How These Investors Turn Real Estate Into Purpose-Driven Wealth

Bruce (00:00)
a big piece of advice that I’ve received and that’s part of the reason why is being able to serve others in the process. So win-win scenario.

I want the seller to win. I want the community to win. I want my investors to win. So for me, we create win-win scenarios to the best of our ability. And that’s a big takeaway.

is be a team player. Multi-family is about team operation. It’s not about going out there and finding your grape and putting it in your pocket. It’s about getting a piece of the watermelon. So what we’re trying to do is be part of a team, build a team, and create win-win scenarios for everybody so that we can have long-term relationships that last and serve people ultimately.

Erika (02:14)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Eriaa, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Bruce and Edith Edwards, the founders of Eden Elevations. They are carving out a unique path in investing. Bruce and Edith, it’s so awesome to have you on the show today.

Bruce (02:33)
Thanks for having us.

Erika (02:34)
So let’s dive in. Can you give us the rundown? Bruce, let’s start with you. How did you get started in real estate?

Bruce (02:43)
Well, I kind of I kind of got into real estate investing by accident when I was about 10 years old. My parents were buying single family rentals. I was involuntarily volunteered to be a grunt worker. So I was tearing up vinyl, ripping out bathrooms, doing all the things necessary to kind of like flip and hold. So we were kind of doing flip and hold back then. And we would put renters in there. We would we would do property management.

take care of the renters. And so I was very much exposed to it. But in in my era, we were also, you know, I don’t want to quote Robert Kiyosaki, you know, off base, but you know, kind of caught in that rat race of, know, you work your W two, you do this on the side. And and then you work hard, you just work hard. I found out there’s two ways to do real estate. You can work hard and you can do a W two, you can pay lots of taxes in the process.

where you can shield your taxes by investing properly and more strategically. And so we transitioned into the multifamily as a result of that. Edith had a little bit of a different path that she can tell you about. Sure. Mine not as elaborate and not at the age of 10, but it dates back to September, 2021. I was

I had spent a few years prior just ⁓ listening to a lot of podcasts about real estate. And it was coming to about 10 years of working as a physician and kind of getting in the burnout, you know, and the rat race and everything. And so this night I was up and just watching my son who was then a couple of months old and

I check my emails and I find an email inviting me to a conference and it was virtual. So it was at the time when everybody has gone through COVID and everything is becoming virtual. And so I said, well, I’m on maternity leave. Why don’t I sign up for this conference? So I go ahead and signed up and it was literally three days of just a lot of education.

a lot of short-term rental education, long-term rentals, and a bunch of terms that became much more apparent. And I just got very pumped. And I was like, you know, I have listened to too many people. I think it’s time for me to take action. And several of the presenters were available as mentors. And I literally just took steps that I had.

not really thought about before I was like, I’m going to sign up with Dr. So and so. So I signed up and I got educated, you know, in the upcoming few weeks and literally by November that year of 2021. remember myself making a 1500 mile drive to Florida and there I bought my first short term rental and within two weeks it was up on Airbnb.

And so

Just continued to explore different things. was thinking about rental arbitrage as well, but it was quite involved with my full-time job in medicine. And so I kind of sheltered that. And then I moved into passive investments and syndications. And a couple of years later, we met with Bruce and turned out we were both interested in real estate and…

He is very nerdy, reading a lot of information. He started talking about multi-family. And I was like, wait, I do know about syndications, but I always thought, you know, somebody else does that. But Bruce was like, no, let’s, why can we not be the ones that actually bring investors together and syndicate these multi-family deals? And so that’s basically how we got here.

Erika (07:24)
Awesome. I want to talk a little bit more about eating elevations. I was looking at your website, really impressed and inspired by what you guys have going on. On your website it says that you elevate communities through strategic investments. Can you unpack what that mission is like in your day-to-day operations?

Bruce (07:45)
Yeah, so so what we look at when we look at investment properties, you know, we’re also looking at, you know, having them in the right communities, obviously being strategic about where we invest at. And so it’s not just about the property and just about the money that it can generate, but also about the people and the community and and making communities better. One thing that we that we like to do and I’ll give you the website. So one thing with with our apartments.

⁓ We like to have a mentor there, a pastor there, and so through apartmentlife.com, you’re able to also sometimes provide an apartment for somebody who can be there for people in need, who can flourish from having somebody there that they can talk to or speak to, knowing that we have a large demographic of different people in apartment complexes. And so it’s really…

you know, being able to do Christmas things and stuff. It’s really huge to be able to invest in more than just a property, but to invest in the community that’s there also so that you’re able to better lives, better properties, grow neighborhoods and do all those kinds of things. So that’s it’s that’s that is just as important to us as the property itself. So those are also that’s why we’ve walked away from properties that just wouldn’t fit that bill.

Well, you know, first and foremost, we have to be responsible to our investors. So we do have to get a return on investment. So we do look for areas that have population growth, that have lower crime rates, that have economic development and are suited to benefit from that growth and clean up. So a lot of times we find these properties in areas like that and we’re able to.

make them better so that people can thrive in those situations and environments. Sometimes there’s areas where that doesn’t work and it isn’t practical. And so, you it’s a balancing act. We have to balance, you know, the community and the investor both, but we have to first be responsible to the return on investment and then look for an opportunity to build a community simultaneously.

Erika (09:55)
What caught my attention about both of you is how you stepped into this space and only in a few years that you’ve made quite an impact. That’s no small feat in a space that often demands a lot of experience. What’s been key to gaining traction so quickly?

Bruce (10:13)
Well, it’s a few things. I’ll tell you a quick story. So a quick story. So as I have mentioned, when I was about 10 years old, I was working on rental properties with my dad, with my parents. Everything was paid for. They were buying these, paying for them. They were, we were fixing those up and I’ve got my spider stories and all those kinds of things I could tell you. But what I learned was there’s a lot of hard work in,

And then there’s another side of real estate, which is the strategy side of it.

And so what my parents were never able to do is they couldn’t scale, you know, six, seven, eight rental homes. It wasn’t bad. wasn’t a bad, but the scalability was tough because the whole key was, we’re going to, we’re going to save some money, invest, do this, do that. And so we, we really, what I was looking at was how, do we scale this business? How do we, how do we benefit from

the other side, is the strategy side. And so how we’ve gained traction is by understanding the real strategy to real estate investment. Rather than just working hard, we strategize, we educate, we get educated, and we’ve aligned ourselves with solid people in the business who have high level, really high, I should say really high level impact already. So we’re not pioneers.

trying to break open a new venture, we’ve aligned ourselves with high caliber real estate investors and learned from them and partnered with them and invested with them as well so that we were properly aligned. So when we have bigger properties, we bring in bigger caliber co-GPs to work with us and make sure that we dot all of our I’s, cross all of our T’s when we do our underwriting.

We can have six or seven different people also underwriting those and making sure that we are very precise. That gives us the ability to have large level impact because we’re not making lots of mistakes. We’re able to move forward rather than digging ourself holes that we fall into.

Erika (12:46)
Yeah, can you share a specific connection or piece of advice from the from building those relationships that changed how you approach a deal?

Bruce (12:55)
Well, mean, ⁓ a big piece of advice that I’ve received and that’s part of the reason why is being able to serve others in the process. So win-win scenario. It’s a Stephen Covey thing. Win-win. I want the seller to win. I want the community to win. I want my investors to win. So for me, we create win-win scenarios to the best of our ability. And that’s a big takeaway.

is be a team player. Multi-family is about team operation. It’s not about going out there and finding your grape and putting it in your pocket. It’s about getting a piece of the watermelon. So what we’re trying to do is be part of a team, build a team, and create win-win scenarios for everybody so that we can have long-term relationships that last and serve people ultimately.

Erika (13:43)
How do you

eaten elevations when you pitch to potential investors? And you know, the market can be pretty crowded too.

Bruce (13:51)
We differentiate, you know, we’re a faith, we’re a faith based company. so we have bigger picture directives on what we’re doing. You know, we do, like I said before, we do want to get good return on investment. We’re looking at 16 to 22 % IRR. We, we want good DSCRs. We want, you know, great equity multiples, but we also want to build communities, have a good relationship.

have great relationships in fact, because that makes your work fun. That makes your job fun, that makes your interactions fun. And so this isn’t just about making a dollar, it’s also about building a person, about building relationships, about making things enjoyable at the same time and responsible both. And I think that’s a differentiator for us.

because we take all of that very seriously. We’re not just looking to capitalize on a dollar and we don’t take advantage. We really want win-win scenarios for people.

Erika (14:56)
love that. The next question I have is actually for both of you because I maybe you guys might have a different answer for each of you. What’s a key lesson that you’ve learned about a deal structure that you wish you knew when you first got started?

Bruce (15:12)
Why you go first?

Well, I think for me, it’s basically getting the right team with you. Again, not trying to do everything by yourself. When I got started with real estate, mean, I was the deal analyzer. under, I was using all kinds of calculators and staying up at night to morning. I’m still, managing the properties by myself.

doing everything and making the phone calls, it’s impossible. So I think the best thing to do is to obviously vet your teammates, get the best team on your side. And as Bruce said, it’s not about going for the full grape. It’s about getting a piece of that watermelon and very key with multifamily investing or even being part of it at all.

If I’m being perfectly honest, know how difficult it is and how challenging it can be to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s. know, everybody wants to make multi-family real estate investing a easy breezy, you know, just go out and do it. It’s not that easy. It really isn’t that easy if you don’t do your due diligence. You have to do your due diligence. You have to really work hard. You have to align yourself with the right kinds of people.

You have to know what the market is. You have to know really what you’re doing and you have to know your numbers. If you don’t know your numbers and you’re just making guesses and you don’t understand your metrics, you’re going to make mistakes. And so I’ve really learned that as Eda said, working within a team environment, having people cross check your work. You know, yeah, I feel like I’m a great underwriter, but

It sure makes me feel better when somebody else looks at it and goes, yeah, dah, dah, dah. Have you thought about this? I did, but I did that. That’s the great thing. So when you’ve aligned yourself right, and I’ve really learned because you kind of go into this from a single family, you kind of think, okay, do it yourself, do it yourself. As Edith was saying, do it yourself, do it yourself. That’s not the multifamily real estate investment game. It’s so much about be part of a watermelon, be a piece of that watermelon, do your part, do what you’re good at.

and then let somebody else do what they’re good at and you’re not gonna make a lot of mistakes. You know, try to be, none of us are the full watermelon when it comes to, mean, you you’ve got contractors who are working for you, you’ve got due diligence people, you’ve got your admin, you’ve got all these things. We’re not gonna all be good at everything. So when you find what you’re good at, we take our pieces and we make sure that what we’re focused on is what we’re good at and then that way we’re able to dot I’s and cross T’s very effectively.

Erika (18:29)
Speaking of that, all the all the I’s, crossing all the T’s, every operator has a moment where things get real. Maybe a deal goes sideways or you had to pivot fast. Do you guys have a moment like that in your journey?

Bruce (18:46)
I haven’t had a deal necessarily go sideways, but we do deal with, how would I say this diplomatically, information that is not provided freely on the front end. So sometimes you have to retrade. So you get into a situation where you think you know the numbers, you think you know everything, you think that people have been open and…

transparent with everything about the property and then you find out, there’s a foundation crack. You find out that, there’s a handful of HVAC that air conditioners that weren’t taken care of. So that’s where you have to kind of pivot and you got to use people skills. You have to deal with people a lot. So you have to be responsible. you have to retrade that. And that can kind of sometimes go sideways. You have

you know, different types of people and owners. And sometimes, you know, those things can go sideways and you have to walk away from a deal. And that’s why do diligence. We do it. We do really tight, thorough due diligence. Not one unit is not walk through. We look at units at night, stay three days. We want to know what’s going on at night. We want to know what’s going on during the day. We want to look at every unit. We want to know everything. So our due diligence is key. And sometimes that can create

Some sideways tracks like huh, we didn’t know that you didn’t tell us that and so that’s one of those things where we’ve had to walk you have to walk away from a deal if it’s not going to Be what what’s best for your your LPs and other people involved?

Erika (20:18)
Right on. Earlier, before we started recording, you were talking about sheltering W-2 income. I know that’s something that you’re really passionate about, so I wanted to open the floor for you to share all of your information with that.

Bruce (20:34)
I’m gonna let Edith kind of talk on that some of the cost segregation and and bonus depreciation Factors and she’s the doctor not me and and understands how important it is to shelter that w2 So I’ll let her kind of touch base on that well, yeah, just as a as I initially said that my big or one of the reasons that led me into ⁓ learning more and listening and getting into real estate was really

When I looked at my paycheck and how much I worked and how much ultimately at the end of the day, how much really was available for my family. listening to different people, learned, you know, there’s different legal and right ways to shelter most of your income, W-2 income. Obviously my goal and our goal was to really cut down that

most of the income is not even coming from the W-2 job and that’s sort of where we are. And so there’s different ways, know, taxes. Now with Bruce having had the rep starters, which again, it’s a whole topic on its own. It gives us the ability to shelter most of my W-2 income, rightfully so. ⁓ Prior to that, or for people with short-term rentals, there’s…

a similar strategy called material participation, which basically having a person involved in managing their short-term rental for specific amounts of hours a year, and that avails that tax credit or ⁓ opportunity as well. And so with multifamily ⁓ investments, I think the options are even broader. You know, I just mentioned to this more ways.

of sheltering and that’s always available for any investors coming through as well. And we can always, you know, break it down. Yes, because you know, one thing that President Trump just put back into practice is the bonus depreciation. And so that’s 100 % bonus depreciation in the first year of purchase of an investment. So we’re able to provide great tax shelter. And the thing about it is this is all legal.

It’s all legal and the reason why is because the government wants to invest in people who are providing homes. The government doesn’t provide homes, they assist with homes, but somebody’s gotta provide that. So they’re trying to help those investors, help those homemakers create that so that the people are better off, because we’re in a deficit. We’re in a deficit of two to three million doors just in the United States. And so maybe it’s more than that now. The numbers fluctuate a lot.

that the government is saying, hey, we’re gonna help you create those doors. We’re gonna help you find homes for families or build homes for family or create homes for families. So this, it’s not an undermining way of saving taxes. It’s just an effective way of using your money the way you feel best and not giving the government a tip. But just pay the taxes you gotta pay. Don’t give them a tip.

Take that money, invest it in communities, invest it in properties, provide homes and housing and create a better world for everybody to live in.

Erika (23:56)
Yes, a better world for everyone. I know that you guys are focused on community impact. How do you plan to integrate that as you grow?

Bruce (24:08)
So as we grow, mean, I can tell you, so when I was, I used to live in Missouri, Joplin, Missouri, and when I was in my 20s, I used to go to, as kind of a volunteer program, I would go to apartment complexes and we would teach Sunday school, we would do events, we would do things like that. I used to work as a government employee and I was, so I was very keen on

A lot of the different dynamics that happen throughout the communities and within these apartment complexes and things of that nature working for a city government. And so what we want to do in terms of community is we want to make each apartment complex its own community. You know, where we are giving back, where we are making life better because they live there. Where, you know, we’re looking at, you know,

Christmas time, what are we going to do during Christmas time for our community? What are we going to do during Thanksgiving for our community? What are we going to be able to do for the children in that community? Maybe it’s a Sunday school, maybe it’s an event. You know, I used to work in events and marketing, or I’m sorry, ⁓ and events for the city. So I’m good with events. And so I see it as, you know, every area is its own community and we want to enhance that community to the best of our ability.

And it’s just an amenity. And so we want to create amenities where we invest to the best of our ability. And to add on to that, you know, obviously me being in the medical field, I do look for the day that I’ll be able to provide even things like quick sports physicals for kids before school opens. we, during the events, we have a stand where maybe I have a couple providers who want to give their services and myself.

wellness checks, you know, as part of the service that we provide in our communities. So that’s in the pipeline as well.

Erika (26:01)
That’s really exciting and really special. can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone say that on the show. I love that. Before we wrap up today, if someone wants to reach out, collaborate, or learn more about what you’re doing at eating elevations, what’s the best way to connect?

Bruce (26:19)
The best way to connect is go to our website. It’s Eden elevations the number three.com. You kind of see the name behind us. It’s just Eden elevations the number three.com. Also, there’ll be a there’ll be a link in the bottom in the description of the podcast. You can go there and get a free ultimate guide to multifamily real estate investing in multifamily real estate 101. It’s got a

Couple things that are pretty advanced. Just got a few things that are pretty basic. It’s just kind of like a six page. You’ll get that for free. If you wanna go there and click that link, we’ll get you some information. You’ll be able to get contact information there. On my website, you’re also able to call me and get a direct line so you can contact me whichever way is most convenient for you. And I’d be more than happy to help you in any way possible and answer any questions that you have.

Erika (27:17)
Perfect. Bruce and Edith, thank you so much for your time, your story, and your insights. I love how you’re blending a community-focused mission with the hustle of commercial real estate. It’s really inspiring and unique.

Bruce (27:32)
Can I leave you with one last thing? One last thing, and this is just big to me. One of our guiding principles is Proverbs 24, three through four. Investment guided by wisdom, established with understanding, and filled with purpose. As you see behind us, our slogan is partnerships with purpose. Everything we do is meant to have a bigger purpose, a better purpose, and a purpose that can help everyone.

Erika (27:34)
Sure.

that. For everyone tuning in, if you got value from this episode, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators who are building incredible businesses in real estate. We’ll see you on the next episode.