Why Managing Your Own Rentals Will Burn You Out (and What to Do Instead)
In this episode of Lessons Learned, I sit down with Brandon Thornberry—Founder of UrbanGate Capital and a former tour manager turned real estate investor. Brandon shares how he went from house hacking in East Nashville to building a multimillion-dollar portfolio of commercial and multifamily properties. We cover everything from seller financing and creative deal structuring to managing hairy value-add properties and designing a business around your ideal lifestyle. Brandon doesn’t hold back—he shares his biggest mistakes, wildest property management stories (including one with a dead possum), and the framework he uses to de-risk deals with huge upside. Whether you're just getting started or scaling your real estate portfolio, this conversation is packed with real-world insights you won’t find anywhere else.
Get commercial real estate coaching, courses, and community to jumpstart your investment journey over at CRE Central: www.crecentral.com
Key Takeaways:
Creative Financing: Brandon leveraged seller financing and creative deal structures to grow his real estate portfolio, starting with house hacking in East Nashville.
Freedom Number Approach: He set a clear goal of $10,000 monthly cash flow to transition from tour managing to full-time real estate investing.
Partnerships and Delegation: After reading "Who Not How," Brandon learned to partner with the right people and delegate tasks instead of doing everything himself.
Family-First Business Design: He intentionally structures his business to prioritize family time, including not working weekends and setting clear boundaries.
Hairy Deals Strategy: Brandon sees opportunity in challenging properties by:
Getting a low cost basis
Thoroughly investigating potential issues
Getting accurate repair estimates
Mitigating risks methodically
Diversified Portfolio: He maintains a mix of single-family homes, multifamily properties, and commercial real estate, with a strategic approach to holding or selling based on potential appreciation.
Continuous Learning: Brandon views mistakes as feedback and constantly adapts his investment strategy, such as being more proactive about loan terms and interest rates.
About Your Host:
Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.
Episode Transcript:
Tyler Cauble 0:00
So this episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you. You'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way. Go to www.crecentral.com to learn more. What do tour managing rock bands and transforming junkyards into creative commercial spaces have in common for Brandon Thornberry, it's all about vision grit and seeing opportunity, where others see chaos. In today's episode, I sit down with Brandon, a former tour manager turned real estate investor and founder of urban gate capital, to unpack how he scaled from House hacking in East Nashville to owning a diverse portfolio of commercial and multifamily properties. We dive into the hairy deals, seller, financing, wins, partnerships that worked and some that didn't, and how he built a life that puts family first without slowing down the hustle. You've ever wondered how to creatively finance your first few deals, what it's like to take dead possums out of drop ceilings, or how to structure your business around your lifestyle? This conversation is packed with wisdom, humor and hard won lessons. Let's get to it.
Tyler Cauble 1:26
So Brandon, you started off your career as a tour manager, that's right, very Nashville, you know, yeah, how did that career shape your mindset and your skills for real
Speaker 1 1:39
estate? That's an awesome question. And one of the skill sets for tour managing is looking out into the future and saying, what is going to be a problem we're going to have in Des Moines, Iowa on June 15. Like, what do I see as being an issue? And how can I get ahead of that and prepare for that. And I think that skill set has been super helpful in real estate, especially when you're buying hairy deals that have a lot of issues. You have to take a bird's eye view at it and say, Okay, what are we going to encounter, and how can we get ahead of that and mitigate for that. What
Tyler Cauble 2:22
was your first exposure to real estate and how did it sink its hooks in you? Man,
Speaker 1 2:27
my first exposure to real estate was this, around 2005 you could buy a pretty cheap house in East Nashville. And I just looked at the numbers and thought, Okay, this is, this is my mortgage, and it's a four bedroom, and I can get this for rent on these rooms. And quickly realized that if I bought this house, I could live in it for free and have my roommates pay me rent. That's when I caught the real estate bug. I said, this is awesome. Sign me up. Let's go. And that's when I started really mapping out, how could I go out and get some more rentals and create some passive income
Tyler Cauble 3:08
so you hit 20 single family homes? Yeah. I mean, you house hacked. You got your expenses paid for. You're like, I'm gonna go buy even more of these. Built a portfolio of 20 single family homes. How did you manage that while you were on the road, managing a band, managing a tour?
Speaker 1 3:25
I don't, I don't remember that is a great question, because, yeah, tour managing can be a stressful job, and so I would be tour managing and getting calls about toilets and, you know, different issues, and somehow I just duct taped it all together and just pushed through and just struggled through it as long as I could. Probably too long. I probably should have outsourced management a lot sooner, but I think it did kind of give me a value and appreciation for that side of that work and helped me learn the ropes. But yeah, it was definitely difficult. I mean, I remember just getting off the road and immediately going to renovate a house, sand some floors, paint some walls, which I absolutely loved. You know, I loved it, but it was a lot. It was definitely a lot. This was pre kids, so there was time, but it was, it was a pretty big endeavor.
Tyler Cauble 4:23
Was it tough for you letting go of the property management?
Speaker 1 4:25
It was super tough, super tough. I waited way too long. I mean, I was well into multifamily investing, commercial investing, well into that before I kind of let go of managing my single family. Luckily, my first multifamily I did have third party, and I've kept on that path, so luckily, I didn't try to tackle that management. But I was, I was probably three, four years into multifamily acquisitions and still managing my single family, which in hindsight. Was not a great move. I think I could have expedited scaling and my time, if I would have let go of that sooner.
Tyler Cauble 5:07
What was the breaking point for you to where you said, Okay, I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1 5:12
Man, we had, and I don't consider myself a slumlord, but this is going to kind of sound slum lord ish, I've got a rental in snashville, and the tenant reported there was, like a horrific smell, horrid like, and I got over there and realized this was a critter, you know, was a critter was stuck in there. And we just me and some guys were just having to, like, sniff out where this thing's coming from, and basically cutting holes in drywall. And eventually, and we had, we'd put the tenant up in a hotel because it was, it was bad, but eventually found this kind of, like, faux drop ceiling where a possum had gone up and down and died and pulled out this like, and again, not I'm not a slum lord. I keep nice rentals, but somehow this possum had gotten up in this drop ceiling and died, and I was like, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I gotta have somebody else dealing with the dead possums and rental properties? Gosh, yeah, yeah, that doesn't
Tyler Cauble 6:25
seem like it would be too much fun,
Unknown Speaker 6:26
not fun to have to deal with, not fun.
Tyler Cauble 6:28
But back then, you did have a freedom number, sure, yep. And, and I think that you actually had a pretty unique approach. You decided to reverse engineer your real estate plan to hit your freedom number. So what was that number, and how did you kind of make that approach? Yeah, I love the
Speaker 1 6:45
concept of a freedom number because I think it gives you a very clear goal that you're going for. And when you have that clear goal, you know, you've got it written down, it really helps direct your focus. And I was, you know, 100 miles an hour trying to get to $10,000 a month in cash flow on my rentals so that I could come off the road and be full time in real estate. So that was the goal. And when we had our first child, that even fueled that either even further to just be at home more. And so that goal. First goal was that $10,000 a month to hit that cash flow. And my calculation was, you know, at the time, and this is not, you're not able to really do this anymore, but I was cash flowing $500 per unit. And I said, you know, how do we get to 20 of these and get that freedom number as fast as possible?
Tyler Cauble 7:39
That's great. You and I have had many conversations about this, and I think that you're as big into creative financing as I am, yeah? Because to me, even if you have all of the money in the world, it's just fun to get creative. It is fun, right? Yeah, why put your money to play when you don't have to? Yeah? And if you're just starting out, you don't have any money, just like I was probably, just like you were getting creative and negotiating these deals can really give you a leg up. And so what did those early seller finance deals teach you about how this business works?
Speaker 1 8:12
Man, the first one that comes to mind, I had bought my first rental. I had bought from a mentor of mine, and years later, I'd come back to him and said, you know, do you have any more rentals you want to sell? And he had three he wanted to let go. And for him, listening in and figuring out what was important to him was critical, because I could go in there and, like, try to beat him up on price or something, which I wouldn't have, because he was, like, close friend, he's a mentor. But listening in to him, a big thing for him was delaying tax capital gains. Another big thing was getting the price that he wanted. And when I kind of learned that those were important to him, it helped me to go back and consider how I could present an offer to him that would be a win, win. And what that looked like was, hey, why don't you sell these three rentals to me at that market rate, not even like at a discount, but use seller financing to me. At, originally, we started at 10% down at, I think it was like six and a half or 7% interest. And so we started there. And after I thought about it a little bit more, I thought, you know, it's gonna be tough for me to come up with that. Even that 10% was tough at that time. And I came back to him and said, Hey, if I go up on interest rate, would you come down on the down payment amount? So we went up to, like, six and a half or 7% on interest. He was ecstatic about that. And then we dropped the down payment down to 3% and that allowed me to get into that deal. And I mean, I was even transparent with him. I was like, I don't have a lot of money, you know, just straight up, I don't have, I don't have that down payment amount. Can you work with me? He loved it. I loved it. And so I think. You can have that transparent if you, if you have that relationship. I mean, some sellers, you don't want to come and tell them, like, Hey, I don't have any money, but you can, you can be transparent, and you can really listen to them and find out what their motivations are, and then not in a manipulative way or anything, but just come at them, and how can we strike a deal that works for both of
Tyler Cauble 10:24
us? Yeah, I love that, because the metaphor that I always use is there's always a different lever to pull. Yeah, right, if you want a lower down payment, what's the reverse lever that's going to come down? Is it a higher interest rate? Is it a shorter loan term. Is it a prepayment penalty? There's so many different things that you can kind of, you know, give and take and trade there. I love that. What pushed you to go? I mean, you've built up a beautiful portfolio, right? 20 single family homes, probably more at this point. Most people to them. That's, that's, that's enough. That's good, yeah, why did you decide to go bigger and get into multifamily, get into commercial real estate and all that
Speaker 1 11:06
jazz? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think in one way, I just like building things. You know, I enjoy building businesses, getting better at things. There was also a desire to just have a bigger life for my family, even above that initial freedom number, and that has propelled me to, you know, keep on going. But nowadays it's just, I love what I do, you know? And I, yeah, I could probably just go sit on a beach, but I'd be super bored within a week or two. And for me, it looks more like Michael Hyatt talks about the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life. And I really like that approach of, how can I have more margin in my life? So I don't have to be like constantly in this hustle culture mode, but I can have more margin in my life but still grow a business at the same time. Those things don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Tyler Cauble 12:01
You know, you're one of the few commercial and multifamily real estate investors that I know that still owns a bunch of single family homes. Yeah? Why?
Speaker 1 12:10
I mean, that's it. That's a question I ask myself a lot. So when I am considering if I'm going to sell something, I look at three components. I look at return on equity, I look at return on effort, and then I look at path of progress. And the first one's real easy. You just figure out, Okay, I've got 300k equity in this property. I'm cash flowing 1000 a month. I'm making 12 grand a year. That's a 4% return on equity, not great, right? In that example. So that might be a property I would cut loose to take that capital and do a 1031, into a larger deal. But then there's a couple other components. One is return on effort. And if a property is a pretty easy deal to run, or if I have somebody running it, I might keep it. Or if it's a struggle bus, then I might, you know, want to let that loose. And then the last one, which sometimes trumps the first two, for me, is path of progress. And for my example, or my situation, the majority of my single family are right next to where Oracle headquarters is going. And I've just decided I'm going to wait just a little bit longer on those and let them build their headquarters and then cash out on those at that point. So hopefully in a few years, if we have this conversation again, I will not have this single family, but I'm holding out just a little little bit longer just to cash out on that future potential.
Tyler Cauble 13:40
I like that, because it's intentional, right? You've actually got a specific plan in place. And I think that a lot of real estate investors don't think about that. And just, oh, I'm going to strictly look at the return metrics. Yeah. Well, I would agree a 4% return on equity is pretty low, but if you look at, well, when Oracle comes in, I could sell this for twice what it's worth today, yeah, who cares what the 4% returns get, you're gonna get way more appreciation on the back end. Yeah, right. So I really like that approach. And you know, we did a we did a story of the deal, sure, on east side yards, really cool property. Thanks. I mean, that great example of a vision driven project. How do you get good at being creative with these deals and spotting potential in something like that, because for those of you all that maybe haven't seen that video, you should go check it out. Brandon took essentially an abandoned junkyard, sure, right? You have some flex buildings, but, yeah, it was. It was a rundown industrial property on Dickerson Pike, which is where I bought a lot of stuff too, and he turned it into this amazing drum studio, art studio. He's got it on Pier space so that you can rent it out. So it's a very creative deal. Tell us. How do you see
Speaker 1 14:53
that man? That one is a little bit unique, because I didn't really know how it was gonna turn out. Yeah, and it has evolved as we've gone along. So for that deal, specifically, I think I just recognize there's an extreme need in Nashville for affordable commercial spaces, especially for the creative community, which is crazy, because, I mean, we're in Music City, you'd think there would be a ton of options, and a lot of those places have gone away, you know, they've made room for high rises and different developments, and there's just a gap there. So my thought process on that deal was, you know, if I can provide some spaces that work. You know, they're not super posh, but they are functional and provide them at a reasonable price point that creative tenants can use them. I felt like that deal would work, and that's how it's played
Tyler Cauble 15:52
out. How did your mindset shift around partnerships with teams after reading, who not how?
Speaker 1 16:01
Yeah, who not how? Was definitely a pivotal book for me, because I do have the I'm a mentality, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, and there just aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done by yourself. And I think I reached a breaking point. Started to realize that I don't have to be every piece in every deal. I don't have to be the operator, I don't have to be the deal finder, I don't have to be the management or the leasing agent. That there are so many different skills that different people can bring, and in a lot of cases, do them way better than I was, and we can do something really great together, rather than me just trying to hustle along and duct tape it all together with my own
Tyler Cauble 16:51
efforts. Yeah, it makes it a little bit easier. Yeah, it's enjoyable.
Speaker 1 16:55
And if you do get the right who as that book talks about, it's amazing. What that opens up for you, and what that has looked like for me when I do have a partnership is, first of all, you got to set clear expectations. You know, any partnership I have early on, I talk about, you know, hey, I don't really work on the weekends. I don't work nights. Family is very important to me. I if I'm going to be the KP on it, I explain like, hey, I want to be an advisor on this, but I'm not maybe going to be on every zoom call. Is that okay? Those types of expectations, when they're laid out very clearly, can really help in the future. I think there's a quote, expectations are just future resentments. And so if you get those expectations out early on, that helps a lot. And then second, alignment of goals. So if you have the same end game, and if you can align your goals, that's going to help a lot. And then lastly, just partnering with a great operator. Any deal that I've had goes sideways. It's usually an operator issue. Yeah, it's not a deal issue. I was
Tyler Cauble 18:11
having a conversation with someone the other day, and to that point, we were talking about partnerships and laying it all out on the table, maybe showing too much of your cards. And I was like, I would much rather take the 55 year old divorcee approach, right? Like, here's my trauma. Let's get this out of the way, because I don't have time to mess this up, and neither do you. That's how you should kind of that's how you should approach real estate partners, agree,
Speaker 1 18:36
man. And I think when you get that stuff out early, it helps with 90% of the deal, because at least you can have a conversation about it, yep, and on the front end, and not two years in when someone's frustrated by maybe the amount of effort you're providing in the deal. And there are plenty of deals where I'm the main hustle, I'm the GP, I'm running the deal, and other people are really more of like the LP on the deal, and we lay out those expectations early on as well.
Tyler Cauble 19:05
How do you decide when jumping into these partnerships, whether you're going to be a KP, a key partner, yeah, a GP, a general partner, an operator, an advisor, yeah. How do you structure that? Man,
Speaker 1 19:16
it's, it's case by case basis. So there's some deals where I'm a KP, I'm just the key principal. I've been brought in to bring net worth, liquidity and experience to a deal so that the operators can qualify for financing those deals. I'm just gonna be kind of an advisor on the deal, just maybe hopping in on some meetings, just making sure it's not going off the rails. Other deals, I'm just gonna be a straight LP. So I'm just gonna be a limited partner. I have earmarked money that I call like my LP bucket, and I use my retirement accounts as my LP money. Because when you use money in a self directed. Roth or a self directed Sep, you can't provide services to yourself. And so that's perfect LP money for me. And in those situations, I'm just investing my retirement accounts in somebody else's deal as an LP, and I'm very hands off, I mean, even, even less hands on than a KP would be in those deals. And then sometimes I'm a GP where I'm going out and raising money on deals, and I'm the main operator. Sometimes I'm a part of the GP group, but really somebody else on our GP team is operating the deal, and I'm more an advisor inside of that. JP, or Yeah, that. And then other times I'm just buying deals by myself, you know, just with my own money. I am still the operator and, you know, running the deal, and then using third party for management.
Tyler Cauble 20:55
What side do you like the most? The things
Speaker 1 20:57
I love the most are deal finding and then vision casting of how we're going to transform this property. Those are my two favorite things. I probably start to fizzle out mentally in about 24 months on a deal, and I'm ready for the next adventure.
Tyler Cauble 21:15
Yeah, yeah. Speaking of adventures, let's talk about your Murfreesboro deal, okay, yeah, an apartment complex you've got you almost walked away from, yep. I mean, what? What made you, What convinced you to stay in the deal? Yeah,
Speaker 1 21:26
this was a 32 unit in Murfreesboro. It was direct to seller, seller financing. It was my first multifamily deal, and we did inspection day, and it was, it was a nightmare. We had one unit we walked through and the tenant in there, because I always like to ask, like, Hey, do you have any issues with your unit? Any maintenance problems? He said, Well, I've got a hole in my floor. I was like, okay, you know, I'm picturing like a maybe, like a fist size or smaller. And he proceeds to move the couch out of the way. The HVAC guys had to come in at one point and cut out his floor to get access to something, and when they were done, they put the carpet over top and moved his couch over and just said, Hey, don't move your couch so you don't fall through the floor. So, yes, yes. Yes. So that's just one tiny example. But this, this property was mold infested. It had just issue upon issue. And so I remember sitting in the show Nice parking lot. I was getting ready to meet with the seller, to go in and tell him that I was going to cancel this deal. And we sit down at a normal spot. And I said, Hey, I've gotta, I've gotta cancel this deal. It's just, like, too much for me. And luckily, he said, Well, what if I just gave you some money off for, like, the repairs. And I thought to myself, well, I was excited about this deal. Now I'm not what dollar amount would get me back excited. And we just sat there and just went through all my issues. I had them all on a sheet of paper, and we just scribbled out, like, what we thought each would cost. He said, hey, I'll give you that off. And I said, Okay, well, let me go and just double check. And I got bids for everything, and we arrived at a number, and he gave me that offer, the sales price, and we just went
Tyler Cauble 23:30
forward. How's that deal performed? Ever
Speaker 1 23:33
since? Well, fortunately, unfortunately, year into that deal, I got a offer I just could not pass up, so I decided to cash out, walked with a really good amount of money, did 1030 ones into two other complexes. That deal has since traded three more times since I've owned it for probably about $2 million more than I sold it for, wow, yeah, so kind of seller's remorse there, but it did allow me to get into a couple more deals, so that was great, but yeah,
Tyler Cauble 24:09
never well, hindsight is always 2020, and sellers remorse is funny, because somebody probably had to bring in a lot of money too, right? Like, that's the side that we don't see, is how much capital somebody brought in to, yeah, fix the other holes. That's right, that's right, yeah. So you've taken on a lot of hairy deals, sure, yeah, right. I mean, you love them and not too, because there's so much room for upside with them. But there's a reason a lot of people stay away from them. Yeah, they can be a lot to manage. They can also not turn out great. They can go the exact opposite of the way. I mean, what's your framework for actually, de risking these
Speaker 1 24:44
opportunities? Yeah, de risking is important. A couple things come to mind. First thing is basis, cost basis, and what you're buying the deal for. And on those hairy deals, I find, if I can get it at a really good price, that de. Risks get most of the way, because even if I encounter renovation surprises, I've got it at such a low basis that I'm going to be able to absorb that. And that's pretty typical of a lot of my deals. You know, I still have not learned the lesson that I should just double whatever budget I have. But you know, typically things are going over budget, but the cost basis is important. And then the second thing, and I think we talked about this on the story of the deal, a confused mind says no. So if you're just confused, if it's overwhelming, you're not sure how much it's gonna cost, it's just scary. You're going to walk and it reminds me of east side yards. There was a underground storage tank because it used to be a gas station, and that's pretty intimidating, because you can't get financing because of this. There's environmental risks. So to mitigate that hairiness, I just went out and got a quote for how much it would cost to remove this, and it was $25,000 which is not a small amount of money, but also not a deal killer, and it just involves methodically going through and saying, Hey, I've got this structural issue. I've got a roof that has grass growing on it, literally, I've got water pouring in. How am I going to go and get prices? And that goes back to that, who not how? Like, who do I know that can do this? Who do I know that knows somebody that I that can fix this and going through that, getting the bids, de risking it getting at a good cost basis. And I think that's the path to taking on those hairy deals.
Speaker 2 26:47
What's the biggest mistake that you've made doing deals like that?
Unknown Speaker 26:50
How much time do we have?
Tyler Cauble 26:54
Yeah, and how did it change your approach?
Speaker 1 26:56
Yeah, I like the thought process. There's no failure, only feedback, and there's a lot of feedback from from mistakes. I've made one, one that comes to mind that is very apparent right now is we were spoiled for like, a decade on debt, like banks were throwing money out there. I was getting apartment complex debt for like in the threes. And if I could go back and talk to myself three four years ago, I would say, lock in as much low interest rate debt as you can, because since then, we have seen rates skyrocket. And for me personally, that looks like some lines of credit that are adjustable rates that have gone way up. It looks like some loans that did mature that have gone from 3.3% to 6% and I'll just be fully transparent, what that equates, for me is that equates to 10 to $15,000 a month, income difference, like 10 to 15 grand out of your pocket. Yes, because of that change in debt. And so if I would, I would call that my biggest mistake was not locking in debt when we could get it at 4% what
Tyler Cauble 28:17
advice would you give for newer investors today approaching the market. And what could they take away from that?
Speaker 1 28:23
Yeah, the biggest advice is just pay attention to it. You know, I was running and gunning, working on new deals, renovating, and since then, I've put together a just a loan spreadsheet that has all those maturity dates, all the interest rates, what my payments are, who the loans with all the account numbers, and it's very organized so that I can visit, visit that on a regular basis and say, Okay, what, what loans are maturing, and what do I need to do to, you know, reposition those.
Tyler Cauble 28:56
You're a big family guy. You mentioned this earlier in the in the episode that you know, really a lot of this was was designed to get you back to spending time with your family and to improve the quality of life for your family. How have you designed your business around your family's lifestyle?
Speaker 1 29:15
Yeah, for me, that looks like some, some non negotiables. It looks like I don't work on the weekends. My kids actually ask me, Is today a no work day? They say, today, is today a no work day? I want to play Legos. And they actually bust me if they catch me working, because work's probably my default, you know, I I love to build things and work on things. So left to my own devices, I'd probably just work all the time. So it looks like some non negotiables, like not working on the weekends, not working after five. For me, I'm an email checker. I mean, I love just like keeping up on email. I just removed the email app from a phone entirely because I would just be. At the playground, just, I'm just gonna check email on a Saturday. Why am I doing that? So some things like that, where I've had to, you know, know what my defaults are, and then set up those parameters for myself so that I am mentally present with my family. Because we all say, you know, we want to be more mentally present. Like, okay, what's the metric for that? What does that look like? And for me, it's just being detached from work mentally, and being fully engaged with my family, and putting those types of things in place has really helped me. What are you working on next? I'm working on refinancing a couple apartment complexes. So I've got one complex where the interest rate is 10.2 and we're refining into 5.5 so that's going to be a major shift. I've got a flex space warehouse that your team has helped me lease up. We just rented a space to a soccer training facility, and then another space to a golf simulator. So that's been a really fun project, talking about hairy deal. That's a hairy deal. Yeah, absolutely. We had a back wall. We had a water feature, yeah, at that property. And, you know, coming up for me, it looks like maybe taking a sabbatical, really, yeah, thinking about taking, like, a month off about time, yeah, man, 20 years hustling. Let's take out, let's take a breath. Well,
Tyler Cauble 31:21
if I can give you any advice on the sabbatical, because this year will be my fourth year in a road doing it. Love it December 15 to January 15. Yeah, that's getting real estate. Great time to do it, yeah? Because what I realized was, nobody wants to do anything that that's right anyway, and so you're just going to be the guy
Speaker 1 31:38
checking email. Yeah? Well, I was reflecting on, you know, covid was a super tough time for a lot of people, but it was also like, kind of a good there's a good thing for us. I mean, it's sure, it was a horrible season for our world, a lot of really sad losses, but I just remember everything kind of slowed down, and I just was, like, that was just kind of a nice time with my family. So maybe I'll take two sabbaticals, because I'm thinking about taking July off and then bring it back around December too. Yeah, yeah.
Tyler Cauble 32:14
I agree. Man. I mean, you know, I would never want to go through covid Again, but looking back on it and remembering how slow it was. Yeah, and I had all the time in the world to work on all of the the foundational stuff that I needed to do for so long. Yeah, pretty nice. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's good to get to get to the family Brandon, if anybody listening wants to follow along with what you're doing, where can they find you? Yeah,
Speaker 1 32:40
find me on Instagram at B THORNBERRY. Also please follow urbangate capital on Instagram.
Tyler Cauble 32:46
There you go, and we'll have those links in the show notes below. Awesome.
Unknown Speaker 32:50
Brandon, thanks, man. You
Tyler Cauble 33:00
this episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you, you'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way. Go to www.crecentral.com to learn more you.
Everyone knows what the wealthy drive and wear — but few know what they buy to build true wealth: Triple Net (and absolute net) properties.
These “boring” commercial real estate deals quietly deliver predictable, passive cash flow month after month, with tenants like CVS, Dollar General, and 7-Eleven paying not just rent but also taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
No clogged toilets. No late-night calls. Just checks in the mail.