Passive investing opportunities have become significantly more accessible in the past decade. Instead of what was once a closed-off country club type of exclusivity in private real estate investing, the deals being sent your way are now coming in the dozens. So how, in a crowded market where every GP is wrestling for your attention and your hard-earned dollars, do you separate the signal from the noise—the stewards of capital from those looking to make a quick buck?
Before you invest capital on behalf of your family’s future, you need to answer five critical questions. If you can say yes to all five, you’ll be able to confidently invest not only in passive real estate investments, but the sponsor behind those deals. What are the five questions to ask before investing that unlock a worry-free path to wealth accumulation?
Scott Corbett, Sunrise Capital’s Chief Growth Officer, has worked with GPs and LPs for the past 15 years, seeing the often not-so-spotless behind-the-scenes work of real estate funds and syndications. Scott didn’t become an advocate of Sunrise Capital once he came on the team; he asked to join us after years of witnessing the character and conviction behind the deals getting done.
The Five “Yes” Framework Scott has developed over the past decade and a half of working with passive investors not only gives you the green light to move forward with an investment, but the confidence that your money is being guarded while growing.
Sage Wisdom from Today’s Episode:
- The Five “Yes” Framework every passive investor must answer before investing their family’s capital
- Track records aren’t created equal—how to know your sponsor can survive hard times
- How to publicly check how your sponsor has navigated bad deals, down markets, and economic turbulence
- The real reason Scott asked to come on to Sunrise Capital Investors as an outsider
- Why passive real estate investors can often retire with less—even with the same passive income
Chapters
00:00 Intro
Resources Mentioned
Connect with Scott on LinkedIn
Are you a high net worth investor with capital to deploy in the next 12 months? Build passive income and wealth by investing in real estate projects alongside Brian and his team!
Learn more from Brian and listen to past episodes of The Sage Investor
Connect with Brian on LinkedIn
Episode Transcript
Episode Summary
In this episode of The Sage Investor, host Brian Spear sits down with Scott Corbett, Chief Growth Officer at Sunrise Capital Investors, to discuss how passive investors can effectively evaluate private real estate opportunities in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Over the past 15 years, the private investment landscape has shifted dramatically. The passage of the JOBS Act in 2012 removed access barriers by permitting public solicitation, but this shift moved the primary investor challenge from finding access to managing an abundance of choices.
To navigate this environment, Corbett introduces a structured Five “Yes” Decision Framework designed to guide passive investors from high-level portfolio strategy down to operator selection. The process requires checking five key boxes: confirming a desire to invest in alternative assets, selecting real estate, choosing a specific sub-asset class (such as mobile home communities based on supply-demand fundamentals), vetting the operator’s track record across market cycles, and assessing the sponsor’s character and capital stewardship.
The conversation emphasizes that passive investing should not mean passive thinking; LPs must retain extreme ownership over their due diligence. Corbett and Spear discuss evaluating track records over extended periods rather than brief upcycles, examining downside mitigation strategies, checking online LP community feedback, and prioritizing long-term alignment. Ultimately, investors are encouraged to focus on repeatable decision-making, simple business models, and capital preservation to build generational wealth safely.
Key Takeaways
Takeaway 1
The primary challenge in private real estate has shifted from gaining access to managing choices, requiring investors to systematically filter through an abundance of opportunities.
Takeaway 2
Passive investing does not mean passive decision-making; limited partners must maintain extreme ownership over evaluating asset classes, strategies, and operators.
Takeaway 3
Evaluating a sponsor requires looking beyond upside marketing to review their full-cycle track record, downside protection strategies, and personal capital alignment.
Takeaway 4
Long-term wealth creation relies on steady, repeatable investment strategies rather than speculative opportunities, prioritizing simplicity and capital preservation.
Takeaway 5
Every passive real estate investment acts as a multi-year business partnership, making sponsor character, transparency, and stewardship the final deciding factors.
Key Topics Covered
- JOBS Act impact on private real estate access
- The Five “Yes” Decision Framework for passive investors
- Active due diligence versus passive investing
- Evaluating sponsor track records and cycle experience
- Assessing capital stewardship, alignment, and downside protection
- Leveraging online LP communities for sponsor transparency
- Single-family marketing strategies and commercial real estate transition
- Nest egg drawdown strategies versus cash-flowing golden goose portfolios
Episode Chapters
00:00 The Shift from Access to Choice in Private Real Estate
Brian Spear and Scott Corbett discuss how the 2012 JOBS Act transformed private real estate from an exclusive market into an environment flooded with options.
04:00 Scott Corbett’s Background in Real Estate Marketing
Scott details his journey into real estate marketing, his early work with Collective Genius, and meeting Brian Spear.
09:41 Personal Background and Family Life
Scott shares details about his family, personal interests, and his collaborative experience working with the leadership team at Sunrise Capital.
12:40 Lessons Learned working with LPs and Operators
Scott reflects on his work with David Phelps and Freedom Founders, highlighting the financial challenges high-income professionals face when trading time for money.
16:44 Nest Egg vs. Golden Goose Investment Strategies
Brian outlines the capital efficiency of generating cash flow through alternative investments compared to traditional stock-and-bond drawdown models.
18:46 The Five “Yes” Decision Framework
Scott outlines the step-by-step framework passive investors can use to filter investment decisions from broad asset classes down to sponsor trust.
25:54 Evaluating Sponsor Stewardship and Character
Brian and Scott discuss methods for evaluating an operator’s true character, alignment of interest, and willingness to address downside risk.
32:51 The Importance of Full-Cycle Track Records
The conversation covers why limited partners must evaluate sponsors across economic cycles rather than relying on short-term success during market upswings.
35:30 Utilizing LP Communities and Red Flag Forums
Scott explains how online investor communities and peer reviews help limited partners share experiences and identify unreliable sponsors.
38:14 Why Scott Corbett Joined Sunrise Capital
Scott shares why he chose to join Sunrise Capital after years of observing their internal operations, culture, and risk-averse approach to growth.
48:05 Marketing as a Service and Building Deep Trust
Brian and Scott reframe marketing as customer service and discuss the value of face-to-face investor interactions in an increasingly digital world.
52:58 Key Advice for Overwhelmed Passive Investors
Scott highlights the essential steps investors should take before committing capital, focusing on understanding business models and long-term partnership fit.
56:14 Sage Investment Advice and Conclusion
Scott shares his guiding principle on making investment decisions that build legacy wealth, followed by Brian’s closing thoughts on process and conviction.
Full Transcript
[Transcript begins]
Brian Spear: Private real estate investing has never been more accessible, but access creates a new problem. Investors are now flooded with opportunities and sponsors and opinions. So how do you separate the signal from the noise? Welcome back to The Sage Investor. I’m Brian Spear, and my mission is to help you generate cash flow and build legacy wealth in a tax-efficient manner because that’s what I’m trying to do for my family, and I’m sharing all the secrets that I learn along the way. Today, I’m joined by our very own Scott Corbett, who has spent nearly 15 years sitting between investors and operators watching what works and what fails and ultimately what deserves trust. Scott, welcome to the show, buddy. Excited to have you on in Talk Shop. How are you doing today, man?
Scott Corbett: Doing fantastic, Brian. So glad to be here.
Brian Spear: Beautiful, beautiful. I want to start with this. I want to start with something that you said kind of in preparation for jumping onto the podcast, that private real estate, it used to be hard to access. And today, the hard part might not be just kind of getting the access to the deals, but rather knowing what is actually worth trusting. So how have you seen that shift play out in your experience?
Scott Corbett: Yeah, I mean, I do think that’s one way to look at it through the lens of what challenges investors face, you know, as they try to diversify into real estate, private real estate funds, you know, other kinds of deals. And… I would say used to be a problem of access, you know, because prior to the JOBS Act in 2012, you essentially had to have some sort of backdoor or special relationship with someone who was providing access to these deals legally. I mean, you just, you know, the laws did not actually allow for, Brian Spear to go on Facebook and say, hey, if you’re an accredited investor, I’ve got a really good opportunity for you. It just wasn’t it was illegal to do that. And so it was very much like a, you know, kind of a country club sort of network situation where it really came down to who you knew, what relationships already had in order to actually even come across deals with. And so what changed though was in 2012 when the jobs act passed and essentially it was, um, It was an attempt to allow real estate companies and others to raise more capital by allowing them to actually go public and make a public solicitation of an offering. And I mean, that just was a complete game changer. And here we are almost 15 years later and the entire world has changed. The problem is no longer access. In fact, you could argue probably that from the investor’s perspective, It’s like standing in the grocery aisle at Publix and you’re looking at 300 different kinds of breakfast cereal. And it’s like, oh my God, my problem isn’t access and my problem is now choice. How do I pick the best one? because we are inundated with people who are now advertising their wares all over the internet. So that’s really what the shift is. Used to be access, now it’s like actually picking out the good guys.
Brian Spear: I think it’s been for the better. It’s been a good thing, right? The reason that it ultimately popped up is that The data had shown that all the alternatives were performing better than the traditional stocks and bond portfolios, et cetera. And all of a sudden, the everyday layman was saying, hey, why do only the exclusive folks get access to these unbelievable deals? And so they tried to flatten the curve a little bit and allow people access. But again, when the act was first granted, it took a little bit of a slow trickle to actually see the deal flow ramp up, as it were. And yes, of course, now, especially with the advent of AI, the amount of… I’m going to be talking about this. Well, before we kind of dig in and get a little bit more granular, we’d love to rewind the clock a little bit and run back in time so that folks can get to know you a little bit better, right? Let’s give folks the short version of how you got pulled into real estate. You obviously weren’t born into this niche, but you ended up with an unbelievable background and a front row seat to a litany of different players in the space. So walk us back through kind of your journey to how you got to where you are today.
Scott Corbett: I got into what I would call like the marketing world, you know, back around 2005 or so back in the, back in those days, you know, over 20 years ago was essentially I had a, I had my own marketing firm and we’re doing marketing for, you know, uh, accountants and, and plastic surgeons and attorneys and plumbers and, you know, the occasional real estate agent. I mean, it’s just kind of a potpourri of things, but I, through connections, I got to know this guy named Jason Medley who, you know, Brian, and Jason had a group called the collective genius and, which was a really an amazing group of people. I mean, it’s like even still, it’s a top drawer collection of some of the best real estate, local real estate investors. Like think of house flippers in the country and they all came in one room and just through a crazy series of accidents, which I will not describe. It’s just one of those you know, amazing synergies that happen in your life a few times, got to know Jason, went and visited the group because he thought I would be interested in it and could possibly add value because these guys were like cavemen when it came to marketing. They knew nothing. They knew how to send out postcards and that was about it, right? So he’s like, hey, maybe you can show these guys actually how to do proper marketing. So I went to CG. And did show a few of them how to do some marketing and helped grow some businesses. Met you and Kevin up there, Brian. That was the other amazing thing. But along the way, just started hanging out with these real estate entrepreneurs and realized it’s like, oh, my God, I found my tribe. These are my people. I love the way they think. I love the way they run their businesses. I love the business of real estate itself. Yeah. Because at that point, my only experience in real estate was owning a house. You know, I mean, that was it. Even though my father was actually an engineer and like his idea of a great afternoon was to take me to a job site and walk around the job site all afternoon. And, you know, he loved building and he loved the built world. And that was his passion. But I was not personally involved in it from a business perspective. So that just went along for a few years and met, you know, more and more people. And eventually, you know, It got to a point where from on a professional basis, all I did was real estate. Haven’t looked back since. I mean, that was that was just an amazing like series of accidents, basically, that got me into the real estate world. And then now, of course, you know, that has evolved further into really being mostly in the world of private equity real estate. So it’s been just a great turn of events.
Brian Spear: I agree. A wonderful ride and maybe a couple of fortuitous bounces along the way. I would say one fortuitous bounce from our perspective was just getting to know you, meeting you over at CG. That was a great group for us, a great experience, no longer involved there, but it still remains to be a great group. As you’d mentioned, a little more color on that group, right? It was a national real estate firm. And while you think of folks oftentimes being tight to the vest on various business models, um, So single-family rental business is a little bit unique in that typically, or back in the day especially, there were no nationwide platforms to build single-family real estate businesses. So what you would see is there would be a guy that focused on fixing and flipping in Dallas and one guy that was an absolute superstar on – Fix and flipping in Chicagoland, et cetera. But they were in their individual domains, dominant in their domains. And so this was the preeminent nationwide group to bring in the best single family style real estate investors in the country to share secrets, completely open and willing to do so and share the best vendors and share the best this, that, and the other. At the time for us, mobile home park guys We were doing exorbitant amounts of outbound mobile home park direct-to-owner marketing. Again, as you know, Kevin, my business partner, he’s been, you know, back in the day prior to getting involved in commercial, was in single family, had done over 100 different deals in the single family space, off-market direct-to-owner. Then we brought it over to the mobile home park space. That same skill set worked exceptionally well for an extremely long period of time. And over time as we’ve grown, now we’ve got way more broker relationships and the like. off-market direct to owner marketers. And a lot of that was the result of some of the unique things that you kind of brought to the table to help collate all these things, right? Some pay-per-click stuff and a myriad of additional ways to try to ensure that you understood the psychology of the seller of those properties and understand the holistic nature of marketing and sales, IT, technology, all the things that are necessary to move the needle in a revenue optimization platform. Yeah. Yeah, we got to know you there. It was wonderful. It was kind of a crawl, walk, run, sprint strategy, right? We kind of got to know each other in passing, doing a couple of small, modest things. Over time, this beautiful logo that sits behind me today, the old icon of Sunrise Capital Investors was created by your firm many, many moons ago now. And it’s been a pleasure ever since. We got to know you a little bit over at CG, and it was great. We had a lot of overlap. I’d love to learn, for the betterment of the listener, a little more about your family, a little bit of overlap between the two of us. Both of us ended up marrying somebody who loves dance. So speak about your wife, your kids, your trajectory, your family a little bit. Go ahead and give some color, bud.
Scott Corbett: Oh, absolutely. So, I mean, definitely a family guy. Married to Kandi, who is just the love of my life. Fell in love with her when she and I were both doing a studies abroad program in Germany. She’s an amazing person. We have two children together. uh, Hawks and Lucy. And, uh, you know, we’ve just like, we’ve been in the thick of the parenting thing now for, you know, 20 plus years and coming out of it, it’s kind of an interesting place to be because, uh, it’s sort of like, wow, we don’t have, you know, four soccer games to go to this weekend. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do with all this time? And it’s been fun to figure out. Being, spending time with family, spending time with friends, traveling, gardening, building, we own a bunch of property in Georgia, and it’s like, it’s sort of a full-time job to take care of it. And other than helping get the word out about Sunrise to investors, it’s a pretty rich life.
Brian Spear: I agree. Love every bit of it. Living in a college town keeps you busy, man. UGA, Athens, Georgia, it’s absolutely beautiful, and we love you. And I will attest to the competitive nature. I think we have that in spades here in the leadership team, right? So everybody wants to win. Everybody wants to win. It’s absolutely beautiful. I think that there’s something to that. I think there’s also something to how we treat our teammates. We don’t call folks employees. We call folks teammates. And we try to generate a culture that’s a culture where we embody a winning spirit, intentionally trying to craft a winning spirit, where winning is part of who we are and what we do. We want everybody to have an ownership mentality. We want people to take accountability. We want them to win and be competitive. But I think also that the spirit piece is also very important because we know that progress, not perfection, is the best course of action. We won’t be perfect, but we’re aspiring to. We have the spirit to win in everything that we do. So in any event, Beautiful aspect, and I think that we brought in the right team, the right people in the leadership roles to help facilitate and have that matriculate throughout the entirety of the organization. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the team, right? It’s been an absolute pleasure so far, and I can’t wait to see what the next decade brings for Sunrise, buddy, with you at the helm of the CGO side of the house.
Scott Corbett: Thank you, Brian. Yeah, I know. I will say this. Iron definitely sharpens iron. And working with the leadership team, I mean, it’s every single day. It’s like I feel challenged to be the best I can be because – They are good. They are individually good. And that’s sort of that competitive side of me. It’s like, wow, okay, well, my cart CFO is showing up like with this every day, I’m gonna have to up my game because I’m not gonna let him outdo me. And it’s so much fun. It’s a great environment on the leadership team at Sunrise in that way. It’s like everybody is intrinsically motivated to be excellent and do good things for the company. And it’s inspirational to me personally.
Brian Spear: What did being around all those various shops kind of teach you over time? You get to see a lot of different real estate operators. You get to see a lot of general partners, a lot of limited partners. How did getting to know and see under the hood of those businesses impact your trajectory and your career?
Scott Corbett: Yeah. And let me let me just add one, maybe two small pieces of context here, too, for like to bring it up to present. And I’ll do my best to answer your questions. Like I had two other experiences right around that time that I met you, Brian. One was a gentleman named David Phelps, who we both, you know, know and respect so much. I helped David get his group Freedom Founders off the ground, which was a very eye-opening experience because that group, as you know, is almost like what CG is for real estate investors, Freedom Founders is for… medical professionals, dentists specifically, but also people who are seeking financial independence, largely through investing in real estate opportunities. So having watched Freedom Founders grow and grow and grow over the first, I was involved probably the first four years, was really eye-opening in terms of getting to know the LPs in the room. Being there meeting after meeting, like you’ve been to Freedom Founders meetings, like you sit at the table with these people and you really understand, like, oh my gosh, this is what they’re up against. These are high-income professionals. They are, in many ways, they’re in a very good spot. They typically own businesses, but in other ways, they have significant challenges. They’re still trading time for money. They’re totally dependent on their active participation in the business to have any hope of continuing to grow their wealth. I could go on and on. It was a great immersion in that whole world of the intersection of real estate and limited partners, retail investors, just mostly high income people in that context. through another series of accidents, I actually began to raise capital. Like I was helping connect people inside that group of Freedom Founders with opportunities. So I really, all those hundreds of conversations I had in that context got me even deeper into understanding what the need really is, you know? And so All of those experiences combined, like with real estate in general, with Freedom Founders, with talking to LPs over and over again, you know, really, it made me realize that you’ve got a finite amount of capital that you have available to invest. You know, any of us do. And so how can you educate yourself to the point where you can actually make really good, solid decisions for yourself and your family? You know, at the end of it where I was just like a, you know, I was just like a public markets guy. I mean, for years and years, that’s really all I knew about. That’s all I had experience with, like many people, you know, just kind of standard 401k type approach to things. At the end of all of those experiences and still leading up to today, I really began to realize that there is such a compelling argument for investing in real estate. Now, there’s a lot of ways to invest in real estate. I mean, Brian, you invest in real estate in multiple ways. I mean, so do I. To know what those options are and to begin to take advantage of them, it just adds so much fuel to the fire of growing your own portfolio and eventually leading to financial independence for your family. That was maybe the biggest takeaway of all. that a family could be helped so much just by learning about what’s possible, you know, in all the different ways of participating in real estate and to see what that can actually do and how that can accelerate, you know, the growth and the stability and security of your portfolio. That was maybe in the end, like the biggest takeaway of all.
Brian Spear: Yeah, I saw a recent statistic fly over in terms of, this reminds, again, you’re talking about the nest egg strategy versus the golden goose strategy, which obviously we’re a proponent of the golden goose strategy, alternative investments, buying wonderful businesses, never selling them, living off the cash flow, as opposed to. The nest egg strategy, just build this big old pile of cash and then retire and live off of 4% of it, continuing to draw it down and hope that you die before you run out of money, right? Those are the two options that folks have. But the difference is dramatic in terms of the amount of money that you have to actually save in a nest egg to ultimately achieve the same level of income. Saw a recent statistic come out that said, hey, if you want to have the… amount of cash flow from passive investments or your portfolio that would ultimately put you in the top 1% of income earners in the country, which is $480,000, in order to do so when you were using a 60-40 drawdown at a 4% rate, you’d have to have a $12 million nest egg, a $12 million portfolio to ultimately generate that $480,000 of cash flow on an annual basis that allows you to live the life that you would otherwise want with your family. Alternatively, if you took that same exact income, you would only need $4 million, generating a 12% cash on cash return, to ultimately achieve that same $480,000. So literally a third income. a third of the cumulative amount of capital net worth allocated prudently to generate income, if you’re solely focused on income, exclusive, et cetera, to be able to live the life that you would want and be in the top 1% income earners in the country. So it’s just a dramatic switch, as you well know, and there’s a massive, massive need. It’s been phenomenal to see this transition in psyche of investor mentality over the course of the last, I’d say, 15 years. As it’s no longer a secret, these deals used to be done on golf clubs and country clubs all over the place. Now the information is available to folks. And as you mentioned kind of at the top of the call, it’s less associated with getting access to deals, more associated with who do I actually invest with? And maybe that brings us to the next portion of the conversation, which is really something that you’ve kind of brought to our perspective. attention here in terms of how to best share the decision-making framework with folks. What is the decision-making framework that folks basically need to walk through prior to ultimately making a passive investment in a syndication, whether it’s deal-specific fund structure, litany of different things. But after many conversations, seeing as a limited partner, as a general partner, seeing under the hood of so many different businesses, you’ve come to the conclusion that there’s really a handful of decisions folks have to make to check the box prior to moving forward. Could you maybe walk us through what that framework looks like?
Scott Corbett: Yeah, yeah, I will. And I do actually believe there is a, there’s a framework that is advisable to follow. As we talk about this, I’m kind of flashing back on the old capital raise days. And I would call, at that point, I was working with doctors primarily, and here’s what their framework was, Brian, typically. So we talk about, you know, ask some questions, understand their situation a little better, would maybe explain some specific opportunities. And there was this one doctor who was very well known in certain circles back then. I won’t say his first name, but his last name was Harrison. So we get through this whole thing like, okay, this is your situation. These are the opportunities. There’d be a pause in the conversation. And the next question was like, well, what’s Dr. Harrison doing? And it was as if… Like, okay, whatever we just talked about, yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s Dr. Harrison doing? And I’m just going to do that, right? And there is a kind of a deep psychological truth about that, you know? It’s not really that we act like lemmings. We don’t want to be the pioneers. We want to learn from the pioneers, and we want to… do what has been proven by someone else to already be safe. And so there’s this natural urge, I think, to trust. If your friends have had successes and they tell you about it, you’re so much more inclined to do one thing or another, right? There’s also just an element of, for many, many people, that you feel so overwhelmed with information anyway, like too many choices. It’s easy just to default back to what I would call, you know, like, it’s not really laziness, it’s just more like, it’s more like desperation thinking, which is, oh my God, I’m never gonna figure this out myself. I don’t care how much AI is helping me do it. I just wanna, I’m just gonna go with my gut feeling and I’m just gonna go with what worked really well for someone that I really trust. It’s almost like a, You know, it’s a Hail Mary in some ways, like from a decision making perspective. So is that the best way? No, because it gets people in trouble sometimes. I mean, that’s the problem with it. And Dr. Harrison himself can make some mistakes. Right. So you can’t really you can’t really abdicate your own decision making authority when it comes down to it. Right. And so. I would just say, be aware of the temptation to just kind of go with your gut or do what your friends are doing or what AI tells you to do, which by the way, is so problematic. Maybe we’ll get to talk about that later too, but I do think there’s a framework and I’ll just quickly run through it if you want me to, or we can go kind of step by step.
Brian Spear: I think, let’s just run through it real quick and we could dig a little bit deeper later. But again, at the end of the day, again, extreme ownership is necessary, right? You can’t abdicate the outcome of investments to any other party. Ultimately, you’re personally accountable for it, regardless of if you’re outsourcing the investment results of your portfolio to, you know, the S&P 500 and all the CEOs running the various businesses. Or you’re outsourcing it to a syndication that’s running an individual deal somewhere. Ultimately, you are accountable for investments. the results of that respective portfolio. My personal contention, Jack O’Wilnick’s extreme ownership there. But let’s walk through this, Scott.
Scott Corbett: Yeah. I mean, to be a passive investor does not mean your thinking can be passive, you know, as you’re vetting opportunities. You have to be extremely active and be extremely active in managing your overall portfolio. But so I would say then, you know, as an investor, you know, A good set of questions to ask yourself is, and first of all, you’re not even interested in real estate unless you think that your own personal portfolio would benefit from investing in alts of some kind, right? I mean, that’s a whole separate conversation, but let’s just assume someone has made that choice. Like, yeah, because of the statistic Brian mentioned or others, I really think that at this point, my portfolio would be significantly strengthened if I invested specifically in some kind of real estate option. Then once you do that, you’re still, oh my gosh, you’re looking around going, oh wow. I mean, so many different options. You can invest in single deals of all the different asset classes. There’s so many types of funds. You can invest in credit. I mean, debt instruments, there’s so much you can do. So how in the world do you even make that decision? And I think ultimately you’ve gotta do a little homework. and settle on some kind of investment thesis that makes sense to you. You know, we’re not gonna teach people how to do that on this particular show, but there are plenty of communities out there now and plenty of sources online that actually are really good at helping people think through how to assess various asset classes, you know? Because they all have their pros and cons. And, you know, Brian, you and I probably have an opinion about which ones have relatively more pros. But you have to reach that decision yourself. But once you do, once you settle on one, and let’s just say, you know, it’s to kind of reference the one that’s near and dear to our hearts. Let’s say like, you know, hey, I really believe that investing in mobile home communities. is a solid play because of supply demand imbalance. You know, it’s helping solve the affordable housing crisis by providing like the most non-government sponsored or supported housing options that are typically in a particular community. So many barriers to entry, whatnot. I really like that asset class. Okay, then you start looking around saying, well, who’s playing in that asset class? Who are the players? And because you’ve got to believe, like the next step is, okay, this investment thesis itself makes sense, but who’s going to be able to actually execute it? Who’s got the track record? Who can show me that they’ve already been in, you know, two or three dozen mobile home park deals and, you know, bought correctly, managed well, and exited. Who’s really capable of doing this, of executing this particular kind of strategy? And that’ll probably narrow it down quite a bit more. And then once you settle on that, like, okay, I think I love this asset class. I love this investment thesis. I love this operator. They’ve shown that they know what they’re doing. You’re still not done though, because you’ve still got to then believe that an investment in this particular operator running this particular strategy, that they will in fact be a good steward of your hard-earned capital. That I think is where maybe it really gets tough for people because I mean, how do you assess that? Brian, I’ll just ask you. Okay. So let’s just say you decided you wanted to invest in, you know, hotels on the moon, all right? And you found a good company. You’re like, okay, this company, they’re really good. They’ve got good track record building hotels. And they understand like they’re, you know, they have a connection to the, you know, the next lunar development project. How would you actually then decide like, well, do I really trust them though, to be good stewards of my capital? What kinds of questions would you ask?
Brian Spear: Well, great feedback and fun thought exercise. Where my mind goes is I’d want to try to spend as much time with them as possible. Because the truth is, in a refined deck, an executive summary, a one pager and all the myriad of different things, right? That is put together in a polished format that is going to be as spotless as you could possibly be. In addition, you get a little recorded video, it’s a two minute flyover of a deal, and then even a webinar pitch that’s like 30 minutes or whatever the case may be, right? People are going to try to ultimately present that in the most perfect manner that you could possibly imagine. But the truth is, when you sit down next to somebody and you’re able to spend time with them, you know, you get to know their character much, much, much, much more. The old adage was, you could trick somebody for a couple of minutes, two, three, four, here and there. But if you’re gonna, if you spend an exorbitant amount of time with somebody, you know, the truth eventually comes out, especially if you’re able to sit down, crack a couple of beers, talk shop, drink a little bit of wine. All that I think is healthy and important to truly get to know how they act. You know, how if you’re sitting down at dinner with somebody, how do they treat the waiter? How do they speak to their spouse? These are things that are intangibles. that ultimately speak to the character of the man and or woman. And ultimately, that is the most important feature as to whether or not an investment is going to be successful. We’ve talked about it before. One of the ironclad principles is bet on the jockey, not on the horse. So how do you do that? It’s about trying to truly spend time with them. And it’s not always easy to do, but it’s why we produce a lot of content like this online. It is a way to speak one to many, to be able to help you as a listener understand more about who we are, why we do what we do, share our personal story, share our background. And it’s very helpful to expedite that learning curve, to get to know how you think, how you act, how you aspire to achieve over time. what you’re seeking to do on behalf of your family. These are important things that I would want to understand about the other individual on the other side of the table. So I would want to try to just spend as much time as humanly possible with that person because you can’t get that from a static deck or even a 30-minute polished webinar. But the longer that you can hear somebody speak in a relaxed environment, the more that you truly do actually get to know them. And I think that that’s very healthy. So again, rattling on down that piece, right? You got to, of that five-stage framework you’re talking about, one, you got to make sure, hey, do I want to invest in alternatives? Yes. Two, within alternatives, do I want to invest in real estate? Yes. Three, within real estate, which like subsection of real estate do I want to invest in? Mobile home parks or hotels on the moon. Then it’s which individual sponsor is the best. And then at the end of the day, the very bottom piece of the puzzle, the number five checkbox is the steward. Is he going to be a great steward of my capital? And that is the bet on the jockey, not the horse piece of the puzzle. Right. It takes time to build a reputation and just a couple of minutes to reckon in its entirety. But it’s why we talk about it everywhere inside of our organization, the old adage of everyone in the company, right? Any of the actions that you’re taking, any email that you send, any conversation that you have, You’re representing the organization, and you should feel comfortable if whatever action that you’re taking, whatever email you’re sending, would be posted on the front page of the Wall Street Journal the following day. And if you’re not comfortable with that, then don’t act in that manner. Okay? So it takes a long time to ultimately facilitate that. But… That’s what we’re seeking to build here, and that’s what I would be looking for on the other side of the table from a limited partner’s perspective, trying to find people who are truly going to be stewards and act in the way that you would want them to act as if it were all of their family’s money on the line on that respective investment. So my personal contention.
Scott Corbett: Ultimately, you’re trying to assess someone’s character. You’re trying to assess – how they behave, because I mean, you know, the sort of, you know, attorney language that past results do not predict future performance. Well, in fact, it’s just not true in most cases, right? There is no better predictor of future performance than past results. I mean, that’s just how it is. Sorry to the attorneys, but… If you want to know how someone’s going to act tomorrow, look at how they’re acting yesterday and today, right? And get to know that because ultimately it’s about trust, just like in any relationship. And this is just another kind of relationship. You have to have trust. You have to know who you’re dealing with. And I would also say, I mean, apart from the fact that it’s never a bad idea to run a background check on someone if you’re not sure. Those are easy to do these days. But beyond that, you know, I mean, it’s like ask questions like to of a sponsor owner. Well, you know, are you putting your own capital, you know, to work here alongside mine? You know what? And that’s the hard questions like. What how has this gone wrong in the past? You know, how do you think about not just like the upside, which is, you know, let’s just face it. A lot of sponsors just want to talk about upside. because they want to, it’s essentially appeal to greed. And that works to an extent, but what if you’re willing and you’re brave enough and you’re honest enough to actually talk about risk, talk about downside and talk about how that’s gonna be mitigated, have those kinds of conversations. And some people are comfortable having those conversations and that’s a very good sign. And other people aren’t, that’s not a good sign. You have to just, you have to evaluate that.
Brian Spear: I agree. And I would lean further, again, on the track record. And I think that the track record should be over extended periods through multiple cycles, because past performance is a reflection of future success. Again, oftentimes the old adage is, I can’t hear what you’re saying, right? Your actions speak so loudly. Your actions speak louder than words, right? So like, what did you actually do? Because that’s a reasonable determinant of the future, of course, That is where the diff therein lies the difficulty with new sponsors who haven’t gone full cycle and seen multiple ups and downs. Because if you’ve only been around during an upcycle, you, it is impossible as a limited partner to determine whether you’re investing with a skilled investor or a lucky idiot. That guy might have a good track record over a brief stint. But does that mean he’s a skilled investor or a lucky idiot? There was a lot of guys that had a quote, good track record for like four or five years in real estate during this crazy run up. And a lot of unfortunate situations occurred from limited partners who got burned and they threw a hundred grand into a, you know, multifamily deal. And the hundred grand turned into 200,000 bucks. Wow. This guy’s a genius. I need to roll this forward. They invest that 200,000 bucks. They turn it into four. 400 grand. Oh my gosh, they did another amazing fix and flip. Now they’re five years into this, right? And the track record is sterling. And they put all the chips on the table again, 400 grand, roll it forward. And ultimately now interest rates rise significantly. And all of a sudden that guy literally goes to zero in short order. That is an outrageous and unfortunate circumstance that has occurred on several different occasions. So to me, it’s not only the the track record, but it is a track record over an extended period of time so that it’s actually proven, right? Proof is in the pudding, a proven track record over an extended period of time. There’s nothing that’s going to take the place of that experience. And does it need to be unvarnished, absolute perfection? I don’t think that that’s fair. You need to fail forward. You need to win or learn. People should have scars on their body after doing this for 10, 20, 30 years. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I would rather give me the guy that’s got a couple of scars from deals that went a little bit awry over the course of 30 years. The new guy that’s unblemished over the course of a mere two or three. The guy that’s been able to survive the inevitable downturns to me is a superior investment for my own personal capital, my family’s capital, than the newfound individual with an exceptionally bright idea that is still yet to be proven, in my humble opinion.
Scott Corbett: Yeah, you have to earn trust, Brian. You do. And, you know, whether it’s your 10,000 hours or it’s, you know, your 50 deals or your decade and a half of experience, whatever it may be, you got to earn it. And that’s just how it is. One good thing about the advent of this sort of profusion of opportunities now, you can, to some extent, crowdsource. You can suss out the bad guys because it used to be all that sort of happened in a vacuum. You could have one guy who lost 50 investors’ money, but… That’s not going to show up in a in the Wall Street Journal right now, though, there are all these various kinds of communities online that are actually created for the sole purpose of sharing information like this. Right. In fact, there’s there’s one there’s one particular investor LP community where the most. active forum in this community is called Red Flag Sponsors. It’s more posts in that particular forum than any other one in the entire online community because people understand like if they have an experience, with a sponsor that’s unfortunate, negative, and gosh, there have been so many the past few years that they need to talk about it to save someone else from having the same experience. So that is good. I mean, we do have access as LPs and investors now to kind of, to see who is struggling, who is, you know, even being fraudulent or unethical. And on the other hand, you’ll also go to those forums and you’ll say, well, hey, what about Sunrise Capital? And you’ll get quite a different story. Like you’ll hear from third parties what their experience has been, which is thanks to the standards that, you know, you and Kevin Bopp have put in place are very, very positive. You know, but you’ve got to you’ve got to use those tools when you’re trying to make a decision for yourself.
Brian Spear: I agree. It’s a beautiful thing. It takes time to ultimately. It’s taken a little bit of time, I think, for the JOBS Act to now weed out a lot of these bad eggs. And these tales are as old as time. The tales of financial idiocy, it’s as old as time. But with the advent of this beautiful, newfound society. online way of communicating. A lot of those bad eggs get weeded out and it’s just getting better and better and better for everybody involved. So that’s very, very healthy. And we hope to and aspire to see that continue as we progress. Well, again, you talked a little bit about Sunrise. So let’s bring it back there. Let’s bring it back to your personal story and Sunrise. So we met way back in 2017 and started doing some things small. But at that time, you had just a wealth of knowledge, a depth of experience across marketing, sales, GP, LP, tons of real estate, active, passive, a lot of different stuff. It was very, very appealing. So help me understand and help the listener understand why Sunrise. Out of all the myriad of companies that you ended up learning about working with over time, why eventually choose Sunrise, land here? How did you end up getting here, buddy?
Scott Corbett: I will say, you know, in all honesty, it wasn’t a planned thing, but here’s what happened. There’s sort of the image that these kinds of companies often want to project to the world. And then there’s the reality behind the scenes where you really understand what’s going on, whether through… you know, how the team is structured, the culture of the company, the sort of business practices of various kinds, right? And I was sort of one of those people that was that was given access to that kind of behind the scenes, behind the curtain view. And boy, it was quite an eye opener, you know, and what but what happened was The more I worked with you and Kevin, the more I got to know you guys, the more I got to know this whole, you know, the whole, the approach of the company, the value system of the company, the investment thesis of the company. It became clearer and clearer to me that you guys were, you know, you’re the cream of the crop. Bottom line, cream of the crop. So everything just kind of lined up and I just found myself wanting to do more and more of it. Right? So I think Brian, you know, you and I, Kevin first had a conversation like back in 2023, maybe late 22, I get, you know, somewhere around there. And I was like, hey guys, I love working with you. Is there any way we could just deepen this relationship? And You were kind enough to consider the idea. And I think we kind of joined forces really in a new way in 23. And it’s just been such a privilege since then. The team has grown a lot. That’s been amazing to see. Sunrise has grown a lot. And that’s something I will just say that, You know, growth is very exciting and also very dangerous, right? Because growth for growth’s sake, I mean, we’ve all seen companies that have, you know, made some mistakes along the way. But I’ve loved the way that you and Kevin, you know, believe in growth. You have aspirations, you know, to get to this other place, but you do it very thoughtfully, very carefully with discipline and also being very mindful of protecting the downside and everything that Sunrise does. That’s the kind of situation that I just believe in. It makes me feel proud to be associated with. So here we are, you know, and now I’m you guys were crazy enough to make me chief growth officer. Yeah. What that title really means and what I really do is I’m basically an advocate. And it’s like I just my job is to get the word out. about the amazing work that Sunrise is doing and the way that now over a thousand LPs have benefited from this relationship. And that makes me feel good. I go to sleep with a smile on my face at night. It’s good work. I love it.
Brian Spear: Oh, it’s beautiful. And look, it’s been an absolute honor and a privilege to work with you. We’ve enjoyed it since the minute we began working together a decade ago now, nearly a decade ago. It’s amazing to think about, golly. The trajectory of our company materially changed when we decided that we were going to bring on a full throttle, legitimate C-suite company into the organization for many, many, many years. You know, Kevin and I wore a litany of different hats in the business and I would never ask anybody in the organization to do something that I was unwilling to do myself, right? So I’ve done everything in the organization all the way down to being an onsite community manager for multiple months at a time to do what is necessary, get dirt under your fingernails to make it happen. And that leads to a slow slog of growth over time. We didn’t want to grow too fast, as you had outlined, right? So tying it back into that conversation, we wanted to grow prudently because we’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt. We had reached some level of success in the eyes of society, and we just didn’t want to mess it up. There’s no reason to put my family’s money at risk like that. I would never risk something that my family has and needs for something that we don’t have and don’t need. I have capital, and I need this for my family. That additional layer of growth, I don’t have it right now, but I really don’t need it. It’s nice to have, but it is not a necessity, the way that protecting the downside is. And that allows us to have these really quality financial guardrails in place prior to taking the next leap. And the beautiful thing is the minute that we ultimately decided to bring in a legitimate C-suite and invest in every member of our leadership team, that had previously helped build organizations much, much, much, much larger than ours and place them in that role inside of our current organization and materially change the trajectory was kind of hockey stick growth from there on. But we retain that financial guardrail mindset that you’re alluding to. Where, of course, we will look at the landscape and we’re trying to find out what are our peers doing in the industry. We want to have revenue grow higher than our peers in the industry. But not only that, we also want to ensure that our, not the top line is just growing higher than our peers, but our bottom line is growing faster than our top line. So these are things that oftentimes companies forego and just chase growth for growth’s sake. Well, if we’re not ultimately seeing that pencil out in the marketplace, we could just kind of hang out. On the sidelines, as Warren Buffett would always say, right, he’s a big fan of baseball. You know, in baseball, if you don’t swing at a pitch and you sit the bat on your shoulder, you know, strike one goes by, strike two goes by, because you’re waiting for that perfect pitch. You’re waiting for that perfect investment. And if you don’t swing after three pitches, right, you’ve got to go back to the dugout. But in investing, we get to see deal after deal after deal after deal after deal. We don’t have to swing. You just wait for the right ones and ultimately try to create structures that make sense for everybody involved. I’ll give you a perfect example. Got off a call earlier today on a portfolio of mobile home parks where the seller would prefer to sell to us. Rest assured, we are not the highest bidder in the transaction. We get on the call with the broker, our team, and the seller. The seller overtly states he would much prefer to sell to us, but there’s a gap between what his highest bid is and ultimately what we bring to the table. He appreciates what we’ve done historically, would prefer to hand us the portfolio that took him many years to build. He believes we would be a better steward of that portfolio than any of the other individuals that are ultimately bidding on this asset. And that’s the sort of reputation that ultimately builds success over time. And ultimately, the financial guardrails that we have in place are exemplified in that transaction. We can still go out and win deals even if we’re not the best bidder. If you just do the right things all the time on behalf of all the stakeholders, The chips fall into place, right? The score takes care of itself. I’m reminded of that old, wonderful book written by Bill Walsh from the 49ers, right? If you focus on the playing field, you do the right thing every day, every week, every month, every year, you don’t have to worry about the results. The results take care of themselves. It’s been an absolute honor and a privilege to work with you. And again, the background… that you’ve brought in has really helped us, as you’ve mentioned, use the terminology, get the word out, really just share with the world what we do, how we do it, why we do it for the betterment of all. And I think it’s been very well received and we hope to continue to do so. David Ogilvie, if I’m going to tie it into marketing, right, because your background in marketing and sales and IT, but David Ogilvie wrote one of the best books on marketing of all times, oftentimes revered as one of the best advertisers and marketers of all time. From my perspective, all of the outbound content that we do, the content engine, Kevin’s podcast, my podcast, a litany of things that we do, are the result of viewing marketing and advertising as a production cost as opposed to a selling cost. The truth is we’re trying to provide you as an investor with the best possible experience throughout the entirety of the holding period in a relationship with Sunrise, right? A business partnership is every bit of a marriage as your individual marriage with your spouse. And so we want people to understand who we are, how we think, why we do what we do, and know that we’re going to be there as transparent as humanly possible for decades to come and not be somebody that keeps everything extremely tight to the box and not be able to share the journey with you along the way. Um, and that’s kind of how we view marketing, right? As a, as a production cost, rest assured when we’re providing the investor success team with all of the tools to share, um, the experience with all the partners along the way, it’s not viewed as an expense per se, but rather it’s a service, it is customer service. There’s nothing worse than making an outbound LP investment and cutting a check for 100 grand or 200 grand or whatever and never hearing from that sponsor again for six months or a year or two or five. They’ll wine and dine you for the two or three weeks trying to end up pulling in 100 grand or whatever. But then you don’t talk to the guy for a year or two. That’s an insane way to treat another human being. So we view marketing as a production cost to be able to share with the world kind of what we’re doing, how we’re doing it. And again, that’s what we intend to do as we progress. Any thoughts on that frame of mind, Scott?
Scott Corbett: I think it’s a Buffett quote about reputation, right? Which is it can take decades to build a reputation and can be lost in the matter of a few moments. There’s two sides of that that I think are relevant here. One is our reputation is how people know us in the marketplace, right? And then maybe our character is what we do when no one’s looking, when no one can see it. I feel like my job is to make sure those two things are aligned, right? To make sure that the actual reputation, the image of Sunrise out in the marketplace for people who don’t know us, don’t know you, don’t know Kevin, making sure that it’s in line with the actual, the value system, the way of operating, the way of running a business, the way of treating people that’s just really happening behind the scenes every single day. So that’s the reputation piece. And I’d say when it comes to the, you mentioned like customer service and how marketing to some extent is really just serving people. I mean, honestly, it is a lot of that. It’s just… I feel like we’re enabling people to make better decisions if we can get better information out there to them, right? Because, you know, there’s one thing that’s true. It’s like the world’s foremost expert in deep fake video technology, there was an interview with him in the New York Times last weekend, where he basically admitted that right now, for the first time, There are some cases where he cannot tell the difference between a fake and manufactured video and a real one. It’s just gotten to that point, right? And that’s just going to continue. So, wow, that’s kind of freaky, right? So, it’s more and more important that what we do is we make sure people understand the truth about our company, what we do and who we are. who we’re dedicated to, who are devoted to serving, and that we do everything we can to help make that happen. And it’s really such a win-win when we can succeed with that. And we do it in lots of ways. And I mean, Brian, like one day last week, for example, You gave a whole day out of your life to meeting with just a small group. We flew eight investors in from all over the country. We met up in Tampa and had a really fun day of hanging out, talking shop, tour the property, broke bread together, had open, honest conversation. Those sorts of things which maybe you could say, wow, that’s kind of an extreme length to go to. But in today’s world, when there’s so many reasons to be distrustful, it’s almost like operators and LPs today are guilty until proven innocent, you know? I mean, that’s just the world we live in. And so we do everything we can to make sure that people understand who we really are. I mean, that’s it. And at the end of the day, we’re gonna protect that reputation like it’s the only thing that matters because, gosh, if you lose your reputation, I mean, it’s real hard to come back from that.
Brian Spear: No, I share the sentiment. And I think that we’re going to try to keep on having and developing that human connection, right, for many, many, many years, centuries and centuries. Human interaction, human connection was the way that we interacted. And then ultimately we got into this crazy digital world. Only in the last couple of decades have we really experienced this, where people got more and more remote and it’s accelerating with the advent of AI and all the myriad of different ways people can be productive personally and there’s nothing wrong with that. I believe that it’s a wonderful time to be alive, the most wonderful time that human civilization has ever been a part of. It’s beautiful. You know, we joked about investing in apartments on the moon. Only one guy that would do that right now, his name’s Elon, richest guy on the planet, But I think we’re kind of coming back and trying to go full circle to bring that human connection back so that we can actually sit down, break bread, around a table and just talk shop. It’s a much, much more prudent way to truly get to know somebody. And yes, you do have to invest time, which is everyone’s most valuable resource, to do that. But I also think it is the most expedient way in which to truly get to know somebody and understand who they are, what they’re all about, And when you’re allocating capital in a business marriage, oftentimes that investment would be a prudent thing, in my humble opinion, to actually get to know people. So I’ll extend the offer again. Anybody that ever wants to come down here to Tampa, happy to jump on TalkShop. Anytime that you’d ever like to come down, happy to take you out, buy you a beer, buy you a lunch, buy you a steak, whatever the case may be, and just TalkShop. It’s always a pleasure to meet successful people out there that have done some amazing things in their world. Let’s maybe pivot a little bit to… Trying to help out investors that are experiencing this unbelievable newfound world of AI and the litany of opportunities coming across the desk, right? If an investor that’s listening to this has been looking at private real estate and they’re starting to feel overwhelmed, what is the one thing that you would want them to do before investing in any opportunity? Maybe barring coming down and having a beer with you and Kevin and looking in your eyes and, you know, understanding who the leaders are of this particular company, maybe just for any company.
Scott Corbett: I mean, I would really… I would probably say that the number one thing is to educate yourself enough to understand how the company is making money. Like understand that just the basics of how is this company gonna make money from this investment? Because if, believe me, if they’re not making money, then that’s not a good idea, right? Understand their business model just enough to understand like how does this actually work? And then get yourself to a point where you actually don’t mind the thought of being in a marriage with these people. Get yourself to the point where you can trust the principles behind the company, the people who are driving the company’s growth and trajectory and making sure that things stay on track. Make sure that you don’t mind being in a marriage with those people for five, 10 or more years. Ask yourself like, okay, am I gonna be happy with this decision in a month? in a year, am I going to be happy with this decision in 10 years? And feel good about saying yes to those three questions, you know, and if you can, then I, you know, and do a background check while you’re at it. But I mean, I think if you can get to that point, then, um, you know, you’ve really done a pretty good job doing due diligence on, on, on the opportunity and, you know, Beware of flashy opportunities. Beware of things that seem too good to be true. They often are. And don’t be upset if an opportunity is just kind of like, I’ll call it to quote you, Brian, if it’s a boring opportunity, because boring can be beautiful. You know, as much as investing in hotels on the moon may sound appealing and you may get a really high RRR on that. Maybe you’d be better off doing something that’s been done many thousands of times before here on planet Earth. And maybe even do it with people who have done it hundreds of times.
Brian Spear: Yeah, exactly. Simplicity breeds certainty, right? Singles and doubles all day. Occasionally you hit the triple, you hit the homer, you hit the grand slam, but it’s really singles and doubles all day. Just trying not to strike out. That’s really what it is. Stay in the game. It’s just surviving any of the inevitable downturns, singles and doubles, and over very long periods of time. It’s amazing what happens. You wake up after five years, ten years, fifteen years. 20 years, the compound effect of that steady single, steady double is truly life-changing. It can change the family tree in one generation. I’ve been living proof of that in my world. Well, Scott, this has been a wonderful conversation. Let’s round it out in the way that we always do over here at the Sage Investor. If somebody could only remember one piece of Sage investment advice from your entire life’s experience, what would it be?
Scott Corbett: I would say that make, I would say act as an investor so that you will feel proud explaining to your grandchildren what you did. And not only would you be proud because you hopefully invested according to your own, your value system, but you also demonstrated good judgment and you learned something. And just imagine yourself as a grandparent maybe, talking to your grandson or granddaughter and explaining what was some pride and And joy, you know, that your family was improved by the decisions that you’re making today, many, many years from now, and that you could pass on to them something that they could then use in their own lives. I mean, that’s, if you can, if you can satisfy that requirement, I think you’re in pretty good shape.
Brian Spear: Love every bit of it. And I think that everybody that is listening will aspire to do just that on behalf of their heirs. With that, Scott, we’ll get the heck out of here. It’s been absolutely wonderful having you. I’m sure that we’ll have many more of these conversations as we progress, bud. But until next time, you’d be great.
Scott Corbett: Thank you, Brian. It was a pleasure.
Brian Spear: What’d you think about today’s show? I invite you to follow along. Go ahead and drop a comment. For me, one piece to hone in on from today’s conversation is that education creates conviction. So just don’t outsource your own judgment. Successful investing isn’t only about finding the next opportunity. It’s about developing a repeatable process for evaluating opportunities. In a world that is filled with more choices than ever before, clarity may be one of the most valuable investing advantages that you can develop. So separate the signal from the noise. Your job as an investor is to learn enough to understand the strategy, understand the business model, and understand why you’re investing before you commit capital on behalf of your family. I hope the 5 Yes Decision Framework, it helps you structure how to think through the role of alternatives in your portfolio and then drilling down into the particular asset class and then ultimately to the operator and lastly, down to the stewardship of your family’s capital. If you can’t confidently answer yes all the way down the chain, the answer probably isn’t yes yet. Opportunities are a plenty, so patience, honestly, is a difficult skill. You’ve heard me talk about this before, but every investment is ultimately a partnership. Whether you’re investing alongside a sponsor, operator, or management team, you’re entering a long-term relationship that requires trust, transparency, and alignment. Remember, wealth is rarely built through a series of home runs. More often, it’s built through consistent decisions, strong relationships, and a steady accumulation of singles and doubles over time and avoiding the single zero events along the way. With that, we’ll get the heck out of here. But until next time, you be great.
[Transcript ends]
Your Host
Brian Spear
Founder, Sunrise Capital
Brian helps high-net-worth investors build passive income through real estate syndications and tax-efficient wealth strategies.