Building a Real Estate Ecosystem: Your Path to Financial Freedom

Brett McCollum (00:00.7)
Alright guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Brett McCollum and I’m here today with Wayne Brooks. Today we’re going to be talking about a real estate ecosystem. But before we do, at Investor Fuel we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to 5x their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted and live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Without further ado, Wayne, how are you, man?

Wayne Brooks (00:23.96)
What’s going on, man? Thanks for having me.

Brett McCollum (00:25.664)
Dude, I’m excited to be here with you. We got to catch up a little bit before the show here. Both of us from the, call it, well, not your motherland, but from my motherland of Ohio. But let’s do the audience a favor here. let’s pull back the curtains a little bit, let people behind the scenes. Who is Wayne Brooks?

Wayne Brooks (00:36.76)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (00:45.326)
Yeah, man, thanks for the quick intro. Just to dive in a little bit deeper, I am a real estate investor here in Northeast Ohio. I’m not from Northeast Ohio originally, though. I was born and raised in Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica. And I moved to the US in, I want to say, 2010 officially. I was living in Florida for a couple years, went back to Jamaica because I just couldn’t really find my footing, find my rhythm, and then

found Cleveland in 2014 and been here ever since and I’ve just been tinkering away doing real estate deals and you know here we are today so.

Brett McCollum (01:25.002)
Okay, I have to ask, because I’m from Ohio, originally, natively. I’m about an hour south of where you are is where my family’s all at still to this day.

You moved at one point, and you’re from Jamaica, and you moved to Florida even, you know that the South exists. You know that no snow exists. This is my joke to my family all the time, by the way, Wayne. You know that, how do you land in Cleveland?

Wayne Brooks (01:44.622)
I do.

Wayne Brooks (01:53.506)
mean, dude, I was born by the beach and with sun and all that stuff. So I’m used to warm weather, right? I actually never experienced living in snow and having the seasons change. It’s summer all year round in Jamaica, right? So it was kind of, it was a tough adjustment, but it was also like a challenge. And it was just cool to come to a state where.

Brett McCollum (01:55.827)
Yeah!

Brett McCollum (02:09.205)
Right.

Wayne Brooks (02:19.5)
You could just watch things change all the time. I think where I was in my life at the time, I wanted a change anyway. And I wanted something to kind of push me and do something different and get out of my comfort zone. So that’s kind of how I looked at it. And so I always said, when it got cold, I’m like, I’m warm in my mind. I’m warm in my heart.

Brett McCollum (02:26.368)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (02:39.178)
Yeah, right? Man, I have memories of like, shuffling out of like, of our home. Like literally, I was the like, the smallest one in the family. So they would push me out the window and then grab a shovel to shovel out our doors because of blizzards and such, you know? And I’m like, golly man, me, I’m like, I’m not going back. Florida doesn’t, we don’t get that. don’t, also, sorry, this is a fun, just random thing, Wayne.

This past year, this winter, Florida got 12 inches of snow. Can you believe that?

Wayne Brooks (03:14.83)
Well, you know, my brother moved from Florida to Atlanta and you know, he was like, I’m not moving to Cleveland. It gets too cold there. It’s too it’s too there’s too much snow only to see him shoveling his driveway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was cool.

Brett McCollum (03:26.646)
Right? That’s what I’m saying, man. It’s like, it’s crazy. yeah, all right. Yeah, so you grew up in Jamaica. How old were you when you moved originally? So that first move to Florida, how old were you?

Wayne Brooks (03:40.302)
That first move to Florida I was 21

Brett McCollum (03:43.83)
21, okay, and then back to Jamaica, and then back to Cleveland, and then around about how old were you when you finally made that leap?

Wayne Brooks (03:52.718)
Moved to Cleveland. was officially, I was about 23 going on 24. So yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (03:58.39)
Okay, so kind of all around that same kind of time in life. Okay, very, very fair.

Were you, at that point in your life, what were you like, you’re trying to find your footing, you mentioned, what was that, what does that mean?

Wayne Brooks (04:16.856)
Well, was going, like I said, I was kind of back and forth, right? So at first I moved to the US and then I just, didn’t find real estate yet. So was kind of like exploring other careers. I kind of always have been a serial entrepreneur. So I’ve never really had a job, right? So I was kind of always exploring different ventures and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. lived in Florida in the Orlando area actually for

Brett McCollum (04:46.069)
Okay.

Wayne Brooks (04:46.702)
you know, couple of years. And like I said, I was kind of going back and forth between, you know, living in Jamaica still or living in Florida. And, my family had a business in Jamaica that I kind of was very integral in, you know, running and keeping growing. And so I was doing that. But I always knew I wanted to do something like for myself, something that I own, something that I created and

One of the things I always observed about, you know, very wealthy people around me was they all own some type of real estate. They all got involved in some type of real estate. Even they had a business, they still was like, he also owns that building or he also owns that property there or whatever. And yeah, I kind of stumbled on Cleveland after that, you know, after I was talking to a buddy of mine that I was doing business with and he said his him and his uncle were flipping houses in Cleveland, Ohio.

Brett McCollum (05:22.09)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (05:29.504)
Sure.

Wayne Brooks (05:41.71)
do nothing about it. I’m a risk taker. I’m a spontaneous kind of dude. Like if you tell me to go to Alaska, because there’s some cool opportunity there, I’m probably going to get on the plane and go. That’s kind of how I am. So that’s kind of just how I fell into it. Exploring and trying to find what felt right at the time. I had the freedom to do that. So I was kind of weighing my options and I landed on Cleveland.

Brett McCollum (05:52.178)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (06:07.99)
Wow, very cool. Yeah, and again, I’m just making the joke since my whole family’s from there and raised there and all that. So it’s like, I always joke with them. We’re hopping on the phone and right about November 1st, they’re like, my God, they start the complaining process, you know, and they’re like, it’s starting, the skies are turning gray already. And I’m like, dude, there is a state literally called the Sunshine State. You know that, right? Like you’re allowed to come here. You know, that’s my ironic joke, man, but very cool.

Wayne Brooks (06:13.687)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (06:37.75)
What year was it when you finally, okay, I landed in Cleveland. When was that, you said it 2014, did I catch that? And then when did you really dip your toe in the water into real estate at the same time?

Wayne Brooks (06:44.824)
Correct, 2014.

Wayne Brooks (06:52.814)
So I moved to Cleveland in 2014 full time. The first time I discovered Cleveland was in 2013. And I just came to visit on a random trip. I came in June to visit on a random trip. And I ended up buying a house on that very first trip. Just because of how cheap the real estate was back then, how accessible it was, inventory was everywhere. was kind of like, and I think it was the same in Florida. During 2010, 2011, you could pick up.

Brett McCollum (07:08.427)
Delay.

Bye.

Wayne Brooks (07:19.822)
know, stuff for peanuts, even in Florida. But I wasn’t really looking at that market the way I was, you know, the way I probably should have been. But in 2013, I moved to I flew to Cleveland, visited and bought a property on the very first trip. And that property kind of just like taught me everything I needed to know. And, you know, that’s where the journey really began. But like, far as settling that happened in 2014.

Brett McCollum (07:22.122)
here.

Brett McCollum (07:44.886)
Okay. Yeah, I mean, because, you we talked about, you flipped a lot of houses since then, man, you’ve done a lot, you know, so when did you really kind of start getting into the full time side of the real estate business?

Wayne Brooks (07:52.332)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (07:59.726)
I would say when I moved and landed in Cleveland, I already owned a property that I was still in the middle of trying to stabilize. I was dealing with a lot of issues with the city. And I had to borrow money to try to get the property renovated. I didn’t know anything about the process. I never used a title company before. I didn’t use a realtor. I just

Brett McCollum (08:08.075)
Mm-hmm.

Wayne Brooks (08:27.18)
you know, some guy pointed to a house said that you could buy it for 15,000 bucks. I went to the bank got him a cashier’s check. He gave me a piece of paper and said, Hey, this is your deed. Go, go to this address and, go record it. And so I did that manual process, you know, I didn’t know about the whole, you know, what a purchase agreement should look like, whatever, you know, so I went through all that and

Brett McCollum (08:39.466)
Go record it. Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (08:52.404)
Afterwards, you know, I kind of got frustrated and you know because I running into some roadblocks with that deal and I wanted to get out and Craigslist back then was like still a really hot thing. I posted the house on Craigslist and This guy from Israel calls me out of state Yeah, so this guy from Israel calls me and it’s like hey I want to buy that house and I’m like sure it’s yours take it and Then you know, he’s like tell me a little bit of more about it, you know a little bit more about you What’s going on blah blah

Brett McCollum (09:02.42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (09:08.662)
That sounds right also. Yep

Wayne Brooks (09:22.382)
I’m like, dude, stop interviewing. Just you want to buy the house or not. But then we kept talking. He called me the following day. We talked a little bit more. out like he’s one first thing. He’s one of my best friends today. But then it turns out that he was like a mentor for a lot for a lot of other investors. He had like 100 students of people that he taught how to invest in real estate in America. And Cleveland was his primary market at the time. And he’s like, well,

Brett McCollum (09:45.482)
Wow.

Wayne Brooks (09:48.942)
How about this? How about you don’t sell that house? How about I how about you help me buy more houses for my students and clients? And we’ll just figure this stuff out together. And at the time I was kind of just here trying to find my way at the same time. And I’m like, I really just want to sell this house. But once again, I’m a risk taker. I’m a guy that I don’t see no opportunity. And that’s kind of where my full time real estate

journey began like I started looking at deals. started sending him stuff that I was finding and say hey does this look like something that you guys want to buy and back and forth and next thing I know we’re doing you know five ten deals a month with his his community.

Brett McCollum (10:29.47)
Incredible. What an… That is a story and a half right there, friend. Alright, so… Isn’t it interesting that birth out of frustration, out of angst, out of that comes the very thing that you need.

Wayne Brooks (10:45.166)
comes opportunity. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (10:48.168)
It’s the cliche, know, where do you find a pearl? You know, you got to, it’s made out of, it’s over time in pressure, diamonds, you know, from coal, you know, out of pressure, you know. How interesting, I love that story, man. So, and to this day you say he’s one of your best friends, is that right? That, how absolutely special is that? You know, that’s so cool.

Wayne Brooks (10:53.656)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (10:59.512)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (11:07.682)
yeah, definitely.

Brett McCollum (11:13.906)
I love that you said to me, like, interviewing me, man. Like, just buy the house or don’t.

Wayne Brooks (11:18.124)
I was just frustrated at the time, man. I was I was what you call the motivated seller at the time, for sure. You know, that’s before I even understood what that meant. What, you know, wholesaling was what motivation was what any Rafi Rafi

Brett McCollum (11:22.804)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (11:31.732)
What’s his name? Rafi. What did Rafi say to you ultimately that made you go, okay.

Wayne Brooks (11:41.774)
You know, I think it was just his persistence, man. He was just very, very he basically was like, you know, he’s like, I’m like, what price do you want in the house for? He’s like, I don’t want to buy it. I’m like, I’m like, dude, I’ll give you a great price. Like you name your price and it’s yours because I was done literally mentally. He’s like, I don’t want to buy it. Go sell to somebody else. And I’m like, this guy’s a lunatic. know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett McCollum (12:03.062)
But you were drawn to that too to some degree, right? Because you kept talking to him, right? It’s like, dude, what does that even mean? Yeah, I love that. That’s so good. What a foresight from Rafi, though, to see something in you, though, that said, I’m going to stay persistent and talk clean.

Wayne Brooks (12:16.641)
Yeah, I mean, I’m telling you, the guy definitely changed my life. mean, even where I guess and when I say we’re best friends, we spoke on stage together even a little under a year ago at a conference in Jamaica, speaking to the same people that, yeah, people who are just like me who didn’t know that they could do it from out of state or out of the country and invest in real estate in America. And, you know, it came full circle. We talked about a lot of things over the last 10 years and

Brett McCollum (12:31.22)
No way.

Wayne Brooks (12:44.728)
You know, we’ve done hundreds of deals together at this point and then we got to actually like educate people together on stage, which was really cool. Yeah, it was a cool full circle moment. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (12:50.102)
Very like that full circle high cut. That’s super cool. want to do that’s really amazing. Okay, this is a great transition point. So you’re mentioning talking about international but like today what is business look like for you because you started off you got the one houses and now you’re kind of I’m imagining you were wholesaling for a while there is what it kind of sounds like and then you eventually you started flipping houses too and like kind of bring it up bring it up to current for me.

Wayne Brooks (13:14.828)
Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, I started off just like I said, as pretty much started off, not even realizing that I was wholesaling. Right. I didn’t know what wholesaling was, even though that’s what I was essentially doing, which was passing, was flipping paper, getting stuff under contract, passing it off for a finder’s fee. It was already predetermined properties and buyers.

Brett McCollum (13:27.061)
Right.

Wayne Brooks (13:42.44)
sitting waiting waiting for us to find them the next deal. So it’s like we just kind of had like a transaction, a flat transaction fee per deal. And we had a rotation, you know, we had the same attorney, we had the same contractors, we had the same property managers, we send them through the same process each and every time. And, you know, we just had that going. Because, like I said, back then, inventory was much easier to find. So that’s kind of how I really got into the flow of doing a lot of transactions.

Afterwards, we started finding properties that probably we needed work and the client didn’t want to do the work, so we started buying them ourselves, renovating them, and then selling them finished. That’s then how my turnkey flip operation was born. To this day, right now, we still buy a lot of properties.

Brett McCollum (14:28.214)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (14:32.235)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (14:38.434)
both in the inner city of Cleveland and surrounding suburbs of like Cuyahoga County. And we buy those properties. We put tenants, we renovate them, we put tenants inside, and then we sell them turnkey to out of state and out of country buyers who want cash flow. And that business does, you know, we do somewhere between 80 to 100 deals a year doing that. you know, then I still do retail flips. You know, we do some sexier stuff, not as much because

Like I said, I’m really just like an investor focused guy. I just it just makes more sense to me. It aligns more the way I think. So it’s just does the numbers work. I put out a product each and every time turn and burn. So that’s what that’s what the the flipping side looks like right now. I also have some rentals, believe it or not. Cleveland’s a really cool market for Airbnbs. People wouldn’t wouldn’t believe it, but

Brett McCollum (15:35.466)
It is.

Wayne Brooks (15:37.774)
It’s a big sporting city. It’s a big medical travel city. People travel for the universities here, right? There’s just…

Brett McCollum (15:46.538)
lot of like the medical side, all that too. Yeah, a lot of.

Wayne Brooks (15:48.62)
Yeah, Cleveland Clinic, you know, there’s a lot of business travel because of like, there’s a lot of companies that are headquartered here. You know what mean? So even when you know, even when sports betting became legal in Ohio, we got so many business travelers just coming in from there that got like relocated from Vegas and from all different types of places and our our homes just stayed booked the whole the whole time. Right?

Brett McCollum (15:57.002)
future, yeah.

Brett McCollum (16:10.71)
And right now it’s playoff time and the Cavs are actually good. Like what?

Wayne Brooks (16:15.298)
Number one in the East, So, you know, yeah, so, you know, that that that’s another aspect, right? So so we’ve kind of developed this ecosystem, which is which is we have our construction side of things where we have in house construction. So like all the properties that we’re buying, we’re renovating them in house. have about 22 guys that work directly for me. And it’s all just, you know,

Brett McCollum (16:16.746)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (16:42.52)
pick up the property, move it to the construction team, they do their thing. We move it to the leasing team, they do their thing. And then we move it to the disposed side of the business. And then we have pretty much a coaching, consulting business called Deal Direction, where we pretty much package our entire ecosystem, like our lenders, our contractors, our title company, our agents, our attorney, property manager.

And we we guide investors, kind like what I’ve been doing for the last decade. We guide investors who don’t live in Cleveland. So if you live in California, New York, Florida, Israel, Dubai, Jamaica, wherever, we can help you build a portfolio here in Cleveland using all our resources, all our knowledge, you all our experience, and we do the pretty much do the whole thing for you. So yeah, that’s kind of what it looks like today.

Brett McCollum (17:28.043)
Yes.

Brett McCollum (17:32.404)
Yeah. Dude, I love that. You get the nail on the head authority ecosystem. It’s all contained within one organization and one feeds the other to the other to the other. And I think that’s really incredible. So on your, now I’m just gonna ask some nuance questions. cause I am from there. Have you noticed, and I know I’ve noticed, but like I…

Wayne Brooks (17:45.016)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (17:58.678)
grew up in Ohio before you came to Ohio and Cleveland was not the place then as it is today. It’s been on a come up since probably mid 2000s is probably when it really started, you know, but maybe right around that 2014 time when you got there. It’s been on a massive like come up like battery park. Have you seen that development over there? Dude, like it’s like.

Wayne Brooks (18:12.461)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (18:24.034)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (18:27.382)
We had a house that we rented in Battery Park that we did and I mean, I remember when we bought it, I was like, there’s no way that we’re buying this house over here right now, because I know this area. This doesn’t make any sense. It’s absolutely and I see, you know, obviously I think east side of Cleveland still isn’t really not seeing much gentrification probably, but I mean.

Wayne Brooks (18:40.29)
Gentrification’s real,

Brett McCollum (18:53.174)
property side, right? But then you got that southeastern side that seems like it is getting some love. man, where are you at from a, like you said, you’re more in the investor focus, like target areas, like where’s, like for Cleveland, where do see the most opportunity? Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (18:54.732)
depends.

Wayne Brooks (19:09.166)
I’m heavily on the East side, Heavily, heavily on the East side. I know some investors who only invest West side because it’s more, well, one, you don’t have what’s called point of sale. So you don’t have like a lot of city interference on the West side, West side suburbs. So the city doesn’t really bother you to do anything with your properties. And it’s just a different vibe. Obviously, if you’re from Cleveland or you’re from Ohio, you know that Cleveland’s like…

Brett McCollum (19:23.294)
huh.

Wayne Brooks (19:34.656)
East side versus West side, know, the people on the West don’t go to the East and the people on the East don’t go to the West and you know, that whole jazz. So I’m betting heavily on the East side because like you said, it hasn’t developed as much as the West side. There’s still a lot of dilapidated homes, a lot of a lot of opportunities, what I call it, right. And it can’t remain that way. So soon as you know, one home gets like renovated, stabilized, looking great.

Brett McCollum (19:45.963)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (20:03.886)
Well, you know what? Now it motivates the rest of them on the street to kind of now me or another investor is going to see the opportunity and be like, that one looks great and it’s for this much. Well, that means this one can do the same and so on and so forth. And no worry, it’s coming. It has to come. There’s no two ways about it.

Brett McCollum (20:17.054)
myself.

Brett McCollum (20:22.07)
Yeah, and in the meantime, like, there are enough incentivizations, you know, with if it’s Section 8 or some other opportunity zone, right, that you can do on Eastside that’s like incredibly because like you said, I’ve gotten I’ve picked up properties Eastside there for like eight grand. I mean, it’s it’s it’s like.

Wayne Brooks (20:43.564)
Yeah, that was back then, but yeah.

Brett McCollum (20:46.166)
We did one for 8k once and I was like this seems like this doesn’t seem What am I what am I missing? You know, I’m a little bit scared and like and it what it didn’t it wasn’t like it was This amazing like, you know, we turned it I think for like 58 or 60 K when it was when it was done, but like you picked up great came in, you know, it was And we saw and we did same as you probably we sold it to an investor that was gonna you know rent it out

Wayne Brooks (20:52.013)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (21:04.502)
Yeah. Yeah. Very low risk.

Wayne Brooks (21:13.134)
print it out. Yep. 100%.

Brett McCollum (21:14.004)
That’s it, man. But yeah, it’s funny that, you know, like, like, dude, I get it. Like that’s home turf, so to speak. And I love that you’re doing that there, man. And where do you see right now? Obviously, you’re betting heavily on the East side. Is that you see that’s the most opportunity for Cleveland still? Is that your?

Wayne Brooks (21:37.358)
I think opportunities everywhere. I always tell people this. I don’t think deals are found. I think deals are created. So I think opportunities everywhere. I think Cleveland itself is just where I’ve decided to go deeper instead of going wider. know a lot of investors are doing deals in multiple markets. They’re doing a deal in Florida and Atlanta and Missouri and Cleveland. I get it.

Brett McCollum (21:46.006)
Sure.

Wayne Brooks (22:04.886)
I’m just I’m just heavily hyper focused on this market because I know that there’s more than enough here for me and actually all of us to make a really, really decent living. So opportunistically, I think East Side or West Side can can can work. It’s just about your your capacity and ability to find or create good deals and whatever that looks like. And then also your strategy, tailoring your strategy because I know investors who will not touch Section 8 rentals.

Brett McCollum (22:10.528)
plenty.

Brett McCollum (22:35.263)
Right.

Wayne Brooks (22:35.342)
They have a misconception or they have a notion in their minds of like section eight equals bad section eight equals, know, trashing my properties, you know, oh, I don’t deal with them because the inspections blah, blah, blah, blah. I have guys that have 200, 300 doors and it’s all section eight and it’s just beautiful. It’s just great for them because they’ve mastered the process. Right. I think whatever you do, you just master your process and you’ll be fine.

Brett McCollum (23:01.984)
Yeah, I like that. And that’s the beautiful thing about real estate investing too, right, is what’s right for you, and maybe not right for me, and what’s right for me, not maybe right for you, but there’s enough opportunities in everything that we’re doing for us to all do something well. Dude, I love it, man. So what’s next for you guys? What are you looking forward to?

Wayne Brooks (23:22.178)
Well, really building out our our continue to build out and refine our ecosystem to serve others. That’s a big thing. Right. You know, I have a team of real estate agents that work with me. I have obviously the construction side of the business that services those investor clients. Right. And we have just partnerships with property managers, title companies. So we just want to continue to make our processes and flows better.

to do more deals and make, ultimately, once your financial goals align, everybody’s good. So if we can make our investors more money, means we’re making more money. And that’s the goal. So to continue to optimize on that side of things, to build out the coaching and consulting side of it as well. So because there’s a lot of people who are everyday people who are not in real estate, dentists and doctors and teachers and lawyers and just

construction workers, whoever, that they probably could have some exposure, but they don’t know what to do. They don’t know the first step. And we kind of want to have a place where they can come and say, hey, we’ll hold your hand. We’ll show you how to do your first deal or and grow your portfolio and build wealth through through property ownership. You know, it helps you with, you know, long, you know, retirement planning, cash flow, you know, tax savings. You know, there’s so many benefits to owning real estate.

that we just kind of want to build that ecosystem and those processes and that client experience out to as good as we could get it. And then just let it cruise, man. That’s kind of just where we’re at right now. I don’t want to do a whole lot. I’m also a big lifestyle guy, so I love to travel. I like to spend time with my family and friends and my boys. So I just want to build a life that I’m the…

is by design and not by default.

Brett McCollum (25:20.82)
Yeah, dude, I love that. That’s the whole intent of why we start doing this, right? know?

we like to say a lot of times, know, in investor fields, like you started doing this to be to own a business, not to be the chief bottle washer, right? What a lot of us do when we jump into these, we create all these extra jobs for ourselves in it. You know, if I’m not doing this, nothing happens and gets done and you know, so I love that you’re, you know, by design, you know, and it is, but it does take the work. does take work. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, you don’t just get to go take off because you know what, I started a business so now I can go, it takes work.

Wayne Brooks (25:48.482)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (26:00.368)
work to get to be able to do that, know, and how your business runs. Don’t I know it, man. It’s a lot of lessons, I’m sure, you know, and things like that you learn throughout. And I did have one more question. I’ve almost forgot to ask you this. On your construction side of things, something we’re seeing a lot of, and this is a question more for me.

Wayne Brooks (26:02.562)
Yeah man, for sure. For sure. For sure.

Wayne Brooks (26:16.366)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (26:25.77)
What are the impacts you’re seeing right now construction wise as far as cost, materials, things like that? Are you seeing anything like on the immediate side of with deals you’re doing and working on?

Wayne Brooks (26:35.79)
We haven’t felt it yet. I know it’s coming. It’s probably coming, but we haven’t really felt it yet. Apart from stuff like drywall and lumber, we have a warehouse that we inventory a lot of materials and we try to buy and bulk and we catch a lot of the sales and pricing moves, but we haven’t seen a big jump just yet.

Brett McCollum (26:38.772)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (27:03.102)
Yeah, we’re in that preparation phase right now, because like, and that’s why I’m like, it’s like I said, this is a for me things like trying to, that’s part of love doing things like this is like we can talk about things that are, yeah, we’re seeing it now. We’re not seeing it yet. I think we’re all seeing, we all know that it’s kind of coming. You know, so I was more curious, like, is it impacting you yet? Or what are you doing to plan for that? You know, are we underwriting our deals a little bit differently to account for that?

Wayne Brooks (27:05.88)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (27:19.982)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (27:30.51)
I think you should. I think you should. already like, I kind of already shoot high on my rehab numbers and more conservative on my RV. You know, I have to when I underwrite deals, I’m underwriting them in such a way where the purchase price is what it spits out at the end like that. You got to stay true to your max allowable offer a lot of people

want to get into a deal so bad that they force a deal and they spend more just to get into the deal and they don’t really think about how they got to get out of it. so I’m definitely already shooting high. So most of the times my I’m coming in under budget on my rehab because I budgeted enough and I said, hey, this is just where my purchase price needs to be. And I don’t force the deals. I just look at more deals. If you look at the you know, your closing ratio or conversion rate. If you know that, hey, I got to look at

Brett McCollum (28:01.206)
Mm-hmm.

Wayne Brooks (28:22.99)
20, 30 deals before I get one, you want to do five deals a month, then just look at 100 to 150 deals. And just make sure that they fit reverse engineering numbers to make sure you have enough room in your rehab budget for even. I just had to replace a sewer line for $13,000, man, that I didn’t know it would happen. But guess what? We had an extra.

Brett McCollum (28:31.318)
That’s great.

Wayne Brooks (28:51.062)
I think at the end like nine or 10 K that we didn’t like spend. So look, it really it cost me three grand more. So it’s like, you know what I mean?

Brett McCollum (28:59.2)
Sure. Yeah, and you can live on that. can, yeah, that’s, but if you didn’t underwrite that well in the beginning, like that 13 page would have been like, dang gum it, you know, that could have hurt.

Wayne Brooks (29:07.116)
Yeah. But I was always the guy who was like, it’s really a 50k rehab, but we should be able to do it for 30. I was that guy early on in my career, very early on in my career. Just kept coming in over budget, man, and not, you know, and not not making enough or breaking even. And, you know, thank God, knock on wood, haven’t like lost money on a deal. Because the market has also just kept going up and up and up, which is which is great.

Brett McCollum (29:16.459)
Yeah.

How did you learn the lesson?

Brett McCollum (29:24.212)
I’m happy.

Wayne Brooks (29:37.24)
but yeah

Brett McCollum (29:37.498)
Safety, yeah. But now especially, know, well, Cleveland a little bit differently because it’s a little more insulated with how it’s positioned in the market. But, know, in Florida, dude, we’ve got, I mean, we’re taking a beating, you know.

Wayne Brooks (29:46.862)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (29:52.534)
I heard that, I have buddies there that are saying, man, stuff’s just not moving.

Brett McCollum (29:56.528)
I mean, I’ve had flips that sat for nine, 10 months with not an offer. And we’re priced under, you know, what we projected our ARV to be well under. I’m in North Central Florida, but this is…

Wayne Brooks (30:04.46)
What area? What area, Florida?

Brett McCollum (30:08.934)
across a lot of it. You southwest Florida, which over the 2020 through 2023 run where Florida went like really crazy, it was one of the fastest growing markets in the country. I was also operating out of that market for a little while. I mean, you see there’s a Cape Coral, Florida is one of the slowest moving markets in the country right now. I mean, they have houses that are sitting for 18 months, some of them.

Wayne Brooks (30:32.366)
Oof. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (30:36.278)
And new construction was going like crazy because of so much influx of people moving in. now they’re just like literally like rewind if you remember, you weren’t in the business, neither was I, but back in 2008, when all these, know, 07, 08, when these construction builders were building all these new homes, and then 08 happens and crashes and all those houses just sat there. Cape Coral right now, you could drive down there and look and there’s new home construction just sitting.

Wayne Brooks (31:05.132)
Yeah, that’s

Brett McCollum (31:05.372)
No activity, nothing, and it’s weird. And that’s an isolated market, but across the state for me, locally, I mean, like I said, nine, 10 months of no activity, you know, and it’s weird, because you’re not used to that.

Wayne Brooks (31:20.364)
That’s why I look at my investment approach. Same way I look at businesses, right? I look at it as I would rather go B2B than B2C. And B2C is building new homes for people to buy and move into, retail flips, and even as a real estate agent, serving homeowners. personally, I don’t have anything against people who want to do that, but the investment model makes more sense to me because it’s a B2B thing.

I’m selling you something that’s going to make you money. You when people are digging for gold, you sell them the shovels. That’s how you make money. Right. So like, investors are buying in every single climate when the rates were high, when rates were low, investors are buying. So if I’m even if I’m building, I’m building probably multifamily that I can rent. You know, like I’m not going to personally, that’s not my model. And that’s why I’ve stuck to my market and stuck to what, you know,

Brett McCollum (31:50.111)
I like that a lot.

Brett McCollum (32:02.838)
That’s right.

Brett McCollum (32:06.452)
give them what they want.

Brett McCollum (32:19.19)
Dude, I love it. Yeah, and you mentioned it too, like you went through the season of like, I had to figure out that I can’t do that, you know? And we all go through that, man. You we all do. Like you don’t get to where you’re at from not learning some lessons along the way, you know? Like that’s how that, the nature of it. man, all right, I apologize. I just looked at the time. I wanna respect your time back, Wayne. If people wanna reach out and connect with you, man, what’s the best way for that to happen?

Wayne Brooks (32:19.276)
what makes sense.

Wayne Brooks (32:27.502)
100%.

Wayne Brooks (32:33.345)
Yeah, for sure.

Wayne Brooks (32:41.121)
or is

Wayne Brooks (32:45.292)
Yeah, you can reach out to me online. I’m very heavy on Instagram. So Wayne Brooks REI on Instagram. That’s going to be a great place to reach out to me. You can also reach out to my team and find us contact at CLE home pros dot com. That’s contact at CLE home pros with an S dot com. And, you know, we’ll definitely be able to help you out with whatever.

you’re looking to do in Cleveland. We’ve got resources for any type of situation.

Brett McCollum (33:21.588)
Fantastic. Guys, we’ll put that in the show notes for all of you. if you’re, you’d be silly not to reach out to Wayne. So guys, I encourage you all to reach out, or least at a minimum, jump and follow on Instagram, guys. Like, come on. But yeah, but Wayne, man, this has been great. I really appreciate you being here and doing this with me.

Wayne Brooks (33:30.903)
Yeah.

Wayne Brooks (33:34.988)
Yeah, for sure.

Wayne Brooks (33:40.686)
Thanks, Brad. I appreciate you having me on,

Brett McCollum (33:42.615)
Dude, it was great. Yeah, thanks. And guys, to you as well, thanks so much for hanging out and spending your time with us. We’ll see each of you on the next episode. Take care, everybody.