Join Bronson Hill and co-host Nate Hambrick on the Mailbox Money Show for an eye-opening look at Build-to-Rent (BTR) communities with Andy McMullen, co-founder of Legacy Acquisitions. With decades navigating real estate—from LA office deals to 2010s multifamily pivots—Andy now scales BTR projects for instant cash flow, skipping traditional development delays.
Discover why BTR dominates today’s market: merging single-family vibes with apartment perks in booming submarkets like Lafayette, LA, and Baldwin County, AL.
From passive lending to hands-on development, Andy’s straightforward playbook—built on relationships and tight processes—delivers mailbox money today and legacy-scale tomorrow. Pivoting from scattered singles or oversupplied multis? This episode is your no-nonsense roadmap through volatility.
Get my new book: https://bronsonequity.com/fireyourself
Full Transcript:
Bronson Hill: All right, welcome to the Mailbox Money Show. I am super fired up today. I am Bronson Hill, the host of the Mailbox Money Show.
I’ve got Andy McMullen, who’s an amazing guest, talking about build-to-rent communities, which is amazing. Spent a lot of time with this guy. Super inspirational, both in what he’s doing in the business as well as just him personally. So excited to have him here. I’ve also got another inspiring friend of mine, Nate Hambrick. Who’s the two-time best-selling author of this most recent book, The 18 Laws of Leverage, which is amazing.
So Nate, how are you today? And what are you looking forward to with this interview?
Nate Hambrick: I’m doing well. I’m excited to chat with Andy, because you know the old adage is that the riches are in the niches. And so I know Andy has a lot of specialized knowledge that I probably do not have. So I’m excited to learn this is going to be awesome.
Bronson Hill: I love it, man. Well, I’m excited. Anyway, I want to talk about this niche that a lot of people don’t know about.
They call it BTR, which I was saying if you’re a waiter and you did shorthand. You’d be like, that means butter. But it actually means build-to-rent. And so for the rest of us that are not build-to-rent specialized. It really makes sense as an investor to look at, is it a great time to buy multi-families? Is it a great time to buy and hold single families?
Or is it a great time to buy precious metals? Is it a good time to buy a business? And I think there’s a lot of compelling reasons right now. Where it’s a great time to be a part of build-to-rent. And we’re going to get into that and just kind of some of the communities. That’s what Andy’s been doing for a long time.
So Andy, so good to have you. I think back on the Mailbox Money Show, love talking with you, always learned something. But how’s it going today and what’s happening in your world?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, so great to be here with you guys. I really appreciate you having me on. I’m just fired up about just real estate business, talking about mailbox money. So we’ll see where this conversation, as you know, sometimes we start processing. And we just go this way or that way. But it will be enlightening nonetheless.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, exactly. And I think as an investor, it’s great to be interested in everything. And there’s a difference between shiny object syndrome. Where you’re interested in everything, where you do everything. But these conversations are like you’re getting educated on everything. Because there is a time to make a pivot as an investor of like, if you are a multi-family investor. There are great opportunities right now. But a lot of people have made pivots into other things that make a little more sense. So Andy, you’ve been doing this a while.
You’ve been a guy who’s been in the space for a long time. You’re a pretty soft-spoken kind of mellow guy and really teach your own horn. But you’ve done just some exceptional things for a very long period of time. Why don’t you give people a little bit of idea of your background and kind of what brought you to Build2Run?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, so I’ve been in this game for, as you know, quite a while, right? That might be the strongest thing about my resume is that I’ve been able to stick around, right? So I’ve been in and out of multiple cycles, kind of started off in the office game in Los Angeles, kind of putting together real estate deals.
And then, we started doing multi-family, maybe the 2010s and started in development, doing some build, some live workspace. If you remember what that kind of phase was like, you would live and you’d work in the same spots and they were usually in the kind of the Venice or the Portland’s of the world.
And then over about the last seven years, we just started to see this trend of folks now. Instead of just buying these scattered homes like Blackstone did right after the the great financial crisis. And trying to manage them across county. Start to see developers building them next to each other, just like a pulled apart apartment complex with all the amenities that an apartment would have without the kind of stigma of being that lone renter in a neighborhood.
So that’s kind of where we started to see the trend and then connected with some partners that had been doing it for 15 years. And ever since then, we’ve been really dialed in on trying to build this this trend out as much as we can.
Bronson Hill: So we’ve been looking at this for a bit here in Pasadena after the fires, the idea of building new construction, the idea of build to rent is a little different. But if you just build and you sell, you create a big tax issue, right? You have a lot of gains in a short amount of time.
You create a tax issue with build to rent, it kind of gets around that. And you guys have found a way to really cash flow pretty quickly on these types of deals. So talk about I think that’s one of the most compelling elements is that a lot of people are looking for cash flow. And you guys have something that really is a silver bullet because you can’t fire yourself. Or leave your job or quit your business. How are you gonna make money unless you are able to have some cash flow?
So how does how does build to run generate cash flow?
Andy McMullen: I don’t know how many things I’ve had with you, Bronson. Where you’re like cash flow, cash flow, cash flow. And so we had to figure out a way to bring cash flow to our development deals. So I think you’ll you’ll be happy.
We’ve listened to a lot of the investors. And as you know, a lot of investors got burned a little bit in this multifamily phase. And as a result, people really want the current pay.
They like that idea of having this mailbox money that in typical development doesn’t always usually come till three, four or five years down the road. So what we decided to do is let’s create a class that’s just for private lending. So we will guarantee, which obviously people think I’m a little bit crazy. But we’ve seen enough traction in our projects with enough experience to know that we can build a class of private investors. Pay them the 10 to 12 to 14% depending on how much they need per month.B
And that would be instead of the equity, we keep more of the back end, we just have to obviously guarantee the front end. And it just has worked out that we’ve been able to raise quite a bit of capital that way in the last, you know, few months.
Nate Hambrick: Do you feel like that would apply because that’s very unique. I hope you appreciate how unique that is to say, hey, we’ll take a lot of the profit on the back end, but here’s 14% cash on cash. Like, I hope you realize how special that is.
Is there something specific about that, that model and the build to rent that makes it work or is it just that you found a way in general? Like, is this applicable for other traditional multifamily or what did you have to change to make that possible?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, I think it is. It is definitely an education change. And we do have to, you know, there’s some risk for us as the primary lenders, right?
We’ve got to have established credit, right, where we’ve got enough wherewithal to cover those losses, right? Because we’re adding, we’re personally guaranteeing not only that, but then we’re delivering what’s called a consent judgment or a pocket judgment. Which basically just means that, look, we’re going to sign a judgment now. Put it in the drawer, if we default, then you’ve already got part of that legal work already done.
And the reason that we’re trying to do that is because we know that there is a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of kind of reluctance for folks to be lending. To folks that are only on, you know, one property or two property as a second trustee.
A lot of lending now is only on first trustee. I personally feel like when I’m lending other folks, I want to see that they’ve got the track record and the balance sheet and that they’re willing to sign a guarantee. So for me, I think that’s the strongest kind of position that you can be in as a lender, as if you’ve got that diversification on the real estate owned and the personally guaranteed.
Bronson Hill: Do people, when they invest, did they get any depreciation or is it, they’re pretty much getting like cashflow as well. They’re not getting the other tax benefits, correct?
Andy McMullen: That’s correct. Yeah. If you’re a lender on the project, you wouldn’t get the equity.
That’s not to say that we have done some balanced, right, where we might do a blended part of that is a loan and part of that is the long term equity and then for the equity piece. We can structure it in such a way that they’re getting some depreciation. And typically with development, as you guys know, it’s really, you’re only benefiting from that depreciation once the units are in service, right?
So once they’ve got that C of O, so you kind of have to find that, that particular year or 18 months that you’re actually turning units from vertical into in service with the certificates of occupancy.
Bronson Hill: Right. And then once you have units, they are typically easier to rent. One issue is we’ve had here and you’re doing a lot of stuff in Louisiana area, but in L.A. it’s harder because you develop so much value from an equity standpoint here. But the rents are not that high.
So from like the loans, a lot of people do DSCR loans, which means your debt service covers like how much you’re actually generating an income from this property. Which is not a lot here, but it might be much more front in a basis where you’re at. So it makes more sense to do built around. What kind of rates do you get for the long term when you actually build these things?
Andy McMullen: Yeah. So when we refinanced just recently, so what we’ll do is we’ll, we’ll buy the land with our money, get it entitled, then you’re going to need a construction loan, right? For the horizontal piece, right?
The streets, roads, utilities, then you’ll refinance into what they call the vertical loan rates, a little bit better banks think there’s a little less risk when you’re building vertical after you finished all the streets, roads, utilities. And then once you stabilize, once you get, get those units leased, then you’re going to get your permanent rate. So our permanent rates are the sixes.
Obviously we’d much rather be that the fours or fives where they were. But that’s typically kind of the way that it’s, that it’s structured. Gotcha.
Bronson Hill: That’s pretty good. That’s not bad at all. What are the, I guess when you’re looking at build to rent, I mean the there, I imagine there are certain communities or areas of the country it makes kind of, we talked about the difference between LA and Louisiana.
Is it just when it’s cheaper to build and rents are higher, that just makes, that’s a, that’s an equation that you generally like, right? Is that so parts of the country that would make sense? And then population growth as well.
Andy McMullen: Yeah. It’s interesting. I remember being in a panel with you and we talked a little bit about the multi-family game and how much over the last couple of years has been some real, you know, struggles that same weekend.
I went to a built to rent conference and everybody’s kind of talking about how great built to rent is. However, what I learned was a lot of those big markets that everybody kind of talks about just in general terms, right? They talk about the Dallas’s, the Houston’s, whatever, whatever working in Florida is they don’t consider that each of those markets has a sub market and a lot of nuance, right?
Because what’s happening in those large markets is you build something and then you’ve got another build that’s coming in five years later, that’s sucking out all of the residents from the previous, And it’s kind of consistent. So what we try to find is those secondary tertiary markets that have the strong growth, they’ve got actual economic growth, they’ve got population growth, but they’re a little more steady. So in that kind of Lafayette area, Baldwin County is a good example in Alabama, parts of North Carolina that we really like some parts of Texas.
But I think as you guys know, every market is has its own kind of DNA. There’s a sending markets into the larger areas, and then there’s descending markets in those larger areas. So we kind of try to figure out what it is that that calculus and it’s part of the art, of course, but you got to have at least the fundamentals where you got the, you know, the growth and the economic growth and population growth.
Bronson Hill: Makes sense, makes sense. You know, I think it’s really, it’s interesting how we find niches and what we think is important. So for you to be someone like if someone is going to start this, obviously, they can be a passive investor, if somebody’s going to start to do build to rent.
I mean, do you like I mentioned, you partner with a general contractor, you’ve got to kind of like, like, how do you keep a general contractor on track? That’s, I guess, the issue with any building project or renovation, right? How do you have to keep on track?
Andy McMullen: Yes, so much about what we do. And I know there’s a lot of listeners that are that are out there and various businesses, right? So with every business, there’s these kinds of who on your team can you have doing the, doing the task oriented work, looking at the contracts, we’re a big believer in our company of working genius, I don’t know if you’re familiar with working genius, Pat, Pat Lencioni.
So we want to make sure that we’ve got the people that have that tenacity in the seats, that are reviewing the contracts, reviewing the timelines, staying on top of kind of the new, the real task oriented. And then we’re kind of looking at a big picture, figuring out when is that we can pivot, you know, how we discern. So the answer to your question, every contract in relationship is a little different.
And even if it’s in the contract, there’s got to be a certain level of trust and kind of intuition, right? Because if you’re pounding on your contractor, just because he didn’t fill that date, then then you’re kind of potentially losing on the back end, right? Because they’re looking at other places, they got to work.
So there’s a lot of nuance in these things that you don’t have to consider.
Bronson Hill: Do you ever use performance clauses where it’s like, extended as I’ve done this before, it’s like, how long is it going to take you to finish this bathroom remodel? It’ll take me two months. Okay, great.
How about we give you nine weeks? And if for some reason it takes longer, are you willing to get reimbursed less for every day or give a bonus if it gets done a certain amount of time? Do you guys do things like that incentives for builders or anything?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, I like I like to do it the other way where you really it’s incentives, right? You just kind of hit instead of these kind of penalties. Now, of course, if it becomes egregious, you do have to create in some some penalties.
I’m just saying that sometimes you’re not going to act on those penalties. If you’re trying to keep your guys moving, you might maybe at the end of the contract, you got to kind of discuss but it’s more for me if you say, hey, look, you can get it done in 10 10. I said, I really need done an eight.
If you can give it an eight, I’ll give you you know, 30 percent premium, whatever that is, that seems to be the biggest. And again, a lot of the contractors that we’re working with are larger companies, right? So you also have to kind of figure out how can I get on the ground with the people that we have on the ground and really benefit the actual workers that are the ones, you know, we’re in Lafayette, Louisiana.
If it’s raining in the morning, we need them back, you know, at work in the afternoon. So how do you get those people to really keep pushing, you got to find the actual people that are doing the work, rather than the guy that’s back in the office kind of barking orders, you know, yeah, how do you do that?
Nate Hambrick: Like, do you drive out to your different facilities and develop personal relationship with it? Like, how do you actually implement that?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, so much of what we do, which is which I think has been a game changer for us to Nick and Nate is what I’ll talk about on the on the kind of project level. But yeah, all of our subs, all of our, our general contractor, Derek, who, you know, Bronson, our partner, they’re spending quite a bit of time on the project. So they’re meeting the people that are actually working in in our development projects and our development projects just for, for reference are in that kind of 100 to 300 unit range.
But one thing that’s really benefited us on the project level. And as we’re constructing units is we have what we call a community resource officer that sits on at the project is one of the first renters, they’re creating relationships with all the community, right? So they’re getting referrals, putting together community events, dinners, Bible studies, whatever it is.
And then they’re also creating relationships with the subs there so that we can know who’s the guy that’s really kicking ass or who’s who’s the group that maybe needs a little push. So it’s hard to enforce of course, Nate, it takes it, it’s only as good as the relationships that you can create. But it but it is something that we are intentional about.
Bronson Hill: I love that. Yeah, I think it’s so important to continue to improve processes and all that. And that’s great.
It’s interesting that you said, the bill to rent, it’s funny, real estate is very siphoned. And it’s interesting how, you know, single family, if you’re an owner, it’s hard to want to sell right now, because you typically have a low rate most people that have owned for the last three years or more, they’ve got a sub 4% or 3% rate, which you can’t get now, right? So the asset really is the loan.
And so but then other things open up where it’s like, okay, it’s an opportunity here in this and you know, we’re doing development with modular manufactured homes in an urban area, you’re doing stick build an area that makes sense, then you’re going to do a bill to rent type of structure, which I think is really interesting. Do you guys also do I know you do for people you do the steady cash flow kind of as a lending piece for that do you also you said you do provide equity as an option if people want to come in as an equity investor?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, we do typically the way that it work was we have, you know, a blended class. So, you know, there’s there’s a certain amount of let’s just say, a bucket that’s above the primary that we need. We’ve got to underwrite, of course, for the debt service as we go.
So that’s kind of the the most conservative way to underwrite it. And then we also have, you know, sometimes we’ve got preface equity that comes in or, or institutional, you know, the family office that comes in. But yeah, typically the way that we we underwrite is and you know, if there’s a mom pop investor, retail investor, they can they can put 100 grand in the, you know, their current pay and 100 grand in the back end equity, we can do it that way.
One thing I’ve been kind of interested that I’m curious what you guys think of on the on the interest rates is that we’ve kind of got a lot of these projects that are now starting and maybe you’re seeing it in your Altonita developments that you’ve got a lot of folks that are kind of stuck in that kind of four percent, I think I was something like 60% of of loans out there now are under that four and maybe there’s even more that’s under the five.
What’s kind of how are you accounting for that in the future as you guys are building, you know, with with interest rate?
Bronson Hill: And it’s a good question. Yeah, we’ve been looking at this many different ways because initially I thought, well, I’m going to become a licensed dealer for modular manufacturer homes in the state of California. So I did that took me almost a year I got it done.
Now the challenge I’ve realized is that they could they build these homes so quickly that you can be early, right? You can show up and there’s no comps because nothing has been built in the last 12 months because the fires just happened a little less than a year ago. So it could be six or 12 months before we get comps.
So if we put it out now, our build costs is just it does. There’s a very small margin with some of the older homes that are there. And so we have to kind of wait for some of the newer construction that comes in so they can comp them against them hopefully.
But but I think interest rates it is interesting. 40% of homes nationally have no debt on it. 40% of single family homes have no debt on them.
And then I think of those that were the 60% that are left, the majority of those have some 4% loans. So if you know, if you own a house or it’s kind of discouraging for somebody who’s a young person who doesn’t own a house, right? Is that are you ever going to be able to you know, right?
Because there’s these long term fixed debts or fixed rates that are in there and, you know, people aren’t going to sell it. It can really take years and years and years to be able to reset. So that’s the challenge when you have long term fixed rates that are super low for a long period of time.
If rates were allowed to float, let’s say like Canada, where it’s every, they reset every two years or something or every, I think two to three years, you know, that probably the price of real estate would have come down for single families quite a bit, right? So it’s just funny, you know, it’s like, yeah, these things. And then we saw in multifamily, where some of the values went down by 30, 40% over a couple years between 21 and 2023.
So it’s just an interesting, it’s an interesting time in a lot of ways. I mean, I think that what we’re looking at is, you know, I think find the opportunity that makes sense with the buying price that you can buy at, I’d rather have a little bit higher of an interest rate of a cash flows and then just be able to know that you can refinance potentially later. But Nate, do you have any thoughts on that, on the interest rates and kind of where we’re at?
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, I mean, it definitely makes you get a little bit more creative. And I think that’s what I love about real estate and entrepreneurship in general is that the problem can be seen as the problem, or the problem can be seen as the opportunity, right? So yeah, there’s a lot of people with single family, I was just talking to one of my neighbors, I met him at the park, my son’s, you know, 16 months old and met him.
He’s like, he’s a home builder. And he’s like, well, we thought about moving, but we have a 3.2% interest rate. So we’re probably never gonna move, you know, and it’s kind of one of those ha ha things.
But in in that, there are so many opportunities to do out of the box things to help you win with the problem. We’ll call the problem. I hate to call low interest rates during COVID a problem.
But for all intents and purposes, we’ll call that. So you can always do subject to right pays Morby does a lot where he buys on subject to you can sell your home subject to you can do owner financing and keep your loan. You can, you know, buy the next house, keep your current house rented out.
And as long as you sell it within three years, you don’t have to pay the capital gains on that. There’s so many different creative ways and creative outs that you have that other people aren’t thinking about, which is where the opportunity lies. And so that’s the way that I like to think about a lot of things is that the challenge is only the challenge if you don’t find the opportunity in that.
So, actually, I’ll float it back to you, Bronson, what are some challenges that you’ve noticed within real estate within your own life that you’ve chosen to see as opportunities? And so you’ve created them?
Bronson Hill: Let’s go. I love any answer this one, too. I was just looking up on Chad GBT here, the word I’ve heard this word, the word crisis in Chinese continue to work characters.
One is for danger. The other is for pivotal point or opportunity. Right.
So it’s interesting that every challenge presents an opportunity is always a silver lining. When one door closes and other opens, and we just had a great interview recently, just earlier with Rod Khaleef and just the idea that like it’s either success or it’s seminar. There’s lots of seminars, there’s lots of things in my life that we’ve had deals where we’ve had, you know, major challenges or losses on it.
It’s really difficult, really hard conversations with investors. But I realize like, I’m going to just learn everything I can, I’m going to take responsibility for what my part is and learn and grow, and then realize like, we’re in investing and you know, nothing is 100%. Even money in bank accounts, there’s risk.
If you put money under a mattress, there’s risk there. So life is inherently risky. And when we blame or we point fingers, we don’t really get the lessons we don’t learn.
And so I want to be somebody who learns from everything. So I think that just from a mindset perspective, it’s so important that, you know, if you’re an investor and you’ve had a loss, you’ve had a challenge. It’s so important to say, well, what am I, what’s my lesson?
What’s my learning here? Because I’ve had some expensive seminars, right? And I think we all have had things we’ve gone through, like, oh, wouldn’t go there, whether it’s a relationship, it’s an investment, it’s a job thing.
It’s something else that happened. It’s all kind of kind of helping us grow. Andy, what do you have to add to that?
I know you’ve probably had some challenges.
Andy McMullen: Yeah, we think about this a lot, because obviously, in real estate, you’re always going through some cycle, right? And many of them got got pretty pretty bad, right? So you’re constantly reevaluating, reevaluating learning.
We like to think of that kind of disguised growth. That’s the pain, right? That disguised growth, you’re going through it at the time, you’re like, this sucks.
But if you’re kind of thinking, this is where these lessons, then this is kind of how, for me, is kind of how God brings these to our attention. And in that kind of pain, you know, you know, plus reflection is progress that I think all of that’s very true, even though it may sound trite, and it may not feel like it. Now, I think with real estate and investing in general, for most people, they’re not willing to get back into the arena after they’ve lost badly.
And I think that’s the part that I think people really need to think about. You can control the process, you can kind of control many of the outcomes, but many of them are too impossible to predict. No one would have predicted that interest rates at this level went that high.
But as Nate mentioned earlier, that’s part of the opportunity, right, is to kind of figure out where that is. So I think that investors over the long haul, and that’s part of what, you know, what Buffett talks about as part of what, what was this part of Munger talks about is it is over time, the kind of becoming that learning machine. And you’ve got to pick those opportunities.
But if you, if you bow out, you kind of bow out at each stage at each investment, you’re kind of you’re never really learning from it because you’re just kind of what we call, what we call resulting, you’re kind of playing the results without thinking about whatever that process was that got you, you know, to the next level.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I think that I think that’s huge. I think, you know, it is just so important to, you know, take those moments. I, my brother actually had a time where I’ve never been, I’ve only been fired from one job in my life.
And I was fired from being a youth pastor of all things at a mega church. They’re just like, I just nothing gets a good fit. And the last day’s Tuesday, it was on a Friday, it was like, it felt so like, oh my gosh, what in the world?
It was just, it just, they just didn’t feel like it was a good fit. But it came like very suddenly, it was right after the holidays, it was the whole thing. And to me, it was a big deal.
I think that the reason I share that is there was a choice there of, okay, am I going to let this defeat me? And one of my dad has always said to me is, well, you know, you’re so resilient. You have all this thing.
Well, it’s like, well, I’ve learned to be resilient. I’ve been through a lot of stuff where I’ve been through that I went through a divorce. I went through other things in my life that really allowed me to learn like, oh, okay, like this isn’t my first rodeo.
And so sometimes, like there’s this quote, I’ve been quoting, I have a men’s group that I have on Tuesday nights. And I’ve been quoting this quote of like, don’t, you know, this is John F. Kennedy said this, he said, don’t pray that don’t pray for easier lives.
Pray that you’d be better. And I just thought like, that’s so good, right? Because it’s like, I pray for my life to be easier though.
Bless this. And this would happen and everything be perfect or just be super easy. All the money would come to me.
And it’s like, it’s not always that way. But but what happens is I’m getting better and I’m learning better.
Andy McMullen: That’s, that’s the, the I was my son had this, we had this very, this conversation almost a couple weeks ago, we said, Hey, look, Daddy’s gotta get easier, right? He’s going through, he started high school when he’s got, you know, right, multiple studies and sports, and you’re trying to get it all in before you get to bed, etc. It’s like, does it get easier?
And I said, no, but you know what does that the hard you get better at the hard right, you, you get better at kind of whatever that is, managing your expectations, not getting too high, too low. One of my heroes is coach wooden, right? You would talk about that.
Yeah. And if we think about that, he started coaching in 1948, and he lost for 16 years before he got that first chip, right? He was just chipping away.
Now he’s the best coach of all time. So I think you just get better at the hard. And that’s, that’s not easy for people when they’re going through it, including me, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have these conversations with Lord, why are you, why are you bringing it to me this way in this time, but but you do kind of have those, these wrinkles, they mean something.
They, they, they, they steal you a little bit, you know?
Bronson Hill: Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that’s really good. I think it’s just, you know, the perspective and this is where on the show, we do talk about different assets, but I think it’s just so important to be a resilient person. And this is where my friend Chris Martinson talks about like the different forms of, of capital, right?
It’s not just money. It’s like you have physical, tangible goods, you have your health is one. Another one is emotional resilience, being able to like go through a challenge.
Some people like they go through a challenge and they just melt. Like they just can’t handle it. Like you’ve, we’ve all watched people like that.
We’ve moved in places ourselves, like, or it’s like, there’s some difference. I don’t know what to do here. And, and then yet you realize life is just sometimes going to be hard, but that it gets better.
And sometimes I literally had some moments the last, you know, a couple of years and it’s been like, I just got to take some deep breaths. I got to do yoga class, got to get into a church service. I’ve got to, you know, just really do some journaling or just kind of, you know, breathing, whatever it is, you know, just really give myself some space away, go on a trip.
And I think that stuff is so good. And I don’t think we really allow enough space in our lives to be able to do that because then we miss some of the lessons that are there. Nate, you have the 18 laws of leverage.
What are some things that kind of speak to this about that you’ve shared? I just love your book, but they talk about the idea of resilience and emotional, like being more resilient and kind of coming back and learning through process and things like this.
Nate Hambrick: Yeah. So one of the laws of leverage is don’t do work you hate. And it’s not to say that you won’t ever do things you hate because we’ve all been in real estate.
We’ve all been alive long enough to know that there are things you have to face that you’re not going to love. But at the end of the day, work yourself into a position where you get to choose your heart, right? One of my favorite seasons of business, and I hope this for everyone listening to this podcast is the season where you can say no to a client ahead of time that you know is going to be a pain in the butt the entire time.
And it’s helpful for so many reasons. You know, if you talk to 100 people, 90% of them will probably be just fine. But that bottom 10%, they’re going to be a nightmare, right?
They’re going to wreck you emotionally, you’re going to stay up late thinking about it, and they’re going to ask for so many extra additional services for free. You’re not going to be profitable on them anyway. And there’s a beautiful place in life where you become good enough at what you do, to where you don’t have to take everybody’s money.
It is awesome. I think throughout life, I’ll probably raise the bar right now. It’s the bottom 10%.
Hopefully, one day it’s the bottom 50%, right? So not doing work that you hate is helpful for that reason. It’s also helpful because you learn the skill sets you need to learn faster, because you have more time to focus on that versus just putting out fires.
So, to answer your question, Bronson, there’s so many facets of leverage in learning how to do that well. And to Andy’s point, right, life doesn’t stop throwing curveballs. It doesn’t.
But if you get better at managing your expectations, managing your time, not saying yes to every opportunity, because you know, it’s going to bite you in the butt, you can spend more time focused on the skill sets you actually want to learn. And so, oh, yeah, go ahead, Bronson.
Bronson Hill: Oh, I love that. I love it. Thanks for sharing ideas.
It’s it’s leveraging your learning your skill sets. And yeah, just I guess that’s the last question I really have for you is, is what is something that’s really helped you to leverage your skills and your growth. And I just have so much admiration for you.
Like you said, pretty humble guy, you’re not really touting your own horn, but you’ve done some phenomenal things, tens of millions of dollars of real estate over the years and just really created this niche. What’s one thing that’s really helped leverage your growth over the years?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, I think I think Nate hit on something that we’ve as an organization, as our team, that’s really benefited us. And that’s the how much time am I spending on the stuff that frustrates me and how much on the time the time am I spending on the things that that really energize me, right? And it’s, it’s not just the amount of time it’s transformational because it doesn’t suck.
It doesn’t innovate you working on the things that are really detail oriented. I like to discernment and I have, you know, I’m good at kind of supporting our team from the bottom up. So those things, if I’m in that space, I’m much more energized.
I can get a lot more done. As you mentioned, Nate, even just those moments where you’re just thinking about how you can make something better. We, I never been good at that, right?
I’m part of a C12 is like a Christian owners organization. And one of the things that you always hear that any of these owners of these large businesses suffer from, it’s the rest and the retreat. The retreat part is whether it’s taking a, you know, inspirational quote, or Bible verse, and just kind of meditating on that for a certain amount of time.
You really start to think all that’s chaff that’s kind of in your brain is swirling around, it starts to kind of fade away. And then you can kind of focus on what it is that’s really important to that day. So that’s been a real game changer is figuring out how I can stay in those transformational parts of like not the demenial tasks.
Other people love that stuff, checking off lists, et cetera. What can I work that’s maybe more transformational, not just a transaction?
Bronson Hill: Yeah, love that. That’s huge. Well, and it’s wonderful to honor you.
You are a great guy. You come from a great place and just really a place in your heart just that you really want to help and serve and love other people, which I was so appreciate. Also the faith stuff is just super inspiring to me.
So appreciate your brother and grateful for all the value you’re bringing to people for your investors. How can people reach out and connect and hear about your deals and what you’re doing?
Andy McMullen: Yeah, thank you, Bronson. Nate’s been great hanging with you guys. I appreciate it.
Just legacy acquisitions.com. We’ve got, if people are interested in the built to rent, we’ve got a book there that we love to send them. And we just we just love, as you mentioned, we learn from investors of all shapes and sizes and various kind of asset classes.
So please reach out and love to chat more about what you guys are doing and how we can help.
Bronson Hill: Awesome. And we’ll stick around for a minute here. We’re just going to kind of do a quick little wrap up here.
So, Nate, I really enjoyed this interview. I got a lot out of just the, you know, obviously being in a niche that really is working and designing really this investment for people that need cashflow and kind of, kind of turning it on its head a little bit. Usually you don’t see that type of setup, but which I think is really cool.
What was, and then also just the mindset piece we talked about, about really things happening, you know, for that’s kind of been a theme lately on the show. I think just of the turning obstacles into the building blocks, really. What are some takeaways for you?
Nate Hambrick: Well, yeah, basically what you just said that life won’t stop punching you in the mouth. I upgraded it, right? It’s not curve balls.
Life won’t stop punching you in the mouth, but you get better at taking it and you get better at dodging it and you get better at getting back up quickly and you get better at all of those things. And honestly, now that I think about it, it’s such a blessing because if you could achieve in your VANA right now, what the heck are you going to do the rest with the rest of your life, right? You’re constantly growing and that’s actually a blessing, not a curse.
And so fantastic interview with Andy and I’m excited to apply that concept in my own life.
Bronson Hill: Awesome. Well, hey, appreciate each of you for joining us. We love doing this show.
We love hearing from you. So we love to hear what impacted you about this episode. Please feel free to like and share it because this is how we are able to get great guests like Andy.
And so if you haven’t enjoyed our investment club, you can check out the link below and join our investment club. We’ll look forward to seeing seeing you on the next episode of the mailbox money show. Thanks so much, everyone.
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