Bryce Bush on Veteran Housing, DSCR/VA Paths, and Scaling a Lending Pipeline

Bryce Bush (00:00)

Yeah, I try to get each each veteran makes $3,800 a month in net positive cash flow about $116,000 and the refinance and that’s based on our numbers were about $96 a square foot all in manufacturing costs, infrastructure costs adds another $40 to $50 a square foot and market costs is normally like $450 a square foot. So we’re getting about three X, you know, every dollar we spend, we get like three and a half dollars back.

We just take 25 % of it, we put 25 % aside for Uncle Sam and operating expenses. 25 % goes to the consortium, the larger company the veterans puts the property in, and 25 % gets distributed to the veteran.

Kristen (02:16)

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Bryce Bush, who is the general partner of DDT Wealth LLC. Hard money lending. We’re going to get into a lot of different things. Bryce has an amazing background and he manages a lot of people. So we’re going to get into a lot of tips and tricks he has ⁓ surrounding the states. We have a lot to talk about. So thanks for being here.

Bryce Bush (02:36)

Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate the ability to help other individuals.

Kristen (02:41)

Amazing. So how about we kind of start from the beginning? You have such a diverse background in the real estate industry. So kind of walk us through all of the avenues you’ve played in.

Bryce Bush (02:50)

Yeah, as quickly as possible.

Started as a contractor. My first business was nine. After graduating at 17, I put a construction business together in Florida. Worked under general contractors. Started my own practice. Expanded to about seven crews. Dissolved the company after some…

some theft from a friend who was staying at a house at a church that I was renovating for my house I was renovating for my church as a lay member and transitioned into the real estate wholesaling space where we sold a couple dozen houses and then I ended up buying an apartment building a hotel ⁓

and a portfolio of houses and in the process I’ve met a few gentlemen who took me under their wing and taught me the financial brokerage space and investment banking and mortgage lending which

Introduced me into an incubator that gave me the opportunity to run a real estate brokerage and a law firm out of St. Petersburg, Florida, which taught me a lot about corporate law and finance and where I took my passion for financial services and created a single family office with it. Now it’s just me and my mother and my brother, and we do some development. do commercial acquisitions. We have a mortgage lending company, which we correspond ⁓ by publicly

traded company that buys our debt as soon as we originate it to mitigate our risk as a family and we don’t have as much exposure and we’re able to scale adequately utilizing their capital and help us aggregate more private investors of our own. So it’s kind of a hot 30,000 square foot view of the experience to now.

Kristen (04:41)

Yeah, that’s incredible. mean, you definitely have, you’re just an entrepreneur at your core. You love building different things in different areas. There we go. Exactly my point. So what kind of mindset do you have? Like, I’m sure, you seem to adapt really well to different areas of the business. What’s your mindset going into something new and how you’re able to pick it up so quickly?

Bryce Bush (04:50)

I’m property management company too.

legacy.

If it’s something that could sustain my grandchildren and my family’s wealth, I can focus any amount of time and energy on it. Like currently people ask how I’m doing it, but I’m currently pursuing a degree from University of India, Rurke, IT Rurke for International Wealth and International Finance and Wealth Management so that I can understand more of transnational

business how to take capital from the United States at 7 % down to Brazil and sell it at 28 % which is par for mortgages there and little interesting business models that people can’t really fathom who are stuck in a city or a county mindset or even a statewide or all a nationwide mindset

Kristen (06:46)

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, that’s a good point to have. Like you shouldn’t limit yourself and what you’re capable of. There’s a lot of self-limiting beliefs I think people carry.

Bryce Bush (06:54)

Yes. And one trans-I said, danger life.

Kristen (06:55)

And I know

that 100%, absolutely, can set off kind of ⁓ domino effect. And I know that something that you’d like people to know is about incorporating financial services into your bottom line as a real estate professional. Can you talk more about that?

Bryce Bush (07:15)

Yes, because we assist a lot of individuals on becoming correspondents for our publicly traded company that provides us capital because if you’re a

a service professional, say a contractor or a title agent or real estate agent, you’re able to get compensated off of non-owner occupied investment loans. with individuals who have lines of credits, they get penalized if they don’t deploy enough money. So they incentivize individuals by very adequate compensation. We pay up to $125,000 for referrals.

for helping us deploy more capital and we love to help individuals understand that there’s a way to ⁓ work with an ⁓ institution that has the infrastructure to allow you to refer clients within your current book of business to that financial institution to increase either your bottom line or what we do with banks is we make donations on their behalf so that they can get PR for

helping out our philanthropic mission, which is helping veterans, first responders, teachers, and nurses.

Kristen (08:39)

Yeah, I mean that’s incredible. And how do people even find those opportunities for themselves? How do they go about it?

Bryce Bush (08:45)

will… you have to have someone who’s willing to help you and show you exactly what to do and take it down to the elementary or molecular…

way of digesting the information because you’re taking decades worth of knowledge and trying to consume it into a short window of time so you have to be able to do it like you’re teaching a elementary school kid on how to invest their allowance to build cash flow.

Kristen (09:20)

Absolutely. And then you kind of mentioned this just now, but I would love to talk about your guys’ mission, especially working with veterans. I know that you’re doing some great work out there, so tell everybody what you guys are up to.

Bryce Bush (10:08)

Yes, we are starting a program where we have our first 10 pilot veterans. We don’t even have it incorporated or anything yet, but it’s been a passion of mine since I’ve started the property management company, which is a veteran owned business to help educate veterans about how to build equity through real estate. I’ve already made a few veterans, a few million dollars, and I have a business model to utilize.

manufactured homes built in the controlled environment to…

decreased the price per square foot on construction and increased the profitability for the developer and the infrastructure to manage the construction process and the manufacturers, the material suppliers and the service providers that are mainly veteran owned businesses where we help veterans build $260,000 of equity based off of one project and make cash flow throughout the construction process and

upon the certificate of occupancy being issued and the refinance being engaged because of our vertically integrated consortium, we have a piece in all moving components from like title because of my experience in the law firm, insurance, construction management, land acquisition.

management of tenant placement upon the certificate of occupancy and exit loan. We would provide a term loan up to 30 years for the individuals that strengthens our balance sheet as well. But the end goal is to help the veterans understand how to build wealth through simple principles such as labor and material cost less than what it does to buy a older building.

to live in as a forever home and teaching them how to house hack or live in one of the units and rent out the rest of the units, but working together as veterans to build enterprise value. And now I’m so passionate about the project because everyone is.

Kristen (12:10)

All

Bryce Bush (12:24)

beating our door down to get more information about how to invest, how to lend us money, how to provide land for us, how to provide materials. And we don’t even have the infrastructure together. It’s just 10 veterans because I was a mentor for the Boots to Business program training ⁓ active duty veteran at the time on how to build a business once he got out instead of working for someone else. And this is the business that he chose.

So I’m guiding him through the process of putting this multi-billion dollar operation together. In return, I make profit. But the end goal is to have each of these 10,000 veterans have a piece of $2 billion from the government instead of fighting paycheck to paycheck with $3,000 $4,000 a month in revenue expecting that that’s enough to live when most places you got to have 10 grand a month just to breathe.

Kristen (13:21)

Absolutely, I mean it’s such great work you’re doing so 10,000 is the goal 10,000

Bryce Bush (13:26)

No, my goal is $2 billion a year, or $25 to $45 million a week. But for the veterans, I try to…

Kristen (13:34)

no, I need 10,000 veterans.

Bryce Bush (13:36)

Yeah, I try to get each each veteran makes $3,800 a month in net positive cash flow about $116,000 and the refinance and that’s based on our numbers were about $96 a square foot all in manufacturing costs, infrastructure costs adds another $40 to $50 a square foot and market costs is normally like $450 a square foot. So we’re getting about three X, you know, every dollar we spend, we get like three and a half dollars back.

We just take 25 % of it, we put 25 % aside for Uncle Sam and operating expenses. 25 % goes to the consortium, the larger company the veterans puts the property in, and 25 % gets distributed to the veteran.

So initially they make about $10,000 upfront, they make about $25,000 upon the cash out refinance, and $3,800 a month in as little as 25 weeks.

Kristen (15:05)

Bye.

Bryce Bush (15:06)

what we’re thinking about doing is instead of paying

Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, all these platforms for advertising, we just wanna incentivize by giving veterans checks upfront. So if we have veterans that come in through us through mostly nonprofits that helps veterans put their futures together, we’ll incentivize them like, here’s $2,500, his five grand, we were gonna pay it to another company, we’d rather pay it directly to you because I was raised by a family of veterans. So it’s really my heart,

As an adult, you have over $250,000 in net worth, you can’t even enlist. You can’t join.

Kristen (15:44)

interesting. And I mean, yeah, it’s obviously, it’s a community that gets very much overlooked and there’s not, you know, a ton of resources. And so I would love for you to talk about in this pilot program kind of some of the success you’ve seen and the stories you’ve heard.

Bryce Bush (15:59)

Yes,

the success is finding this hedge fund manager in Atlanta. She is amazing. I cross sell a lot. So we did a mortgage loan for her grandmother and another one for her mom. And she ended up becoming our preferred partner for owner occupied mortgages. And we know based on the VA website, there’s no FICO requirement for the bond to buy the debt from the lenders, but Navy federal and most bigger institutions, they’ll put a 620

credit score minimum successes we’ve seen were 500 minimum credit score for approvals we just got a $350,000 approval from a guy who’s making $36,000 a year.

Kristen (16:41)

Wow.

Bryce Bush (16:41)

Yeah. So, and then we also got a partnership with a nationwide builder that can build 2000 units a year where they’re willing to reduce our manufacturing costs from $96 to $76 a square foot because we’re helping veterans.

Kristen (17:03)

It’s amazing. you’ve been able to, I mean, it’s so impressive because this isn’t the only thing you’re doing. This is just a little subset and this is such a gigantic impact on the community. I think it’s so amazing. I mean, among all of your businesses, you’re managing over 700 employees. Is that right?

Bryce Bush (17:21)

Well, in aggregation, yes.

Kristen (17:24)

Yeah. ⁓

Bryce Bush (17:24)

but they’re not

completely trained day to day to operate in the capacity in which they should, which is why I hired the change management consultant, took a couple steps back. I have like a pilot program right now going with about 10 individuals that I want to convert to managers and teaching them everything that’s in my brain so they can know how to manage 10 individuals under them each. And then those individuals can then work

throughout the company and that’s why I saying the internal communication is one of the most key roles in any company success. The billionaires I’ve met in my life have said the reason they were not just hundred millionaires were because they knew every single one of the 3,000 employees by first and last name, their family size kids and stuff like that. It’s really that type of person ability that’s gonna…

It’s like.

really exceed your business’s growth. And that’s what we’re in the process of doing now, which was pulling back on chicken with a head cut off, bringing in $2 billion worth of loan request every month, but maybe closing out $5 million or so of it. I just wanted to dial in more and having better track of KPIs where files are coming in from how we can scale the operation to become exitable out of

this vehicle that we’re creating more than likely to a single multifamily office or hedge fund or even smaller institution who would want our list. We’ve aggregated 130 million leads of trigger data of real estate investors nationwide.

And we haven’t even got to.

dial in on it yet because we had an attorney that advised us to do an internal data breach so that we can retarget each of the leads to make sure we’re compliant with getting them to opt in to us.

Because the origin of each of the leads were over the past decade, so we don’t have specific confirmation for each individual of them opting in. So we want to reconfirm them and then start to market them. So right now we’re working off of like 100,000 leads flowing in every quarter and trying to scale it a little bit more as I get a little bit more active. I was away for some time ⁓ due to.

the probate process and the state stuff. But life is beautiful, so I want to keep helping people and inspiring people.

Kristen (20:44)

That’s incredible. mean, yeah, it’s that personal aspect is such an important part about being a leader and it’s how you really get people to see the vision and want to contribute to the goal. I mean, you’ve given so much good inspiration to people throughout this podcast. I would love for you to kind of wrap it up with like, what’s a piece of advice you wish you learned earlier in your career that you can share with us today?

Bryce Bush (21:11)

A piece of advice that I wish I learned earlier was that just because someone has been in business for 25 years, it does not mean that they can dictate where you are in your current business, where you are going in your current business, and…

If you don’t let them, cannot have an effect on allowing you to achieve those goals and knowing that anything is actually truly possible. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. It is absolutely possible if you have a crazy and irate dream like mine was to manage over a hundred million dollars and I’ve accomplished it. You can.

get that achievement or the goals that you set in your life and it may it may not even phase you or affect you but remember it’s all about the journey and the process and that’s the positivity that i can get for today.

Kristen (22:16)

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think it’s great advice. I mean, it goes back again to that kind of self-limiting belief and maybe thinking that other, you know, you need to limit yourself based on how others have limit themselves as well. I love that. So tell everyone where to find you.

Bryce Bush (22:35)

⁓ anywhere just look DDT wealth LLC on google and you will find me everywhere

Kristen (22:41)

Thanks

Awesome. Okay, well I really encourage everyone to check that out. Thank you so much for being here, Bryce

Bryce Bush (22:47)

Thank you as well for having me.

Kristen (22:50)

Thank you everyone for listening. Hope you got some really good inspiration throughout this podcast and we will see you back next time. Bye.