Real Estate Development: Insights from Jason Brown of Brown Enterprises

Josh: Welcome to The Wealth and Yourself Podcast, where we help people to design their ideal life and take control of their time and money. I’m your host Josh St. Lauren. Today we’re joined by Jason Brown, principal and broker in charge at Brown Enterprises. He’s been doing big things at a high level in real estate for over 24 years, and I’m so excited to hear what he has been working on and his journey up to this point.

Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Josh: Absolutely. Yeah. glad you’re here. We met when I was in Charlotte, you were doing big things then. You’re doing big things now. For the people listening who aren’t as familiar with you and what you do, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what you do?

Jason: Yeah, I’m a real estate developer, primarily developing a fairly large apartment complex here in Columbia, South Carolina. It’s gonna be Keystone Luxury Apartments. The development company is b and b Keystone Development. So we’ve got a 15 acre tract that we’re developing. We’re starting on phase one, which is going to be 64 units.

Once built out. It should be about 240 units, about a 90 million development. Phase one is, you know, about a quarter of that. So once we develop it out, we’re gonna look to lease it. Possibly go ahead and get a sale for it once it’s done or it may just hold onto it, develop the whole complex out.

There’s also some other thoughts of doing kind of a multi-use development. We could put some self-storage units over there as well. But right now we’re working through phase one. We should be going vertical in about two, three weeks, which is real exciting. It’s the largest development that I’ve ever done. Before this, did single developments, owned a lot of condos, apartments, town homes, that kind of thing. Sold them out several years ago with the goal of developing my own apartment complex. Which is what we’re doing now. The reason behind that is, you know, when you own the whole complex, you can control it more versus if you’re owning apartments here, apartments there, or condos here.

Condos there. That became a challenge because we would have the nicest units in the development, but if the rest of the development’s not going well or starts to make a turn, you can’t really control it. So you know, sold out around 18, 19, I think and started, well, had been planning to do this for quite a while, then start the exit to get out of all what I had covid hit.

We were supposed to start March 2020, but when Covid hit, we decided to pause, sit back, figure it out. Nobody knew it was gonna happen at that point. So we actually started November of 22 with all the site work. So ended up forming a site work company b and b site work. Bought a bunch of excavators, dozers, this kind of thing, formed a site work company.

Took down the land, developed it out and now we’re about to go vertical. So that’s the first time we’ve done that as well. So just started looking at you know, kind of the landscape of the marketplace where it was the cost associated with doing it. And, you know, by forming my own development company for the site work, we saved a substantial amount of money which made the project work because the cost chained so much pre covid to post-covid with all supply chain issues and all the costs.

So had to kind of value engineer to figure out how to get it back on budget because the price probably doubled you know, after covid. but it’s going great now. It’s real, real exciting. We just wore our framing package. Should have that here in about two weeks. It’s just real, real exciting.

Josh: Yeah. That’s huge. I want to talk more about the development project, but I’m interested if you can kind of paint a picture for the listeners of maybe a timeline of, how’d you even get into real estate? How’d you get started on all this? And what was kind of the journey to get to the big project you’re at now?

Jason: I started investing in real estate around two th about 2000. You know, I think we went through a recession around 2000 because, you know, you had the tech market crash, So we went through a recession. Then I started buying foreclosures. Back then, they were real small properties.

You know, I tell the story a lot, a lot of people laughed at me because I was buying these little. Apartments that were ugly and in neighborhoods that weren’t the greatest. And you know, people that don’t know would say, well, you know, why are you buying this, condo here, this apartment here? It’s not that nice.

But my strategy always was, and you know, as you listen to people that know, what I own my house, my things are meant for that in investment as an investment. So if I’m going out buying, you know, a 2 million late property, I’m not gonna make any money renting that property out. You have to buy something where there’s value, where you can buy it, So we would buy these little ugly properties real inexpensive, you know, a lot of sweat equity, fixing it up myself, renting it out and making very, very small amounts of money. And, you know, I knew that at that point I couldn’t go to a bank and say, Hey, let me borrow four or $5 million. I have a dream.

So I think the first place I bought was honestly $15,000-$20,000. A little real inexpensive apartment. You know, fix it up, rent it out for four or $500 way back then. And, you know, shortly thereafter, bought a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, just kept buying small units and you start to put it together. And then you could start to make some money over time.

They were cashflow properties. I wasn’t flipping or anything back then. And then around 2006, 2007 kind of right before the real estate market crashed again, I sold outta everything. I had made a good bit of money. And then we went into a real estate recession and started buying as the prices were falling again.

So by the time I exited 2018, 2019 at the top of the market again I was able to sit on a substantial amount of cash to go into the apartments. So that’s kind of how it started out. Just real, real small, a lot of sweat equity. Also ended up learning to be a general contractor through doing that.

I was vice president of a bank here in Columbia, South Carolina. Worked there and was doing this on the side and, you know, nights, weekends, that kind of thing. Just putting them together, learned how to work, employed a lot of different people and then eventually got a general contractor’s license and, you know, made it much bigger.

Started doing you know, a lot of flips, you know, renovations, that kind of thing. You know, having all the licenses was really important. And the same thing as far as getting, you know, the price and line with the development that we’re doing now. Wearing so many hats is how it works. Being the developer, being the general contractor. Being the broker in charge. So I’m not paying for all those disciplines that you would normally have to, and so it just cuts a substantial amount out on the front end and on the back end. That can make it very, very profitable.

Josh: Yeah, I think that’s important. And something I’ve noticed about you that’s very different than a lot of other real estate investors that I talked to. You’ve got all the different arms of your company, you’re able to do things at scale. And I wanna revisit that. But, if you can talk to, along the way, there must have been some fundamental things that you learned early on that you’ve been able to use and kind of replicate as the projects get bigger. Can you speak to that?

Jason: Well, I’m real serious about what I do and really my business is extremely important outside of my business and my family. I don’t have a lot of hobbies and things like, I’m always on it. I’m always studying, I’m always planning. I’m always reading. And I’m always trying to figure it out. I’m always trying to figure out a better way to do it a quicker way, a better way, a more profitable way.

One of the things with investing in real estate is, obviously you’ve gotta figure out a way to either make it rentable or make it saleable and do it in a way that’s also profitable, right? Because if you’re not making money, it’s not a business, it’s just a hobby. So, you know, finding ways to value engineer where I can make something very aesthetically pleasing but maybe not spend a substantial amount of money.

So I look at a lot of different design ideas. I do a lot of the designs myself. Actually I designed the entire apartment complex, designed my house, and designed several other houses. So even though I’m not a licensed designer where I don’t have a certificate, you know, I’m pretty good at it.

So, as far as things that you replicate, I mean obviously you’re gonna replicate the successes and you’re gonna try and minimize the failures. 

Josh: Was there a big event that happened that you really learned from and you said, “Hey, let’s never do this again.” Or, you know, “I’m gonna pivot and I’m gonna go this direction.”

You know, based on what happened. Was there a time like that?

Jason: Oh yeah, I was just telling this story yesterday. I was talking to one of my subcontractors, actually a plumber that works for me and he was kinda asking me some similar questions. You know, how’d you get where you are now you’re doing development and I look at a lot of these different shows, Flip This House, you know, all these different design shows. 

And when I first started, I wasn’t really making very much money trying to flip because the goal wasn’t right. The goal was volume. And I quickly realized the goal is not volume, the goal is profitability. And I would design things like how I wanna live. And so I would spend a lot of money on the design.

And then you find out that the marketplace isn’t responding to that. Because if you’re in an area and the price is X, if it’s 500 or whatever, and you’re trying to make it sell above that price, it’s not gonna work in that market. So you can spend all the extra money on design, but you know, the comps are gonna be the comps.

Now you can sell for a little bit more than that, but you know, I started doing real high-end design, spent a lot of money and people would just say, “Hey, the house up street is $40,000 less.” You hear it enough and you say, okay, I gotta figure out a way to be in line with the prices in the area and still be profitable.

I still don’t cut corners. But you just use materials that are a little more cost effective. You know, we just do real, real high end designs on, you know, flips that are, below 200 and everyone be like, no one’s doing this, what you’re doing. And there’s a reason why, because it is extremely profitable.

So, you know, we switched the business model and it worked out a lot. But, you know, honestly not investing in extremely expensive rentals and flips there’s kind of a sweet spot in every marketplace. Where out there in California where you are, it’s a much higher sweet spot. In this area it’s a little bit lesser. 

You know, right now with what’s going on with the economy and interest rates, we’re not flipping anything. We pivoted to the apartments because rents are going up and if interest rates are going higher and people can’t afford to buy a house and they have to have a place to stay, they’re gonna rent.

So rents are going up, which, you know, is going to make it that much more profitable. Hopefully the cap rates come back in line by the time we’re done. So we can get an exit on it, but the cap rates right now are not working in our favor, but I think we should be done with the development March of ‘24 and hopefully cap rates will come back in line around then they were sub 5%. You know, we’re hoping to get something around 5% to do an exit on it.

Josh: Yeah. That’s exciting. That’s soon. I mean, you said you’re going vertical in the next couple weeks it sounds like, right?

Yeah, that’s gonna be huge. I wanted to ask you for people listening who are maybe earlier on in their journey of real estate investing any strategies they can implement, any things that you would suggest in the environment that we’re in, any advice that you could give to those folks as far as what they should be doing or maybe shouldn’t be doing?

Jason: As far as what you should be doing… I mean, you have to know your market, so every market is different. So I have people ask me, a question about is this a good price, is this a bad price? It just really depends on where you’re at. I mean, out there in California, the prices are crazy. You know, here they’re much more in line, but being really educated on your market and I would always say, you know, having all your licenses. That’s just gonna be so important to you because you control information. You know, as far as if you have a real estate or a broker’s license, you know, you have access to information that maybe other people don’t have.

I mean, with the internet now, with all the different online platforms, I guess information is more readily available now than it was in the past. But even still, that’s not necessarily the same information you’re going to get if you’re a real estate broker or a real estate agent because you can get additional information.

So access to information is the most important thing. And, honestly not following trends at all. Following trends is never good. Being concerned honestly with what other people think. I was telling this story the other day, and it’s kind of what we touched on a little bit earlier when I started buying these little apartments and condos.

You know, people thought that this was funny and, you know, “why are you doing it?” But you can’t get the hundredth apartment until you got the first one. So you have to get in the game. You have to start someplace. And a lot of people wait for a perfect opportunity to get in the game, and there’s just really not a perfect opportunity.

5, 10, 15 years later, you’re still waiting on the perfect opportunity that doesn’t exist. So, getting in the game, because a lot of times you’ll figure things out as you’re going through it and you’ll learn from it. So, I would say getting in the game, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean getting in the game in a reckless manner, being educated, being safe, and focusing on it, and not having a hands-off approach.

I mean, a hands-off approach never works, in my opinion. I know people that just wanna invest and they stand back and it just doesn’t normally work out. I know there’s a negative connotation with the word “control” now, but you honestly have to be in control. If it’s your business and it’s your money and it’s your life to just take a hands-off approach and say, “Hey, I don’t want to be controlling.”

You know, most people that are very successful control their environment. They’re controlling what they’re doing, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you don’t take that approach, it’s probably not going to work out as far as being an entrepreneur.

I was looking at an interview yesterday and the person was talking about how they worked a nine to five and they left a nine to five and said, “Hey, I’m gonna work for myself and I’m gonna do what I want.”

And then they said, “I’m working more now than I ever was.” So, you know, working for yourself, it’s not necessarily less work. There’s an unlimited upside, there’s also an unlimited downside, but if you go about it the right way, you’re going to be very, very successful. I left banking in, I don’t know, it’s been five, 10 years since I left, and it’s just worked out so well working for myself, I don’t think I was ever designed to work for anyone and I never can work for anyone again. I was at my CPA’s office one day and I had to sign a bunch of checks, he sent me back in this room and I was sitting in this little room and the walls start closing in.

I felt like I was in a cubicle, man, and had flashbacks to my days of working for someone. It just wasn’t good. But, you know, I definitely love working for myself, having the autonomy to do what I want to do which is generally a lot of work. I mean, but that’s just what’s real important to me.

And some people are that way. You can be a good artist at whatever it is, but if you don’t have the business side, it doesn’t work. So working for yourself isn’t for everyone. It’s definitely great.

Josh: I’m glad you went there. We have a lot of business owners, entrepreneur listeners and I was hoping you could talk a little bit about how you built up Brown Enterprises, all the different divisions of it, and also just the importance of having that control, delegating, and building the team. ‘Cause I think that can translate across, you know, not just real estate, but other businesses too.

And you’re a master at it. So yeah, I’d love it if you could say a little bit about that.

Jason: There was a guy many years ago, he talked about “vertical integration” and it kind of stuck with me, vertical integration, and that has been my goal to have vertical integration from A to Z because if you do, you can be so profitable with whatever your business is. If you’re controlling all aspects of it because there’s revenue streams from everything, or there’s revenue going out from all the different disciplines of what you’re doing.

And if you can control all those or own all of those, or at least have parts in all of those, not only can you control where it’s going at but you can be that much more profitable. For example, a lot of real estate developers are paying a general contractor to develop whatever it is. Well, there’s obviously substantial markup on it because the general contractor gotta make money.

Having the general contractor’s license and the understanding of it cuts out so much more money, which makes it that much more profitable on the backside. You know, having the broker’s license on the front side gives me access to information, saves commission money on the backside. If you’re talking about a 20 or a 90 million development, I mean, having the broker’s license and not necessarily paying that whole commission is huge.

So, those things are real important. There was a guy many, many years ago when I used to work out at the gym, he was an older guy and he said, Jason, you need to get your real estate license. I said, why do I want a real estate license? I don’t want a real estate license. At the time I was young and, but it stuck with me.

And eventually it’s like, you know what, he’s right. And over the years, the amount of money that I’ve saved on commissions is substantial. That and being able to manage the properties, being a broker in charge, you can also manage property, have a property manager’s license and all that.

I mean, again, all these revenue streams are coming at you. So you know, otherwise if you’ve got a management company, you’re probably paying them 10%, 8%, you know, just depends on what it is. If you’re putting those dollars back in your pocket, not paying to someone else, you made an extra 10% right there.

So, you increase your return substantially. Same thing if you’re able to do the work or your company’s able to do the work, instead of paying someone a retail price to fix whatever it is, you’re saving so much money and which just makes your profitability go way up. So being able in whatever the business is, it doesn’t have to be real estate, but vertical integration of, whatever, where you can control your revenue streams is just very, very important.

And you didn’t ask me this yet, you’ll probably get to it, but the most important thing to me is equity and whatever you own.

Josh: Vertical integration and equity. Okay. Can you say more about the equity piece that you’re talking about, or are you talking about at the beginning of the deal, or is that just a metric that you’re as omnipresent as you’re analyzing things and going through projects?

Jason: I mean, to me, equity is more important than cash, right? Because if you believe in what you have, the money up front is not that important. The money on the backside from the ownership percentage or stake that you have is gonna be much more important than whatever money you’re gonna get up front. The money upfront is an employee’s thought process.

Well, right now I want X amount of money, I want to get a salary. Well, you’re probably never gonna get rich getting a salary, but if you have equity in something that you own and you believe in it, and you know what you’re going to do, most people don’t know what you know. And if you believe in yourself, the most important thing is a percentage of ownership that you have in whatever it is that you’re doing.

And you can take that to anything. You can take that to show like Shark Tank with what they’re doing. You can take it to athletes, entertainers, actors, whatever. I mean, what everyone talks about now on these podcasts are the deals they struck early on and, and how they didn’t make any money ‘cause they didn’t have any equity or ownership in what they created.

I mean, you’ve got musicians, they’re creating, they’re writing the songs, they’re performing, they’re selling the albums. They’re getting small, small portions of their money in the record labels. Everyone else is getting all the money. You can take that to athletes as well. You can take it anywhere you want to take it to.

And the talent is not getting paid. And I will never let that happen to me or my family. So what’s omnipresent? The word that you use is “owning” everything I’m doing.

Josh: I love that. I think that’s an important lesson.

Jason: Even if it takes that much longer to do it. Because you know, a lot of people, they may want to do a bunch of deals and they’re making small percentages on these deals. Well, now you’ve gotta do a hundred deals or, or whatever it is, 200 deals, or you work forever, then you never really make a lot of money.

Or you take your time and go into what the lion’s share. It may take longer, but on the back side it’s gonna be that much better. So, with me, that’s really, you know, what kinda has happened with this development that I’m doing is just going at it the right way to make it, you know, a huge score on the backside of it. Short-term pain for long-term gain.

Josh: That’s right. I love that. What’s next for you and the company? Do you feel like there’s more vertical integration to be done? You know, if you look forward into 2024 and beyond, is there anything you’re excited about? 

Jason: Well, excited about finishing the development next year, at least phase one. So, you know, phase one is 64 units, and then after we get through phase one we’ll figure out what phase two is going to be, which again, could be another 176 units. Could be self-storage units across the street because we’ve got two parcels right there.

So, you know, kind of making it a development. It may be mixed use, but just getting through the first portion. So I’m excited about what happens after we get through phase one. But really that’s really it right now. Just that whole complex that I’m working through and, you know, once we get through that, I’ll figure out the next thing.

I’ve got some ideas, but don’t wanna have, you know, 15 irons in the fire where you’re not really focused where you need to be. But yes, it’s real exciting. You gotta come see it.

Josh: Yeah, I will, I definitely need to get down there and check it out. I’m gonna pivot a little bit here. I wanted to ask you if there was anything that you’ve thought about doing and didn’t pull the trigger on?

Jason: Honestly, I don’t think so. 

I really don’t think so. I think anything that I didn’t do wasn’t meant to be. And I don’t really have a lot of regrets because, you wouldn’t be where you are if you didn’t do all the things that you did. You know, there’s been a lot of lean times, a lot of hard times, things that you work through.

I think those are real important because that builds character. You know, if everything comes easy you don’t know what to do when you face adversity. I was reading an article yesterday and that’s one of the things that was talked about. It was talked about, you know, the failures and the losses teach you a lot more than the win sometimes, because if you look at it the right way, there’s been lean times a long time ago, and those things for me have made me say it’s never gonna happen again.

I don’t come from money. I’ve worked really, really hard to get to where I am. And I’ve got three daughters that are everything, and I want to give everything to them. And I teach them all these things, you know, hard work, dedication, perseverance, and just being very, very disciplined.

And those things are real, real important. Discipline.

Josh: Definitely. Is there anything, you know, if you could go back and give advice to your, let’s say, 30 year old self, is there advice that comes to mind that you wish you knew then that you know now?

Jason: Well, I mean, there’s always good advice, things you could have done sooner, what I would give and do give advice to people younger than me that asked me for advice. But again, I don’t know that I would go back and change anything at 30 from what I was doing at 30. You know, would’ve been nicer to have been further along at 30 for sure.

But at the same time, if you’re not prepared for it you can lose it. You know, one of the benefits when I was in banking all those years, as you would see people like yourself with what you were doing, you deal with people with money. And so you see what people do to make money, how they lose money, how much money they have, how they got it.

And you can talk to these kind of people. And so one thing that I would see a lot of with entrepreneurs is they may have a huge score on something and because they’re an entrepreneur, they want to go back in and get a bigger score. And a lot of times they lose it on the second one. And so what’s been real important to me is making sure that doesn’t happen.

I mean, the score that I’m gonna make on this complex is going to be nice and I’m gonna do things after that, but I’m gonna make sure that I go about it the right way. So, just watching and learning from what other people are doing and seeing someone that has good characteristics and taking something from that saying, you know what, I like what Josh is doing here.

I want to implement that. what he’s doing. I like what Eric is doing or like what Mike is doing, like what Joe’s doing. I study people a lot in how they’re successful and everyone has good characteristics and traits. Maybe not everything they do you would agree with, but the positive things that are good, I try and take those and implement on myself and things that I see are negative, I try to stay away from ’em and not make those same mistakes.

Josh: Yeah, I think that’s huge. Like studying, people. What makes them successful? Did mentorship play a role at all? And in your life, did you have any big mentors that you learned from? 

Jason: I never had anyone that said, I’m your mentor and you’re my mentee. But I’ve always paid a lot of attention to everything around me. People may not know it, but I pick up on everything that’s around me all the time. My attention to detail is substantial. To the point of possibly being a control freak or whatever it is.

There’s a guy, Grant Cardone. I know you know who he is, and all your listeners will know who he is. And you know, he talks about that. And it’s not a negative thing to be controlling. I mean, a lot of people think control is a bad thing, but who wants to be controlled? No one wants to be controlled.

If you can control your environment dealing with money or what’s around you, that’s a good thing. Paying attention to the small details. And, you know, sometimes in business it’s not necessarily about making friends. I’m good to the people that work for me, that work with me, I’m fair.

But at the same time, you can’t allow quality or other things, attention to detail, to leave because perhaps you don’t wanna say something to someone about their performance or about their work product, whatever that work product is, well then it falls back on you. So, you know, paying attention to all the details, seeing all those things and making sure that it’s implemented properly.

And again, you can look at really any field you want to, whether it’s an athlete, whether it’s an entertainer, whether it’s an actor, the people that are good or basically control freaks and they pay attention to everything. And same thing with investors. paying attention to everything. Knowing your numbers, knowing what’s going on.

I mean, if it’s real estate or whatever it is, understanding, negotiating the price of that framing package and making sure you’re not paying an extra million or 2 million or 5 million framing package, or an extra 10% or 20%. Same thing with the subs. Bidding it out, making sure that you’re not paying way too much on a subcontractor.

That doesn’t mean that the lower price is better, the higher price is worse. But, going through all the work and not just taking the hands off pro saying, okay, this is it. This is what we’re doing. And actually monitoring the entire process, every single aspect of it. I mean, my business is not a very large business.

It’s an extremely profitable business. I would say my profitability is almost second to none because of controlling all the revenue streams. I can do less revenue and make more money than people that are doing substantially larger revenue than I am. and that’s important to me. And, you know, I manage pretty much all of my projects and everything that’s going on, I’m on the job sites daily.

You know, I’m watching every piece of lumber that’s going up. I’m watching all the rebar that’s going in the ground, and I’m focused and I’m paying attention to everything. So mistakes will cost you a lot of money. If you’re not catching mistakes, you catch ’em later on. It’s so expensive to fix it. So being on the front side and, and trying to minimize mistakes is real, real important in any business that you’re in.

Josh: I think that’s an important message and, one that honestly, we don’t really hear a lot, about taking control. I was having a conversation the other day with someone. We were talking about how dangerous those people are out there who kind of have this attitude of “it is what it is” and they don’t wanna have their hand in the pot. They don’t want to take control. So I think your message is sort of the opposite of that. And I like that. 

Jason: Yeah. The, “it is what it is.” And I don’t believe in that in any way, and I’m big on that with my children and with my wife, really, you know. I don’t believe in that in any way. You have to take control. You’re responsible for your life. You know, you’re responsible for your successes and your failures.

One of the biggest things about me is that I’m responsible for everything. It doesn’t matter whether it’s someone else’s fault, it’s my responsibility. I accept responsibility a hundred percent. All the time, no matter what it is. Because if you don’t accept responsibility, you’re basically allowing someone else to be in control of your life.

Well, if Josh would’ve done this, I would be successful. If Josh would do that, I could have been successful. So you’re going to base your life on what someone else is gonna do for you? No. I mean, my wife says to me a lot that I like to make all the decisions. And that’s not necessarily a negative thing.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t respect everyone that’s around me. It doesn’t mean that all my business partners, I don’t respect them. But ultimately at the end of the day, I’m responsible for whether it works or it doesn’t. If I take bad advice and I go bankrupt, the only person I can blame is myself. Well, you know, I got some bad advice.

I lost everything. I can spend my life blaming this guy, but I still lost everything. And you know, today with Google and this kind of thing, people think research is Googling something. It’s really not. You know, research is multiple streams of information. Taking that information, compiling it, sifting through it, and figuring it out no matter what it is that you’re doing, not just taking any one source and just running with it, just whatever it is that you’re serious about is you have to be obsessed with it. And if you are, it will generally work out. 

But you know, we had a situation a month ago, a month and a half ago. We had some engineers that were designing things about the site they were working on. And long story short, we had a problem with the Department of Transportation. And once we had that problem, all the engineers basically pointed fingers at the other engineer and said, “Hey, well we designed was right, you just can’t build it.” 

I was like, I spent six figures on engineers to just tell me at the end of the day that I can’t build what you designed. I mean but on the front end I wasn’t I guess questioning enough and it came back to bite me. And the way we figured it out is I honestly redesigned the entire development myself, and it worked out.

It actually saved a substantial amount of money with the way I redeveloped it. But, you have to say, you know, how come the engineers on the front side weren’t looking out for my best interest? And it doesn’t mean that they were bad people, but kind of as you say, it is what it is. Most people take the approach of, I’m gonna do the bare minimum.

Okay, I’m gonna do this design. This is someone else’s fault or someone else’s problem. And, not looking at everything the right way. I try to take a 360 degree approach to whatever I do. If you hire me to do something, I’m going to go above and beyond whatever it is that you asked me about.

I don’t want to tell, talk to you about a bunch of things you never even thought about. If you’re asking me whatever it is, I’m gonna, not only about these three things we’re talking about, but you can see there’s 15 other things here, and most people don’t take that approach. So, to make a long story short, we were going to have to have this retaining wall across the back of the property.

It was going to cost over a million dollars to design this wall. At the end of the day, the wall couldn’t be built there because The Department of Transportation didn’t want it. And the engineers were trying to get us to just try and force this wall that was never going to work. What I ended up doing is we decide, okay, well we’re going to do is we’re gonna slope the elevation of the back of the property, we’re going to elevate the buildings.

Problem solved. Looking back, why couldn’t the engineers have done down the front side? I’m not an engineer. I didn’t go to school for engineering, but I’ve got common sense. It just made no sense once I really looked at it. But on the front end, I didn’t question all of it enough. And so that comes back to taking control and questioning and making sure that you’re making the ultimate decision.

And generally when I do that, it works out. Generally when I don’t, it doesn’t.

Josh: Yeah, I think all these concepts tie right into each other, right? Like when you take the responsibility and that extreme ownership and you say, “Hey, this is on my shoulders. I’m not gonna sit here and blame anybody else.” Then you do the due diligence, you do the research, you make it work, So I think that’s admirable. I want to transition over to the big three, but before I do, is there any questions that I didn’t ask you that you wish that I did? 

Jason: Not particularly. 

Josh: All right. We’ll dive right into the big three then. So, number one, what does living a wealthy life look like for you?

Jason: It is definitely gotta be my wife and children. Definitely has to be them and providing the life for them that I want them to have is extremely important. Always has been. Pretty much everything I do is for my wife and my three daughters. I couldn’t be happy with all the money in the world without my wife and children, it just wouldn’t work for me. So my family is definitely very important to me. So wealth is definitely my family. You know, monetary wealth is very important as well because, you know, you have to have it to take care of your family, but, just providing them everything that they need is what’s most important for me.

Josh: I like that. If you could give one message to someone working to gain financial freedom who isn’t there yet, what would it be?

Jason: One message to gain financial freedom. Bet on yourself every time. Bet on yourself. I’m big on that: bet on yourself every single time. But when you bet on yourself, you have to take that ownership, that control, and be extremely serious about it. A lot of people think running a business is, you know, I’ve got a business here and I’m running a business.

But, does the business make sense? Is it profitable? Is there a point in the marketplace for it? How do you drive revenue? How do you drive profits? All of those things are real important. So, betting on yourself, is it.

Josh: I like that. Last but not least, if you only had a thousand dollars and were starting over, what would be the first thing that you do with that money?

Jason: I’ve had a thousand dollars. You know, there was a TV show about that, right? And Grant Cardone was on that, did you see that?

Josh: I did not.

Jason: I forget what the name of it was. Well, they took him and like two others, they’re either multi-millionaires or billionaires, and they set ’em in a town they’d never been to, gave him a thousand dollars and they had to make their money again. And he was actually on that show. And that’s what he did on that show. 

But I’ve actually been there, Josh. When my wife and I got married, we were on our honeymoon and our house got struck by lightning and it burned completely down and we lost everything. And I didn’t even have a thousand dollars at the time. So I’ve actually rebuilt from nothing before. So what’s the first thing I buy with that, you know, that I don’t exactly know?

But you know, it definitely can be done. I’ve done it.

Josh: Wow, I didn’t know that story. We’ll have to talk about that sometime. That’s wild. For people looking to connect with you online, where would they go to find you?

Jason: Well, I’m not a social media guy. I do have a LinkedIn page, you know, Jason Brown on LinkedIn. You know, my websites are BrownEnterprisesFirm.com and BErealestateSC.com. But I’m not a social media guy, so you know, LinkedIn may be the best way or go to the website, get my phone number and call me.

Josh: Cool. Well, we’ll link it in the show notes. 

Thanks, Jason for coming. 

Jason: Thanks for having me.

Josh: This has been The Wealth and Yourself Podcast where we help people design their ideal life and take control of their time and money. I’m your host Josh St. Laurent. Our guest today was Jason Brown, principal and broker in charge at Brown Enterprises.

Thank you for listening, and that’s a wrap for today. We’ll see you next week.