Creating Passive Income Through Multifamily Real Estate with Dan Brisse

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the co-founder of Granite Towers Equity Group, and what they do is they help people to create multiple streams of passive income through multifamily real estate investing. So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Dan brize.

Hey Danny, you ready to rock?

Dan Brisse: I am ready to rock. Thank you.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Now, first question, we always start off on a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Dan Brisse: Yeah, so you know my background, I like many of your listeners, I grew up with big dreams. As a kid, I wanted to be a professional snowboarder, and so I spent my entire high school career, um, doing decent in school and spending all my time at the Hill. I grew up in Minnesota, snowboarding day after day, month after month, year after year.

After I graduated from high school, I moved to Salt Lake City with a group of five guys, and we were all in pursuit of creating a snowboarding career. Um, my [00:01:00] parents loved me and supported it, but they were not able to help financially. So, um, I was working at Blockbuster at night and snowboarding every day during the day.

Um, my typical, uh, meals would be peanut butter and jelly for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Um, and so it was pretty, uh, pretty slim picking as far as finances go, but I was very dedicated and focused on my snowboarding career. Um, I thought after moving out to Salt Lake City, I’d be a professional snowboarder.

Within a year, I realized that’s not the case. I had a lot further to go than I thought. Um, came back year two. Thought I’d be a pro snowboarder eating peanut butter and jelly working at PayWay and nothing happened. Year three A come back and, uh, came back a little late to the season. Uh, got hurt three days after getting back to Salt Lake City.

Dislocated my kneecap and needed surgery and that was the end of that year. Uh, came back year four and my buddy says, Hey, you’re good. You should go to Aspen, Colorado for the Aspen Open. And I’m thinking, [00:02:00] that sounds awesome. I’d love to go to Aspen, but you know me. I’m broke Eating peanut butter and jelly, working at TJ Friday’s busing tables.

And this guy believed in me and he is like, Hey, I’ll take you there and I will enter you into the contest, and if you win, pay me back. If you don’t win, you got nothing to lose. So with that said, we cruised to Aspen. Um, he paid for this entry fee and there were like 225 up and coming kids that were the best of the best at that time.

And the way it works is you get two runs. If you finish top 10, you go to finals. If you don’t, you’re done. Uh, ended up finishing sixth on the qualifier. Came back for the finals day and I don’t know what happened to the other guys, but the grace of God, I ended up winning this contest and I ended up having a 15 year run as a professional snowboarder traveling the world and ended up being an X game six times.

I got a couple gold medals, couple silver medals and um, just was a total dream come true. And so, you know, that would be the, the success story of my life from a younger guy. And, um, we can [00:03:00] transition after that if you want to go wherever you wanna go from there.

Tim Melanson: It’s an incredibly good story. That’s awesome. So you, you did it.

Dan Brisse: Yeah,

Tim Melanson: You actually hit that goal.

Dan Brisse: yeah, yeah. You know, I think one thing that I, I would consider myself to have a superpower and I don’t have many, uh, I was average at best at school, mediocre, um, didn’t wanna really be there, but one superpower I do have is. Getting really clear on what I want to create and just not quitting. And I’d say for, you know, folks that are listening here, if there’s one piece of advice I could give after getting to know many top professional snowboarders in the industry and becoming really some of my best buddies, um, they all went an inch wide, a mile deep.

They did not go a mile wide. Inch deep. It was very, very laser focused for a long period of time. And I just can’t stress enough how that relates to business as well, you know? So, um, you know, and, and, and the reality was, is when I was at the [00:04:00] top, I got to know a lot of these hero buddies. Who were my good friends, they were five or 10 years in front of me.

And, um, it was really hard to see their careers come to an end. It was brutal, Tim, I’m telling you. Like losing their wives, losing their homes, drug addiction, suicide. And so that’s what really drew me in. I, I saw what was coming for me and if I could have as be as lucky as those guys and have a career as long as they did.

Do as well as them, and that’s how they crashed and burned. At the end, I had to do something different, so that’s when I started to do everything I could to learn about the money I was making it as an athlete and start to invest it into multifamily.

Tim Melanson: That is incredibly. Relevant. You hear this all the time about people that, especially in sports, make a boatload of money. I mean, actors do the same thing right there, you know, whoever’s, you know, those careers where you actually make a lot of money really quickly and then they crash and burn. Like, did you, did you ever figure out like, why?

Like, why, why do they, why does that seem to happen so [00:05:00] often?

Dan Brisse: Such a great question, Tim, and I don’t think it gets asked enough. I’d say most of the time it is athletes that either think it’s never gonna end, which is it. It floods.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Dan Brisse: But number two is they don’t know what to do with the money they make. You know, one gentleman, um, named Nate, I won’t use his last name, but Nate ended up getting paid $2 million out of his contract at the end of his career, and he spent the next six months traveling around the world with his buddies.

Doing drugs, getting tattoos, you

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Dan Brisse: back with bad habits. And he said, money ruined him. And I said, it wasn’t the money that ruined you, Nate, you just didn’t know what to do with it. Because if you put 2 million bucks in the hands of somebody that knows what they’re doing, they might have 4 million or 6 million next year and be a free, very passionate human being.

So it’s not the money, it’s what to do with the money.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, because I, I do know, I, I actually have some people in my network that. Work normal jobs and are actually doing pretty good for themselves. Like probably even millionaires. I don’t know, I don’t ask them those [00:06:00] questions, but, but doing really well. And then you see some people that make millions of dollars, you know, per month even, and then they crash and burn.

And it is kind of interesting that you say that. ’cause uh, I mean, I, I think that a lot of them do say that money ruined me. But I mean, that can’t be right. I mean, you got people making money, you know.

Dan Brisse: Yeah, I mean, I would love to share, you know, what, what worked for me here. So as I’m seeing that I’m, and I’m seeing my future of a very sharp decline. I’m studying what to do with capital to do with cash, and I learned three things that changed my life. And those three things are very simple things to do if you put a little bit of effort in.

And that is, how do I create cash flow or passive income through my. Investments, how do I hedge the dollar against inflation that is out of control? And how do I depreciation to reduce my tax bill legally based on how the law has been written? You know, I didn’t write the law. I didn’t make the rules of the [00:07:00] game, but the rules are intact.

So if I’m gonna be here and I’m gonna be owning a business, I gotta learn the rules by hiring a great CPA or a tax accountant. So they can guide me on what to do and why to do it so I can behave in a certain manner to fit into different boxes because the economy is set up very cookie cutter. It’s very like a, like once you know the name of Game of Monopoly and you know the rules, it’s very similar to real life.

It’s a great game to play for practice.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it is. And now, and, and so I think, I mean, I, I feel like there’s like three, uh, like kind of levels to this. There’s the level of like, uh, what you were talking about, just not knowing what to do with the money, meaning maybe not even not knowing what to do with it. Obviously like mismanaging it, like, like spending it on drugs and tattoos and things that, you know, hey, all the power to you, but that is not going to last.

You are gonna burn through it. And even in the regular folks that [00:08:00] are not making millions of dollars. You know, I, I keep on hearing that cars are a terrible expense to get yourself into. Uh, I mean, it, it depreciates so quickly. So there’s the not knowing what to do with your money, but then there’s the middle part of like, okay, I, I, you know, I’m not spending a whole lot of money.

I’m saving a lot of money, but now it’s just sitting in a. You know, savings account, and like you say, inflation is just eaten away at that. Right? And then there’s the next level of it where, okay, now I’m gonna try to make that money, make more money as time goes on, rather than just sitting there and losing money as time goes on.

Right. I.

Dan Brisse: Yeah, definitely. I, I wanna break this down to make it super simple because it really is, I’d say that’s one of my other superpowers, is making something that appears to be complex, very simple and easy to understand. Um, so what. If I’m listening to this podcast right now and you’re in one of those three levels, because I would agree with you, those kind of are the three levels, and if you’re in the beginner level, what you really need to focus on is the habit of living below your means.

[00:09:00] And paying gratification, which isn’t always easy to do, but if you can start small, start with 1%, start, then move it to 3%, then 5%, then 10%, eventually 20% of whatever you make, just save it. And when you get your lifestyle to that place, you make a hundred grand a year no matter what, 20 thousand’s going into a savings account.

The other 80. Yeah, you got taxes, you got expenses you got, but you gotta get your lifestyle in a place where you can start to accumulate excess cash and it’ll give you freedom. It’ll become fun. It’ll become as fun or more fun than spending. See, I created a saving habit at a young, young age, and I’m working on it with my kids.

Everything they make, I just say 80 percent’s gonna savings. So I start, I’m starting ’em aggressive. So maybe when they get older, they’re at 50%. If you get in that habit of stacking it away, now you have choice. Now you can use those funds to either invest for further, you know, specialized knowledge, and it just gives you this nest egg that will give you a whole different perspective of life.

Of life. Yeah. And then once, once you get to that level, [00:10:00] now it’s, okay, what am I gonna do? What are my passions? What am I excited about? Do I wanna create passive income? Do I wanna start a company? Do I need education? And you have just a lot of freedom and choice.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I’m, I’m working on that with my kids as well. And, and it’s funny that you get quite a bit of pushback from people around you that you know, you’re, you’re mean, you know. Oh, you’re making them save that much money. You know, they don’t need to save that much money. You know, let them enjoy their lives and all that kind of stuff.

But I mean, I think that the, I mean, my feeling of it, and it sounds like it’s yours too, is that they’ll have plenty of time to enjoy that. And you know what, the earlier you start, I mean, where can you be, you know, by even your thirties, if you’re saving 80% of your money, right.

Dan Brisse: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I, I, I hear that thought process and I can’t say there’s this, the right answer for everybody. I’m only speaking for me here, but what I’ve seen in my days is that the folks who have a ton of fun spending and going after it [00:11:00] eventually fall in hard times in a lot of pain.

Tim Melanson: yeah,

Dan Brisse: You can either have the fun now or delay the fun if you want to have the fun.

Now pain is likely coming. It’s just a law of world. It’s not something that Dan Brees is creating. That’s just how it seems and has occurred to me for many, many, many, many people. Whereas the folks who say, you know what, I’m gonna push it off a little bit and I’m gonna save and I’m gonna invest, their lives seem to get bigger, bigger, and bigger and more fun as time goes on.

So my process for my children is more than I just do it outta love. I do, because I’ve seen both sides. And the side of delaying gratification from what I’ve seen, tends to bring people more joy.

Tim Melanson: I agree. So, and uh, so now, I mean, we kind of talked a little bit about the bad note as well, but, but that’s more other people’s bad notes. What about you though? Like, was there something that you just, like a big mistake that happened on your journey that you could share with us?

Dan Brisse: Yeah. Yeah, you, you bet. You know, I mean, uh, the, the two biggest mistakes I can [00:12:00] share with you guys in the listeners here is, um, before you invest with people. Get to know their business model. Get to know them on a pretty intimate level, and take your time. There’s no need to rush. There’s no, this is the last deal.

Get in now. If you start hearing that, I’d run into the hills. There are. There are firms, there are companies that will help get to know you, get to know your investment goals, get you to know their deals, and there will always be another deal coming. Um, so, so that would be the first thing I would share there.

And, you know, I lost a significant chunk of capital investing with the guy out of Portland, who I really didn’t understand his core values. He had a company that worked well, but when things got tough, things changed quickly. And it was, it was a large chunk and a large loss and a real, um. Eye-opening lesson for me.

You know, I don’t, I don’t blame him. I, I look more at how, what did I do on my end as an investor who’s responsible and how do I take accountability for the decision I made to [00:13:00] be a better and more sophisticated investor in the future? Um, so that would be one major lesson is take your time getting to know these folks.

Um. Another lesson that is definitely relevant and it’s, it’s more of if you become, I would call you a professional real estate investor, is you have got to understand the tenant profile of a product, property, or a product you’re buying at a very intimate level. Because these, um, different demographics of individuals behave differently in different economic cycles.

And what that simply means is that. Some people have core values of, I don’t care what it takes, I’m paying my rent. Some people have core values of if things get tough, I don’t care what it takes, I’m not paying my rent, and I’m gonna look for ways to get around the system. And so if you buy the different demographics based off of what I’ve seen, data, purely speaking data, um, you have to understand how to underwrite these deals, which is a little [00:14:00] bit more sophisticated and complicated.

I don’t think you need to get into it on this podcast, but, but what I would go back to is get to know the track record. Get to know the mistakes that companies have made if you’re gonna invest with them passively as an LP or a limited partner. And you know, get to know their core values and make sure they align.

And just make sure you date and take your time getting to know the folks before you jump in head first and get this pressure of fomo, fear of missing out.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. So much there. The, the first one about the, you know, jump in now because you know you’re gonna miss out on, on it. That’s, that’s a. Huge one. I mean, I’ve gotten taken by that one too, where it’s just like, oh, you know, this, this deal’s gonna go away. But I mean, I always kind of think about it like, well, you know, if it’s, if it really is this, you know, once in a time opportunity, I’m never gonna get this again.

Uh, and I’m investing in something, then, uh, it WWW. Why, uh, I mean, I’m, I’m like, why, [00:15:00] why do I have to act right right now? I don’t have enough time to like research this. Like, how good of a deal is this if you’re not even giving me the time to, to look into it? And I think, I think that what you said, uh, later, there’s always gonna be another deal coming.

I think that’s the kind of the, the thing that you learn eventually is that. You know, when there’s sales going on, I mean, even looking at any store, any store, retail store you go into, yes, you can get 50% off, 80% off of, of, of your merchandise if you walk into the store today and do it. But that’s gonna happen next year too.

It’s gonna happen every year. So, you know, if you don’t have the time to really research this thing right, right now, and, and get the information that you need in order to make, to jump into it, then it’s gonna come around again. I mean, you know, it, it’s, it’s just a tactic usually.

Dan Brisse: What I would, what I would suggest, based off of my, you know, I started buying real estate in 2012 and we started our company in 2017, granite Towers Equity Group, and here we are in 2025 with about [00:16:00] 3,250 units of multi-family. And so I, I’m, I just wanna share that because I have a fair amount of experience here.

Pretty much of a decade of obsessively looking at multifamily and buying multifamily. And when we come back to the bucket of, let’s say you did delay gratification, you have capital, and now you’re looking, and I just shared this thing of like, I invested with a guy. I didn’t have the right core values. I lost the capital.

When you find the right group, and this takes a little bit of effort, it might take a little bit of working. You might have to, you know, go online and, and, and, and, and interview of companies that are, that provide these types of investments. But you know. The piece that is the separator or the thing that changed my life the most is when I started to put that idle capital into an investment that started to pay me every quarter or every month.

And I, I put 50 or a hundred grand away and boom out pumps a check, another chunk of capital away out chunk pumps a check. And so for me that’s, that was the eye-opening piece as I was a snowboarder. And I could [00:17:00] see there was an end coming. You know, a lot, like a lot of your listeners, there may be retirement coming.

There may be an end coming to their current career like I had, and what helped me tremendously was starting to create multiple streams of income coming back in. Whether I worked or didn’t work, that was the separator. ’cause snowboarding from. If I wanted to get paid, I had to snowboard and it sounds like, well, duh, like go snowboarding.

But there for what we had to do, what I was hired to do was very dangerous. It was basically risk your life. If you wanna look any videos up, you go onto YouTube, put my name in and you can see what we did put in X Games, Dan Breezy, and we were jumping buildings. We were risking our lives. So in order to transition safely without a big college backup plan degree to fall back on, I started looking for many, many ways for my money to start paying me.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah. And I mean, it’s a smart thing to do. Absolutely. Uh, let’s talk a little bit about practice and, I mean, you come from the sporting area, so uh, practice is important, but does that. [00:18:00] Really transfer into business too. Is there, is there practices that you can do?

Dan Brisse: Yeah. Yeah. I mean with, with multifamily, for us, I mean, it’s constant practice. It’s constantly refining our systems and processes. It’s constantly making mistakes and saying, okay, what do we need to adjust moving forward? So, you know, any, any. From my perspective, again, of meeting great business owners, they’ve been through a lot of pain.

They haven’t quit. They’ve made changes based on the lessons they’ve learned, and they continue to refine their processes. So, you know, for, you know, looking at how to, how do you hedge against inflation? You know, for that was the other piece I learned that really changed my life was how do I get my capital into an asset that when they print more money, when inflation happens.

It may benefit me. It definitely won’t hurt me, but it might benefit me, and that was a different thought I never had as a kid growing up, you know, like I said, eating peanut butter and jelly. Working at TJ Fridays, when inflation would happen, I’d get a little [00:19:00] pay increase and get excited, but I didn’t know that my car gas payment went up.

I didn’t know that the food, I didn’t know that the clothing I was buying was going up. So really I thought I was getting paid more, but my living standard was actually getting smaller. And I think the big thing that’s happening across America right now that a lot of folks just aren’t aware of, they’re, they’re unaware that yes, their pay salary is going up, but inflation is actually rising faster.

So the pay may look larger, but it’s giving you less. And so that’s where. Getting on the side of inflation, owning something that’s real, real estate. You know, owning a business inflation can actually be a beneficial thing, or at least not as painful as if you’re just saving cash. And you know, a story I would just share about that that comes to my mind is my grandma, my grandma.

Uh, died at 93 and she worked her ass off. Like she had a little bit of a sad story. Her husband committed suicide when my mom was, uh, when she had five kids. Grandma had five [00:20:00] kids that were under 12, and this woman worked her tail off and she kept those kids safe and warm and fed, and she saved her money and worked like you wouldn’t imagine.

She lived as frugal as you could, and when she was. You know, late nineties she had a little, a little over 90 grand in her bank account and she had to go into a nursing home or to a assisted living facility, and that 90 grand got drained in like a eight month period or a nine month period. It was, it was horrible to see.

So that’s a perfect example of how do you get into a situation with real assets so that when that time comes, there’s plenty of excess cash to help you live the lifestyle you wanna live.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And I, I just think I, I think. So many people, like you say, they don’t even, they either don’t understand it or they don’t know how to get out from underneath it. I think that that’s the kind of, the, the issue is you end up, you know, and, and I think a lot of it has to do with that delayed gratification that you’re talking about.

We’re just consistently being fed these [00:21:00] messages of consume, consume, consume. You deserve it. You deserve it. You deserve it. And you know, you’ve never got that extra buck to throw into something like this, right.

Dan Brisse: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I can, I’ve been fortunate to have some success in an athletic career and then have some good success owning a bunch of apartments. And I can tell you guys, from my perspective, when I buy a new truck or another new truck, it really doesn’t bring that much happiness. You know, it’s, it’s a little bit and you’re like excited for a little bit, but then you’re like, yeah.

Just a truck. And so I, I think what you’re touching on T is so critical to understand is that the constant consumption, if you don’t live below your means and you’re constantly consuming, it’s an artificial high right here, right now, but it doesn’t bring long-term happiness. So, you know, if you can, if you can make that connection in your mind’s eye that.

You have professional marketers marketing to you every single day. These companies spend billions of dollars on why you should buy their product. And the more you buy then to that and, and consume [00:22:00] that, the more you are out spending. And so I think it’s, it is absolutely critical, Tim, for people to hear that and to, to think about that of, is this benefiting me or is it benefiting the company that keeps creating these products?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and it, it ends up being sort of like an addiction cycle cycle as well, where you, you’re looking, uh, I mean you, you’re just constantly. You know, in this worry about money and about, you know, not enough coming in and, and then you go get that quick fix of like going to buy something to give you that little high making you feel okay for a little bit.

But, but like you say, I mean, if you, if you delay that gratification and you focus on, you know, just trying to, you know, bring that money in, save it, put it into something else, well then that constant worry about money goes away and now you don’t need that fix anymore. Right.

Dan Brisse: Yes. And then at that point, ideally you’re sophisticated enough and created a couple relationships with companies that are really great at buying quality [00:23:00] assets, and you can move that chunk of capital. Into an investment doesn’t mean that you don’t still control that capital. Doesn’t mean your net worth went down, just means you moved it from a bank account into an investment to start paying you residual money in passive income.

And now you’re in a position where you’ve hedged inflation ’cause you own a piece of real estate. And then ideally the last icing on the cake is you can qualify for depreciation. And that’s a word I never heard growing up in high school. Like what is depreciation? It sounds really complicated. It’s really a simple thing as all it is is.

Based on the law of that, the tax code, the way it’s written is you are able to get a loss on paper because the government wants investors to buy and invest in real estate, to take care of real estate, to provide nice, clean, family safe housing. So the incentive is a tax incentive for us as investors to go buy real estate and it gives you a loss on your K one, which, and that’s all created through what we do here.

You don’t do anything, you just get the K one and give it to your CPA. Or [00:24:00] apply it to your tax return and it shows a loss and that loss is not real. It’s just a loss on paper that you use to accelerate the depreciation or the writing off of the things that are becoming less valuable in the asset. So to keep it really simple, you put your money in, you get your passive income, you’re hedging inflation.

You get a loss on paper that you can now apply to your tax return, and ideally, if you qualify correctly, you can pay less in tax legally, and doesn’t mean you’re still not paying tax in other areas of your life, but through your investment, you’re, you’re paying less in tax.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah, and I think this is, I mean, this is complicated stuff really, when it comes down to it. I mean, there’s people that spend, like, you spend a lot of time learning all this stuff and I, you know, I think, well you mentioned earlier there’s, you know, when you, when when you experience a loss, maybe you, you invest in the wrong person or whatever it happens to be.

I think that kind of. Kinda discourages you, makes you a little bit worried [00:25:00] about, oh, you know, this stuff’s a scam. You know, I’m just gonna lose my money. And you know, what you said earlier about losing money, I, I think that’s an important mentality of like, okay, fine, somebody made a mistake, but so did you.

Right? Uh, you put it into that person who made the mistake and hey, may might not have been their fault, might, might have been their fault, who knows? But taking a bit of an accountability and thinking, okay. What did I do? Why did I do it? What did I, what could I improve? How could I vet this person a little bit better?

You know, a little bit of responsibility on that can now make you make better decisions in the future. Because there are people out there that are very good at this. I mean, I’ve got a money guy and you know, it works really well for me and I, I don’t deal with any of that stuff. I don’t understand it. He does.

Right? And I think everybody needs to have that person right.

Dan Brisse: Totally. Yeah. I, I, and we, I, I think you nailed it, Tim. You know, at the end of the day for me, you know, I grew up in a [00:26:00] world that was very middle class, and I, and I heard a lot growing up. Money doesn’t grow in trees and money’s not important. And, you know, I, I. I do think having capital and cash is important because it part of, I wanna be able to drive a car that’s safe.

I want to be able to eat healthy food. I want to be able to live in a nice home to take care of my family. I wanna be able to, you know, be able to travel and have some time off. So I, I don’t, I don’t buy into it saying it’s not important. I, I’m more of a, of of. Can you get a passion you love to do in life?

And can you find a way to take the capital that you’ve earned and just start to get that return? And once you find somebody to help, you don’t have to be the one going and finding the real estate deals. You don’t need to be underwriting it. You don’t need to be doing cost segregation studies and K ones.

You can, you can align with that, you know, of any listeners here, like, I’d like to learn more. You can reach out at any time and have a conversation with our team and you can sit in our database for 2, 3, 4, 5 years just watching what we do. And as you [00:27:00] watch and as you’re a part of it, you will learn the basics and you know, being a limited partner in these types of deals.

It’s really simple. Once you find someone you know, like and trust and you are along for the ride, there’s literally nothing to do and it’s an avenue to get a little bit more outta Wall Street. Or if you don’t have, if you’re heavily in stocks and you want to diversify a little bit, it’s a nice way to, you know, collect the three things, the passive income, inflation, and depreciation.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah. And, and that’s getting money to work for you. And I think we do know for the most part that that is a thing. Money can work for you, right? Um, you know, you can work and make money and then you can get that money to work for you, and it’s just, you’ve gotta find the right fit for what you. Want to do with that money working for you, right?

Dan Brisse: That’s exactly it. You nailed it. I mean, that’s, that’s the whole game of what we play is how hard and how efficient can we get our money working for us. And the way we measure that is by the return it gives us each year. So if you put a hundred thousand in and you get 20,000 back a year, that’s a 20% return.[00:28:00]

So a pretty, pretty dang good number from our per. You know, so if you can increase that number and they’re safe and they’re, it’s like clockwork. That’s the name of the game in order to create passive income and really create that freedom.

Tim Melanson: Yep. And, uh, I think a lot of people don’t necessarily know what passive income is. Like. What, what would you describe passive income is?

Dan Brisse: Yeah. Great question. So passive income is, I do the work once and it pays me for years. So I, I’m what my focus of my life is. I’m, I’m not worried about, we call it ordinary earned income or employment income, I guess you could say. Like, I work, I get paid, I work, I get paid. I’m, I’m not even thinking about, that’s how my snowboarding career was.

I work, I get paid, I work, I get paid. Now my whole focus is how can I work one time? And get paid whether I’m awake, sleeping, partying, vacation, whatever I do, and there’s that chunk now that’s passively coming in. I don’t need to do anything for it. It just pays me. Okay, great. That one’s set. How do I [00:29:00] now get another nest egg of capital using my delayed gratification, put in another chunk, 50,000 over here, and how quickly and how much can I get paid from that one based off of the investment?

And I want the depreciation too, because it’s part of the tax law and you’re part of the inflation because you own something real. So that’s passive income. You do the work once and you get paid for years on that, on that investment.

Tim Melanson: So now for I think probably most average people, they would think that sounds too good to be true. That sounds like a scam. So, so what, what do we, like, how is this not a scam? Like how, how does it work? Where can everybody on the planet do this?

Dan Brisse: Yeah. Uh, you know, I, so with these types of investments, the Securities Exchange Commission, the SEC puts laws in place where. They don’t want people who don’t have the understanding to invest and get taken advantage of, which is actually really safe of them to do. It’s a good thing. The bad thing is, is you have to have a little bit of education.

You have to get to [00:30:00] know someone like us or a firm that does this to help you invest. So, um. I, I, I’d say the best way, if I’m a listener right now and you wanna learn more, you don’t have to invest for yours. You don’t have to learn more. You don’t have to invest for yours. But get on a call with us, get on a call with, you know, do throw in a chat.

GPT what are some great firms to invest passively in real estate with and get on their mailing list? Start seeing their deals, start seeing what they do, start getting on their meal, their, uh, email, uh, monthly flows. We send out a monthly, um, update on our company every month. We have deals that come out every now and then that are in our email, and you can see deals.

And then we have a webinar and you can watch the webinar to learn about the deal. I would just start. Opening your eyes up to it and just proceeding with, with, with the, I’m learning. I’m just in my learning stage, right? Sta stage right now. And there will come a time after you’ve done enough investigation and enough learning where you’ll get to know someone and say, yeah, I’m willing, I’m willing and ready to take my first risk with an investment.

And it is a risk. It’s also a risk to [00:31:00] keep your cash sitting in the bank because inflation’s eating it up. So it’s, it’s a risk either way. I look at it as more risky to keep my cash in the bank. Yes, I have some cash in the bank, but the majority of my cash is invested into different assets.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Okay. So when you say risk, um, what does that mean? Could I lose all my money? Uh, like how, how does this work?

Dan Brisse: Yeah, you know, with real estate, I’m, I’m only gonna speak on multifamily because we dunno anything else. Uh, investment. We, we spoke, speak, uh, spoke specifically on multifamily. It can happen where you buy a really horrible deal at the wrong market cycle and you do lose everything. It is very rare. It is very uncommon, but it can happen.

Um, there are times where you buy into a market cycle and it’s the right market cycle, right deal, and you 2, 3, 4 extra money that can happen. So both spectrums are possible. Um, the most likely, the most common scenario, you know, we’ve done 31 deals, um, you’ll see about a 13 to a [00:32:00] 20% annual return. Um, part of it coming from cash flow, passive income.

Part of it coming from value increase of owning the real estate over a three to five year period. So that’s how it works. You say, oh, I like this deal. I like this syndication firm. I’m gonna put my capital in with them, and I am going to now be tuning into monthly updates of what’s happening on that deal throughout.

Every month we send an update on the first of the month. And you’ll see exactly how your deal that you’re invested in, how it’s doing. You’ll see, you’ll get it, you’ll get the financial statements. You can comb through all the income and expenses if you want. You’ll get a CapEx update, which is just the value add work we’re doing.

We might, we might upgrade the exterior by painting it. We might put in new countertops. We might upgrade the pool. So you’ll, you’ll see that along the way and you’ll get updates on distributions. And that’s, that’s it. As a limited partner, you’re just lit literally along for the ride. You’re a partner and owner of the real estate with nothing to do.

Tim Melanson: [00:33:00] So now because of the potential risk there, uh, I would assume that this is money that is kind of like locked away. You’ve gotta sort of figure out that I don’t need this money for any, you know, short. Or abuse or anything like that. You’ve gotta be comfortable enough with potentially losing that money, right?

Dan Brisse: Yeah, I would, I would say in, in your mind’s eye, you’re thinking three to five years these funds are potentially locked up and. We can return ’em sooner through a refinance or because the market goes crazy and we can exit. That may happen, but I would just think three to five years of these funds are gonna be working for me.

And so another side of that is that a lot of our investors don’t want their capital back because when we turn a deal. Make ’em money. Now they got a tax problem because we just made ’em capital gains. And now they’re saying, Hey Dan, thanks, nice job. But the problem is, is my hundred is now 200 grand and my 200 grand you gotta pay tax on.

And b, I gotta find a place for it ’cause it can’t set my bank account. So, you know, getting your money back isn’t always like the goal of yes, you [00:34:00] want returns and you want, you just want it back in a different way, which is through a refinance. And if you refinance. The deal, which is to borrow more debt because you’ve increased the value of the building.

Now you get that money back tax free. And a lot of our investors really love that because then they still own the deal. They’re still getting cash flow, they gotta pile of money back tax free. They don’t have to go and rush and do anything with. And um, it helps them build longer term residual wealth.

Tim Melanson: So I’ll bet you that’s where the due diligence really comes into play in picking the right person. Because I mean, if you’re thinking to yourself, Hey, I’m gonna take this big old chunk of money and I’m gonna put it with somebody and I might not see anything for five years. Well, how do you know? Whether it’s gone or not, you know, five years later when you go to try to get that money back, it’s gone and you’re like, oh, shoot, I invested with the wrong person, right?

Dan Brisse: Yes, that’s exactly right. You have got to get to know, um, you know, and you’ll, you’ll know, uh, throughout the life of, I like, lemme just speak for us here. I don’t know how every other company [00:35:00] does it, but you’ll know where the asset is. You’ll know how it’s doing month by month, by month, by month. If you tune into your emails, it won’t be like.

Hey, the money’s gotta never hear from people that shouldn’t be like that. If it’s like that, you definitely got scammed. Um, which, you know, they can happen. I it unfortunately, especially when you get in the news with these Ponzi schemes, like people that take money and then they’re, you know, doing other stuff with it, which is just absolutely unethical.

So you really have to just get to know your deal sponsor and you can call a bunch of, ideally, you know, if, if the deal sponsor or the syndication firm is. Great. They’ll let you speak to their previous investors. They’ll have you speak to their previous investors, and so you can do the research. The biggest thing I would say is don’t get stuck in fear.

Just do the research. You don’t gotta put any money in, you can just do the research, you know, and you’ll know. But there’ll come a time after you do it to three months, six months, a year of research, you’ll be like, I’m, I’m ready. I, I know this is a legit firm. I understand how these deals work. I’ve seen 3, 4, [00:36:00] 5, 6 of ’em come through the pipeline.

They’re all the exact same, and you know, I’m ready to go.

Tim Melanson: Okay, so how did you get this info? Like do you hire coaches? Do you like, how do you learn all this stuff?

Dan Brisse: Yeah, so for me, I started reading a lot of basic books. There’s a lot of great books you can start reading, you know, uh, the Rich Dad Poor Dad Series with Robert Kiki. He’s fantastic because he explains what appears to be complicated, very easy, and so, and. If you wanna read the whole book, you can throw in a chat GPT and ask for the biggest, you know, uh, points that are in there and explain ’em to me in a sixth grade terminology and you can see exactly what it is that he’s saying.

But basically. There’s three, four of his books that I read that was very eye-opening to me. Read a book called Retire Young. Retire Rich. And you know, that book was very clear on how to create passive income and it showed me in my mind’s eye, wow, if I just do that I can, I can create wealth. So that was big.

Um, I also read a book by Ken McElroy called The ABCs of Real Estate Investing. He’s [00:37:00] another great syndication firm that does great deals, um, and is a legitimate company. Um, and then I, you know, uh, and then I, as I, as I started to read more books, my confidence went. And I started to see a future that I couldn’t have seen before because I didn’t know things.

And then I started to take step after step, year after year. You know, something that I just really love to do as well. It’s something that brings me a lot of happiness and joy. It’s interesting. So if that’s not, you partner with somebody who is like that. You know, if that’s not just like my parents, they’re just not interested, but they like to partner.

They like to put money in deals, but they don’t want to go find the deals and do the research and get to know all the people and, and manage these deals. That’s the work.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and that, and that’s the thing, right? You create your team of like your tribe or whatever you wanna call it, your band in, in my terminology, of the people that you have around you, right?

Dan Brisse: Exactly that is the best team in real estate wins. You know, you’ve got your brokers that are bringing you the best deals. You’ve got your underwriting team, you’ve got your insurance team, you’ve got your property [00:38:00] tax team, you’ve got your property management team, you’ve got your CPA, it goes on and on.

So, um. That’s, that’s another part that’s very cool from my perspective of this business is I don’t know all of these things in that level detail. I just know enough to hire the best and let them be experts in their field. You know, I, I wasn’t an a student in math, but I sure hired the A CPA. That guy needs to know his math like better than anybody.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh, know your strengths, play to them, right? All that stuff. So it’s time for your guest solo. Tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Dan Brisse: Uh, what’s exciting in the business right now for us is we have done a lot of work of putting the right people in the right seats, and we hired a COO who was recently with a company when he brought ’em from 3000 units to 12,000 units. And that’s our 10 year goal at Granite Towers Equity Group is we’re just over 3000 units.

We just closed on two deals this year and we’re heading to 12,000 units over the next decade. So, um, what we’re seeing is the right [00:39:00] people, right seats can absolutely put gas on the fire as far as growth and, you know, they can build the company more efficiently than Mike and I can. This is, some of these folks that we’re hiring have been in the industry for 20, 30, 40 years and their experience.

Is is second to none, and they are sharp shooters that are really making the company move in the right direction quickly.

Tim Melanson: Cool. So what are the best types of people that would, you know, who do you like to work with? Actually, we’ll say it that way.

Dan Brisse: I like to work with people who have a constant never ending improvement mentality. You know, one that I can say has been true for me constantly is, uh. There is no limit to how good anything can be. When my snowboarding career, when I was nominated number three rider in the world and I was back to back X Games gold medalist, I could see another level.

There was always another level in real. We own 500 units to a thousand to 2,500 to, there’s always another level. And so if you’re gonna come on our team and you’re gonna be working with us, [00:40:00] I’m looking for people who are ready to read books, who are ready to level up, who are ready to adjust, who are ready to learn from their mistakes, and just continually improving, constantly.

Tim Melanson: Love it. Love it. So, uh, this is the hardest question of the day. Who’s your favorite rock star?

Dan Brisse: Gosh, that is a really, really good. Favorite rockstar man. I would say it’s probably, I mean, my brother was just really serious with smashing pumpkins in Nirvana,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Dan Brisse: so I heard it all the time, so I, I would say one of those, probably Kurt Cobain.

Tim Melanson: Nice. He was a ultimate rock star, that’s for sure.

Dan Brisse: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: out. Well, so how do we find out more about your business then?

Dan Brisse: We have a website, just www.granitetowersequitygroup.com, and there’s a contact us form. Just leave your phone number, email on there, and uh, someone on our team will reach out and happy to hop on a call if you wanna learn more. You know, that’s something that I’m happy to do for anybody listening here [00:41:00] is hop on a 15, 20 minute call, get to know where you are.

And what you’re looking to do, or if you have no idea, at least point you in some direction to start. Um, the biggest thing I’d say is just take baby steps. Just start, you know, if it feels overwhelming, just make the phone call and get on the phone with us to start. If it’s, if it’s feels overwhelming, just read one book, you know, rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Um, and just take, just take a baby step because after you take that first step, you’ll see the next step and the next step and the next step.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Dan. This has been a lot of fun.

Dan Brisse: I really appreciate it.

Tim Melanson: Right on to the listeners. This has been Dan Breezy and you’ve been listening to the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast, so be sure to visit workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time.