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Show Summary
In this conversation, Brian Tran shares his experiences and insights into the real estate industry, discussing the challenges of scaling teams, investment strategies for realtors, and the dynamics of wholesaling. He emphasizes the importance of communication and teamwork in running multiple businesses, including a coffee shop, while navigating the complexities of the real estate market.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Brian Tran (00:00)
I have a very strong belief in myself. Like I have extreme confidence, kinda like arrogance that if I put my mind to something, I will be successful. It’s just a matter of when, right? And so yes, when I was 21 years old and I got into real estate, I sucked. Like I had no rich friends. Yeah.No rich friends, don’t know jack squat about real estate, don’t know how to handle objections, don’t know how to write a contract. I didn’t know how to do anything, right? And so we got into coaching right away.
Dylan Silver (02:05)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Brian Tran, in the Bay Area of is the owner of the 50 Hills Real Estate Brokerage and has a coffee shop, rental portfolio, virtual assistant company, and is involved in fixing and flipping and wholesaling as well. Brian, welcome to the show.Brian Tran (02:27)
Glad to be on the show. Thank you so much.Dylan Silver (02:30)
I always like to start off at the top by asking guests how they first got into real estate.Brian Tran (02:38)
You know, so kind of a cliche story. My family are ⁓ Vietnamese immigrants, so they left Vietnam because of the war. And when they came to America, it’s always been the American dream to own real estate. And so that’s been ingrained in my head since I was a child. That and become a lawyer, but I was too stupid to become a lawyer. So that didn’t really work out. But I knew that real estate was gonna be how I built my wealth. And I think through the planting of that seed,I just kept asking how, how, how, how. when you constantly think about that one question, you will find a solution. And that’s ultimately what it was. I think fast forward, at the time I was like, okay, well, if I’m gonna own real estate, I should probably be a realtor. And now, looking back, you don’t have to be a realtor to get into real estate investing. again, that’s the solution that I came up in my mind.
Dylan Silver (03:28)
Yeah.Brian Tran (03:38)
About the last quarter of my college career, I started taking the online real estate courses. And so as soon as I graduated from UC San Diego, I didn’t go out and look for a job. went and got my license and then I hung my license and started trying to sell real estate at 21 years old. And so that was its own little challenge.Dylan Silver (03:59)
I want to ask you, you because there’s a lot of folks who may be in that time period, you know, either graduated from school recently, graduating and they’re looking for a job. Go back to, know, when you were in that position, were you thinking, okay, I’m hanging my hat on real estate. This is what I’m going to do. Were you all in on it? Or were you thinking like, hey, you know, this is eat what you kill. I don’t know if this is going to pay my bills immediately. What was it like at that point?Brian Tran (04:26)
You know, I don’t know what it was about me, but I’ve always been very afraid of having a job. ⁓ I just didn’t know how to work with managers. I didn’t know how to work with people telling me what to do. And so even in college, in high school actually, I’ve never worked that regular job like Cold Stone or Jamba Juice. I was cutting hair. That was how I kind of got, I taught myself how to cut hair through watching YouTube. And then I started to control my own schedule. And then I used to scour Facebook.No, it wasn’t Facebook at time, was Craigslist and I would buy crap and sell crap, right?
And I just like, this is way better, right? And then so even going to college, the only reason I went to college because that was my dad’s dying wish. you, all my kids, well, not all of them, but the last three, cause he got married twice, was like, you got to graduate college. So I said, you know what dad, I’m going to, that was what you wanted. I finished. But I’m a terrible student. And so going back to what you said,
Dylan Silver (05:56)
Yeah.Brian Tran (06:11)
I said, you know what, I’m gonna do this. And I don’t know if it’s like a,I have a very strong belief in myself. Like I have extreme confidence, kinda like arrogance that if I put my mind to something, I will be successful. It’s just a matter of when, right? And so yes, when I was 21 years old and I got into real estate, I sucked. Like I had no rich friends. Yeah.
No rich friends, don’t know jack squat about real estate, don’t know how to handle objections, don’t know how to write a contract. I didn’t know how to do anything, right? And so we got into coaching right away.
you’ve been a realtor, you know about the guy named Mike Ferry, right? Jumped in and he said, these are what you need to do. Follow the script, have discipline. You need to wake up early, don’t watch the news, and you need a prospect every single day. And that’s it. Like, I’m not a, you know.
I think my blessing is that I’m not super smart and so I don’t get caught up in the details. And I say it’s a blessing. It really is because the smartest people that I know, they start analyzing and it’s like the Tony Stark thing. like, you know, they
Dylan Silver (07:17)
Hey. Right here.Brian Tran (07:26)
okay, they’re gonna start piecing things together. And it’s like, okay, this is not gonna work. Whereas with me, if you tell me to do something, I’m like, well, shit, he told me to do it, let’s go do it. And then we’ll tweak it later, you know? And that’s kinda how it is.Dylan Silver (07:34)
I’m gonna do it.And you know, I’ve seen the I used to work in automotive space from becoming a realtor and I noticed I was like the the guys who make the most money in in any automotive dealership or anything in this space are like not necessarily who you would think would be the biggest breadwinners in this space. It doesn’t necessarily seem like they’re overthinking anything. What’s going on here? So I had to learn like, hey, maybe analytical isn’t always best.
Brian Tran (08:06)
Yeah, I mean this podcast is about multifamily, single-family investing. So you do have to become a little bit more analytical. You do have to have your standard, your buy boxes and things have to check off. But at some point you got to just pull the trigger, right? And I think that’s what we ⁓ do very well at here at my organization.Dylan Silver (08:24)
Yeah.I want to ask you, going from that position, hey, I’m just getting started in real estate, don’t know anything, contracts, so on and so forth, I’m getting started. How did you scale that business? And then you’re involved in so much today. What was the progression like? What was the first business after getting started as a realtor?
Brian Tran (08:50)
After being a, so I did, it wasn’t like I was an overnight success with real estate. I think I made like 30,000 the first year. I think 40,000 the year after, something like that. It wasn’t like crazy, like all of a sudden go in and I was making $200,000 a year. It wasn’t like that. But growing up in a ⁓ conservative Asian family, you get very good at stretching the dollar, not blowing it. Like that’s something that I’m very grateful for that I was able to learn.You don’t go and spend more than you have. You budget. You definitely are on the cheaper side. And so every dollar that I made, I was able to stretch it and then save it and then also invest it, right? And so I was, I came across an opportunity to open a coffee shop and that’s what we did. That one actually ended up failing, meaning that I was able to actually sell the business and recoup the initial investment, but for a whole year, it made nothing, right?
Dylan Silver (09:48)
Hmm.Brian Tran (09:49)
And that was a failure in my books, but then I always had real estate. So I just kept selling, kept my head down and worked 14 hours, 15 hours a day. That was never a problem. Like me working, I love what I do, I love working and soI don’t have a problem going long days, seven days a week working. And then ⁓ with that chip on my shoulder, I came back around a second time to open a coffee shop, but this time I realized I don’t have the time.
So I’m gonna find a good partner to actually ⁓ run the store. And I would be kind of like not a silent partner, but behind the scenes marketing, like something where I can do it alongside my real estate career, right? I’m not actually in the store. And then lo and behold, actually it fell onto my lap. My partner, my current partner now, his wife now ⁓ was actually working for a coffee shop and they were looking to sell.
And so I said that I made an offer and funny thing enough, they actually didn’t want to sell to her. And so I said, okay, screw you guys. And then I went and on BizBuySell and I found another coffee shop and we bought that one that’s still around today. that was second business ⁓ after real estate.
Dylan Silver (11:38)
I would have.So we got coffee shop, got real estate, you talk about scaling it up, it wasn’t overnight success, but here you have so many agents, Bay Area, California, Scaling teams in real estate is not easy. I’ve seen it, I’ve been in a licensed realtor for less than a year, but these teams, it’s not like there’s people…
being tied down to a team. There’s nothing that’s really keeping someone in place. What’s the tenets of a good team? What makes people want to stay at any team in real estate?
Brian Tran (12:18)
Yeah, so it took a while for us to figure it out. mean, we went from a team of three, like it was honestly never as big as it was today, but it was ⁓ originally a group, right? It wasn’t a brokerage, it was a group. That group eventually grew into a bigger group and then I realized I gotta step out of the realtor role because I had my son and I was like, I’m not gonna continue to do open houses and show clients late night. And that’s when I said, okay, I’m gonna actually focus more on the brokerage side.And the only way that a brokerage actually makes money is if you have a lot of agents. And so it’s a combination of things. Obviously, number one, it’s the split. You have to give people competitive splits. so, because today you have EXP, you have real. I think the cap on real is 8,000. The cap at EXP is 16,000. So you have to understand that you’ve got to give people a higher split. And then it goes down to culture. And then ⁓ basically, what’s next? ⁓
My little niche is that I will not only teach you how to become a successful realtor, I will show you the next level, which is now I’m gonna teach you how to flip, I’m gonna teach you how to own rentals, I’m gonna teach you how to own different businesses, because that’s really the evolution of real estate, right? Like you don’t wanna always be a realtor. You’ll make, I mean the top realtors will make a million, two million dollars a year, right? That’s great, but the top flipper?
Dylan Silver (13:16)
dealing.Brian Tran (13:45)
the top developer, I mean those guys are making 10, 15 million dollars a year. So where do you wanna be? Right? And so, yeah, and so like people come and they work for 50 Hills because they get to see the next step. Whereas other brokerages, not gonna throw any names out there, but they want you to sell. They want you to continue to always be a realtor because that’s how they make money. Right? With my thing, it’s like I would love for you to get to my next level becauseDylan Silver (13:51)
Where do you want?No question.
Brian Tran (14:15)
Now we can do deals together, we can flip a property together, we can build a neighborhood together. And how much more money will I make off of that than your split?Dylan Silver (14:23)
When we talk about the distressed real estate space, flipping, wholesaling, this type of thing, they’re…First, it’s not as easy as it was five years ago, but also too, these strategies, whether you’re buying multifamily, whether you’re buying single family, whether you’re wholesaling, whether it’s a flip, whether it’s a long-term buy and hold, you have to be a little bit agnostic as far as your long-term, like five, 10 years, what you’re gonna be doing, because the strategy that you have right now, and I’ve seen it from this show, from folks who’ve been active for 30 years and longer.
is not gonna necessarily work five, 10 years from now. So realtors who might be saying, well, this isn’t working for me here. Are you reaching out to investors? Or are you looking at multifamily? Are you only active in this one area? Are you willing to go outside of that one area? Also too, are there opportunities that you’re missing, right?
Brian Tran (16:00)
Yeah, I would say like most realtors get so stuck on just trying to do production that they end up passing up on a lot of great deals, right? Like deals that they should have bought, that they should have added to their portfolio. And I think that’s what we do differently here. I’m like, hey, you should actually keep that one. But how many brokers do you know tell their agents to keep it?Because if you keep it, it counts as a personal transaction. They don’t make Jack Diddley squat on you. Right?
Dylan Silver (16:31)
Yeah,mean, no, no brokers I know that are doing that. I know it’s very ⁓ limited number that that conversation that you have, by the way, when you’re going in talking to that that homeowner, that investor, and you’re thinking, hey, I might I might, you know, look at this one for myself.
Walk me through the process. Are you pulling comps beforehand as an investor? Are you thinking like an investor before going in or is it when you show up at the property you get a sense, hey, this might be an opportunity. Maybe there’s some distress here that I wasn’t aware of prior to.
Brian Tran (17:03)
I give my realtors all this tip. ⁓ When you walk into every property, always, you have a fiduciary duty to the client, okay? Now what does that mean? It really just means are you laying out all the options for them? And so with every listing appointment, and when I was heavy doing listing appointments, I used to give them three options. Most of the times when you walk into a property, it always needs a little bit of work.Some needs more work than others. So I always give them three options. Option A, there’s a, as is, you don’t do jack squat, you can literally leave all the trash, all the garbage, and this is the price you can get, right? And this is what an investor will pay you. Option two, we do a little bit of sprucing. Maybe he needs to paint, new flooring, staging, landscaping, right? And you’ll invest $30,000, but it will yield you…
another $75,000. So you’ll get a net gain of $45,000, but it’ll take a month worth of work. Option three, sometimes you need to do a full rehab. we, know, being in the Bay Area, this is very common. We actually do do this a lot for our clients because that’s just what the market does here. And so we go, okay, well, option three is kitchen, bathroom remodel, the whole shebang, $100,000 investment on your behalf, but we’ll net you $200,000.
So you get a net gain of 100, but that’s gonna take you four to five months. If you give them the option, you’d be very surprised that sometimes the seller don’t have the money or the time to do option two or option three. And so they’ll say, give me option one. And then in that case, you can either call your investor or you’re the investor and you buy it.
Dylan Silver (18:49)
Yeah.The third option, the rehab option, of course, I’ve thought about this before, know, hey, this is what it’s gonna be. I’m curious, when someone says I wanna do option three, is there some pressure on them at that point? Okay, well now we gotta sell this thing for some more because this is, we’re putting $100,000 in here.
Brian Tran (19:12)
It’s all an investment. know, every investment has a risk, but these are the data, right? This home has a new kitchen, new bath, and it’s sold for one million. This one was original and it sold for 700. So that’s, you know, I’m not just pulling it out of my butt. I’m actually like showing them. Yeah. And if the market pulls back, it pulls back. But that’s just what investment is 100 % risk free, right?Dylan Silver (19:31)
Yeah, I got itI
got to that one from you. got to start.
Doing that when I’m talking to Texas Texas sellers. I want to ask about the Wholesaling side because when we talk about wholesaling assignable contracts connecting, you know sellers with with with buyers right now I’m seeing actually, you know wholesalers in the multifamily space. I personally come from the distress single-family space Foreclosures primarily but also, you know folks dealing with divorce death any type of you know emotional distress that might not strictly be
financial. Do you have a niche in the wholesaling space or do you see a lot of ⁓ properties across different segments?
Brian Tran (20:22)
We, our bread and butter has always been pre-foreclosure. ⁓ I mean, divorces, probate, the whole shebang, it comes from everywhere. Believe it or not, a lot of our deals come from actually realtors as well. Because of their, yeah, they don’t know what to do with the property. They go into a property and they look at it they’re like, my God, it smells like death. And so, you know, and then they advise their clients to say, hey, take this and then.Dylan Silver (20:37)
Really?Yeah.
Brian Tran (20:52)
That’s what we pay them.Dylan Silver (20:55)
So if they’re coming in, are they, because I’ve seen, I’m sure you’ve seen this too, know, people might try to do some type of flat fee listing or they might put up shoddy photos and they might not get a lot of traction. Do you see more of that or do you see realtors who feel like, okay, I’m overwhelmed with this, let me refer this to Brian and his brokerage, because I know they do. Yeah.Brian Tran (21:16)
more so overwhelmed. Moreso they know that they’re under the gun, especially when it comes to pre-foreclosure and there’s an auction date right around the corner, right? ⁓ They don’t have much time. And so because of the speed that we need to move at, you need to discount the property. So that’s kind of the logic behind that.
Dylan Silver (21:41)
We are coming up on time here. do want to ask you about the coffee shop because you had mentioned you had started a coffee shop initially years ago, didn’t end up ⁓ staying open for till today. You had to close it down. But now you’re back in the coffee shop game. How is the coffee shop going? Also, how do you run a coffee shop, which is pretty intensive while doing all these other pursuits?Brian Tran (22:06)
You have great partners. You know, to do great things, you have to have a team. You have to have great operators. You have to have great partners. ⁓ Of the nine companies I own, only one of them is owned 100 % solely by me. The rest have partners. Now, the percentage all differ, but ⁓ that’s how you’re able to really scale. It’s people. It’s not ⁓ some magical system or anything like that. I treat people very fairly. ⁓communication’s key. I pride myself on being a very good communicator. I don’t get lazy when it comes to explaining things because when you do, that’s when partnerships fail. When there isn’t transparency, that’s when partnerships fail. I’m an open book. I share the books with all my partners and they are very much involved. They’re here in my office, so I have a pretty big office, and we’re all here. So it’s like friends, family, it’s cool.
Dylan Silver (23:05)
Ryan, ⁓ we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to learn more about your business? How can they reach out to your team at 50 Hills Real Estate? How can folks ⁓ find you get in contact with you?Brian Tran (23:18)
I’m on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, Mr. Brian Tran, that’s M-R-B-R-I-A-N-T-R-A-N. I’m very active on Instagram, so connect with me there and we can just chat more and you can see what I’m doing.Dylan Silver (23:31)
Brian, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.
