Brian Green is dedicated to something near and dear to my heart - creating the highest quality housing for the lowest cost.
Some call it Attainable Housing. I call it AWESOME.
Either way, you'll want to learn how his team is doing it and doing it well (all in upstate New York, not an easy climate or state to operate in)
Brian emphasizes the importance of having a mentor, recognizing when someone sees something special in you, and how that past success as an entrepreneur guides him today.
Finally, listen to the end and get Brian's two great book recommendations, + how he balances all the work with keeping healthy and being a great dad!
Brian's Website:
www.greenspringscapitalgroup.com
Live free. Get Educated. Master Your Money.
Subscribe to our Podcast here!
https://investingstuffyoushouldknow.buzzsprout.com
Youtube Videos now up as well! Subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1kV60Yxx4ntgLqAwOCR1Pg
Brian Green is dedicated to something near and dear to my heart - creating the highest quality housing for the lowest cost.
Some call it Attainable Housing. I call it AWESOME.
Either way, you'll want to learn how his team is doing it and doing it well (all in upstate New York, not an easy climate or state to operate in)
Brian emphasizes the importance of having a mentor, recognizing when someone sees something special in you, and how that past success as an entrepreneur guides him today.
Finally, listen to the end and get Brian's two great book recommendations, + how he balances all the work with keeping healthy and being a great dad!
Brian's Website:
www.greenspringscapitalgroup.com
Live free. Get Educated. Master Your Money.
Subscribe to our Podcast here!
https://investingstuffyoushouldknow.buzzsprout.com
Youtube Videos now up as well! Subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1kV60Yxx4ntgLqAwOCR1Pg
Hey everyone here at the Investing Stuff you should know podcast, where we bring you expert insights to the world of investing and beyond. My name is Johnny Nelson. Today we're thrilled to have Brian Green as our special guest. Brian comes to us from Upstate New York and he will share his story of investing real estate, starting stores, raising a family and much further cool things. Brian, thanks for being with us today. Man, thank you, johnny, so much for having me. Amazing man, amazing. Tell the folks where you're from. I know what you said Upstate New York, but a little more specificity and we'll just take them there.
Brian Green :Sure, i'm in Saratoga Springs, new York, so about three hours north of New York City. It's just south of Lake George and a little bit north of Albany, if that gives you some geography.
Johnny Nelson:Anyone that's from the Northeast I'm sure that they recognize the area and where that is. What kind of winters? I'm in Minneapolis, minnesota, brian. What kind of winters I'm imagining they're fairly harsh. I was working with a colleague up there in Rochester somewhere in upper New York area. What kind of winters do you got up there.
Brian Green :Probably similar to what you have in Minnesota Terrible, too long and too much snow, yeah yeah, cold and dark and all those things. So we're a little bit further east, though, than Rochester, so we don't get heavy amounts of lake effect snow like they might. So here we do get snow, but it's more just cold and dark And, like I said, probably similar to Minnesota. So it's a breath of fresh air once spring comes and now that we're moving into summer, as I imagine you would agree with in your part of the world, it's kind of the same feeling.
Johnny Nelson:It is. It's exciting to see summer and see grass growing and trees flowering or getting their leaves and flowers flowering, if that's a word, thank you.
Johnny Nelson:So let's talk about. So we're going to just drop right into the business side of this for the folks here. Brian, you founded a chain of retail stores back in 03, and then you exited that building or that business. Give us some insights on how you got into the retail space and then how you grew it and the things that you learned there. I know it's like a lot of stuff there, but that just kind of gives a little bit of history there, because I think that always influences how we see things today. And then, of course, you're on a real estate path, more focused in the real estate the building and the assets versus the businesses inside of the buildings. But give us a little insight there.
Brian Green :Sure, Sure. So, like you said, I started right out of college. We kind of were working for a paging company in the late 90s that turned into one of the earliest cell phone stores in the market. So I started working part-time in that business And then eventually, once I graduated from school, the boss I had in the paging store you turned into kind of my mentor and my angel investor and helped me get a contract with Verizon Wireless and go off on my own to start off my own first store. From there the business kind of snowballed where this was like the peak cell phone time, where everyone was just getting their first phone. This was a big deal for everyone.
Johnny Nelson:Now, it seems like Blue ocean. It's like it was unsaturated, Like think of the potential right, yeah, yeah.
Brian Green :Now it seems like that's 100 years ago, but back then nobody had their own phone, so we kind of hit it at the right time, and so one store turned into three and five, and eventually I built it up to 23 stores And then retracted back a little bit as the market matured, back down to 15. And then at that point in 2014, i was approached by a company from the West Coast that owned hundreds of stores across the country, and they made an offer I couldn't refuse, and then that's where we got the exit.
Johnny Nelson:That's amazing, man, can you talk to us a little bit? Maybe you've seen this. If you have other insights and maybe you've seen other people on this path, i like that idea. Or the thing that you mentioned was having a mentor, maybe even a code investor, at the beginning. How do you find what kind of person you need to be, that your boss sees something special in you, and how do you know when that person is there? Because we have lots of people have bosses. Lots of people have just an older mentor, someone that's been around the block, but you never know when something's going to click or when you can approach that or when you might draw that out of somebody. Maybe they don't even know that they're a mentor. They're an entrepreneur themselves. Like, hey, what does this look like for us? I'm just a young hustler doing my first thing, but they can see something in you.
Brian Green :Talk to us on both sides of that, yeah, so in my experience, before I had gotten to meet this gentleman, my brother had done the same. So my brother's a couple of years older than me And this gentleman had come to our school. We both were in college playing college football And this gentleman came in looking for somebody to help with part-time summer work And at the time the only one in the whole room there's 80 guys on the team that volunteered to work was my brother. He started working like at fairs and stuff. Like back then, like you'd go to like fairs and set up a table and like show people what phones are and how to use them. This is so early that nobody even I mean it's like a, like a trade show, almost like you would. You would never do that now, but back then it made sense. So he started working for this gentleman And, you know, maybe a year or two after that I started doing the same.
Brian Green :So he kind of laid the groundwork for me and built that relationship And he had a similar situation where he ended up having the same same gentleman mentored him. So I think at some level I was just kind of following on the coattails, so like I got a job originally because he's my brother and we needed help. But then over time I kind of proved myself as well And then that mentor kind of offered me the same opportunity that he offered him And we kind of went forward from there. But it was just happenstance, i mean, it was Hey who wants to work for the summer, and somebody raises their hand and then I get a job because I'm related, and then I kind of proved myself in the stores And then you kind of just it just happened organically, i think.
Johnny Nelson:But I think there's something there not to not to downplay it too bad, at least from your perspective. It's, you know, like it's modest, like oh, you know, i just it kind of happened, but also like you have to prove yourself. Like you said, you have to prove yourself And there's something there that somebody sees like Hey, i think this guy could, this guy or gal could go somewhere and do something, you know, for me. Obviously it's, you know, some of the self-sufficiency motivated because, like Hey, they could do, they could do work for me. But also. So what is that? What kind of like, you know, just doing stuff and proving yourself. What does that mean?
Brian Green :Well, obviously it's competency right. You have to be, you have to show a skill set that could be molded into something bigger. But a lot of it is also trust, right, Like that's. If that person, that mentor, and whatever capacity it's going to be, it's going to not only commit money but time, more importantly, and resources to developing you as a, as a younger entrepreneur, it'll be worth their time, right? So I think I think there's a lot of boxes you need to check.
Brian Green :But you know it's. You know that my experience allowed me to do that because I was working in a capacity where we could kind of get to know each other better without him having you know it's not like, hey, can you go out and get coffee with me, and hey, day two, can you be my mentor. Day three, can you be an angel investor? And it doesn't work that way. I don't know where that might work, but I feel like, a lot of times in, like, when I hear interviews, people ask about mentors or they ask me, like, how do you find a mentor? It's like you can't like if you're going out to search for the mentor, it's probably a more difficult process than if it just happens clinically. So I think you know it's. You know we had the capacity where I can kind of show myself, improve myself and we can get to know each other better. Before we took that step.
Johnny Nelson:Yeah, take it to today And of course I would get too far off on the mentoring thing, but it's important because people are looking for mentoring and coaching and, you know, could be younger, could be, you know, midlife or older, you know there's just, people need the information and knowledge and confidence from all kinds of places. Do you have anyone now, brian? if I could ask you a personal question, do you have anyone now that you're kind of mentoring and coaching within the real estate? I know we are more focused within the real estate space. Do you have a person or two that you're kind of guiding or helping right now?
Brian Green :I feel like not in a formal capacity, which may be the case in a lot of mentorship situations, but I feel like, you know, as we grow our company, these people that are coming on to join our team, they're doing it not as employees but they're doing it, as you know, independent contractors, and a lot of times the value proposition that we're providing is not only the vision we have for our company, but it's also the opportunity for them to learn more about real estate, because they're going to be working with myself and my brother, who's my partner, and it kind of an intimate level right. Yeah, it's not only like here, here's the upside, here's the compensation package, like all that stuff matters, but also you have the opportunity whenever you have a question in a real estate, where you can learn as much as we can provide to you and knowledge, because a lot of them that are coming in they kind of want to build up their own investment portfolio at the same time, so it gives them that kind of resource in an informal way.
Johnny Nelson:So then, the message then to the audience if you're maybe a you know, just like again, wherever you are in life, but you know someone that wants to learn the real estate space, the real estate game, then look for that opportunity. And then this is the kind of essentially you know relationship that you could form with a solid team like Brian and his brother from Green Springs Capital Group, and that might be how you, you know, get the chops and the knowledge and the skill set and the confidence to then go do it on your own. So that's, i think that's important. I think it's important because people are reaching out and asking me I'm sure they ask you this and the other. There's a lot of people out there. I kind of get into the space and the game. What do I do? And I think this is a method, this is one way of doing it. I think it's important for people to be aware of how you know, in a couple of often times this can go down.
Brian Green :Yeah, i think it's important that the value proposition has to be a two-way street. So, yes, i want to help you and I can do whatever I can within the capacity that this is going to advance your own investment knowledge or your own real estate career. But at the same time, it works better if there's value coming the other way too. So, like in the example that I described to you, these people are deciding to come on as team members, right, so they're contributing to our company, while I'm also providing them as mentorship. So that's what I mean by the value has to kind of go both ways, i think, for the mentorship to work.
Johnny Nelson:Amazing, awesome, man. Well, that's an awesome place to then pivot toward kind of the things you're doing now to share with the audience. And, like I said, you're in upstate New York. Investors that are maybe more national. They're like oh, i'm looking in like the growth markets of Texas or Florida or Arizona. They're not necessarily thinking of New York, but New York, or real estate, is very local, as we both know, and obviously you're having success and finding success in business and real estate in your area. So what are the things you're doing to have that success within your area And just kind of walk us through that path? I think you're a broker and you're doing like you said. You're doing STRs and development. Walk us, kind of just give us a timeline there of what you've done and where you are now.
Brian Green :Sure. So just to speak to the market for a minute, i kind of love the fact that we're in the boring stable market, so we have zero volatility. Our industry here is anchored by things that are very sticky universities, state government, hospitals, medical facilities And then we also have private industry in the market as well. So we have that kind of multi-tiered a little bit more than tripod maybe five or six different economic drivers here that are very stable. So when somebody else might go up 20% one year, down 5%, then up 10% and then down 10%, we're consistently up 5% every single year. If you stack those fives on top of each other over 10 years, that's better than one year of 20 and then minus 10. I mean, if you take the volatility out of it, it's much smoother.
Brian Green :Speaking to what we're involved in in real estate now, our primary focus is on development. So we are looking to redevelop existing multi-family properties and also ground up development of new multi-family communities. And I say redevelopment because it's not really the old traditional value add strategy. I feel like our business model is more attuned to completely repurposing a building and kind of changing the market profile for it.
Brian Green :So think of like a 1970s apartment building. If we go in and rehab a building like that our team does and we spend $30,000 to $50,000 per unit to do so, i tend to categorize that a little bit different than the traditional value add, where you're just going to go in and put in counters and paint and now you're going to increase the rent, we're completely changing the profile of the tenants that are going to be in the building, and a lot of these buildings just haven't been attended to for decades, So we're the ones that are going to go in and kind of bring it up to market.
Johnny Nelson:That's awesome, man. And have you given that kind of twist on the quote value add proposition? Have you given that a name that you like to kind of categorize what you're doing that's kind of distinguished from what everyone else is doing?
Brian Green :I just call it redevelopment instead of saying Just redevelopment, okay, yeah, it's really. It's more than value add.
Johnny Nelson:Yeah, no, i like that. But so then talk to us again. We skipped a large chasm of all the different cool things you're doing And then we'll talk to us. You know, certainly probably you've sold homes before and then of course you're doing development now, but all kind of within that space too, of all the different areas you're finding success in within the real estate, again in the local market, talk, give us a list out of a few other things that you're finding success in. Sure.
Brian Green :So I said, primarily our focus is on development, but the back end of that is we own our own property management company. So we're constantly building out that team and refining our own systems and processes that are involved in that management. And I feel like that having our own management team gives us a strategic advantage in the marketplace, both from a competitive situation when we're going, you know, competing against other buildings for potential residents, as well as kind of uniquely defining the space that we're playing in. When we're working with investors that might be coming in on some of our syndications, because we have that kind of vertical integration where we're the developer. We have a lot of our own contractors on staff. We have our own management team, we have the flexibility, as you mentioned, that in a lot of our properties we're doing short-term rentals as well. So we have like a multifaceted approach to this and I think that uniqueness gives us a competitive advantage in a lot of different ways.
Johnny Nelson:I like that man, And how has been so you said that you have contractors on staff. is that like just your like go to subs or like in-house contractors? and how did that develop? if that's the case, Yeah, yeah.
Brian Green :So we're doing both kind of strategies. So we have select contractors that work exclusively for us There's still 10, there's still 10 in 9s, but they were doing renovation work for us And those are. That's our core group. But their capacity is limited by the number of them. So we're kind of supplementing what they do with a myriad of different subcontractors. On specific, depending on if it's roofing or flooring or landscaping, some of the things that are very niche we're still using subcontractors for. But we like this approach because it gives us more control over the product. When we have contractors that are only focused on our projects they're not worried about finishing and giving on to somebody else's project that we can kind of get a little bit more flexibility in the way that they renovate our buildings. So they specifically focus on the redevelopment side of our business.
Johnny Nelson:If we're doing roundup development, those are bigger projects and we're basically going to outsource the entire thing to subcontractors And we're either going to GC it ourselves My brother, again, he's our partner, he's our general contractor And if the project maybe is outside of the scope of what we can do internally, then we'll go outside and hire a third party general contractor that has more experience than that type of property And that philosophy is so aligned because, like you said, that consistent being where you are in the market and then providing consistent rent growth, and also provide you consistent, predictable outcome versus like, oh, the contractor's got busy and the deep cap acts, the rehab was delayed six months because we can't get the guy to hang the cabinets and can't get the guy to paint the, paint this and hang the you know do the doors, all that kind of stuff.
Johnny Nelson:So again, like this philosophy you have in your area, it's kind of I like that alignment of where you are, how you think, and then also that you have, like you said, you have the 1099 contractors you know on staff more or less, and then they do what you guys need, you know more or less when you need it. So that's, i love that.
Brian Green :And back to the point where we talked about, like the mentorship, how the value has to go both ways with our contractors. It kind of works the same way. So we get consistency, high level production and control of the product and the work quality. They, on their end, gets the certainty of work right. They don't have to go out and shop themselves for the next job. They don't have to go out and constantly sell themselves. They're going to move from one of our projects to the next project, the next project, and they know that they're going to be paid every month, no matter what. So that value stream is again working both ways And I think that's why it works.
Johnny Nelson:I like that. Yeah, I used to be a general contractor back in my family. He still has a contracting company in Alaska, So we had lots of time spent doing the projects but also out there hunting, you know, hunting for the next project and talking to customers and all these things. So that's a lot of work too. So that's that consistency is very appealing to you know, a carpenter, a roofer, a contractor, whatever role they're doing, that's very, very appealing. I talked to us a little bit, Brian, on the development side. So you know, many, many, many people have done, you know, or are doing, the value add, the redevelopment, like you. go a little deeper on On the new side, what metrics have you seen that have made that attractive? And then, what particular projects have you done or are doing now?
Brian Green :So on the redevelopment side, the metrics that we look at there in my background is operations, finance, that kind of world, probably stemming from the operations of the stores that we still own and manage. Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
Brian Green :Yeah, for me. I need it to make sense on paper. I need the math to make sense, so I lean into the math before we get into anything. So when I'm looking at analyzing a property, realizing that I want to, you know, build a company that has a thousand units give or take over the next decade. the only way we're going to get that kind of explosive growth and be able to keep, you know, investing in a new property, redeveloping it, pulling our capital out, going into the next one for lack of a better term burying the properties back to ourselves so that we can keep redeploying the same capital. The only way to do that is to buy product that you can increase the value to such an extent that you can regain your capital when you refinance. That led us to redevelopment, because it's very hard to go buy a Class A, brand new property that's going to give you 5% cash flow. That's fine in an investment for certain people, in certain philosophies, but if I do that, it's going to you're basically parking your money there for the next 10 years and you can't use it anywhere else. The only way to find that chasm where I can push the value on property to a certain extent to get our money back out is to do major redevelopment where we're going to push the value of the building from $1 million to $2.5 million within 12 months through forced appreciation. Then we can pull off our own capital. We can use that capital again on the next project and we rinse, repeat and it just keeps snowballing The ground up development.
Brian Green :that was born out of the concept that the last maybe 24 months with values were elevated. It was very hard for us to find a property that was existing and in place that made sense on paper, just because the cost of the product was too high. Labor and materials were too high for our redevelopment. We ended up not buying a whole lot in the last year. Instead, i said, okay, well, if it's cheaper to build it than it is to buy it and fix it, then we should have that path. That led us to development, which I think in retrospect was great, because now that we have the skill set to do development as well as redevelopment, we have this two-pronged approach and we can weather the market fluctuations and lean into whatever side makes the most financial sense in that given time period. In that way, we can get to our goals much faster.
Johnny Nelson:I like that man. That is so, just like you saw the opportunity, you lean to do it and then you maybe look back and you're like, oh, these folks wait. now we have developed another, not just the ability to do it, but another skill set. Maybe that can actually give our company greater staying power, like you said, depending on market conditions, which sometimes make existing product very attractive. Sometimes it can make new product very attractive. That bolsters that and makes you anti-fragile more robust.
Brian Green :Yeah, To that point too, a little bit more, because you're in a similar market in Minnesota that we are in New York with some, let's say, pretty stringent landlord tenant laws.
Johnny Nelson:Yes, in other words, very favorable to the tenant. That's great, very straightforward.
Brian Green :I like that. it's also a hedge against those laws here becoming more advantageous to the tenants, because if we're doing ground-up development there is no set rent amount until we create it. Yes, a bit of rent control or regulations on increasing rents kind of goes to the wayside because there isn't any in place. now, if those laws become even more difficult to navigate around, we can kind of again lean more into the ground-up development where we can control that outcome versus doing more redevelopment.
Johnny Nelson:Awesome man. Yeah, i think that's a great point. Is there a certain point? This is kind of just general knowledge for me and anyone else listening. if you're curious, if you do a major, major redevelopment, like you said on a Sanfordese product, are you able to then reset, depending on the depth of the rehab or the redevelopment? are you able to reset the rent because so much of the building was brand new and repurposed or no? it's still this the old rents rates still sticky. Are they still there?
Brian Green :That's a question to be determined. So it's just still only because in New York outside of New York City they're still to this point is not rent control. So we're still able to go in and push rents to whatever extent we want to in line with what the market will pay for that redevelopment. But yes, if we have new legislation that comes down, that most of what I've seen from across the country and maybe in Minnesota it's the same, if you go in and you're doing a certain level of renovation to the units, they'll allow for you to kind of turn over the tenant base and reset the market because there's an understanding that some of these old buildings just need that level of work And no one's ever going to buy it if you can only increase the rent to 5% from a depressed value going into it. So wishful thinking and hopeful thinking that if New York State goes down that line, that they're smart enough to figure that out, that they still need helpers to redevelop old buildings. But to be determined.
Johnny Nelson:Awesome, awesome. What are you a reader? Do you like to read? or maybe a podcast? or a audible guy? Yeah, i read constantly. Awesome, give us the two latest books that you've enjoyed Well, it could be the last two, just for memory's sake, because I didn't ask a question on you or the last six months that you've actually enjoyed. I go through a lot of books, i'm an audible guy And sometimes they're just not sticking with it. I'm just not feeling this. I just kind of like not bringing it out. I just need like I mean inspiration, or I need like motivation or any like technical focus, i don't know, whatever it is, whatever has kind of resonated with you the last six months. Share, if you could share that with the audience, i'd love that, sure.
Brian Green :So two different ones. One is please don't ask me the author's name, i won't. I don't remember your names, but People can figure out how to use Google. Yeah, yeah, the two titles I'll give you. The first one was Comfort Crisis. I don't know if you read that or not, but a lot of it is physically and mentally challenging yourself. Yeah, on a daily basis, to kind of make yourself mentally and physically stronger.
Johnny Nelson:I like that I like that.
Brian Green :You know he talks about this Japanese term called misogi, which is, you know you're supposed to have a challenge every year. This is usually like a physical challenge, like and he gives an example back to your Alaska reference, before these guys went out to Alaska We're going to live in the wilderness for 30 days, right, With nothing besides what they can carry in. So the point of the misogi, though, is to kind of free your mind, go out and challenge yourself emotionally and physically, but the caveat is it can't be life threatening, so you can't go overboard. But that book is really good. I think I like that a lot because I try to do that to myself to a lesser extent, just through exercise and training. I'm pretty avid and to crossfit, so I like that stress to yourself every day.
Johnny Nelson:I'm. So I'm so resonating with it, Ed, because like every like and I try to like get my metabolism or sweat every day, and my wife and I are both into this And like we have to make ourselves comfortable for that because we sit in front of a computer, blah, blah, blah, and we have to make ourselves like it sucks, like I do not like running but I go running or to lift weights, like it is not pleasant, that's not a pleasant part of my day, but like this body needs this discomfort to like to sustain health and vitality. But so I'm so resonating with that. Of course, what you're saying is a little more, you know, a little more, a bit more of an investment of time and investment of focus, but still you could have that same concept shrunk down to the daily. So, but please continue.
Brian Green :Yeah, yeah. And then the second one I'll give you is I'm actually two thirds of the way through now, but it's really great. It's been recommended to me by a number of people. I just have never got around to it, but it's called the Wealthy Gardener.
Johnny Nelson:Oh, dude, that's such a. I love that book. Yeah, Wealthy Gardener is more of a.
Brian Green :It's more of a mindset book. It's not specific to business. It does talk about real estate in it. But it's the way it's written. It's kind of broken out in the chapters over time and it kind of gives you all these different caveats and lessons, weaving in a story with the author's own life experiences. But I've never read a book that has more great quotes than that book. It's just filled great quotes that's pulled from every other type of you know famous, you know personal development or a high achiever that throughout the course of history. It's like all those quotes are in one book.
Johnny Nelson:Yeah, i really like that book. I think I listen to it twice, two and a half times actually. So, yeah, i recommend that one as well, folks, and the other one, the Pemphyr Crisis. I'll have to look that one up and I'll probably read it soon, because that's kind of my alley, what I'm, what I'm resonating with in the book front. How do people fantastic recommendations there, brian, how do people get in contact with you and or get to know more about what you're doing Sure, So you can follow us on Instagram or message us there as well.
Brian Green :It's at GreenspringsCapital. Our website is greenspringscapitalgroupcom And on there there's links to investor portals and short term rentals and long term rentals etc. So if you have any interest in learning more about our company or just want to talk real estate, I'm always open for that as well, Or they can just send me an email directly. I've got no problem getting that out. It's brian at greenspringscapitalgroupcom. Awesome.
Johnny Nelson:And I will drop the links, of course, to the podcast notes. So if somebody listens to this, you know six months from now, like, hey, I live in New York, or whatever I want to invest in New York or be part of what David or Brian's doing, then they'll know, they'll find that So anyway. so thank you for being such a great guest, sharing all these stories of wisdom and learning and knowledge and your path here. We thank the audience for listening to another episode of the Investing Stuff You Should Know podcast. Give it a like or recommendation, share it with a friend. Until next time, brian. hey, thanks man. Thanks, johnny. Appreciate you having me.