Turn Your Legacy into Profitable Assets

Michael Stansbury (00:20.143)
Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Mike Stansbury and today I have a special guest in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Miss Courtney Brenner. How are you Miss Courtney?

Courtney M. Brenner (00:33.646)
doing great Mike, it’s 75 degrees, that’s awesome, how are you?

Michael Stansbury (00:37.595)
That’s great. yeah, summer’s coming. Spring’s here. Summer’s coming. Folks, the Real Estate Pros podcast is brought to you by Investor Fuel. We help real estate investors serve as providers and real estate entrepreneurs 2 5X their business to allow them to build a business they’ve always wanted and allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. And again, we’ve got the pro today in Real Estate Pros podcast. you got to start with the origin story of how you got in real estate. What were you doing beforehand and how did you navigate into the into the world of real estate?

Courtney M. Brenner (01:08.942)
Absolutely. So I got my bachelor’s degree and just wanted to move to Boston. So I moved to Boston with my college roommate and I was on the fence about law school. So I decided to work in the industry for a year. Got a job right downtown in that amazing city as a paralegal and decided immediately I wanted to go to

school the following year. So I did. And the experience I got at that law firm was largely estate planning, a little bit of probate. And of course, with all of that comes a ton of real estate. I kind of dove right in right after college, which should I tell you how long ago that was? been a while. It’s been a minute. It’s 25, 26 years. So I’ve been, you know, in

Michael Stansbury (01:54.83)
We can keep it, we say it was a while ago, that’s it, yeah.

Courtney M. Brenner (02:02.736)
real estate in one way or the other since 1999, last century. And went to law school, my practice was largely probate, inheritance tax, real estate, corporate transaction, very transactional. And just as a natural progression, I ended up getting my real estate license and now I do that in property management.

Michael Stansbury (02:25.213)
Okay so, but you’re in law, so you do have a law degree, correct? You’re hearing that right? Okay, so you have a law degree, but you’re in property management, so I have to beg the question, is it just a lot more fun? I mean, what’s, why?

Courtney M. Brenner (02:29.43)
I do. I do. Yeah.

Courtney M. Brenner (02:38.656)
It is. It is more fun. It’s a lot more fun. I very much loved the traditional practice of law, if you will, which I did for several years right out of law school. But I think I just have a more entrepreneurial spirit. And that wasn’t so much for me. This is a lot more my speed. So I love it.

Michael Stansbury (02:41.948)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (03:01.341)
So in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, did you ever have a desire to own a title company or do closings or did you ever do that for a little bit since you had your law degree? In Tennessee, where I’m from, you have to have an attorney, it’s attorney state, so I just didn’t know if that was something that you ever dipped your toe in.

Courtney M. Brenner (03:19.702)
I did. I did residential, commercial closings. did refinances. I did a little bit of everything.

In Pennsylvania, you don’t have to have a law degree or being an attorney to be a title agent. In fact, a lot of the best closers I work with around here are not lawyers, and that’s perfectly fine. Most people prefer that. yeah, I definitely did my toe into closings and refinances when I was doing the transactional work. I did get my title insurance license many moons ago. Ended up kind of going into

to a different direction and didn’t really use it. let it lapse. But doing closings is not really where my passion is. I leave that to the other real estate pros.

Michael Stansbury (04:04.945)
Right?

Michael Stansbury (04:08.261)
Yeah, you know, so what you define there is you have more of an entrepreneurial spirit and I can see the avatar for somebody that likes to do closings is because I’m at the closing table a lot for doing deals and I can see exactly what you’re saying. It’s like if somebody that wants to be is okay with being shackled, guess, or tied to a desk and going over paperwork and this is their thing. There are plenty of people like that. But if you’ve got that inkling to be outside or to do something else or what you defined as an entrepreneurial spirit,

Courtney M. Brenner (04:30.103)
I’m sorry.

Michael Stansbury (04:37.981)
That is, you know, that’s just different. It’s just a different genre.

Courtney M. Brenner (04:41.806)
Absolutely. Absolutely. How many times can you handle getting, where’s my HUD emails? So it’s just not where my heart lies.

Michael Stansbury (04:52.017)
Well, the other thing you said that I see is true in my market is we do have to have attorneys, but there’s these workarounds and the title agents that are really entrepreneur or go-getters, they’re not at the table. They’re letting somebody else take care of that and they’re going out there and getting the business. So I definitely see exactly what you’re talking about. So from there, so you made the transition. Did you go out on your own or what did that transition look like? If you were to look at it.

Courtney M. Brenner (05:17.432)
We have it.

Michael Stansbury (05:20.101)
and kind of tell the story, you know, how did that transition happen?

Courtney M. Brenner (05:26.51)
Yeah, so I was working doing estate planning, wills and trusts, you know, everybody thinks it’s morbid. I loved it. And I am an investor myself. So I had acquired a large commercial property, mixed use, but commercial. And it needed a ton of renovation and it was really a full-time job, just property or project managing that.

So I ended up kind of going out on my own full time when I acquired that building and I want to say it was about 2012, 2014-ish. And I was doing that full time for myself, you know, managed all my other properties and then…

Just a natural progression, got my real estate agent license, then became a broker, opened my own, got some more clients for the property management, opened a property management company, and here we are.

Michael Stansbury (06:26.459)
Here we are today. So how long has that, so it’s been since 2012 when you get the genesis of you got your building and you learned the ropes of managing property and then you decided, okay, you acquired more property and then you decided to offer that as a solution to other people that had property. Yeah.

Courtney M. Brenner (06:38.606)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney M. Brenner (06:44.174)
Exactly. I got my real estate agent license in 2017 and I became a broker last year in 2024. So now I have my own agency and my own property management company, not just for my own properties anymore, but now I take on clients.

Michael Stansbury (06:59.229)
Gotcha. so how did you start marketing yourself? How did people get to know Courtney and her superpowers?

Courtney M. Brenner (07:08.728)
Well, fortunately, being from a smaller area, you can’t really throw a rock around here without hitting someone you know or someone your parent knows. That’s why you always have to behave. That’s what I say. So yeah, mean, a lot of it was, know, sphere of influence, SOI, and, you know, social media.

You know, there’s pros and cons to that, you know, for business purposes, you’re really able to get your name, your likeness out there, and just kind of, you know, start building a brand. I mean, you are the brand, which is different.

But you’re the brand. So just getting your name and your face and your skill set out there. LinkedIn has been great. I use Facebook a lot. I have a business page on Facebook. And I just kind of post what I’m up to and how I think I can bring value to people. so far, it’s been working.

Michael Stansbury (08:05.533)
That’s awesome. So basically one of the things that we’re able to do today is get our message out there online. And then the sphere of influence is big. It’s just, hey, people that know you know your journey and know you’re going into property management and they’re able to refer you a business. what does your business look like these days? How many…

properties are we managing and what’s your team look like? you use any, how do you use assistance? Some people are heavy on virtual assistance. Some people are like, no, we use people that are here in the States. What’s that look like for you?

Courtney M. Brenner (08:45.454)
Yeah, so I just started my own brokerage, you know, gosh, 2024. It’s barely six months. So I’m a one man show in one woman show in that regard.

Looking to build the team though. mean any agent with no experience or more experience than me welcome to join me Great transaction coordinator who was a realtor and is a very specialized appeals paralegal He’s amazing Other than that I do it on my own. I do it on my own

Michael Stansbury (09:20.699)
You just, okay, gotcha. Yeah, that is, I remember being, I had a property management company for, I tried to flip houses, have a property management company, and have a roofing company, hold on here, and then help other flippers with their construction. And I found that I was not good at any of them except one, which was flipping my own houses. I was okay at.

Courtney M. Brenner (09:45.397)
huh. huh.

Michael Stansbury (09:47.953)
property management, was okay at roofing, and I was just okay at the other things. But I was really good at flipping my own houses. And it wasn’t until I just got art, that took three years, I had a coach that told me, said, yeah, you know what, here’s the thing. You’re making a little bit of money on each one, but you’re not making really a good income altogether. But if you focused on one thing, just you, just headlong in that, you’d do really, really well. It took me about six months to pull the trigger, and

close all those things down and just concentrate on that one thing that I’m good at and then things just started happening from there. It’s amazing what focus can do for you. yeah. So what are some of the challenges that you have in your market right now? What does that look like?

Courtney M. Brenner (10:21.752)
Yeah.

Courtney M. Brenner (10:26.583)
It enriches.

Courtney M. Brenner (10:36.472)
think marketing challenges for me personally is, you know, I’m not a millennial. I’m old. I was born in the 70s. I’m pushing 50. So, you know, there’s AI stuff and, you know, I feel like my mom right now, but…

I think I do my best with social media and Canva and Instagram and whatnot. I have a company right now who’s building me a website because I have no idea where to even start with that. All I know is GoDaddy, how to purchase the URL. That’s all I know. So I have a team building a website and I’ve signed up for some marketing coaching, which has been great.

But I think that’s probably my weakness in terms of branding is just I’m not, I’m like kinda high tech, but I’m not super tech savvy, you know, with all this new stuff that’s coming out. So that’s probably where my weaknesses lie.

Michael Stansbury (11:36.943)
Yes, I can identify with that. So I think we’re probably in the same generation. So I think the weakness that you and I share is at the speed at which somebody that’s 20 years younger can do something and put it online and get it out there. And it looks a lot better. And we’re thinking about this thing for an hour and a half before we put it out. But it is a challenge. one of the things I was looking at today is I’m using AI, but I don’t think I’m using it to the utmost.

Courtney M. Brenner (11:54.392)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Stansbury (12:05.639)
but I do know that that’s where things are headed and so I’ve got to do my best to just stay on top of that. I have used it really for a lot of different things that have been really great production, productivity hacks. So I’m interested in what that will look like here in the near future. But you also, so we talked about probate and inherited homes and that’s something that you, it’s kind of been a niche for you. So you’ve helped people with, you helped it in your.

Courtney M. Brenner (12:11.914)
Absolutely.

Courtney M. Brenner (12:31.598)
Thank

Michael Stansbury (12:34.117)
your attorney life and then do you do that still now with inherited properties? How are you reaching out to those people and helping those folks with their, if they were an inherited home from grandma or grandpa or mom or dad, what’s that look like for you?

Courtney M. Brenner (12:47.938)
Right, so a lot of local attorneys who I’ve worked with over the many, many years, I’m very fortunate. They respect my experience and my education, and they send me clients who they are probating a state’s for. If they are inheriting something that they just don’t want or don’t need, excuse me, I’m very fortunate that a lot of local attorneys send me referrals and clients.

that they’re working with in the probate process or even in the estate planning process earlier in real estate is kind of everywhere in law. So very fortunate with that. then I try to really promote myself with, it might sound crazy, but funeral homes and funeral directors who see people who may not have a gigantic estate and need a

attorney but may have a property that they don’t want and want to sell. So you know I just try to you know maintain my authenticity and just kind of you know rely on people locally who are familiar enough with me and and trust me with with their own clients.

Michael Stansbury (14:13.051)
So, you know, the process of inheriting a home or even as somebody, when somebody dies and they have the estate, they have an asset like a house to sell. It’s always interesting to me that the, when you have an estate attorney and they refer you, because I’m a little bit like you, I get referred out by estate attorneys because they know that you Courtney are going to handle this with the proper care and attention that it’s handled.

You’re not just going to go in there and just try and do a chop shop and say, OK, here’s what I can pay for your house. Here’s what we can do. You’re going there to kind of shoulder to shoulder with these people, very empathetic, and trying to see if you’re the solution. Now, are you an investor that will purchase these houses, or are you pointing them towards somebody that can solve that problem?

Courtney M. Brenner (14:40.205)
Right.

Courtney M. Brenner (14:45.964)
huh.

Courtney M. Brenner (14:50.956)
You

Courtney M. Brenner (15:00.654)
No, I’m not an investor in that regard, but I can either point them in the direction of investors who I know would be interested in buying their properties, particularly if it’s a blighted property or terribly run down and needs either to be flipped or dismantled completely. I have lot of contacts who buy properties like that. I have some other investor contacts who could buy a $400,000 a half million dollar inherited property.

Or I can simply just list it on the local MLS, you know, as a traditional listing and find them a buyer that way. So depending on the situation, can steer them in the right direction.

Michael Stansbury (15:43.069)
Okay, well I want to go through this a little bit. So again, I’m going to throw some spaghetti at the wall with you on these questions. you’re somebody that they trust, and they refer you to these folks, and you’re not, do you never take down these properties yourself? You never offer that as a solution? I am a real estate investor, I may be able to help you and buy this property from you for a certain price. Does that never happen in those instances?

Courtney M. Brenner (16:10.816)
It hasn’t happened. It’s not that it wouldn’t or couldn’t. mean, if the situation, you know, if everything, if all the stars lined up and the property and the price were right and it worked out, I’d be happy to buy an inherited property that someone didn’t want, you know, then I could rent it out and make income or flip it, what have you. That situation hasn’t arisen for me yet. Typically, I either find them someone who buys cash properties or, like I said, just list it kind of traditionally and find them a buyer.

Michael Stansbury (16:40.509)
Gotcha. So you get paid on the brokerage of that. All right. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. And you’ve written a book, I think in the back. is that basically for mostly in Pennsylvania or is that just a marketing piece? me about that.

Courtney M. Brenner (16:40.72)
with.

Courtney M. Brenner (16:44.095)
Yeah.

Courtney M. Brenner (16:56.618)
Yeah, so it’s ghostwritten. I commissioned it and I just got it not too long ago, so it’s sitting there proudly on my desk. I’m going to share it with, as I mentioned before, some of those local probate attorneys, funeral home supervisors, clients who I know have inherited a property and are kind of looking for a little bit of advice. So I’m here to help. I’m a helper. That’s what I’m here to do.

Michael Stansbury (17:26.267)
Yeah, well I like that, because I know that you run into this, is because sometimes you’re dealing with people that haven’t had a real estate transaction in 20, 30, even 40 years. They’ve had the house for a long time and so they just, they don’t know what they don’t know. And you know, what’s good about having that as kind of not just a marketing piece, but just something that they can help them, hey, this is the process, this is what you’re looking at. This is how this is probably gonna work out, is a great tool.

Courtney M. Brenner (17:26.512)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (17:55.697)
And I’m sure it kind of them and helps you because it helps you become the authority on how to navigate the inherited home. I love it. All right. So what else in your life is, so you lived in Massachusetts. What caused you to move back to Pennsylvania? Pennsylvania home? What’s the origin story? Why Courtney in Pennsylvania and not Massachusetts if you love Boston so much?

Courtney M. Brenner (18:06.572)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Courtney M. Brenner (18:25.88)
I know, go Red Sox. Everybody always says, why did you come back? But I mean, this is home. This is where my family is. This is where everybody is. So I just decided instead of staying in Massachusetts after law school for two years, five years, why start at a law firm there just to leave in the future? So I came right back. I found my dream job out of law school in Kingston, Pennsylvania, my hometown, which is super tiny.

and you know, kind of went from there. But I get that question a lot. know, it’s like, oh, I’m from here, I went away for eight years for education, know, Boston, blah, blah, and then I came back and people just say, why? Family, I mean, that’s only thing I can, that’s the only answer I have.

Michael Stansbury (19:13.191)
Yeah.

Well, no, that’s good. I can see that. We live where we live because we got a lot of family by, and I think it makes life a lot more enjoyable when you have close family by. However, you said, go Red Sox. You’re from Pennsylvania. don’t get it. Pittsburgh or the Philadelphia? How did this all happen? You only went to Boston for law school. How did you become a Red Sox fan?

Courtney M. Brenner (19:34.51)
No, well, I became a Red Sox fan because they’ll kick you out of Boston if you’re not. It’s also, well, I’m convinced it’s in the water. I grew up a Mets fan. Not a fan of Philly sports. I’m not an Eagles fan. I’m not a Philly fan. Grew up here, but a Mets fan.

Michael Stansbury (20:00.807)
Was that because your dad was your dad a Mets fan or how did that shake out?

Courtney M. Brenner (20:03.662)
No, no, my dad is a boxing fan. He’s not really a sports guy. I just kind of was watching the World Series in probably about 1986, 1987 when I was nine, 10 years old. Yeah, yeah, know, Gary Carver was my hero and, you know, Daryl Strawberry, know, Lenny Dykstra. could go on and on. So was a Metz Die Hard until 99 when I went to Boston. Yes.

Michael Stansbury (20:15.517)
With Bill Buckner, yes, yeah, absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Stansbury (20:27.867)
Jesse Orozco, yes, they had some great players on their team. I’m a Cardinal fan, and in the 80s we hated each other. We hated the Mets. The Cardinals were probably bigger rivals, as much so as the Cubs and the Cardinals. But I remember, what’s that?

Courtney M. Brenner (20:32.814)
He has three teens.

Courtney M. Brenner (20:40.066)
Yeah.

Courtney M. Brenner (20:46.284)
The biggest question for New England sports is do you think Tom Brady is the GOAT or not? That’s the big question.

Michael Stansbury (20:58.459)
Yeah, yeah. And you would side with him being the goat, correct?

Courtney M. Brenner (21:03.854)
100 % yes.

Michael Stansbury (21:05.423)
Yeah, absolutely. He’s definitely the best quarterback of all time. There’s no doubt about it. And I’m a guy that’s, I have nothing to do with the Northeast at all, but I can recognize greatness. He’s pretty great.

Courtney M. Brenner (21:19.574)
Right. was fortunate enough to be in Boston when he won his first Super Bowl with the Pats. And it was like negative 12. It was the coldest day of the winter thus far that year. And I waited outside, outside for an hour for the victory parade to come down Commonwealth Avenue. It was like a block away from my law school. And it just happened to be between lunch and classes and everything. So a couple of friends and I waited outside.

Michael Stansbury (21:25.02)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney M. Brenner (21:49.47)
Got to see Bella Chick and Brady and everybody go down Com Have on the duck boats. It was amazing. was absolutely amazing. Cold, but awesome.

Michael Stansbury (21:57.979)
Yeah, yeah, you’ll never forget it. Those are fun. When your team wins either the Super Bowl or the World Series, there’s just nothing like it, especially a parade like that. I’m a college basketball fan. went to the University of Arkansas around the same time, and we won the national championship in basketball. And this was 94, something less, a long time ago. And it was such a cool thing to be on campus for something like that.

Courtney M. Brenner (22:07.15)
Yeah. I like it. Yeah.

Courtney M. Brenner (22:15.982)
you

Courtney M. Brenner (22:21.622)
Nice.

Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (22:27.865)
So yeah, so not a Mets fan anymore, Boston, you’re Red Sox fan, right? Or are we still?

Courtney M. Brenner (22:36.328)
You know, the best will always be in my heart a little bit, but yeah, I’m all red sex right now. So I have to say it. Yankees suck. I have to say it.

Michael Stansbury (22:41.213)
Yeah, absolutely. Courtney, love where this went. Obviously, I love sports. It’s so much fun. you know, so we did talk about this, and one of the things is that we all struggle with is, or that we’re all learning more about is marketing and, you know, marketing and work-life balance. Let’s go into work-life balance.

Courtney M. Brenner (22:50.644)
Me too.

Michael Stansbury (23:09.917)
Is that a struggle for you? Do you feel like you got that locked in or you feel like, I’m working all the time? How does that look like in your life and property management world?

Courtney M. Brenner (23:20.046)
I think I’m managing it. I’m not sure my fiance would agree with you or with me. The thing about property management is I don’t think tenants understand boundaries. And I get it. You’re renting, you’re paying hard-earned money to live. It’s your home. You want everything to be as perfect as you can. And I get that. Now, obviously, an active leak is a legit emergency. But there’s a lot of texts or messages.

I get, you know, at one o’clock, two o’clock, five o’clock in the morning, midnight, you know, on Christmas Day. That, probably could have waited until the next morning, you know. So my phone is pretty much my third arm, you know, and if I get a notification, you know, whether it’s a text or an email, like I just feel this.

this compulsion to check it immediately, to make sure it’s not a tenant experiencing some type of emergency. You know, my family members don’t necessarily love that, but I just think in order to do an appropriately good job, you you kind of have to be connected.

Michael Stansbury (24:29.509)
Right, yeah, think that we, I think it’s our fault. We wire ourselves that way. I mean, if we were to go like, you know, we could, we could act like this is supposed to be just a collection device and not a prompt device, which we have a choice. But I’m sure that your customers, your tenants love the fact that you respond to them right away, which is good.

Courtney M. Brenner (24:44.588)
huh.

Courtney M. Brenner (24:51.81)
Thank you.

If it’s two in the morning, they’re not getting an immediate response. I can take that much. yeah, mean, and you know, some people work over overnight or third shift or swing shift. And I understand that, you know, life isn’t nine to five. And that’s just that’s just the nature of this industry. Even even just, you know, being a real estate agent or real estate broker. You know, somebody might need to see a house on a Friday night or a Sunday morning. And, you know, that’s just where we make our own schedules for the most part. But we really are at the mercy of our clients.

you know, happy to do it, happy to do

Michael Stansbury (25:26.043)
Yes ma’am. Well, Ms. Courtney, where can, if people want to, are in that mark, in your market and they need property management, where can they find you?

Courtney M. Brenner (25:33.806)
Awesome, so my brokerage is the Brenner Agency and my cell phone number or my third arm number is 570-885-3265. You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, Courtney M. Brenner. And the property management company is called Manage 570. That’s our…

our telephone exchange around here. So yeah, you can just find me online. The website is coming, thebrenneragency.com. is coming, but it’s social media and my cell phone is just the best way to reach me for now.

Michael Stansbury (26:11.677)
Well Courtney, thank you for being on the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I very much appreciate hearing your story. Folks, thanks for watching and remember the Real Estate Pros Podcast, you can like and subscribe. It’s brought to you by Investor Fuel. We’ll talk to you next time. We’ll see you next episode.

Courtney M. Brenner (26:17.08)
Thank you.