Brett:

I’m excited about our next guest. He's at a V group, I think one of the greatest cities in the world San Diego, California, and he's a Real Estate Entrepreneur and expert at Creating Passive Income while working as a highly paid professional. He's close to billions of dollars in Real Estate transactions as a Real Estate Attorney investor in the Broker. He's the managing partner of Law Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on multifamily and opportunistic real estate acquisitions. He's a former big law attorney and is now the managing partner of his own firm Bradley Law Limited, and he is here to share so much with us. Please welcome the show with me, Seth Bradley. Hey, Seth, how are you doing?

Seth:

Doing great Brett. Thanks so much for having me on today.

Brett:

Absolutely excited to get to know you a little bit more and hear about your story. Let's start right there. Tell us a little bit more about your story and your current focus.

Seth:

It took me a long time to figure this game out. I grew up in a blue-collar family in West Virginia. So, we didn't have a lot of real estate or entrepreneurship or business type of focus growing up. I always thought what's the best job I can get, and to me, that was becoming a doctor. I started going to med school, went down that pathway, I realized pretty quickly that that wasn't for me. I still had that two mindsets still had that, work, work, work mindset, and the next best job, I thought it was, you should become a lawyer. That's what I did. I went to law school after that did pretty well there ended up getting a big law firm job right out of law school, and I don't dislike practicing law, I actually enjoy the work because it is real estate related, and I love real estate, all things real estate. But what I did hate was just kind of getting caught up in that, office atmosphere, the office politics, kind of having to do all the, 20,000 bosses and billing 2200 hours a year, and I quickly figured out that there's a different game, and that's called entrepreneurship, that's called investing. That's called making money while you sleep, and we can get into that a little bit later. Fast forward a little bit. My private equity company, Law Capital Partners, invests in private commercial real estate, sometimes we bring on passive investors into a deal, sometimes we just partner and JV with a couple of people and take down the deals ourselves. But we're full steam ahead.

Brett:

Amazing love that part, our traditional sometimes families, my family was my grandmother growing up, she kind of paved the way for the next generation to go to college, and then my brother and I were the first ones, to graduate college on both sides of the family, and so that created the new opportunity to go get a higher paying, let's say job in my world was, was more like working as a broker and then worked, and kind of, and then moving into my own entrepreneurial journey there. Love that. We'll dive into more of that here in a minute, and, and I love the idea of talking about making money while you sleep. Because I think that's the foundation of being able to get some freedom. But before we go there, Seth, I want to take one other step back to help our listeners to even get to know even a little bit more, and to find out a little bit more about your gifts to see if it might be a connection for them for you to help them and, and it goes to this, maybe it's your high school days. Maybe it's the university days, I don't know, maybe it's a young time when you're back, and you're growing up, and maybe someone's mu, someone's telling you what kind of gifts and talents you might have. I believe we've been given certain gifts. Some people call these strengths or superpowers, I believe their God-given gifts, and they've given us to be a blessing to others. I'm curious, maybe one of those one or two gifts that you believe you were given? And how does that help you help and bless people today?

Seth:

I would say it's taking a complicated topic and boil it down into kind of just the nuts and bolts step by step, here's what you need to do. Rather than getting caught up in this huge big picture thing that might, you might not be able to wrap your head around, and I've kind of honed that in as well being an attorney because, obviously legal documentation, legal regulations, things like that are very complicated. They're in a totally different language, and then when you need to explain those things to a client, dropping that legal ease on them doesn't get you anywhere. You need to explain it in a way that everyone can comprehend and understand.

Brett:

It was that something you were doing at a young age like where you found like those connections where people were coming to you for me with math problems, maybe it was something else some kind of complex thing. The guy who could do all the orders that a Rubik's Cube, you can put that way. What do you think that comes from?

Seth:

I think it's from my parents because they're both great school teachers, my dad ended up having to go to the coal mines and make some more money. But they're both teachers by trade.

Brett:

Let's dive right into making money while you sleep. Here I get where Seth Bradley by the way can learn more about Seth Bradley at passiveincomeattorney.com, its passiveincomeattorney.com.Seth, what's the number one secret for you, and or your partner's friend’s family to making money while you sleep?

Seth:

It's saving that money to invest rather than saving that money just to save. I think a lot of people think that I've got all this money in my bank account, especially highly paid professionals, doctors, lawyers, people like that they make a lot of money, and maybe they save a lot of money, hopefully. But most of the time, they just spend a lot of money, and it comes down to taking that money that you earned from your active income and turning that into passive income making that money work for you. Now, a lot of people traditionally do that through just investing in their 401K, or stocks, bonds, mutual funds, that sort of thing. Because that's really all we know, growing up with my generation and generations before, that's all they tell you to do just nine to five to 65, plug this money into your 401K, and you'll be fine, and that's great to do. But if you ever want to escape that job, if you don't absolutely love your job, or if you don't, if you want to step away and spend more time on vacation, or traveling or with your family and friends, doing the things that you want to do with the people you want to do them with, you've got to figure out another way other than that 401k in that retirement plan to start making your money work for you, and for me, it's been a couple of different things, mainly real estate, obviously a bunch of different facets. I've done fixing flips to buy and hold residential, all the way up to 300 Plus, multifamily syndications. But also, for me, as well, you can also start a side hustle, you can start a different business outside of your main, income generator, but you need to find ways to generate multiple streams of income.

Brett:

Perfect, that's great. I love that set. Step one is to saving money to invest not saving just to save. Changing the mindset there, and then second, making money works for you. Versus going from nine to five to 65. Getting the money to work in let's say things like real estate. Or something that you could be you could be growing wealth on a larger scale. Is that a fair summary so far?

Seth:

You've got it.

Brett:

Step number two. Step one, you figured out that that is the way to build wealth? What is step number two, to make sure your money is working for you a while easily?

Seth:

You have a lot of options. Once you kind of get over that educational hump that, hey, I want to invest in real estate or start a side business or anything outside of my active income generator. Once you've gotten over that mindset hump, and you're like, okay, I'm ready, let's do it, then I think you really need to examine how much time you have. Because that's going to be the biggest determining. Determining factor as to what you can do, and what you can handle for a lot of the folks that I speak to their big law firm attorneys, they're doctors with a full-time practice, they don't have a lot of time time is their most precious commodity is all of our most precious commodities. But for them, they don't have time to do fix and flips. I tried that while I was working, you don't have time to do something that that it's that hands-on, you have to be there, managing the contractor, making sure you're not getting screwed all this different stuff. Being an active real estate investor, as opposed to letting’s say, a passive real estate investor. It all comes down to time Sure, you can make some better returns as an active investor. But you also have to get one over the big educational hump and get the experience and the expertise, and two, you have to have more time.

Brett:

think that's absolutely right. Time is the one thing we can't get back, and so one commodity that's ever going away for us. Calculating how much time like maybe do some time tracking and or just looking at, do I even have the capacity to go into real estate by myself or this next business venture by myself, which might lead in to maybe Step three, which is perhaps finding partners or finding trusted people to work with? Is that a fair summary so far?

Seth:

That would be the next step. Once you kind of figure out what pathway is best for you. Once you determine how much time you have, then go down that pathway as to whatever investment it might be, if it's, let's start with the active side, if you do have some flexibility, some freedom with your time already, I always like to use the example of real estate agents, real estate brokers, they have a lot more flexibility with their time. sure they're busy, but they have flexibility with the time so maybe they have the time to invest actively, maybe they can run a deal. They already have some expertise in the industry. If you go down that pathway, then you can look at Do you want to get started with something small with residential properties, or do you want to just go straight to the big time and start going into small to big multifamily or, some other asset class, if you want to go down the passive route like you just mentioned, the most important thing by going down that route is, is networking, meeting sponsors or people that are running those deals that you trust and that have a track record to invest alongside with?

Brett:

Your background is legal and a broker. The attorney and then investor brokers all can all three in one, which I think brings you unique advantage for your, for your, for your clients, and for your partners, right because you're on you've worn every hat, and so talk about that, in back my background to commercial real estate, I'm still a broker for I started out at Marcus & Millichap multifamily value add and, and helping people buy and sell that, and then moving into this space of Deferred Sales Trust Capital Gains Tax Deferral. We talked about your transition and or maybe you're still doing all three, from the smaller deals to Hey, I'm going to be on a syndicate and do bigger deals. Walk us through that and kind of where you're at right now.

Seth:

Real estate investing-wise, I started out house hacking in a duplex listening to bigger pockets, just kind of that traditional real estate journey I think a lot of investors take mine wasn't any different. The only difference was I was also working at a large law firm as a real estate attorney, a commercial real estate attorney.I was exposed to massive deals and the people that were running those deals, and I think a lot of times people get started with residential real estate and let's just say a single-family house or a duplex or something like that, and it's hard to get over that mental hurdle to say, Well, yeah, I can, I can wrap my head around a single-family rental, but I can't buy a 200 plus unit complex apartment community. but I was exposed to that at my work.I saw the folks I saw the clients that were coming in, I was helping them close these deals, and they are just regular guys. They're like you and me. Regular dudes, it's not Donald Trump or somebody like that. It's just regular people, and you're like, alright I'm helping these guys close these deals, I'm seeing the inner workings of it, I can see that it's possible. I need to get on that side of the table.

Brett:

I think that's big. Those who you surround yourself with what your five, the five people you spend the most time with. That's who you end up becoming, and so if you're around, and you can see it, and I remember a similar journey for myself, I'm going I was brand new in the business in 2006, and Marcus & Millichap, I'm looking around, I'm like, wow, these guys are closing these huge deals with, huge checks the most money I've ever seen in my life, and I'm like, wait, if they can do it, like, why can't I do it? Like it may take me a little time to learn it, and but if I just keep improving and be coachable and learn and keep doing the things he told me to do, eventually I can get and I can achieve that. I think that's so powerful. He said that if when you're around it, and you're surrounding you're seeing it, and of course, the belief that you can do it yourself, then why not? Now go and take that action. Tell us about that first, big either 100 unit 200 unit 300 unit where you really stepped up and you felt like I'm playing in the pros. What was that first deal? What was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome?

Seth:

Even though I was still around it, I was seeing these deals being closed from the legal perspective, it was still a massive mental hurdle to get over it, and being an analytical person, I tried to learn everything I could, I soaked it all up. I listened to podcasts, I read the books, I got a coach, I did all this stuff, but it was still kind of, I'm still stuck in that wt mindset like, well, maybe I should just put my head down and work harder, rather than smarter, and that first deal was a big step for me, and I just had, I basically just said, Look, I'm a real estate attorney, I can help you out. I don't want to be the real estate attorney on the deal. But what I can do is kind of oversee all of the real estate attorneys and the securities attorneys on the deal. I can oversee their work, I can put a second set of eyes on it, I can go through all the contracts and things like that the need and kind of act as an in-house counsel type of person, and at the same time raising capital for your deals, and that was kind of how I got my foot in the door for that first deal, and it was 250 units.it was a large deal.

Brett:

Then did you have to find a partner? Because then that's the other part like because there's the analytical brain, and then there's the difference there's a driver personality, analytical, amiable, expressive, different strengths, different things here. You had to escape your w2 mindset, then you had to just take some action. But did you bring in any partners or walk us through how that helps you to get to the next level?

Seth:

The big thing was networking and finding people that I wanted to work with, and I networked with other folks that were already in the space. They're already syndicating multifamily deals, and I met one guy that I really liked, and we hit it off and we still talk. We still do some deals together, and he basically brought me in and said, Look, I'll show you the ropes. What can you bring them he knew that I had the stuff to bring to the table from an investing background in legal background.it really comes down to networking and again, surrounding yourself with those people that are already doing what you want to do. They can kind of act as a mentor of sorts.

Brett:

In that first big 200 unit deal, the one that kind of a 300 unit one, are you? I'm curious, did you? Are you a GP? Did you do it with partners? Or what was your role in that? And how did you solidify that role to make it a win-win for everybody?

Seth:

GP came in as a GP, and as I said, raise capital act, an act as in House Counsel, help review all the contracts and the documents that came in the second set of eyes on everything and continued Investor Relations.

Brett:

That's really exciting. Because I think then there's the I said, there are ideas, there's the knowledge, and there's the action, and there's the actual application. What did you learn most about that first big one that you said, I wish I would have known like this? Or would have been? I would have done that? Is there any kind of like, little shifts that you would have made for somebody who's looking to step up from the commercial real estate brokerage world? Or maybe the smaller single-family duplex world kind of thing? and going and going big on like a 200? unit?