How This Couple Turned $5K Baltimore Houses Into Generational Wealth

Briana & William Drayer (00:00)
You don’t know anything going into this. You don’t know well, for starters, where to look for properties, how to look for properties, how do you find a general contractor? We end up becoming our own general contractors, becoming MHIC licensed, ⁓ just because we got burned so many times. But all the fees associated with closing a deal and what lenders do you use, what type of loan system are we using? ⁓ like I said, it’s it’s taking us seven properties to even know.

what type of loan works best for us. Yeah. So I think everything in this game is a learning curve. And finding out what systems work best for your business is really the only advice that we can give because I don’t necessarily know if there’s a right or wrong way.

Scott Bursey (02:13)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey And today we’re thrilled to be joined by Briana and William Drayer, the pros behind Drayer Enterprises. These two are actively transforming the Baltimore real estate landscape, taking distressed properties and turning them into thriving investments. More importantly, they’re on a mission to help people. Everyday people build real wealth.

along the way. Pros, get ready. You can expect to hear how they handle the heavy lifting of urban redevelopment while staying true to their community roots. Briana and William, welcome to the show.

It’s just great having you here. It’s awesome having you two here. And to help our listeners get up to speed, please give us the ninety second highlight reel of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Briana & William Drayer (02:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think ninety second highlight real William and I began investing in two thousand and twenty three, just building credit and ⁓ building a savings account and all the things that come along with your buying your first initial property. And we were able to land two properties in the same week back in two thousand and twenty-four. And we’ve really fueled a passion for investing because to be completely transparent, our family at the time were in need and we were able to house family and that would that really changed things for us because we saw how much it impacted people that we were close to.

And so that kind of fueled the passion for not only Drayer Enterprises, but investing back into neighborhoods where we knew that families were underprivileged and that, you know, they just needed a fighting chance, even they didn’t have the best credit or three times the rent. and so for us it’s just all about giving back to the community and leaving legacy for our small children.

Scott Bursey (03:57)
Thank you for that. It’s incredible to hear, you know, how far you’ve come. And what really caught my attention about you two was the way you’ve been able to take properties that were essentially ridden off and turn them into vehicles for generational wealth. And on that note, curious to know, how did you two decide to bridge the gap between just buying houses and actually changing the financial future of your community?

Briana & William Drayer (04:24)
Well, there’s there’s this there’s this great this great shift happening in Baltimore right now. ⁓ within the past fifteen to twenty years there’s been this mass development of just ⁓ bringing back the old the the the old town home feel in Baltimore City ’cause a lot of homes now they just don’t have much character and much soul. So a lot of people have migrated back to Baltimore for that feeling, you know, just having that feeling, that that brick, that that

Break throughout the home, just just just just a beautiful, a beautiful property. So, but you know, overall it’s it’s it’s been such a great transition tr transitioning happening in Baltimore. And me and my wife have just been taking it by the horns. We’ve been able to help the community by providing, as Briana stated, those may that may not be in the best position, a chance, you know, just giving them a chance. So that’s kind of what Briana and I have stepped into is just providing.

A door for people to step into and just possibly have a stable place to rent and you know, just give them a chance to grow.

Scott Bursey (05:28)
William, that’s powerful. That’s a powerful mission. Thanks for highlighting that. And guys, please walk us through what do you consider the biggest strength of the partnership between the two of you when analyzing deals together?

Briana & William Drayer (05:44)
I can go first. Let me go first. Okay. So so when it comes to analyzing deals, right? I’m normally the one that kind of scouts and finds the deals. You know, I’m kind of the guy that’s taking notes, writing everything down, talking to our GCs, trying to get the numbers lined up so that they make sense. You know, I’m the one kind of doing that. But when it comes from that, Briana steps in and just connects the dots, right? Briana’s the one that bridges the gaps.

For me, because I have so many other deals that I’m working. So she’ll kind of reach out to our our agent, our GC and our team to say, Hey, let’s let’s get some boots on the ground on this one. Let’s see if it makes sense. So Briana is the one that connects all the dots. I’m the one that kind of finds the deals and she’ll and she’ll run with it from there. And I think the unique thing about that is that when William finds a deal in Baltimore City, being a native of Baltimore City.

A lot of the times I can hear the shifting the way that it is. It’s like block by block by block the change is happening. And one block could be unfavorable and the next could be a home run. And so I I like the way that we operate in such that I know the city like the back of my hand. And when he finds a property and he’s confident about the property and we can agree on that, I mean we can typically close with our lenders within two weeks and then it’s pretty much boots on the ground, like he said.

Scott Bursey (07:07)
That is a smart way to leverage a partnership. Thanks for sharing that, you two. And the pros are interested to hear looking back at your start, what was the biggest internal weakness or knowledge gap you had to overcome as a new as new investors?

Briana & William Drayer (08:11)
Everything. yeah, everything. Everything. You don’t know anything going into this. You don’t know well, for starters, where to look for properties, how to look for properties, how do you find a general contractor? We end up becoming our own general contractors, becoming MHIC licensed, ⁓ just because we got burned so many times. But all the fees associated with closing a deal and what lenders do you use, what type of loan system are we using? ⁓ like I said, it’s it’s taking us seven properties to even know.

what type of loan works best for us. Yeah. So I think everything in this game is a learning curve. And finding out what systems work best for your business is really the only advice that we can give because I don’t necessarily know if there’s a right or wrong way.

Yeah. and and just to piggyback off of that, Scott, you know, like Briana said and you stated knowledge, research, diligence, patience. You know, I know that ⁓ we’re just in a a a time of just expediting trying to move fast.

But when it comes to certain spaces like this, take your time. ⁓ yeah. Slow and steady is is gonna win in this particular space because it’s it’s thousands of dollars online. So opposed to you moving fast and making the wrong decision and losing loads of money, let’s just take it slow. Slow and steady here. ⁓ do your research. ⁓ go to ⁓ go to real estate events, mixers, connect, network with people. So, you know, build your network and just take your time, Scott. Just

Enjoy the journey, you know, enjoy the journey. And stop trying to get rich quick. It doesn’t work like that. Yeah.

Scott Bursey (09:41)
love that guys. It’s the long game. Yeah. And wondering about, you know, the local market. Where do you see the most untapped opportunity in Baltimore, specifically for investors today?

Briana & William Drayer (09:53)
When you say the most untipped, what do you what do you mean?

Scott Bursey (09:56)
Like the biggest opportunity right there in Baltimore. Something that maybe you’re looking to capitalize on or that you’ve been researching, something of that nature that you feel might be a good move for your business here coming up in the near future.

Briana & William Drayer (10:12)
Know if it’s like this in other major hubs, but in Baltimore, you can ride through and see vacant homes. And typically, you may have an auction house ⁓ advertisement on the vacant home. And so one day William and I are kind of like riding through the city, and I missed it, but he came home one night and he was like, Hey, let’s look into one house at a time. And one house at a time is a Baltimore City receivership program that.

rehabilitates Baltimore City one house at a time. And they give an amazing incentive to Baltimore investors where they’re starting their housing auctions at $5,000. And so we go to these auctions. There is a qualification and there are some requirements to be a part of the auction. ⁓ But if you’re an experienced investor, it’s pretty much easy to get in. And they start these houses at $5,000. And if you can rehab the property within 12 months,

they give amazing incentives to investors. And so that’s something that we’re wanting to capitalize on. And if I can be a little bit transparent, there’s no ⁓ real estate agent involved in this process. It’s pretty much just investor to cloth investor to title company, pretty much that’s that’s it. So kind of helps us streamline and cuts down on fees and stuff as well.

Scott Bursey (11:25)
That’s a brilliant take on the local market. Thank you for that, Briana. And guys, could you shed some light on the risks with the market shifting? You know, what’s the biggest threat to your portfolio right now?

Briana & William Drayer (11:39)
⁓ well I would say the the squatter situation that’s kind of making headway. That’s one of the biggest risks in Baltimore City right now. And you know, a lot of squatters can kind of produce a fake lease and they can pretty much take domain over your property. That’s that’s not, you know, that that’s yours, but they can take domain over that. So that’s one of the the threats there. And I think another threat is, you know, people are people are moving.

People are moving into areas or they’re they’re developing into areas and charging, for example, if this is like like a horrible block, right? A horrible block, investors will come and try to buy a house on a horrible block and try to charge top, top dollar for it, right? And I think that’s not fair to the market. You know, that’s that’s not fair to the market, that’s not fair for the tenant, because ultimately you’re when you invest, you’re investing into the neighborhood first.

And I’m noticing that that investors are like coming from out of state, trying to invest everywhere in Baltimore City, and it doesn’t work that way. So I kind of think that’s throwing off the market. So that’s just kind of my observation.

Scott Bursey (12:44)
That’s a good observation. And guys curious, how can you proactively protect yourself from squatters?

Briana & William Drayer (13:25)
Well, we’ve had squatters before, LOL. So we’re currently dealing with a squatting situation now, which was actually a previous tenant who never renewed her lease and she hasn’t paid rent in about eight months. And so Baltimore City protects squatters, unfortunately. That’s the political arena of it. ⁓ but when you’re going into a rehab, you wanna secure your property with cameras, you wanna secure your property with security doors, you don’t really wanna leave lock boxes on your property if you can help it.

And I think the number one thing is site visitation. You need to be on site. You need to trust your subcontractors because maybe it’s not always somebody breaking the lockbox off your property. Could be some of your team. Maybe it’s somebody on your team that’s selling the keys for thirteen hundred dollars on Craigslist. X is towel now. So I think that you know, I think it it gets to a point where you need to be overly cautious to protect your investments because these investments are running you.

fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand dollars and you don’t wanna be the one you know, my my dad likes to say, being caught with your pants down.

Scott Bursey (14:27)
Clarifying that, Briana. ⁓ thank you so much. ⁓ it makes a lot of sense. You explained that very well. And help us understand when it comes to scaling, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about staying true to your mission of helping others build wealth?

Briana & William Drayer (14:44)
⁓ when it comes to scaling, ⁓ my gosh, a great question, Scott. Kind of what I what I repeat what I said earlier is is is taking your time, right? I I know taking your time is so vital because with real estate in this space, you want to move with precision, right? You want to move with precision. And I think when it comes to moving deals, when it comes to to scaling and and building, it takes time, you know. And you know, I would also wanna wanna input that that.

Like you said earlier, Scott, this is this is the long game, man. Like this is this is the long game. So when you scale, just understand that you’re not gonna always hit a home run, but you know, baby steps matter. Just slow progress, slow progress is is is a great thing in this space.

Scott Bursey (15:27)
You bet those singles add up. Yeah. And guys, do you have a rule in your business that you never break?

Briana & William Drayer (15:34)
⁓ I got one. Communication. But but communication is number one, right? Because when it comes to deals like this, you don’t want your partner to be in the blind, right? So communication is number one. And then number two is I don’t want to sound weird, but you know, prayer, you know, just to just to you know, just to make sure these deals are what’s best for our life right now, to the point to where like we don’t want to have a deal.

on the table or a situation on the table that stresses out either one of us. Right. We want to step into a deal that we’re comfortable about, that, you know, fits where we’re at with our family dynamic. So those are kind of our two focal points is communication and, you know, just prayer. And I would say another one would be multi multi units. No multi units. But we’re moving, I think we’re moving into that direction, but there’s a certain ⁓

ease in permitting with single families opposed to the overcomplicated system that that there is with multi units in the permitting system. So my thing was always no multi-units. But we are looking to transition to our I think we’re transition. We’re looking to transition to that point, Scott. Like I said earlier, it baby steps, man. You know, baby steps. I don’t want to come out the gate, ⁓ multi-unit art

R ⁓ R nine zoning, you know, thousands of thousands of thousands of dollars just in designs and permits and so forth and so forth. Wrankler system. You know, we have to learn the game first before we get to that point. And I think, you know, what we built so far is kind of positioning us to where we’re actually looking to close on our first multifamily in what August. Yeah. Yeah, I think our foundation has gotten strong enough where we can begin to build a risk. Yeah, we can begin to build a little bit more and take a bigger risk.

Scott Bursey (17:22)
Point well taken. Thank you for highlighting that, you two. And William and Briana, if somebody’s listening and they’re thinking to themselves, hey, these are a couple people I really like. And ⁓ I might want to partner with them or do business with them. What would you like them to know first about your operation, Drayer Enterprises?

Briana & William Drayer (18:23)
I think the number one thing, like how William mentioned prayer, ⁓ I think we are extremely integral, extremely passionate, but we’re extremely trustworthy. And we don’t want to be unequally yoked with anybody that we do business with. And we have dropped people for way less. You know, one law, you’re out of here, you know. And I think that’s very common in this space because everybody’s a shark and everybody’s a dog. But really, I do think that kindness and love can still conquer all, even in a space like this.

So that’s the number one thing that I think people should know about us is that we’re extremely integral, extremely passionate, but also extremely trustworthy.

Scott Bursey (18:56)
That’s a huge distinction. And guys, where would you like to see the operation? Let’s talk short term initially, twelve to twenty four months from from now.

Briana & William Drayer (19:06)
it’s great question, Scott. So kind of what I kind of what we discussed is acquiring acquiring our first multi unit, a multifamily, sorry, our first multifamily. And what we’re looking to do with this one is actually ⁓ building it out, you know. So we’re kind of taking because Baltimore City, they have beautiful like in unit row homes, very beautiful, right? So that’s kind of what we’re eyeing. We’re eyeing a ⁓ a row home, a EOG in the group row home, and we’re looking to kind of

you know, break that down and build that out to like a four unit multifamily. So that’s what we’re looking to to tackle in the next twelve to twenty-four months. But, you know, outside of that, you know, Drayer Enterprise, we’re looking to scale. We’re looking to step into the commercial space soon. we’re also looking into ⁓ land development. So, you know, the buck doesn’t stop here. You know, our vision for Drayer Enterprises is is is

It’s bright. He missed the main thing. My husband loves cars and his dream is to have a car garage and a car wash. And one of those days I’ll have the opportunity to gift him one of those as an investment and as a gift.

Scott Bursey (20:13)
wow. Well ⁓ thank you for highlighting that you two. And let me ask you this as well. You know, for going back to when you first started, you know, your very first deal. What is the one piece of advice that you’d give your younger selves that would have saved you, let’s say, six months of headaches?

Briana & William Drayer (20:35)
Ooh, let me go. Let me go. Kind of kind of what to Briana and Briana alluded to is just doing your research, right? Doing your research, just doing ⁓ doing your research on your GCs, really reaching out to some of their past clients to validate their work. That’s one thing that we did not do with our first general contractor is reach out to their referrals. So ⁓ to who may be watching this video, if you are working with any type of professional in this space.

Please reach out to their referrals to validate their credentials and everything they’ve done th thus far. Right. Briana and I unfortunately did not do that. And like Briana alluded to, we lost out on like $40,000 because, you know, we didn’t do our diligence as investors, you know, and that kind of really pushed us back. So that’s my, you know, that’s kind of what I think. Yeah, no, that house set empty.

That house sat empty for eight months as we fought the permitting system because a general contractor ⁓ who was on contract to pull permits and complete the work pulled no permits. We were not able to acquire a use and occupancy for the home. and to prevent getting fined every single day by Baltimore City, we kept the property empty and tried to work around the permits. All while there was no there was not there was improper framing, there was no insulation.

the there was actually no gas meter in the houses at all. So gas was leaking throughout the house, all the things that were supposed to be mitigated by the GC. ⁓ and, you know, just not knowing like we pay them bulks of money at one time because that was his that was his contract. And we just didn’t know. And so now we won’t give you more than a certain amount to start work. And we certainly won’t close out the draws before the work is completed. And so I think there’s some things that we’ve learned, especially from a financial aspect that will save us stress.

And heady.

Scott Bursey (22:22)
That is some great advice. Thank you for highlighting that, you two. And you have given us a lot of really good words of wisdom here today. But is there any other advice or any ⁓ additional words you would like to leave regarding your mission for the pros here?

Briana & William Drayer (22:39)
yeah, I think that for anybody that’s wanting to start investing or is building their their investment portfolio, don’t get discouraged. I know that, you know, I know that it can be hard, the numbers are big and the timelines are are long, but I would just say don’t get discouraged because like I mentioned, the auction, it’s one house at a time. And if you can get to a point where you’re streamlining your process.

one house at a time, it is a long game, but it will all pay off in the future. And if you’re doing and remember the reason why you’re doing this. For us it’s for family. For you it’s for, you know, to pay off college debt or to give, you know, to, you know, to give resources to your church or to give back to the community in a way. Always remember the reason that you’re getting into this. Always remember your why. It’s a long game, but it will always pay off.

Scott Bursey (23:26)
Always remember the why. That’s fan fantastic. Thank you, you two. And for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Briana & William Drayer (23:40)
Yeah. So right now we actually it’s funny because we actually just posted our first real estate content ⁓ on Instagram last week and we were able to sell almost twenty ebooks and we got like eighty thousand views on our first real estate video and well over four or five hundred direct messages about how can we get started and investing. And so if that’s you, you can always follow me on Instagram and I pretty much manage our

real estate content. I’m at Briana That’s B-R-I-A-N-A Briana underscores Renee, R-E-N-E-E (briana___renee). And we will be happy to share our ebook with you as a resource guide if you’re investing into Baltimore City. Just a list of title companies or real estate agents, whatever you need to get started. and we would also be happy to give you whatever advice that we can because nobody helped us. And so we’re eager

To help other people so they don’t fail and kinda lose out with the same way that we did. That’s good.

Scott Bursey (24:38)
Thank you, you two. Thank you for joining us today on the Real Estate Pros podcast. This has been an absolute pleasure, Briana and William.

And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests, just like Briana and William Drayer, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.