’s just something that if you can have something that’s for the long term, it’s long term’s fixed.

Maybe we’re not getting a 17 % average annual return projection, but maybe maybe a 12 or 13 Some of this a little more conservative I think I think there’s a lot of room for upside that we really haven’t calculated for so I guess the the play here is If in when interest rates go down a lot of people think they’re gonna go down over the next 12 months If that is the case, then the value of these assets should rise pretty significantly, right? If not, we’re not saying it will happen, but it could happen, right? So I think there’s some positioning there. But again, it is a long-term play. It’s more of appreciation play

And I think it’s something that it does have a place in a lot of investors’ portfolios. I also think cash, other types of cash flow investments, which is hard to find in real estate, are also a good play right now as well.

Christian (12:05.397)
Sure. Awesome. Awesome. So I know you are an owner of the wealth forum, right? Which is your mastermind. So I’m interested to know, know, what are, could you maybe share some, you know, some of the biggest insight strategies that you’re currently teaching to people and what’s your, you know, what that group is about.

Bronson Hill (12:23.336)
Yeah, so the wealth forum, started it last year. It’s been awesome. We have just a small handful of people. And really, you know, these 2500 high net worth investors I’ve spoken with, I’m actually writing a second book called Rich Brain, how the wealthy change their brain to change their bank account. So just really what are the mindsets around wealth that keep us from being wealthy. And actually, it’s a very learnable thing. Most people think you’re either wealthy or you’re not, you’re either born with it or you’re not. But actually, the statistics show from a fidelity study in

19, it basically showed that 86 % of millionaires are self-made. it’s basically really actually the it’s more likely you did not come from wealth and became a millionaire than somebody who came from a millionaire family. also one thing that came out of this was just the idea of as a wealthy, high net worth person, which I determined that as somebody who’s accredited investor, a million, two million or more, we’ve got some that are are north of 20, 30 million in the group.

And just being around people that are kind of where you’re at, it’s very valuable. So if somebody’s high net worth, you go to a local meetup. A lot of people are tire kicking, or they’re just not in the same place, versus, hey, I want to invest in deals. I want to get cash flow. I want to get appreciation. I want to get these tax benefits. But I’m not quite sure who to trust or who these guys are. And everybody in finance is always selling something, including us. We’re trying to be well-meaning. We want everybody to do our deals. We’re excited about it. But the person who’s the best person for a passive investor to talk to,

is another passive investor that doesn’t have a dog in the fight. They’re just simply like, hey, I just want to share information. I want my investments to do well. want yours to do well. And a lot of wealthy people, don’t want to talk about money. They really don’t. So you get people of the same kind of crazy in the room, where they’re like, I want to network. I want to educate. I want to share, hey, I’ve invested with these guys for last 10 years, and it’s been awesome. And I highly recommend them. Or I know you’re thinking about this deal, but I’ve heard this, this, and this. I would avoid that. And those are just great conversations. They can save you a lot of money. They can open up new deals.

And so we do that. We do some virtual. do some in-person, some amazing guest speakers coming in. But that’s really the focus of it is just to truly try to build, like I said, what really helps grow your wealth. It’s your networking and your education. So that’s really an element that we do that for for high net worth investors.

Christian (14:27.637)
That’s great. That’s great. So how do you see the real estate market evolving in the next few years? Right? mean, what are some of the best opportunities that you’re looking at right now? And also maybe just potential opportunities that people should look out for this year.

Bronson Hill (14:42.158)
Um, yeah, I think I think in general, stuff that you know, is commercial or is longer term, I think is great. We do like multifamily, it will continue to be in demand, we believe. Personally, I’m actually also looking, I live, we were just talking before we started recording, I live in Pasadena, California, which we just had the fires recently. And so, you know, the palisades, this, which is a much more fancy area. And also, there’s the city of Alta Dena, which is nearby. There’s, you know, a lot of people, they don’t want to deal with rebuilding, I mean, it can take you years, and it’s a pain. And so about

30 to 50 % will just say, I’m just going to choose to sell. And so we like the idea of buying something there and potentially building out. And in California, you can build up to four on one lot, potentially. And so there’s some opportunity there. So I think there’s a lot of things. I think you got to figure out really what works for you. Really, I think the biggest question we always ask is, what are your goals? If you’re making over $200,000 a year, you’re a W-2 employee, I almost promise you your number one thing is to reduce your taxes. And so there are things like oil and gas that

you can reduce ordinary income at 80 to 85 % year one of what you invested in. You get some back end tax breaks as well. So again, no specific tax advice, but I just think it’s so good to look and say, and you know, in a state like California or a state like New York, you’re going to pay a lot in taxes. And so anyway, you can try to find a way to reduce it through incentives. They’re not loopholes. They’re incentives that the government provides. I think it’s a great way to go because you know, just as they don’t provide great housing, you look at what

government housing looks like it’s the projects, right? It’s in the hood. It’s not good, right? It’s not a good setup. Versus we provide, you know, multifamily housing or other projects that there’s incentives there. And the same with farming or energy related stuff. There’s a lot of incentives. So I think it’s really trying to figure out what your goals are. I think if somebody has a lot of cash, I do think multifamily self storage, industrial for the long term, it’s going to be good. It may not necessarily cash flow as much right now.

And if it’s short term, then find a way to get more active. Develop something, do some Airbnb, do something that’s a little bit, you see the cash coming in, something that you can take and really add some value to.

Christian (16:41.183)
Sure. I know you’re involved in multiple different businesses too. You you mentioned also you’re in the process of buying an econ business, I believe you said, right? And then also you’re an oil and gas. mean, Bronson, that’s quite a few different industries. I mean, how did you get involved with that?

Bronson Hill (16:55.426)
Yeah, so I wouldn’t be doing a lot of these without the right partner. So my goal, my understanding goal is also to fire myself, right, is to own everything and operate nothing. So I don’t want to be an operator necessarily. I want to have a partner that works well. So I have a great, a couple of great partners in the oil and gas space that I trust implicitly that I’ve known for years, right? I really value them, see the integrity. We’ve had multiple deals we’ve done together now and so it’s great. So I would love that. And then

For some of our other projects, like this e-commerce business, I have a partner who’s been in that space for years. And again, I wouldn’t be doing these projects if I didn’t have somebody that I really trusted that had the experience kind of in that space as well. But again, I think it comes down to what is the opportunity. With e-commerce, a lot of these businesses that are mid-sized businesses, for example, this one is $27 million in sales. And a cap rate, which is if you owned a property in cash,

as an investment property, what kind of income would you expect from it? So right now in multifamily, you’re looking at typically it could be higher or lower, but generally a five to seven cap rate. That’s kind of generally. if you paid in cash, you expect five to 7 % per year paid back to you, right? So that’s kind of what you’d expect. Well, for this e-commerce business, it’s like a 30 to 35 cap, right? So it’s just like six, seven times, you know, five to six, seven times as much, right? It’s just substantially higher than what the other stuff is. So again, it really comes back to what your goals are.

And again, I love real estate. love oil and gas. love business. I love different things. it depends on having to make sure you have the right partner, making sure you understand what the risks are. But I feel like once you’ve invested passively or you’ve been an investor for a while, it gives you a framework. And I talk about this in my book about how you can really analyze deals of any asset class. And it’s important to be honest about what you don’t know. And if something makes you feel uncomfortable, don’t do it. Just make sure that it’s understandable to you. But I think there’s a lot of great opportunities out there.

And I think it’s just so important to continue to keep learning and to be open.

Christian (18:44.821)
Definitely, definitely, definitely agree. It’s definitely, like you said, your partners are your greatest asset too, right? People that you can trust, they trust you as well, right? So let’s say for someone looking, you know, to just, they’re trying to scale their real estate portfolio. Obviously you have a huge portfolio now. You know, what’s the one piece of advice that you wish you had when you first started out on this adventure?

Bronson Hill (18:52.588)
Yeah, right.

Bronson Hill (19:06.968)
Well, think the biggest thing is, well, probably a couple of things. One is I wish I’d started younger. mean, those people I know that I wish I wasn’t 38 or something. Like, man, I should start doing this. And I did. I bought a house when I was 26. But I think I know people that are early mid-20s, and they’re doing big deals, and they’re just doing as much as they can. I think that’s huge is just getting started sooner. Another thing I think is if you want to be on the active side. So usually, if people come for money or they have money, then they’re like, OK, I can passively invest. But for a lot of people, they’ve got to kind of figure it out.

Christian (19:11.529)
Yeah.

Bronson Hill (19:34.51)
And so the idea of having a brand, right? You’re writing books or doing a podcast or doing YouTube or Instagram, having things that you do that add value. There’s so much value in that. It’s so much value. People think of you and having a brand value is a big deal. And then the last thing really is, is really having a mentor, right? Finding and going, approaching somebody. There’s a way you can do it. It’s not just, I think it’s, and I have different mentors for different things. I have some that help me with health and some that help me with, you know, spirituality or help me with, you know, business. And so I think it’s just going and trying to find something that’s mutually helpful.

And so it’s not just like, I want you to pour into me. It’s like, hey, is there a way that we can, like I can come and add value here or add value to you or that I’m looking to do this. Can I, you know, I just would love to meet with you periodically or can I email you questions or ask you? And a of people are very open to it, but you have to be kind of careful how you ask and really what exactly you’re looking for. But I think having mentors is great. A lot of people are open to mentor, especially if they’re older than you, or maybe they’ve already achieved what they want to in life. And so I think finding a great mentor is valuable as well.

Christian (20:30.197)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I appreciate you sharing. So let’s talk about that too. How can people find you? How can people work with you? Why don’t you share a little bit of information on that? You’re doing a lot of cool things.

Bronson Hill (20:38.626)
Yeah. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Yeah. So the best way I have this report that I wrote, it’s called, it’s about, you know, basically inflation. A lot of times we’re saying, oh, inflation is low or it’s coming down, whatever. I still think it’s higher than the 3 % they report. And so instead of being having the pain at the pump or the pain at the grocery store, if it’s just things costing more and more, you can be on the other side of the equation where you actually benefit and you can actually use it to your advantage. And so I wrote this book. It’s an ebook called How to Use Inflation to Your Advantage. And I’ll give it to your audience for free.

So if you text the word inflation to 33777, 33777, text the word inflation, I’ll send that to you for free. And you can hear about it. We’ll send you kind of our upcoming stuff and stuff that’s happening. But really appreciate you having me today, Christian. This has been a lot of fun.

Christian (21:20.853)
It’s been a blast man. I appreciate your time so much and I know the audience is gonna really enjoy this as well I definitely learned a lot and I’m definitely gonna be texting that number because I want that book too So be sure to check that out guys Bronson. It’s been an absolute pleasure my friend. We’d love to have you again on in the future Guys, hope everyone enjoyed the show and as always we will see you on the next episode. Take care everybody

Bronson Hill (21:30.317)
So.