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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel podcast, host Skyler Byrd interviews Brendon Davis, a successful real estate investor from central Illinois. Brendon shares his unique journey from a military career to becoming a prominent figure in real estate. He discusses his investment strategies, the importance of financial literacy, and his goals for the future, including acquiring 1,500 paid-off properties. Brendon emphasizes the significance of building a strong network and the innovative strategies he employs to increase cash flow from his properties. This conversation provides valuable insights for anyone interested in real estate investment and financial success.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (00:00)
Ican not get any rent for a year. It’s not going to kill my business. You see what I’m saying? I own these properties outright. So if you want to sleep at night and you want to get bigger and own a big company and you want to actually own things instead of just being the middleman to the bank, you do it my way. But if you want to actually be rich, if you just want to look rich and have a hundred doors and a hundred mortgages, do it that way. But like I said, my way, my 30 months.
However many doors I have, let’s say 50. Let’s say I got 50 doors. My 50 doors performs in cash flow better than somebody else with 150 doors with mortgages.
Skyler (00:37)
Mm-hmm.everybody, welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I am your host today, Skyler Byrd, and today I am joined by Brendon Davis. I’m very excited to talk with Brendon here. He has been in the real estate game in central Illinois for eight years. He’s been very successful. He has got a lot to share. Brendon, very excited to have you. Thanks for joining the podcast.
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (02:29)
Yeah, thanks for having me.Skyler (02:31)
Absolutely, absolutely. And before we get down to digging into everything that you’re doing right now, ⁓ you’ve got a pretty interesting background that you were just telling me about. you give everybody just a little bit about your history here?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (02:43)
Yeah, my original background, I joined the military at 17. I did 10 years in intelligence corps. I was in 35 Fox intelligence analysts. So basically I’m the real life James Bond. I’ve been to 29 countries poppin’ shoot. So, you know what I’m saying? I’ve served the country. I retired from the army now, medically. And I spend my, not only all my military pension, but all my cash flow.90 % of my income I spend on investing and 10 % I live off of. And I know everybody probably can’t do that because 10 % won’t be enough for everybody, but I’ve grown my cash flow and my portfolio and my businesses to the point that I can do that now. And 10 % is more than enough to pay for the mortgage for my mansion, which is the only mortgage in my portfolio. All my rental properties are paid off cash, but I got a VA loan on my mansion. And like I said, I just recently got appraised at 1.1 million.
I bought it for 330, put 300,000 into it. And then like I said, it’s appraised now at over 1.1 million. So super proud about that. And my entire portfolio, like I said, the majority of my properties that I bought since 2020 to now have quadrupled in value. I was saving for my company for years before I had a BDE real estate tattoo five years before I owned the property. I was that sure about it.
Skyler (04:00)
So let me ask like so if you you were in the army before how did you you know? Make your way into real estate how’d that come about for you?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (04:07)
I always wanted to do real estate. I got out of the Army, initially I had already had some college when I was in the military, so I was like a junior in college. I was wanting to use my GI Bill, so I went to Illinois State University for a couple years until I was a senior. I’m a senior, I’m a semester and an internship away from a bachelor’s degree in political science, but I’m never going back because all the people that did graduate asked me for financial advice, so I’m like, I obviously don’t need that, which you guys have.Skyler (04:35)
All right, now you’re in the central Illinois area and fromBrendon Davis BDE Real Estate (04:39)
Y’all been done withIllinois. It’s the suburb of Peoria, Illinois.
Skyler (04:42)
Okay, and so, and that’s pretty much where your portfolio centered around, correct? Is that central Illinois?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (04:47)
No, I’m, wellagain, in central Illinois and I also own some property abroad as well in Mexico.
Skyler (04:52)
Got it, okay. But you were telling me before that your area, at least that central Illinois area, seems to be…Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (04:57)
Yeah, I served ninedifferent cities in the great, nine different cities, four different counties in central Illinois. I served Peoria County, Woodford County, Marshall County and Tazewell County in central Illinois.
Skyler (05:03)
Okay, excellent.Excellent. All right. And what has, what do you think’s made the real estate market there so profitable for you?
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (06:03)
The real estate market has been profitable for me because I’ve done the homework and I know what I’m doing. A lot of investors just prematurely jump into the, they jump the gun and get into the game before they know what they’re doing. If you do the homework and do the research and like really know what you’re doing, there’s no way to lose money in real estate. I’ve never lost money off a single deal. You make your money going in. You know what I’m saying? If you read the millionaire real I like.The Millionaire Real Estate Investor is like my Bible. read that book. I’ve read that book every day for last eight years, least an hour a day. It’s on the cues in my book, The House of Morgan. I read that. JPMorgan’s book. read, I got 48 Laws of Power right here. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Why the Rich are Getting Richer, the graduate level book, The Rich Dad, Poor Dad, written by Robert Kiyosaki. I’m a big time reader. I’m constantly feeding my brain and I feel like
Every second that I’m spending reading financial literacy books is like I’m robbing the bank and getting away with it. I love reading financial literacy books.
Skyler (07:02)
That absolutely helps. It seems to be a pretty good theme with a lot of people that have been successful, especially around the real estate industry, that’s for sure. All right, and can you tell people, you know, what does your portfolio consist of? Are you buying?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (07:10)
Man, I’m-My portfolio
consists of a lot of three bedroom, four bedroom, five bedroom, single family homes, couple duplexes. And like I said, I got a restaurant, so I got some commercial real estate as well in Peoria, West Peoria.
Skyler (07:30)
Yeah. All right. And what made you interested in single family homes to kind of concentrate on as opposed to trying to go that commercial route and do apartment buildings?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (07:39)
It’s actually harder doing what I’m doing,having more management units and having less doors per management unit is actually more difficult to accomplish. It takes more brain power, but I like the challenge. Like it’s easier to run a multi-family home and all your tenants are in the same building. It’s harder to spread out to nine different cities and conquer nine different cities and set the rent rates and completely control the market in different areas. don’t want to do it the easy way. I prefer the hard way.
Skyler (07:45)
Mm-hmm.Okay, and your strategy so far has basically been by and hold. You’re acting as a little… Yeah. There you go. Definitely don’t want to forget the prosper part. So what made you want to go that route as opposed to somebody that’s fixing and flipping?
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (08:13)
Buy hold it and prosper. You gotta remember that part. Prosper.Yeah.
You can’t because you can’t make money fixing and flipping doing all that fixing and flipping dipping all that stuff That’s not profitable. You get the highest like if you look if you read the cash flow quadrant That’s a book. I definitely recommend written by Robert Kiyosaki There’s four quadrants on the left side, which is the worst side to be on is the E Which stands for employee on the bottom is S for self-employed. These are the worst in highly most highly taxed brackets the highly taxed quadrants
On the right side where I’m at is big business, which is the B, and I, which is the investor. Big business is taxed at 15 % and the investors are taxed at 0%. So I’m a multimillionaire and you probably paid more taxes than me.
Skyler (09:08)
Well, that is probably true, absolutely. all right. Okay, absolutely, man, absolutely. So, exactly why did you choose real estate? Was it just kind of, you know, from reading these books that you’ve been speaking about and that’s really guided you? Or was it something else that really sparked your interest? What really got you into this and what’s made you stay?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (09:12)
You see what I’m saying? Like, yeah.What sparked my
interest in real estate when I was like a real young kid, like nine, ten years old, my dad paid me 80 bucks to read this book right here.
Skyler (10:15)
Okay, yeah, rich to have poor dad, yeah.Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (10:16)
So I readRich Dad, Poor Dad got 80 bucks and it showed me the difference between the asset and the liability and the different ways that rich people teach their children things that poor people or middle class people don’t. Because the subject of money is taught at home. So it’s so important. So I definitely got my upcoming, my father put that, he’s not an investor, but he made sure that he made me an investor, you know? Yeah.
Skyler (10:41)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so hehelped lay that foundation, of planted the seed for you.
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (10:46)
Yeah, and after that I just had a thirst for knowledge. I wanted to learn so much. There’s so many different topics to learn about, primarily being financial literacy, and I dedicated my life to excellence, to reading and collecting this money.Skyler (11:00)
So I think probably something I’m really interested to ask you and really would like to your opinion on like what what are you looking for in a property because I mean I talked to a lot of people that are in real estate that are in the you know in California that you know might be in the New York area it seems like it’s probably completely different than in in central Illinois so you probably got a lot of opportunities that you know they don’t have so what are you looking for when you’re purchasing properties?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (11:24)
Yeah, the cheapest property in my market rightnow is $2,500. You could get a vacant piece of land. I own a vacant land business, so I own parcels of land and property. So people sleep on land. They’re not making any more land. So if you own all the land, you get a major, like Peoria is the major city that I’m focused around, and I go to the periphery of that, and I buy all the parcels to the periphery of the big city.
As the city gets bigger and people start, the influx of people comes into that city, the natural progression is for people to move to the periphery and expand into the country, into the outlying areas. So I’ll buy up all the parcels and monopolize an entire city. So when you run into a certain city and you want to build land, you have no choice. You run into me, you got to do business with me. I own all the parcels. So what are you going to do?
Skyler (12:12)
Yeah,absolutely. you’re buying land as well. when you’re looking at homes, what are you looking for? What’s the key?
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (12:20)
When I’m looking at homes, I’mlooking for a lot of meat on the bones. I’m looking for at least a three bedroom, one bath, big yard, fenced in backyard, at least a garage, hopefully a brick exterior or a good siding on the property, good roof, good bones, good foundation, recent water heater, recent furnace, recent roof, recent kitchen, recent bathroom, everything doesn’t need to be updated, but it needs to be livable. It needs to be livable.
And then I’ll pull the trigger. And sometimes I’ll buy property side on scene if I see something I like and I don’t want nobody else to get it. I know what a good property looks like. Like I know it has to be 1920 or newer. I’m not buying anything older than 1920. That was the best construction years. So 1920 or newer, over a thousand square feet. I want my tenants to have room. I want them to be comfortable. I want a big backyard and I would like a garbage disposal. I would like a,
Skyler (12:51)
Okay.Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (13:11)
dishwasher, all the good appliances, everything to people. The amenities of tenants are desirable to tenants, you know?Skyler (13:17)
Yeah, no, absolutely. That makes sense to me. ⁓ are you?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (13:21)
And that one thing I’m trying to do to make someextra money too is I’m installing coin laundry into my rentals next year. I’m going to be, instead of letting the tenants bring their own, I’ve been making them provide their own washers and dryers, but now I’m putting it in all my units as the tenants move out and new people move in. I’m going be installing coin operated laundry to augment and increase the cashflow. That’s a great idea.
Skyler (13:32)
Mm-hmm.Wow, okay. That’s the first time I’ve heard that, like, in single-family homes. That’s pretty cool. All right. And with that, are you looking for homes that already have tenants? Are you buying those or…? Okay. Okay. ⁓
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (13:46)
yeah, I’m not playing no games. I’m about my money.No, I don’t need things. I have thousands of people ready to rent from me. If I had more
money, I’d have… I… The more money I have, the more properties I can buy, the more people I can help. I have more people lining up to rent from me and to buy from me than I do money to spend. You see what I’m saying? Yeah, so it’s not a problem. Getting these things sold isn’t the problem. Just getting the money to buy enough properties for people to buy is the problem of rent. It’s just getting…
Skyler (14:10)
Sure. Okay, absolutely. ⁓Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (14:22)
As soon as, my average time to rent a property is like two days on market. Yeah, I got a pretty extensive wait list. My wait list is pretty eager.Skyler (14:26)
well. Okay.got it okay
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (15:13)
I get in a lot of bidding wars on properties that you probably wouldn’texpect getting bidding wars. Like that property? Like, yeah, I’m getting $1,600 a month there.
Skyler (15:18)
YeahFair enough, fair enough, absolutely. With your portfolio right now, how many properties would you say you have in that central Illinois area?
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (15:27)
I have this one second. I’m sorry. I have this many properties. Those are my keys.Skyler (15:33)
Okay.Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (15:33)
I haven’t taken the time to count them, but if I had to put a number on like something, I don’tSkyler (15:38)
about okay alright and and what’s the what’s the goal for the business how many are you looking to get into what what are you looking for thereBrendon Davis BDE Real Estate (15:44)
I want 1500paid off properties, paid off parcels so can when I die, I can hand down 500 properties a piece to each one of my three children in a thousand acres per child land.
Skyler (15:57)
There you go.I mean that’s an excellent goal to have, right? I mean you’re doing it, you’ve got something actually laid out, you know, goal that you’re working for, for your family and doing it.
Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (16:06)
That’s my life’s mission.you don’t put tangible, achievable numbers on goals, you don’t know if you won or you lost. I want concrete goals so I know if I’ve reached my goal or I did not reach my goal. And I set milestones and markers to know if I’m on track. You know what I’m saying? I’ve reached all of my old long-term goals. I wanted to get my kids in an eight out of 10 school district. I did that. I wanted to move to a mansion. I did that.
I wanted to become one of the richest, wealthiest people in my immediate area. I did that. I wanted to grow one of the most profitable real estate companies in Central Illinois. I’ve done that. Like everything I’ve set out to achieve, I’ve accomplished my entire life. There’s nothing that I can say I wanted to do that I didn’t do except for like go to the NFL. I wanted to play football and go to the NFL. But I mean, even if I would have accomplished it, that’s only a short term thing.
I can be an investor for the rest of my life. I can make these millions until the day I die. So as opposed to teaching my son to aspire to want to be a sports figure or a basketball player or a football player, you can own the fucking team. You can own your own business. Like you already are a multimillionaire before 18, all my kids. So it’s like these are the things that we got to lay down. Like I wasn’t handed down $1. I wasn’t passed down $1. Everything that I have, I earned myself.
You see what I’m saying? But it’s not going to be like that for ⁓ the Davis family for this generation and the next generation. And the next 300 years is going to be set because of the foundation that I’ve set for the family. And that’s the reason why I’m so adamant about paying cash for properties, because people are in so much risk going to the bank. you miss a couple mortgages, you get a couple bad tenants, and you can really destroy your business.
Skyler (17:40)
Yeah.Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (17:54)
Ican not get any rent for a year. It’s not going to kill my business. You see what I’m saying? I own these properties outright. So if you want to sleep at night and you want to get bigger and own a big company and you want to actually own things instead of just being the middleman to the bank, you do it my way. But if you want to actually be rich, if you just want to look rich and have a hundred doors and a hundred mortgages, do it that way. But like I said, my way, my 30 months.
However many doors I have, let’s say 50. Let’s say I got 50 doors. My 50 doors performs in cash flow better than somebody else with 150 doors with mortgages.
Skyler (18:32)
Mm-hmm.Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (18:33)
On single family or multi-family, because I own my shit. I’m not paying any mortgage. If you have $100,000 house, the mortgage is $778.53, right? Or give or take a couple dollars. That’s 77 to 80 % of your profit.Skyler (18:33)
Well, yeah.Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (18:48)
Where does that leave the meat on the bones for improvements, for maintenance, for buying new properties? If you get mortgage, the fractional reserve banking system is not set up for you to expand your business. If you max out your credit, they’ll stop how many properties you can get anyways. So that’s not scalable. If you want to scale to a point that where I’m about to scale to, you have to pay cash if you want to not have the risk involved in the investment.Skyler (19:14)
Okay, certainly you’ve got, you know, really big goals set for yourself that we kind of just talked about here. Do you have a team now that’s working for you, helping you find properties? Like, tell me about that, because I know you’re not doing it completely alone, correct?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (19:30)
No, I’m definitely not doing it alone. If you read the Millionaire Real Estate Investor, just read that book. That’s exactly how I’m following my business. My inner circle, my service circle is my network. My network increases my net worth. So I’m communicating with fiduciary, people that have my best fiduciary interests in mind, and they’re constantly sending me deals, constantly sending me fees, every single day.Skyler (19:56)
Excellent.Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (19:56)
And I workwith Heidi West out here in central Illinois. That’s been my primary realtor for eight years. I also worked with Lisa Skabinski and those are my two major realtors. But I also work with Adam Merrick from Adam Merrick Real Estate. A lot of different realtors in the area I’m giving business to, but primarily Heidi West. That’s my go-to.
Skyler (20:16)
Yeah, okay. And now for the future with the goals that you have, are you looking to mostly stay and concentrate on the Southern Illinois area or are you looking to expand or central, excuse me, central ⁓ or are you looking to expand out and look at different areas at this point?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (20:24)
I’m in central Illinois, not southern Illinois, central Illinois.For the time being, I’m looking to achieve my goal of 1,500 properties organically in the local area. But as, like I said, as I get this 1,500 properties, that cash flow is going to be so significant that of course I’m going to branch out to other locations and locales and spread all across America and further across the world.
Skyler (20:51)
Okay, excellent. All right, well, Brendon, hey, man, I really appreciate your time. Clearly, you have got excellent goals for yourself. You’re already successful. You’re doing great things in the central Illinois area. Let me ask you, just before we get going here, if somebody is interested in learning from you or partnering with you in some way, how can people reach you?Brendon Davis BDE Real Estate (21:12)
People can reach me on the Don Lamar Facebook page on Facebook, the BDE Real Estate page on Facebook and YouTube, and the BDE Real Estate page on Instagram. I’m all over. If you want to reach out to me for financial literacy courses, I can do that virtually for $100 a month.It becomes my responsibility to teach you everything I know about real estate. So I’m already in the proof of concept phase, making my first bunch of millionaires. I’ve already made veteran millionaires, multiple veteran millionaires, but now I’m going to the civilian world and I’m helping civilians now. So I’m helping civilians.
Skyler (21:46)
All right. Awesome, man. Well, again, Brendon, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. I know I got a lot out of it. And for all of our listeners out there, if you’ve got something from this, please hit subscribe. We have got more interviews with people just like Brendon coming down the pipe all the time. And we will see you there on the next episode.
