Description

On this episode, we welcome Brian Davis, a real estate investor who started buying rental properties shortly before the 2008 house collapse. After that expensive lesson, Brian went on to co-found Spark Rental, a platform for educating others on passive real estate syndications.

Brian walks us through his journey from investing his own money to pooling funds as a club. We discuss the club's diversification across operators, geographies, asset classes and debt terms. Brian also shares how he designed his location-independent lifestyle, his family's adventures living abroad, and the intentional choices they make around communities, schools and investing.

Timestamps

[00:00:22] Brian's start in real estate and early lessons

[00:02:19] Most valuable lesson from the recession

[00:06:20] Back to fundamentals of analyzing deals

[00:08:31] Forming a real estate investment club

[00:11:19] Club's process for vetting deals

[00:18:07] Pursuing diversification across strategies

[00:21:01] Starting the overseas expat life

[00:25:11] Different asset classes get different loan rates

[00:27:54] Dollar cost averaging over market timing

[00:34:05] Living intentionally to reflect values

Key Takeaways

• Brian started buying rental properties before the 2008 recession, when he lost money and learned valuable lessons about analyzing deals.
• After co-founding Spark Rental, Brian discovered syndications were an easier way to invest passively in real estate.
• Spark Rental's investment club pools funds to make syndications accessible to small investors, pursuing diversification across operators, geographies, asset classes and debt terms.
• The club vets deals thoroughly, leveraging the community's collective intelligence to ask sponsors tough questions and uncover risks.
• Brian designed his business and investments to enable a location-independent lifestyle with his family across the world.
• He believes in steadily dollar cost averaging into diverse real estate deals rather than trying to time markets.

Resources & Social Media

• Spark Rental website: sparkrental.com
• Brian's email: brian@sparkrental.com
• Spark Rental on Instagram: @sparkrental

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