Join Bronson and Nate as they sit down with J Scott — serial entrepreneur, BiggerPockets podcast co-host, and author of five bestselling real estate books including The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs. J has sold over 500,000 copies of his books and brings decades of experience across single-family, multifamily, and development.
In this episode, J unpacks how curiosity, humility, and economic awareness shape successful investing. From learning construction by asking “dumb” questions to his current outlook on inflation, debt, and development, J shares timeless principles on how to stay adaptable and grounded — in both money and life.
Get my new book: https://bronsonequity.com/fireyourself
Full Transcript:
Bronson Hill: All right, welcome to the Mailbox Money Show. I am your host, Bronson Hill. I’m here with Nate Hambrick, my co-host and author, best-selling author.
We have an amazing guest today. We’ve got Jay Scott, who his bio is incredible. He’s written five best-selling books.
He co-hosts a podcast with Bigger Pockets and another one called Drunk Real Estate. He sold over 500,000 copies of his books. And he’s a multifamily investor, a partner, and is just really well-networked within the space.
I’m really looking forward to hearing what he has to say. Before we get started with Jay. Nate, I just want to ask you, how do you vet your real estate deals? What are the things that you look for in real estate?
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, well, actually, I was going to share a quick story, if that’s okay. My introduction to Jay was in 2022 with his book on estimating rehab costs. The unfortunate part. I bought the book after I was already 100 grand over budget on renovating a 1920s home.
So anyway, to each fan of Jay, wish I’d read it beforehand. Because it turns out renovating a 50s property, a 1920s property, not the same thing. And I went in so confidently, like, oh, I’ve done this 14 times. I got this. Turns out I did not.
So anyway, that was my original introduction into Jay. But to answer your question, Bronson, I now stick to deals that I really understand that I’ve done a lot.
And if I ever go into a new market, a new type of home, a new real estate investment. I am very cautious. I’m very intentional about finding the person who constantly does that style of renovation. Because if you don’t, it’ll bite you in the butt.
Bronson Hill: Absolutely. Yeah, the learning the sometimes we’ve read the book by doing the deal wrong. And we kind of could write the book on all the things that we didn’t do. So we’ve got Jay in the studio.
Jay, how’s it going, brother? Good to see you, man.
J Scott: Hey, thanks for having me here, guys. Thrilled to be great.
Bronson Hill: Great to be here. So, hey, tell us that story real quick on the the rehab costs as many rehab cost. But did that come through a lot of painful experience or did you just like on the front end. Be like engineer mind, go plan it all out every single day? Give us the backstory of that book.
J Scott: Yeah, so I’m an engineer by education. And I for me, it’s I’m a numbers guy, probably too much so. When I started in this business, I knew nothing about real estate. I started in 2008.
I came from the tech world, literally bought my personal residence about a month before I my first personal residence. About a month before I bought my first investment property. So I knew nothing about real estate. And so for a couple of years, basically, I would bring in contractors. I would kind of trick them into teaching me how to inspect and estimate costs for a house.
So I’d bring in an inspector. I’d have him do an inspection report and then I’d take that inspection report to a contractor. He’d give me like he’d walk through the house. I’d walk behind him and I’d just ask him all these stupid questions. I mean, just meaningless questions because I didn’t even know what to ask him. And he’d educate me as he’s walking through. He’d say, OK, well, it looks like you don’t have a GFI on in the kitchen and bathroom.
Oh, really? What’s a GFI? Why do I need that? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He would explain it all to me. Then I’d call another contractor to come in. And I’d walk through with him and I’d actually act like I knew what I was talking about.
I’d be like, it looks like we don’t have GFI’s here. And I know we need that for this and this. He’d tell me other things. And then I’d get more G. So I’d bring another contractor in.
And by the time I got to like the fifth or sixth contractor on the house. I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. And I could confidently get a bid from them because I didn’t feel like they were taking advantage of me. Because I was just some guy that had no idea what I was doing.
So I spent two or three years doing that on every piece. Electrical and plumbing and HVAC and roof and foundation and framing and everything. Bringing these contractors in to educate me on how these things worked by just asking questions. Then bringing in additional contractors and iterating and iterating and iterating.
And a couple of years later, I was like, OK, I feel like I know this as well. I mean, I couldn’t do the work. But I feel like, from a conceptual standpoin. I know as much as the inspectors and the contractors I brought in. Because I’ve talked to dozens or hundreds of them in this period of time. And so then I just kind of documented that process.
And and that’s where the book came from.
Bronson Hill: It’s amazing how just by asking questions and doing something. You can learn a ton just by talking to more people. Like basically, your process was you just kept asking questions, talking to people, learning, researching. And I love the engineer mind.
I feel like engineers can make great investors or pilots, people have kind of a checklist or go through things. And so we’re actually getting ready to do some development in Altadena where the fires were here. We’re going to bring in modular homes, and basically they can build them in seven days in a factory. Put them on land there and the economics look good.
But it also feels very meaningful. But there’s a lot of stuff like I don’t I’ve never been a developer, right? And I’m going to the to the county and they’re actually way nicer than I thought they’d be.
I like dumb questions. And they’re like, well, here will be the sheet. And here’s how you do this.
And here’s how you do this. And I’ve actually heard stories of people bringing in like plans that are written on the back of a bag. Like a paper bag and them approving plans like that at some point, which is kind of crazy.
J Scott: You always hear the idea like you’re supposed to fake it till you make it. You’re supposed to act like you know what you’re doing until you do know what you’re doing. And I kind of take a different tact.
I apologize for cutting you off, by the way.
Bronson Hill: No, you’re good.
J Scott: For me, it’s I want people to think I’m dumb. They think I’m dumb. They’re going to educate me because people like people like to feel like they’re the smartest ones in the room.
So I’m always happy walking into a room, acting and feeling like I’m the dumbest one there. Let everybody else just teach me what they know and talk down to me. I don’t care because that’s how I learn. And so if it’s fake it till you make it, I kind of go the other way.
Bronson Hill: Well, I think there’s a difference. I want to ask Nate about this too. But there’s a difference between being an expert and being a leader.
And when I first started in multifamily, I was not an expert, right? We had 60 people in the room. And I actually had my first investor that I invested.
Your partner was involved in that deal. Ashley Wilson was involved in that deal. It was a deal in Amarillo, Texas.
She kind of got involved a little later. And this guy came up and said, I invest $100K in your deal. I was surprised.
But because I was in the space, I was at the front of the room asking dumb questions. It made me a leader in the space. And so it’s amazing.
You can innovate just simply by being there, being approachable and asking questions. Nate, let’s talk about your book, The 18 Laws of Leverage. How does this principle of being teachable, being humble, being just a learner.
I think it was Socrates or Aristotle was like, hey, I know nothing. What do you know? Just go around and ask a bunch of questions. How does that work?
Nate Hambrick: The first law of leverage is law one, stand on the shoulders of giants. And I’m a firm believer that far too many people try to figure out everything themselves by themselves. And that just doesn’t work.
If you look at the most successful people, they might not be the smartest. They might not have the highest IQ of anyone. But they have really good mentors.
And they read a lot. And that’s one of the things I love about you, Bronson. You might be the only human I know that might out-read me when it comes to business and self-development.
And so that’s your way of learning from other people, which I think is really, really cool. And then I was going to bring up, law number four is Charge For The Result, Hire By The Hour. I have learned so much about business principles in general from roofing contractors and general contractors.
Because if you’ve ever hired a roofer, I won’t speak for every roofing company in America. But most of the ones that I’ve spoken with, they’ll take a quote for 20 grand. Outsource the work for eight, and keep a $12,000 profit. It’s the perfect business model.
And it doesn’t just apply for real estate. You can apply that in every area of business. Where if you’re really, really good at being the leader. If you’re really, really good at the acquisition, at getting the sales. You can outsource a lot of that and have a nice spread.
Enough spread to make it worth your while. So there are so many different opportunities for leverage in this. And so I actually wanted to throw it back to you, Jay, because you’re obviously the expert for a lot of different forms of leverage.
As the market has changed, how have you changed the way that you think about real estate? What are some of the strategies that you’re excited for moving forward?
J Scott: Yeah, so I’m an economics guy. And I spend a lot of time following the markets and trying to, I don’t wanna say predict, but try and get my head around where things are likely to go. Because at the end of the day, real estate and all investing activities are gonna, to some extent, be controlled by where the economy and the broader market is going.
And I think over the next couple years, I see a couple trends. Number one, I think that we’re gonna continue printing a lot of money in this country. So I think we’re gonna continue to see inflation.
And inflation is gonna impact us as investors on a lot of different fronts. Number one, it’s gonna be good on the real estate front. Real estate values tend to track inflation.
You look back 120 years now to 1900, and if you kind of look at the graphs of inflation and real estate values, up until about 2014, they were in lockstep. But I guess you could say up until about 2006, they were in lockstep. Real estate kind of diverged, took off, and then came crashing back down.
And by 2014, they were back in lockstep. Over the last couple years, real estate’s obviously gone up faster than inflation has. But long term, one of the best correlations for real estate values is with inflation.
And so if you think we’re gonna see higher sustained inflation over the next few years, we’re likely to see higher sustained real estate values. And so number one is I’m expecting that there’s gonna be inflation, and I’m treating my business as if there’s gonna be inflation, which means a couple things. Number one, with inflation, we typically get higher rates, higher bond yields, higher mortgage rates.
With higher bond yields and higher mortgage rates, we often have higher cap rates. And so I know a lot of people are really hoping that over the next couple years, we’re gonna see cap rate compression, again, like we did back in 2019, 2021. But I don’t think we’re gonna see a ton of cap rate compression over the next couple years, simply because we’re gonna have a good bit of inflation.
Likewise, I don’t think we’re gonna see mortgage rates come down considerably over the next couple years, again, because we have inflation. So those are the bad things. On the good side, inflation is likely gonna drive rent growth.
So we’re likely gonna see rent and NOI growth, which is great. I mean, values go up. Obviously, the definition of value for commercial real estate is NOI divided by cap rate.
Even if we don’t see a lot of compression in cap rate, NOI going up is gonna be a good thing. Rent’s going up is gonna be a good thing. And so with inflation, I do think we’re gonna see a good bit of NOI growth over the next couple years.
Again, on the downside with inflation, we’re also probably gonna see some expense growth. So the cost of labor, the cost of materials, the cost of insurance, property taxes, all of those things are likely gonna cost us more. And so basically, the first big thing that we’re doing with our business is thinking about how inflation is gonna impact us because I do expect that that’s gonna be an overriding forcing function for the next couple years.
Bronson Hill: I have a question on that. I know you’re a data guy and I really appreciate your analysis, Jay. And on your shows, you have some great, you get into a lot of the numbers and you really follow a lot as well.
The official CPI, I think now, is what, around 3% or a little less than 3% officially. But you look at kind of the expansion of currency. There’s actually a book I read.
He wrote Limitless as well. Lawrence Lapard was there. He wrote a book called The Big Print.
And his whole thing is he basically said that if you look at the expansion of currency, there’s been a expansion of currency by 6.8% per year on average every year since 1971. And that’s about the cost of increase of just actually what inflation has actually been. How do you, and obviously being a real estate investor, inflation in a way is actually good because if you get interest at a certain level and the inflation is higher, you know that using other people’s money.
How do you look at inflation? Do you look at inflation more like Lapard? Do you look at it kind of a mix?
Like how do you, is it important? Is it just, hey, just hold assets and wait and kind of wait and see how it goes?
J Scott: So it’s one of those things for me. It’s an external variable that I don’t have any control over. But I need to modify my underwriting, my investing style and our business strategy based on it.
And so to some degree, I mean, we’re always at the mercy of inflation. Like you said, even though the official government numbers might be three, 3.1%, in reality, inflation’s actually probably five, six, seven percent over the last 30, 40, 50 years. And so we need to take into account the fact that even if we’re calculating, whether it’s wage growth or whether it’s investment returns, whether it’s investment hurdles or leverage hurdles at whatever the government’s numbers are, the reality is it’s probably higher.
And so we’re gonna need to be even more conservative than we would be if we’re just using the government’s numbers. And so from my perspective, again, I think we’re gonna see numbers even higher over the next few years than we have over the last five, 10, 50 years. And so we need to be even more conservative moving forward.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, love that. I guess it’s so interesting when you look at the real estate market, obviously we know there’s demand for housing. I think the last couple of years have been under investment in multifamily housing.
That’s a lot of what you guys are doing, you and Ashley. What do you see as, I mean, beyond, I mean, it could be multifamily, it could be other things, but maybe we can start with multifamily. But what are the opportunities in real estate going forward? Like what do you see over the next three to five years of like, hey, you know, this would be a smart move to consider now, no specific advice, but just things that you’re positioning yourself with?
J Scott: Yeah, so one of the things that we’re starting to look at seriously, and we’re actually undertaking our first big project is development. So the supply and demand characteristics in much of the country for multifamily and residential over the last couple of years have changed. We saw a lot of building in 22, 23, 24 even.
Generally what drives building is demand and interest rates. And when we saw really low interest rates back in 2020 and 2021 and 2022, the beginning of it, what we saw was a lot of developers who started picking up projects. And so we saw a lot of housing starts, a lot of development projects starting in 21, 22, 23, typical time to complete a project from entitlement to CO, two to three years.
And so those projects that were started between 22 and 24 are just starting to finish up. But as interest rates started to go up in 2022 and 2023, a lot of developers backed off. And so we didn’t see a lot of projects starting in 23, 24 and this year 25, which means in two or three years when those projects would otherwise start to be delivered, we’re not gonna have a lot of new supply coming online.
And so I suspect that over the next couple of years, what we’re gonna see is continued increased demand because we still have population growth, we still have household formation growth, but a reduced supply. And so when you have higher demand, reduced supply, what do you have, you have prices that go up. And so I think now might be a good time for those who have historically done value add multifamily if you’re comfortable with larger innovations, if you’re comfortable with like basic development principles, partner with a good developer.
And now I think is a great time to move into development because I think there’s gonna be a one to three year opportunity where there’s just a kind of a lull in the new supply of residential housing. In 26, 27, 28.
Nate Hambrick: And I was gonna ask you on that, Jay, cause lots of things have shifted in the last few years. How has that changed the way that you approach the amount of debt you wanna take on for development, for renovation? And the reason I’m asking this is cause as long as I’ve known of them, Grant Cardone has always been like the master of debt.
His debt has debt, which has debt, right? And recently he’s been buying these massive apartment complexes in cash, which is a bit of a shock to the system. Never thought somebody like a Grant Cardone would do that, but he’s got really good reasons for it because of where interest rates are and so many different things.
Has your perspective on debt shifted? Has it been the same? Talk to me about that.
J Scott: Yeah, so remember that there’s two benefits of debt. Number one, it means you don’t have to come with your own capital as much of your own capital. If you can borrow money, then that’s less money than that you either need to raise or provide yourself.
But the second and the big one is we use the term leverage for debt. It’s because debt actually provides us positive leverage when it comes to returns in some cases. For the last several years, when interest rates were low, what we saw was every dollar of debt that we took on a project would boost the returns because the returns on the project were higher than the cost of the debt.
Well, now we’re in a situation where we’re seeing mortgage rates higher than cap rates and so, or return rates. And so for the first time in several years, we’re getting what’s called negative leverage, which means every additional dollar in debt that we’re taking on these projects is lowering our returns. And for somebody like me who’s buying a single family house, I may not care that my returns are going down a quarter percent or half percent or even a full percent.
But when I have investors and I need to hit a certain hurdle to keep those investors and to attract those investors, every quarter, half or three quarters of a percent return is really important to me. And so it’s not just that I don’t wanna take as much debt right now, it’s that I can’t take as much debt because it’s hurting my returns and it’s making it harder for me to raise capital. So I have to figure out more creative ways of financing these deals where I can keep my returns boosted without taking as much debt.
Bronson Hill: I think that’s a really interesting point. We’ve historically done a lot in multifamily. We have talked pretty openly about this.
We’ve had some real home runs and had some real challenges. And so we shifted a couple of years ago if years ago to do less multifamily. We did a few deals last year and we feel good about those, but it was much harder to raise.
I actually recently saw, it was about a year ago, I saw Michael Blanc in an airport randomly. So him and I worked together for a while for a couple of years. And he was saying he thought it was 90, it was raising about 10% of the money or it was basically 10 times harder to raise for multifamily.
And then you have oil and gas. We’re raising quite a bit of money or we’re raising money for other types of business deals or debt funds or other things like that. Why is it like, I guess from a psychology standpoint, we talked about the psychology of money.
Jay, why is it that the best time to invest? Because I think right now, probably looking back will be one of the best times to invest is lower risk, lower costs, everything. Rates are higher, but it’s better to be at a higher rate and have a lower purchase price, which is kind of where we’re at now is 2016 prices.
Why is it that the best time to invest is the least amount of investors want to do it? It’s particularly for multifamily.
J Scott: Yeah, it’s funny and I say this all the time, it’s buy low, sell high and people like to do just the opposite because people get caught up in emotion and sentiment, more so than logic and the numbers. And so a good example is back in 2008, I started investing in 2008 and people told me I was nuts. Like real estate had crashed 20, 25, 30% at the point that I started investing.
And in my mind, how could that be a bad time to invest? Prices were 30% lower than they were six or 12 months earlier, which meant that basically I was either getting a deal or at least I wasn’t gonna lose as much money if things kept going south. But there’s something to be said for fear.
People aren’t rational actors. People don’t always think logically. And when you’re in the middle of a recession, when you’re in the middle of a downturn, when you’re in deals that are struggling. It’s easier to think to yourself, is this really ever gonna end or is this the big one?
Is this the one? I remember in 2008 thinking, is this it? Is this ever gonna recover?
Is this gonna be like Japan from the 90s where we’re basically gonna have two decades of a bad economy? And if you get yourself in that mindset, it’s easy to think there’s no reason to be investing now or anytime soon because this is never gonna get better. But obviously it did and it always does.
Sure, maybe at some point there’ll be a time when it doesn’t but until then it’s always gonna get better and the logical part of you has to think. I mean, if we look at multifamily today, 2008 we saw about 20 to 25% drop in multifamily. Today over the last couple of years, we’ve seen about a 30 to 35% drop in multifamily.
Multifamily’s actually seen a much bigger drop during this cycle than it did during the 2008 recession. And so from that perspective, it should be easy to say now is a great time to get in, even if we haven’t hit the bottom. I do think we’ve hit the bottom.
I think we’re kind of bouncing along the bottom and we’re slowly coming up. But even if I’m wrong, even if we have another five or 10% to go, the reality is a multifamily investment, a large multifamily investment is gonna be a three or five or seven or 10 year investment. We’re not gonna be in this place in three or five or seven or 10 years.
It’s real easy to go to sleep at night worrying about your finances. But the reality is if you think about it logically in five years, we’re gonna be past this point. We’re gonna be well into the next cycle and you’re gonna wish you bought five years earlier.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I think there’s a guy, I had a multifamily guy that I know that he bought a small place near San Diego, was out in kind of a smaller community that was not a nice community, but he got basically a deal where it was a sumable debt, you know, at 2.5, so some of this is still out there, but like 2.5% or something on this four or five unit. And so there are some deals out there. You put a little bit down, get some cashflow, but there’s always opportunities.
And I think a lot of times it’s where we’re gonna look in a lot of larger investors, family office and institutions are buying a lot, but a lot of retail investors, especially if you’ve had some pain, it’s like, oh, I got hurt with multifamily, right? I had a deal that didn’t go well, or a capital call or a loss, and that it’s, oh, therefore a multifamily bad. But what are some things that you see beyond multifamily?
I know you’re doing other types of things. What are some things even just from a, or even just what you would see as, hey, this is a good time for these other assets as well, whether in real estate or outside of real estate that you’re interested in?
J Scott: It’s a tough question. And I’m not sure that there’s a whole lot that I’m really excited about right now. I am a little bit concerned about the economy.
I do think that we’re heading into a time of either recession or inflation, too much inflation, hopefully not both. But I do think that there’s going to be some struggle on the horizon. And for a lot of asset classes, I think multifamily is, I don’t wanna say uniquely positioned right now, but it is positioned really well right now in terms of all of the fundamentals.
Cap rates have expanded pretty significantly over the last couple of years, and it seems to have hit a peak. So cap rates are starting to come down. That’s great.
We’re likely to see some inflation. So NOI is likely to go up with rent growth. Supply and demand characteristics we talked about are in favor of growth in values.
And so overall, I think multifamily is in a great place. A lot of other asset classes, I’m not sure that’s the case. I wouldn’t wanna be in single family right now.
When I say I wouldn’t wanna be, I own about 100 single family properties. So I am in single family, but I’m not buying.
Bronson Hill: So you’re not happy with your life. I’m just kidding.
J Scott: So they cash flow, and that’s the thing.
Bronson Hill: So you don’t wanna be a new, you don’t wanna be buying more single family.
J Scott: Exactly, exactly. I don’t wanna be buying more single family right now. I’m not bullish on office.
I know there’s some people out there that are finding some deals and making longer term, five, 10 year bets on office, and they’ll probably do really well. I just don’t have that risk appetite. And most other commercial asset classes just don’t excite me right now.
Historically, I’ve done a lot of business investing, angel investing, but I’m not excited about that right now. A lot of businesses are dealing with the same struggles that real estate investors are dealing with, which is they took out debt back in 2020, 21, 2022 when interest rates were tremendously low, or they raised venture capital or angel capital back in 21, 22 when it was easy to raise money because there was so much money out there. And now they’re either running out of runway or they’re facing a refinance on their debt and it’s really hard to raise new money.
It’s really hard to refinance at the current rates. And so a lot of businesses are struggling. We’ve actually seen more bankruptcies, business bankruptcies in the first eight months of this year than in any year since 2010.
So a lot of businesses are struggling. Obviously we’re seeing a lot of layoffs, which is hurting business valuations. So there aren’t a lot of asset classes right now that excite me outside of multifamily real estate.
Nate Hambrick: And it sounds like, and feel free to add to this, but it sounds like you get a lot of your confidence in which deals you invest in, in which you don’t. From the fact that you own more deals than most people, you’ve seen a lot more deals. And so just the repetition really, really helps.
So I was gonna ask you, and this is my favorite question of all time, which is what do you believe about money that other people think is crazy? And the reason I love asking this question is the more I get into real estate. The more oil wells we buy, the more that we get outside of our 401ks and start investing in things that have depreciation and all that. The harder it is to explain to everybody else I know from high school and college, like, oh yeah, I don’t do 401ks because I just get all this bonus depreciation and then I pay two to 3% tax a year.
So what are those money beliefs that you develop just because you have done more deals than most people?
J Scott: Yeah, I think the best quote I’ve ever heard about money is “Money is like soap”. The more you handle it, the less of it you have. And it’s really true because there’s so much friction when it comes to money and investing.
There’s so many places where money can go—whether it’s taxes, whether it’s expenses, whether it’s whatever. The more you transact, the more you move money from one asset to another, one place to another, the more you’re gonna lose of it. And I think it’s a pretty obvious principle that people don’t think about enough. But you look at somebody like Warren Buffett, who basically talks about the fact that you buy good assets, you sit, and you wait 50 years, and that’s how you get wealthy. I think it’s highly overlooked.
And as investors, a lot of us, we have this little piece of us that like to be gamblers. We like to take risks. You’re not an investor or a business owner unless you’re willing to take risks and like to take risks.
And it’s hard for us to make an investment and sit back and wait 50 years to make us lots of money. We’d rather do something that’s a little bit more of a gamble and try and speed up that process. But for me, I just like to remind myself that the less I transact, the less I handle my money, the more of it I’m gonna have.
Just find a good home for it and do my best to sit back, be patient and wait.
Bronson Hill: Jay, obviously we talk about this a lot on the mailbox money show and so obviously people love getting cashflow, but there are things that are more important than money. And I know just yesterday was the day, as we’re recording this, Charlie Kirk was killed, and there’s a lot of people who have a lot of opinions. Pros, cons, whatever but regardless, somebody who is passionate about what they believe got up and was able to share freely about what was important to them. I’d love to hear any thoughts, not just on that, but really, for you, what are the things that are more important than money, or what has this highlighted for you. I guess on a personal level just on like, hey, this is something that’s really important to me, this has brought up for me.
J Scott: Yeah, it’s been a really tough 24 hours since that tragedy and it’s so hard for me to be on social media. I like social media as a business platform. I hate it as a personal platform because what I find is that it is so tremendously divisive.
People will act and react on social media in ways that they won’t in real life. And I mean, I know people personally that I’ve known for years or decades, and I see them on social media and it’s like they’re a different person than the person I know. It’s really disheartening. Because I think, at the end of the day, 99.9%, just to make up a big number. The vast majority of us all agree on the important stuff in life, and there’s a small minority that, for lack of a better term. I don’t know how to use this language on your show. But the very small minority of us are assholes and ruin it for the rest of us.
And with Charlie Kirk specifically, I mean, we live in the greatest country on earth. We live in a country where we have this right to say what we want, and it doesn’t matter if I or you or anybody else agrees with it or hates it or loves it or whatever. We have the right to say it, and we should say it. And that’s the best part of this country, that we can argue and we can debate.
I was talking earlier about how I learned by being ignorant and dumb. So I love the fact that people can talk about things that I don’t know or I disagree with. And the idea that we feel like it’s okay to stop somebody from talking by taking their life is just, it’s horrendous. What makes it, what compounds it, what makes it even worse is that you then go on social media and it causes even more divisiveness.
I mean, if anything, it should be bringing us together. If anything, it should bring the 99.9% of us together who agree that this is such a horrible thing and instead, it’s doing just the opposite. It seems like it’s making us more divisive.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, thanks. I appreciate you showing that. Nate, did you wanna comment at all on what Jay shared or anything you wanna share in regards to that?
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, I mean, incidents like this remind you of what’s—they help bring to the front of your brain what’s actually important. And I think, to your point, Jay, I think most people would agree that their family is really, really important. Living in a community, having friends, all of that stuff is really, really important. And for a lot of us investors, that’s why we got into this, right?
Most people I know that invest in real estate and do all the things that we do did it for the lifestyle; they did it for their family; they did it so they have that freedom. And yet, it’s very easy to focus on the machine that’s getting you there instead of the life you actually wanted. So, a scriptural reference and I’ll probably butcher it but God takes all horrible things and He turns them into good. My hope, with events like these and I’ll speak for myself. Is that it would continuously remind me why I’m actually doing the things that I’m doing.
Why am I writing these books? Why am I helping people get into investing? Why am I investing myself?
It’s not for any of that, right? That’s just the vehicle so that I can focus on the things that actually really matter to me. And so, yesterday was very, very jarring. I’ve thought about it a ton, and I’ve noticed that there is a very healthy place where it’s helped me refocus on the things that I actually care about. And so, that’s my hope for everybody watching this and listening to this. That you would take hard situations like this, and instead of focusing on how evil the world can be, you’d focus on what you actually want in life. Because that’s where we get joy and happiness and all the wonderful things we want.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate what you guys have said. I mean, life is short, we’re here for a purpose. And Charlie lived out what he believed, and I respect that. I think that having the discourse and the dialogue is so valuable for our culture. And for people that want to take it to a violent level, there’s no place for that. So, I think we need to stand against that with our words and say, hey, we’re not gonna tolerate that. And I hope they, at least at this point, they haven’t found the person. Hopefully, they find the person and bring justice and everything. Anyway, I know we kind of hit a heavy note there in a way. Again, these are the things that matter.
So, Jay, I just wanted to celebrate you, just all the value you’ve added through your books, through your podcasts, your multiple podcasts you’re doing. And just the way that you show up. You always show up in a very humble, asking-questions, curious way, there’s never been an ego about you, which I’ve appreciated. And I just wanna say thank you for all that you’re adding to the world of finance and the world of just living a better life. How can people get in touch with you, follow what you’re doing, and hear about what you’re working on?
J Scott: Well, first, thank you for that, that’s very kind. Anybody that wants to get in touch with me, it’s pretty easy, jayscott.com, the letter J, S-C-O-T-T.com. That will link you out to my email address and everything else I have going on so feel free to connect with me or find out more about me there.
Bronson Hill: Awesome, Jay, sit tight for just a sec, here we’ll see a couple of takeaways. Nate, I really enjoyed this interview, I thought this was great. I think we got into a lot of things that were really meaningful as well as some of the deeper stuff as well as practically, where are we at right now? Where are we at in the cycle?
What’s happening? What are some takeaways for you and what are some things you’re gonna walk away with?
Nate Hambrick: I really liked Jay’s quote on, money is like soap, the more you handle it, the less you have. And I think it reminded me that context, the context behind advice is critical. Because I’ve heard a lot of other entrepreneurs that I deeply respect say the exact opposite for business where the quicker you move the money, the more you make and so realizing where to apply what and how is super, super helpful.
So anyway, one of my big takeaways is yeah, in business, the quicker you move that money, the more you’ll make but for a lot of different types of investment, Jay is absolutely right. If you’re trying this type of real estate one day, this over here, you’re doing a 1031 every single year on the same property, you’re probably gonna lose it all in the process. So I found that really helpful.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I think really as an investor too, I think one of the approaches is just being curious, going asking more questions, being more diligent to just learn and you and I are both big learners. We read a lot, we’re hungry for it, we’re both authors and just trying to kind of figure out, hey, I don’t know anything, well, how do I learn more? So I think as an investor and as a listener, hopefully you’re doing that in your life but really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today.
It’s always a pleasure and a joy to be able to share our life with you. So thank you for being here. Thanks for doing the Mailbox Money Show.
We’ll look forward to seeing you on the next episode and feel free to connect below if you haven’t joined our investment deals, you can check out the list below. We have some free giveaways as well and we’ll look forward to seeing you in the next episode.
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