The Power of Networking: Brendon Walker’s Guide for New Investors

Dylan Silver (00:00.724)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Dylan Silver and today on the show we have a real estate entrepreneur Brendon Walker out of Boston, Massachusetts. Brendon, welcome to the show.

Brendon Walker (00:13.134)
Hey, thanks Dylan. Really appreciate you having me on here.

Dylan Silver (00:15.858)
Absolutely. I like to start at the top. How did you get into the real estate space?

Brendon Walker (00:23.054)
It’s an interesting story. actually started real estate when I was 13. So pretty early I was working for my cousins at a very, very early age flipping houses actually. So I do that in the summers and on the weekends throughout like the school year around like high school timeframe. And that taught me the ins and outs of how to get into flipping. So when I graduated college I actually created my own company started flipping on my own and have

scaled and grown that company and also expand into other markets as well besides just flipping. So, but that’s the short and simple answer.

Dylan Silver (00:59.946)
So… So going from being literally a kid seeing these fix-and-flips, did you know right then and there that this is something that really interests me? I’m gonna make a career out of this?

Brendon Walker (01:11.906)
Not at all.

I was just, honestly, I was saving up money to buy video games and stuff back then. was not, so it was, wanted to, I was a very big nerd, still am, love tech, love all that stuff, but back then I remember my mindset is, hey, I’m working hard, I’m learning a good new skill, but at the same time I’m able to earn some income to kind of buy the things that I wanted. Those were the things that were on my mind then. It wasn’t until a lot later

that I started realizing that this is something that you could actually build a business and a career around and to support myself and also a lot of other people since we have a lot of people on staff as well too.

Dylan Silver (01:54.634)
So when you’re a kid seeing this, are you in the Massachusetts area when you were seeing these flips happen in the Boston area?

Brendon Walker (02:02.348)
Yes, yes. Everything that we did was predominantly in the Massachusetts area. So I’m located in Boston, but I actually grew up south of Boston and we worked on houses in that local area. You know, buying houses at auction, wholesaling really wasn’t a thing back then, at least not to the degree it is now. And so you would just buy stuff at auction. You would hope that there wasn’t, you know, that much wrong with the property. And there were, there were properties where we just came

in give it a quick fresh paint job and call it a day and there’s others that were complete tear downs like you know taking everything down to studs so it was but it was a really cool experience as a kid it was it was definitely a experience I wouldn’t trade for the world.

Dylan Silver (02:46.752)
Going to school at that point, college age, you had some experience with fix and flipping and seeing that. At that point, was it on the horizon, hey, I’m going to be a real estate entrepreneur? Or were you agnostic to what the future held?

Brendon Walker (03:01.74)
No, actually, yeah, I was very agnostic. So I’m still big into the tech world today as well too. So I’m not just a real estate entrepreneur, I’m a serial entrepreneur trying to work in multiple different asset classes. But real estate is, in my opinion, it was always the way to build that safety net. It was always that way to build that steady income, that steady growth, versus going after more risky

and lofty goals and challenges. Because with real estate, can just do a small house. One house can be the start of a business.

Whereas when you’re talking about large tech, you’re talking about major decisions, massive teams, software development, et cetera. There’s a lot of different components. And so it’s a really easy to understand and easy to enter space for. Honestly, I believe anybody can do it. We all live in houses. We all understand the basics that need to get put in. And so it’s all about budgeting time and process.

Dylan Silver (03:59.86)
media.

Dylan Silver (04:07.71)
I’m with you, Brendon. It’s so expensive to own real estate right now that you might as well learn everything about it because it’s gonna cost you emotionally one way or the other, right? So you’re gonna have to put in the effort to learn how to buy a house so that you can buy a house and to learn how that’s gonna make sense for you and your family. Or you might as well be like, I’m already putting in so much effort, let me figure out how to bootstrap this and make a business out of it.

And in a way, that’s kind of what got me into the business. I don’t know how common this is, this law process is, but I was selling cars, working for a Nissan dealership in San Antonio, and I’ve said this on other podcasts, and I just felt like I’m paying so much money and rent to live at this apartment, and I see housing prices. Like, if I can’t beat them, join them. I knew nobody. I knew nobody. I didn’t have realtors, fix-and-flippers, builders. I knew nobody. But I just started off with going to meetups.

went to a conference, paid a bunch of money to get there, started wholesaling, ended up working with a company that does that, and then it just grew from there. And so, in your experience, because you had family that were in the business, you had that early exposure, but then once you graduated from school, did you get the bug again, so to speak, did you realize I’m gonna dive back into this?

Brendon Walker (05:28.174)
Absolutely. just like I said before, it’s the it was what I knew to be the safety net, right? I think of like the 401k as the bare minimum of trying to save for your retirement.

If you read up some articles around that, you’ll also tend to find that the 401k sometimes for certain asset classes or certain income levels, you won’t reach the amount that you need to retire based on just a 401k. And so that was my original thought. It’s, how do I build my safety net so that way I can retire on both real estate and my 401k rather than just one or the other? And so that was really the key motivation behind that. Since I want, even though at an early

age, you know, 20, 22 when graduating. I really wanted to understand how am I going to plan for my future? And if I can, can I retire when I’m 40 if I wanted to? But

I know that’s not going be the case. know I’m going to keep working even if I get to that point. But no, the real desire just came from making sure to be able to support myself and to support my family and to eventually be able to retire with enough money in the bank.

Dylan Silver (06:44.48)
Let’s drill down and talk about some deals here, Brendon. So you get out of school. Are you then, it sounds like tech background. Did you go and get a tech job straight out of school?

Brendon Walker (06:48.206)
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Walker (06:53.772)
I did, so I was a software engineer actually. So went into software engineering, so this is why I know anybody can do it, since I was ultimate nerd, coding away, realized that wasn’t my true calling, so I ended up moving into tech sales, which was a bit more interesting, and so that really got me a lot more comfortable with dialing, and that actually, what you talked about Dylan, of just going to meetups, dialing, and calling different people to figure

out what’s the best price, different project, working with contractors, etc. Too many people are afraid to kind of pick up the phone and just go with the easiest option or the first option, you know, to like to reduce hassle and time for themselves. And so.

But when you start having multiple conversations with people, you start building good connections, you find the people that you like to work with the most, and they like to work with you, and so you can kind of use those people over and over again, which is what we do today. So it’s good to hear that you’ve done the exact same thing.

Dylan Silver (07:54.208)
Yeah, I mean, I think for a lot of people, you might not know exactly how to, well, you did, you had it in your blood in a way, but a lot of people might not know exactly how to get started in real estate, and I tell everybody this. The way you get started is by putting yourself in the room. That’s how you get started. It’s not, and I really wouldn’t advise people to just go buy a house and.

learn how, like you’re gonna probably lose your shirt doing a fix and flip that way, especially now with margins slimming down. So I would say take the networking like a job. I have a mentor who tells me name number need, name number need. And if you’re going to a networking event and not getting at least three numbers, right, then you failed. And so you need to look at it that way.

Brendon Walker (08:23.234)
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Walker (08:39.98)
Yep, yep, exactly.

Brendon Walker (08:44.566)
Yeah, no, whenever I go to a networking event, I bring a card holder and my goal at end of the night is to be able to get rid of that card holder.

like the entire stack of cards that I have inside. But also not just a, hey, here’s my card, and then not talk to them. It’s more of, it’s like, hey, after you have a full conversation with them, finding out the information, name, number, need, right, the three N’s, then hand the card over and be like, hey, let’s have a chat, let’s connect next week, do you have a card as well, or do you have a number that we can exchange, et cetera. And then the most important thing, follow up.

Dylan Silver (09:17.664)
I haven’t talked to… Go ahead.

Dylan Silver (09:22.804)
I haven’t talked about this with another guest, but I want to drill down here and really give our audience some value about strategically, logistically, what does networking look like? So a lot of people, especially I had W2 job, had nobody in real estate. At that time, I thought networking meant going to a RIA meetup once a month. Okay. I didn’t see any traction with that. So then I went to a RIA conference, paid a bunch of money to go, and I felt like I got great value from that. But now today,

Brendon Walker (09:32.782)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (09:52.134)
I’m the host of this podcast. have a separate podcast. I’m meeting people constantly in the real estate space. I go to two meetups a week. also, try to like, what would you call it? Select my friend groups based on people who are involved in the real estate space. It’s almost like the networking never stops. And so if I would have told that earlier version of myself, like this is what networking is, I would have been like, that sounds crazy. And so I’m curious in your…

Brendon Walker (10:12.525)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (10:21.194)
perspective, what strategic and logistic steps can people who are on the outside looking in take to bootstrap their networking journey in real estate?

Brendon Walker (10:31.35)
Absolutely. So I think you nailed to right on the head there of, you know, just going to local real estate meetups, I think is a really good way just to kind of get your feet wet. You’re not going to find too many like key people there that are going to work for you, but it’s good to know because they might have valuable insights in the industry or the location that you’re at. And it’s just good to know that there’s other people doing similar things that you’re doing in the, in your local area.

There is so much real estate out there that having competition is a good thing and there’s plenty to go around really. There’s not too many people that are out there just stealing all your deals so you don’t have to worry about that. But just going out there, going to your local real estate meetups that are having, and if you don’t have one, start one. Say that you’re an inexperienced real estate person and you’re looking for people to start signing up and working with you. I have a friend of mine who literally just did that and had like 40

people go to the very first one that they hosted. So it’s all about…

networking, advertising, and getting involved. One of the other ways is social media as well too. when you’re scrolling, I don’t know how your algorithm is calculated to you, but mine is all business, real estate, and tech focused. So when I’m scrolling through and I’m looking at different peoples like posts, I create some real estate posts as well too. I’m looking at other peoples and here’s some good advice that they give out. I’ll actually message them and leave

leave them a DM and kind of say like, really like this post that you talked about this, would love to connect. They follow back, we start a conversation. It’s a good way just to kind of get involved and start putting yourself out there a little bit more. And then also don’t be afraid to learn. YouTube is a super, super valuable asset, valuable asset. This podcast, super valuable asset where you’re getting to hear from a lot of different experts in the industry that have been doing this for years, especially if you’re just getting started.

Brendon Walker (12:35.152)
So I would say it’s constant learning. It needs to go with networking so that way you can stay consistent in the industry and learn more. Because you’re networking to learn, not just to pitch your next investment or whatever to. It’s to also kind of take in additional knowledge.

Dylan Silver (12:53.672)
It’s amazing how much of an open book people can be when you ask questions to them in these settings. It’s truly remarkable. can ask them, you would think this may be information that would be behind a lock and key like Defcon 1 level security, Intel about their business and let us be like, here you go. And they’ll be like, wow, it’s that easy? Because everyone is legitimately happy to be there. Like nine times out of 10, these events are great. But I want to pivot a bit here, Brendon. Let’s talk about a deal.

Brendon Walker (12:59.566)Mm-hmm.

Brendon Walker (13:11.499)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (13:24.096)
Get out of school, you’re a software engineer, go into tech sales, and of course you’re saying, well, what do I do? Where do I invest my money? 401k, stock market, but I remember being a kid working with these flips with my family. Let me go and see what that’s like. How did you find that deal? Was it a rental flip? Tell us about that deal.

Brendon Walker (13:25.582)
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Walker (13:46.574)
Yeah, absolutely. my first deal was actually so that I took on myself. It was actually right after college and I did an FHA loan where because I was trying to house hack if you’ve the term before where it was a two family home. I was living in one side and the other side was already rented out.

And the great part about this property is that the side that was already rented out, that side was the owner occupied part of the unit.

that the previous owner had started renting it. So it was already redone, it was a lot nicer. And then the other side that I was gonna be living in was trash. was like everything needed to be redone. I think the walls were the only thing that I didn’t replace. But I did everything myself. So because of my experience as a child working for my cousins, I understood, hey, these are the things that need to get done. I know how to do all these interior, cosmetic, et cetera.

You know just because for licensing reasons you I tend to just in my business I tend to always make sure you’re hiring licensed plumbers and electricians and depending on the amount of Woodwork that needs to be done should also hire a licensed contractor as well, But everything else that’s cosmetic that’s stuff that you can do yourself. You don’t need a team like Money is a tool

to get things done in a shorter amount of time or if you don’t have enough time to get those things done. But if you have the time and the bandwidth and the knowledge to do it yourself, do it yourself. It’s a great way. That’s why Home Depot and Lowe’s are such a massive company is because of the DIYers, right?

Brendon Walker (15:31.662)
And so it’s so that deal, so I lived in that. I actually had a couple of roommates as well, too, that I that I had. So I was basically living there completely rent free. And when the covid.

like, you know, housing market bubble happened and the interest rates crashed, I refinanced that and I moved out and I moved on to my next project. So I only owned that property for about a year. I stayed in that for a year to meet my FHA requirement, which you’re supposed to live in at the FHA home for one year. And then I moved on to my next project and rinsed, repeated, did it again, did it again, formed a company. And now I’ve done, you know, dozens

of homes at this point.

Dylan Silver (16:20.734)
So did you hold on to that first property? you keep that? That’s great move. That’s the biggest regret that I, to the point where I don’t have any deeds in my name or an LLC that I own yet. So I’m on the journey, the infancy of my journey. But when I do get some, I realize I am going to hold on to that first property. And if I don’t shame on me, because every investor that I’ve had on here has told me time and time again, I wish I didn’t. I didn’t know back then, but I wish I didn’t.

Brendon Walker (16:24.236)
I still have it today.

Brendon Walker (16:42.798)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (16:50.6)
And so you go from having that first property that you house hacked to then you rinse and repeat, right? And you’re seeing proof of concept here and then you’re scaling. You’re realizing there’s an opportunity here. At what point did you decide that this was gonna, you were gonna scale this up to where it’s at today?

Brendon Walker (17:08.91)
It was a few years ago, so probably about three years ago, back in 2022. So, um, because in the, uh, in the span of

you know, two, three years, I had done three properties. And that wasn’t even in a company. It was just through myself. And I realized, I’m like, if I can make the numbers work for myself in doing these properties, and I was buying these properties on market, these weren’t off market properties, these were on market deals that I was finding and negotiating and doing that, So you can find good deals on market. It doesn’t always have to be off market. But then I started, when I started looking at off market opportunities,

I knew this was something that I wanted to try to make a business. so started that about three years ago in 2022. Started small with doing condos where we were just renovating and flipping condos and trying to be in and out within just like three months basically at a time.

And the first two I did all on my own. Like no help, like just did them all on my own just to make sure that I could keep the expenses as low as possible. But once I started looking at properties that were full rehabs, all right, hey, yes, this needs all new plumbing, all new electric, we need the walls taken down. This is too much, that’s too much for a one man job, right?

So once I started realizing that that’s the space that I wanted to get into and scale up to, that’s pretty much where I’ve gone. And then there’s different tax strategies that you’re gonna learn throughout your process of how you can do like 1031 exchanges, you can do a cost segregation study to help reduce expenses. But the great thing about FLPS and why I really wanted to start it as a business was the tax write-offs because when you’re spending so much money on all the repairs

Brendon Walker (19:03.716)
and fixes, all of that is tax write-off on the income that comes in either from the rental income or from the sale of the property. And so once I started realizing that I wanted to sell some of these properties and that I also wanted to write off more of my rental income that was coming in, that’s the main reason why I started the business. And then we’ve grown the business to other asset class areas as well too at this point.

Dylan Silver (19:29.76)
No one has a crystal ball for the future, nor can people predict where rates will go and so on and so forth. But I’m curious to get your perspective on New England real estate in general. I’m in Texas, right? So in Texas, people all over the country, but definitely us Texans, think that we’ve got the best real estate market in the country. And Florida’s right there, and there’s a lot of pride in that.

And you’re actually the first single-family home investor that I’ve had in the Boston area. And I lived in Boston for six years. So I remember just, this was 2015 timeframe. I remember how expensive home prices were then. And of course they’ve only doubled or more than that since then. And so as a single-family home investor in the Boston area, do you feel like, well, I guess this is a two-part question. Do you feel like there’s maybe an increased barrier to entry?

Brendon Walker (20:14.638)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (20:28.478)
because just the market is, there’s more operators in the market and the, maybe not even that, but just the price of the real estate, number one. And then number two, are you bullish on New England real estate in general for single family investors or do you think it’s at some point gonna be unattainable? What’s your perspectives on both those topics?

Brendon Walker (20:51.136)
Yeah, no, so let me I’ll correct one thing and then I’ll answer both those so we actually we have single multi and also commercial multi in our portfolio so So but we haven’t done any like regular commercial real estate yet But it’s primarily been rentals on the commercial rental side or all the way down to single-family Any single-family we usually flip we don’t rent out the the numbers in Massachusetts don’t work out for single-family rentals And that’s not the case out west in Texas

Dylan Silver (20:58.463)
Okay.

Brendon Walker (21:21.04)
also don’t think that really works out super well with single-family rentals. It does for some, but…

I living in Texas for a year, I got to kind of understand the real estate market down there as well too. Cause I lived there. That was actually that gap year between 2020 and 2022 was the year that I lived down in Texas. Did a few deals down there while I was there. And so it was a really interesting market down in Texas because there was so much new construction happening. You could buy these beautiful brand new homes for like four to 600,000 when in mass.

a single family home that’s like crap, that’s like 150 years old is going for the exact same price. And so…

Dylan Silver (22:03.423)
Yeah.

Brendon Walker (22:05.58)
That’s and so that’s that was like a big game changer for me of like kind of just like, know, was a it was almost like shock. It’s like wow, it’s like all right my quality of home and house like could be so much better down here. But what’s the trade-off like like there’s different taxes in Texas. So like there’s things you need to educate yourself when you’re deciding if you want to move for the cost of living because Massachusetts is definitely expensive. It’s one of the top three most expensive places to live in the United States. California, it’s it’s New York, California, Massachusetts top three.

And so and not in that order. I think it’s they they change they they’re interchangeable but the

The affordability question of Massachusetts, there’s a lot of low income housing programs that you probably don’t even know about. Massachusetts is one of those states that actually offers a lot of those, where I know that you can get, if you make under, I think like $112,000 a year, you can get a 0 % interest loan for your entire 20 % down payment here in Massachusetts.

Brendon Walker (23:14.768)
And so, you you have to qualify for that you have to apply and all these other things But there are these programs that put in place that if you do a little bit of digging a little bit more homework You’re gonna be able to take advantage of these programs and help I unfortunately was never able to take advantage of those same programs I only took advantage of the FHA program, which is you know, putting down like 3 % So super low like I just graduated college took my first two paychecks and bought a house with it. It was You know, so I went basically all in right because even though it was like

like 15 grand all in. To me it was a lot of money at the time just graduating college. So I definitely understand the affordability is really, really tough. That’s why people, you gotta work on moving away from the city at first.

because the farther away from the city you get, the more affordable that those homes typically will be. Most of the projects that we’ve done has actually been like 45 minutes outside of the city. know, like Boston proper, if you just do the number, like the capex on Boston proper is like 0.05 or worse, or 0.5 or worse. so, which is if you know real estate, you know that that’s not good.

They because what they’re doing is all they’re doing is is betting on the equity in the in the property goes up so much When they decide to sell or you’re just trying or you just really want to live in the city Either either one works, but you’re but there’s ways for to make it affordable but if you want that Nicer home and you have no

If you have no attachment here and you want to move to somewhere else, I know lots of people that have gone down to like North South Carolina, Texas to buy a home because they’re, because they know that they can buy a 2000 square foot home that’s fully redone and built down in South Carolina or Texas for 400,000. And that’s like a five bedroom home where in Massachusetts for 400,000, you’re going to get like a two or three bedroom.

Dylan Silver (25:22.784)
You can’t get anything.

Brendon Walker (25:26.32)
that’s only like 1200 square feet or less.

So it’s so it’s just a it’s it’s hey, where are your priorities? And if you can do it then great then then you then Then you should definitely take advantage of moving to different states and kind of seeing what that’s like And I have a few friends that have done that as well to both investors and not And then other people like myself even though I’ve I my goal is to have multiple homes and live in different states as as I work and and grow and and at some point will expand outside Massachusetts

as well too. that’s and then I forget if I so did I forget if I answered both of those questions.

Dylan Silver (26:05.4)
Just general feedback as far as are you bullish on single family? I would say yeah, you answered it because you mentioned briefly, as a single family investor, the math isn’t math-ing in Boston. It’s tough in Texas, too. Yeah.

Brendon Walker (26:17.838)
Definitely not Boston. Outside it works. then general advice of where I think the market’s going, I actually think with the most recent changes to our government and tariffs and things like that, I think the market’s actually going to be taking a slight dip. So think we’ll start seeing home values come down for a short period of time. But everyone should know that just like stocks, home prices go up and down and they come back up.

and they go back down and then the next time they go back up they’re higher than the time before. That’s kind of just how the economy and our economics work in the United States. if it becomes not a good time for you to sell, the worst thing you have to do is just hold onto it, wait for the chance to refinance it at a lower interest rate, and then do the math on, hey, how long do I have to hold on this asset to make this refinance worth my while? Because you’re gonna pay a couple thousand dollars in closing costs.

Dylan Silver (27:18.218)
Yeah, mean the best time to buy a home was 2019. The next best time is who knows, maybe today. But we are coming up on time here, Brendon. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Brendon Walker (27:32.244)
Absolutely, so you can find me at Walker capital investments calm My email will be there. My email is Brendon BR e and don dot Walker at Walker capital investments calm and The main thing that our company is doing right now is we’re expanding so we are looking for investors. We’ll be launching our

our real estate investment fund where we’re going to be offering an 8 % return on investment for a one year commitment period for our investors. So think of it as like a as a short term rate. That’s pretty much how we’re doing that. It’s not something that’s really available today in real estate. Most of the time you’re going to be holding, you you five plus years. And even though it’s a lower rate of return. And then on the other side, we also do fundraising for our larger commercial deals.

Which those offer much greater returns sometimes like, know, maybe two to three times more than eight percent But those are usually a lot longer commitment periods so if you are an accredited investor and you’re interested in working with walker capital on some of these deals here in massachusetts where we’re actually doing a lot of value add Real estate development here, you know for both low-income housing and for you know, high-income market housing Then please feel free to reach out to me via

email and be happy to have conversation and see where things go.

Dylan Silver (29:00.576)
and thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Brendon Walker (29:03.608)
Dylan, thank you so much for your time.