Drew Breneman

Protect & Grow Capital With Our Multifamily Investment Opportunities For Family Offices, Fund Managers, & High-Net-Worth Individuals

When I was 19, I bought my first property.

I didn’t realize it then, but that little duplex changed my life.

Now, 20+ years later, I’ve sourced, capitalized, and closed on over $250 million of properties for my firm, Breneman Capital.

I’ve worked closely with investors - family offices, PE, Fund of Funds, RIAs, and individuals - to help them generate income and wealth through multifamily real estate.

The old real estate adage says, “You make your money when you buy in real estate.”

I agree with that - but I think it’s only 50% true.

The other 50% comes in the execution. And I’ve built Breneman Capital through that lens. 

Our realized investments have produced an average gross return of:

• 27% IRR
• 2.3x equity multiple
• 14% average annual cash yield

This is across 14 full-cycle investments with an average hold period of 6 years.

In my opinion, our longest-standing investor relationships come down to 2 factors:

1) Our deals have performed well.
2) We focus on giving investors the best possible experience.

Real estate can be complex. But we like to keep our goals for our investors simple.

- Strong returns.
- Great experiences.
- World-class communication.

Here is what our investor said about us:

✅ Tim B.
“My wife and I wanted passive real estate heading into retirement. We’ve invested in multiple Breneman Capital deals and have been very pleased. They’ve helped us preserve and grow our nest egg without day-to-day work, and I recommend them to friends and co-workers.”

✅ Jim H.
“I’ve invested with Drew for 10+ years across 20+ projects. He’s the most knowledgeable real estate operator I’ve met and someone I trust. These investments have built long-term wealth for my family, with solid returns.”

If you’d like to set up an exploratory call, feel free to click the link in my Featured Section.

Founder & CEO

I started Breneman Capital in 2005 at age 19 to purchase my first rental properties and grow my own wealth. 

Today, we work with individual investors, Family Offices, PE, Fund of Funds, RIAs, etc., and allow them to invest alongside us in the best opportunities that we find (and have been for nearly 20 years).

Invest with us: https://www.breneman.com/invest

50% of people would choose to make less money if it meant they earned more than most. A 1998 Harvard Study proved it:

Participants were asked to choose between earning $50,000 when others earned $25,000, or earning $100,000 when others earned $200,000. 

50% took the lower salary.

People value status relative to other people more than absolute wealth. It's one of those "look under the hood of humanity" things that is so revealing, it's almost unnerving. 

That's why so many people can feel “poor” even while rich. 

If you let your desires grow faster than your assets...

And if you always compare yourself to someone else... 

You'll never have enough.

Talks about #realestate, #passiveinvesting, #realestatetrends, #multifamilyinvesting, and #investinginrealestate

Founder @ Breneman Capital | Passive Multifamily Investments That Protect & Grow Capital | 21+ years in Real Estate | Trusted by 100+ Accredited Investors

For about 10 years, I turned away everyone who wanted to invest with me.

People would come to me with $50,000 or $100,000. The kind of money that’s staggering when you’re in your 20s and early 30s. My parents were both teachers, so I understood what it meant for someone to hand over that kind of check.

But I only had infrastructure to work with my one investor. 

I could have taken their money, but I kept thinking about what their experience would actually be like. And the answer was: not good enough.

So for basically a decade, I said no. 

It wasn't until I finally built the systems and built a very talented team to actually serve investors well that I started taking outside capital. 

My view:

Just because you *can* take someone's money doesn't mean you *should.*

A lot of people think the “right time to syndicate” is whenever they find a deal. But I think that’s a really good way to risk burning your reputation before you’ve even built it.

The right time to raise capital is when you can deliver an experience that respects the trust someone is placing in you.

That $50,000 check represents years of someone's work. It’s best you treat it that way.

Most wealthy people I know aren't the smoothest talkers in the room.

For every Grant Cardone, there are hundreds of hyper-successful real estate investors who are quiet and unassuming. They're great at forming relationships through reputation. People know they'll do what they say they're going to do. 

That's not to say successful RE pros aren't charismatic, but more often than not, flashiness doesn't correlate to success.

The loudest person in the room is usually selling something. 

The richest person in the room is usually taking notes.

If you can forgo $10,000 in your 20s, do it.

It'll put you ahead in your career.

I get this question a lot:

"Drew, what's your best advice for starting a career in real estate?"

In a sentence?

𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁.

So many young 20-somethings only look at salary when it comes to their first jobs.

Zoom out.

Think in decades.

Let's say you want to do real estate as a principal.

Job A pays you $60,000/year as a lender.

Job B pays you $50,000/year working directly under a principal.

Throw that $10,000 away.

Take Job B.

When you're in your 40s, that extra $10,000 you would've made when you were 23 will have disappeared.

But the exponential value you gained from getting to the right spot will have multiplied time and time again.

Money is money.

But experience is wealth.

Throw away $10,000 today.

Reap the rewards for years to come.

--

What was your first job in real estate?

I bought a $33,000,000 deal at an "uncertain" time.

Here's what made me confident:

This was back in 2020.

At the time, a $33MM deal was 2.5x bigger than anything I had ever done.

It was in the middle of COVID, so people weren't bullish on buying.

"Buy Low, Sell High" is great advice, but it's easier said than done for many people.

The deal was a 72-unit building + commercial in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood.

We put in our offer at $33MM, which worked out to $420K/unit.

The same developer had built two other similar buildings in the area.

One sold for $549K/unit. It had slightly nicer finishes but nothing significant.

The other sold for $460K/unit and was in a slightly less desirable location.

Based on our comps, $420K/unit looked like a great buy.

Rents have ripped upwards in Chicago since our purchase, and our loan is fixed at 3.61%, so we are sitting pretty on this deal today. 

Looks easy in retrospect but not as easy in the moment.

"Buy Low, Sell High" is great advice for everyone.

But if you're a professional investor...

It should be something you execute on, not just something you believe. 


-
Disclaimer: This is not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy securities. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and investors may experience different results than those shown, including the loss of principal. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events.

I grew up in rural Wisconsin. I didn’t come from wealth. 
 
Today, I own/control $250MM+ in real estate. 
 
Here are 3 lessons from the industry that changed my life: 
 
𝟭. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁.  
 
If you want a career in real estate, do what it takes to get your foot in the door on the path you want to pursue. 
 
If you want to do real estate as a principal, don’t take a job as a lender (even if it pays a little more). 
 
✅ Learn from those a step ahead.  
✅ Get to your spot.  
✅ Be a sponge.  
 
𝟮. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. 
 
For most of my deals, I’m trying to deliver a certain net return for Breneman Capital investors. 
 
I don’t want to need a miracle to happen because I overpaid. 
 
There are very few deals where I think, “I wish I would’ve paid up and got it.” 
 
Trust your numbers and your knowledge.  
 
𝟯. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 
 
~80% of my acquisitions have been either: 
 
• Off-market. 
• From a repeat seller. 
• From a repeat broker. 
 
Why?  
 
My reputation. 
 
The best long-term career “hack” is to treat people well. 
 
- - 
 
What’s the No. 1 real estate lesson you’d share?

The rickshaw driver tried to take me down a dark alley.

I refused. He tried to punch me.

Back in 2011, I was traveling through China. Some friends and I decided to take a rickshaw from Point A to Point B. 

I paid ~$0.50 and hopped into my cart. My friends, right behind me, did the same. 

Before too long, the man pulling my rickshaw indicated that he was going to go off the main street and take me down this alley.

My gut told me it was a bad idea.

I told the driver "no" (in Chinese), but he kept going.

My gut told me a little louder it was a bad idea.

Then, a lot louder.

So I jumped out.

He stopped, turned, and took a swing at me.

(This is a true story, by the way.)

My friends behind me saw the commotion and jumped out of their rickshaws. 

We all ended up down a few yuan that day, but sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if we hadn’t sensed something was up.

He was very mad that we did not go down the alley even though he was paid in full. His goal was something more sinister.

In life, situations don’t always make sense.

You don’t always have the benefit of experience.

In those instances, learn to trust your gut.

More often than not, it’s right. 

--

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘇𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆?

I spent over $10,000 on LinkedIn ads and got zero real investors.

A couple years ago, I had a larger deal I wanted to raise for, so I spent ~$10K on advertising directly on LinkedIn.

It attracted some tire-kickers, but zero investors actually came through.

Then I started just posting about deals we were working on and lessons learned.

The difference has been night and day.

Turns out, investors want to see your actual work, not your advertising. They want to understand how you think about deals, what you've learned from mistakes, and why you do things the way you do.

It's not really a "strategy" or anything like that, it's just sharing real examples of what we're doing and taking notice of the people who appreciate that sort of thing.

In January 2024, an investor told me they had $100,000 ready for our next deal. So when our next deal came around, I sent him an email.

"I think this opportunity would be a good one for the $100,000 you were looking to invest back in January this year."

He emailed back:

"I looked it over. I’m in for the $100k, just let me know when the docs are ready and when capital is required."

A lot of people say things just to say things.

You never know who's going to follow through on what they say. 

Always nice to work with the ones who do.

Breneman Capital has K-1s out to our investors on 14 of our deals for 2025 tax returns.

Love seeing our investor's reactions when we're the first K-1 they receive of the tax season.

Took us a while to get to this point operationally, but we're really firing on all cylinders.

In 2009, the 2nd-largest U.S. mall owner declared bankruptcy with more than $27,290,000,000 in mismanaged debt. 

Here’s what you can learn from it:

The company was General Growth Properties (GGP). Back in the 2000s, GGP was a behemoth.

They owned all sorts of world-class assets:

-> Ala Moana Center in Honolulu
-> Water Tower Place in Chicago
-> Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian in Vegas 

But in 2008-2009, the CMBS market dried up.

Too much of GGP’s debt came due at the same time. 

They couldn’t refinance quickly enough and they went into bankruptcy.

The lesson I learned?

-> No matter how great your assets are, you need to stagger debt maturities.

The more loan term, the better.

If I have the option of picking a 5-year fixed-rate loan or a 5-year fixed-rate loan with 25 years of floating rate term but a slightly higher rate, I always take the loan with the additional floating rate term. 

--

What real estate lesson has stuck with you over your career?

10 pieces of real estate advice I wish someone had given me when I was 20:

1. Start before you're ready.

I bought my first duplex at 19. I didn't know what IRR meant. My entire strategy was: If it's cash flow positive, my worst-case is holding it long-term and receiving cash flow each month.

2. Buy what's in front of you.

I was a student at UW-Madison, so I bought student rentals in Madison. My market study was polling friends about what they were paying.

3. Your W2 is education on someone else's dime...

I worked at a multifamily developer, then a retail developer. I knew nothing about commercial property when I started. I learned everything there, and I wasn't in a rush to leave while I was still learning.

4. ...So build while you work.

From 2008 to 2011, I worked three jobs simultaneously: my W2, self-managing my Madison rentals, and buying deals with my first investor.

5. Quit when your job starts costing you money.

By deal five, I'd already exceeded my W2 income. I still didn't quit until deal six was under contract. 

The math was simple: Could I make more reallocating my 9-to-5 hours to the next deal? When the answer was yes, I left.

6. Optimize for learning, not salary.

Comparing a $65K job to a $75K job? When you're 40, that extra $10K you passed up won't matter. What you learned is what compounds.

7. Get to your spot.

On that note, if you know where you want to go with your career, prioritize experience that will get you there. If you want to go out on your own someday, don't take a job as an analyst at a rating agency. Be a broker, get in the mix on actual transactions.

8. Periods of discipline feel longer than they are.

I lived in places under $1,000/month into my late 20s. At 26, I moved back in with my parents to extend my runway. 

At the time, it felt like a lot of sacrifice. But looking back from now that I'm in my 40s, it was all just a blip.

9. Get creative with financing.

I owner-occupied my first duplex for a lower down payment and better rate. You can still do FHA loans at 3.5% down on a 1-4 unit. Someone I know went 50/50 with her sister-in-law. One qualified for the loan, the other brought the cash.

10. The compounding happens later.

I bought $2 million of property as a college student. Same strategy on repeat: Buy, increase operating income, improve value, refi, buy again. 

By 2019, my first investor and I had built that into $80+ million.

--

P.S. What advice would you give to yourself when you were 20?

When I was 16, I read "Investing in Real Estate" by Gary Eldred. 
 
It changed my life. 
 
Here are 10 real estate books that have the same power to change yours:

Job-hopping is one of the best ways to stay broke long-term.

I know that's not the popular take… Switching jobs every 2-3 years has been trendy advice for the past few years. 

But compound interest applies to your career the same way it does your portfolio.

The richest friend I have (guy is worth 9 figures) told me the most successful people he knows all say the same thing: their 40s were when they really started making money. By then they knew what they were doing and they knew where to apply effort. 

The people who job-hop or switch industries every few years are just choosing to reset to zero over and over.

Finding a path with high upside, taking a long-term view, and letting experience stack… That's what gives you a real shot at building wealth in your 40s and beyond.

Same principle applies to your money. If you're focused on building your career, you need investments that compound without demanding your time.

Which is exactly what passive real estate is built for. 

To dive in, I put together a free 5-day course on how high earners can start investing without quitting their careers.

Get access here:

https://lnkd.in/gQfM3AUZ

.

If you half-ass work, you're wasting 33% of your life.

I've never understood why people do that.

It's hard to frame this in a way that doesn't make me sound like a LinkedIn Stereotype, but I've just never been able to coast with my work.

I don't think I'm "different" or anything like that. I just look at it like a math problem:

The average person spends 40-50 hours a week at work. If you show up and go through the motions, you're burning about a third of your existence on autopilot.

Is that really how you want to go through life?

The time is going to pass anyway. Might as well spend it in a way you can be proud of.

IRR is easy to game. That's why we don't use it as our primary metric.

Untrended yield on cost is what we actually use to compare deals.

Untrended YOC tells you what cap rate you'd be buying at using today's rents and today's costs. 

The calculation: stabilized NOI at current rents divided by (purchase price + capex).

It's the cleanest comparison across different opportunities.

We still calculate IRR. But internally, untrended YOC is how we decide if a deal is actually good.

Yield on cost is one of 7 things I look for in every deal. If you want to learn the other 6, I put together a free 5-Day Email Masterclass that walks through my entire process for evaluating investments.

Sign up here: 

https://lnkd.in/diCiTjuf

.

Andrew Carnegie famously said, “90% of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.” Is that true? 

I’ve actually used this quote before in some of my content and firm materials, but Carnegie said it over 100 years ago.

Is it still accurate? 

At a certain point, most wealthy people start investing in real estate — but as anyone’s wealth grows, they start investing in a lot of things. 

I firmly believe that real estate is one of the best paths for the everyday investor to become a millionaire — and the tax benefits can legitimately change your life — but I’m curious if this quote stands the test of time.

What do you think?

Do 90% of millionaires still get that way through real estate?

Or do 90% of millionaires just happen to invest in real estate along the way?

The cap rate the broker just told you is wrong.

Brokers are salespeople, so they’re going to do everything they can to generate interest. You need to know that as a real estate investor.

Some brokers will show you a cap rate but bake in 3% rent growth in that calculation.

How do you grow rents 3% instantly? You can't. But this is done regularly when someone quotes a "Year 1 cap rate."

Other brokers will use very light expenses that look fine when you’re new. But once you’ve operated that type of property for a while, you’ll realize they're not achievable.

You need to develop your own apples-to-apples metric you can use to compare across every deal.

We focus on two cap rates:

1. “In-Place Cap Rate”

Rents: Current rents in-place going forward.

Other income: Use the trailing 12 months as-is.

Expenses: Based on our own buildings. Using some of the broker's information but not much of it.

Taxes: Adjust to whatever they'll be after closing.

Insurance: Get a new quote. Insurance has gone up significantly in recent years - just because the current owner is getting one rate doesn't mean you will.

2. “Untrended Stabilized Cap Rate” aka “Untrended Yield on Cost”

Rents: If you could snap your fingers and re-rent every unit today for what you believe is market. No assumed organic rent growth. All today's rents.

Other income: Implement any additional revenue generators - valet trash, internet packages, RUBs, amenity packages, charging more for parking, pets, move-in fees.

Expenses: Work similarly to the in-place cap rate - your real expenses with tax and insurance adjusted.

Cap ex: If you need to spend cap ex dollars to achieve those higher rents, add those dollars to your purchase price in the denominator when calculating your cap rate. 

We run these calcs for every deal we underwrite. When one jumps out as an outlier - mispriced relative to everything else that has sold - that's the one you purchase.

My analyst once told me our underwriting would kill every deal. I told him I didn't mind.

I'd rather these things go well for everybody rather than getting deals closed just to close them.

I bought my first duplex at 19 for $216,000 (using this strategy):

House Hacking

I knew I wanted to start investing in real estate before I went to UW Madison.

Most new investors are paralyzed by:

• Finding deals.
• Putting 20% down.
• Managing a rental property.

The fear of starting pushes their goal back years, causing them to miss out on long-term wealth.

“I’ll start next year when I feel ready.”

Here’s the thing:

You will never feel ready.

But you start anyway because that’s 80% of the battle.

House hacking is a great way to start investing.

• Buy a duplex.
• Live on one side.
• Rent the other side.

Look at the numbers and find a deal with positive cash flow.

Make sure the gross rent multiplier makes sense.

Your first deal gives you the confidence to do it again, and again, and again.

If you wait until you feel ready…

You’ll be sitting on the sidelines forever.

Just. Get. Started.

--
P.S. The duplex I lived in was cash flow positive because I also had roommates in my unit. 

If you're looking to build your real estate knowledge, we have a bunch of free resources you can access here: https://lnkd.in/dwXSYcsb

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