How do you decide what to invest in next? Is it okay to pivot to another asset class in real estate? How do you look for and create opportunities where disaster strikes, and what lessons were learned in the real estate business over the last year? Bronson Hill, Managing Member at Bronson Equity, shares his insights.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I was a well-paid medical sales professional for years. I made good money, over $200,000 a year. But I didn’t like that I had to be somewhere at a certain time for a job, and I wasn’t able to travel as much as I wanted. I worked with a couple of physicians who made millions of dollars a year, yet they were working 60 to 80 hours every week. I thought that didn’t feel like freedom. I started learning more about real estate and began with single-family properties. Later, a mentor said, “Why don’t you do apartments?” I told him, “I don’t have the money.” He replied, “You can raise the money.” That’s when I learned about raising capital.
I quit my corporate job about four years ago. Since then, we’ve raised almost $60 million for various projects and have done a wide range of work in multifamily real estate. We’re now also heavily involved in oil and gas, debt funds, business acquisitions, and some development projects.
We do a lot of different things, but what I really love is helping investors find the best option for them. Often, as an investor, you don’t have to be committed to a single asset class. I’ve done multifamily deals for a long time, and while multifamily can be great, the market changes. There are times when multifamily struggles, and that’s when other asset classes can work well. We’re always looking into opportunities that provide strong cash flow and tax benefits.
How do you decide what to invest in next, and what are you working on right now?
The biggest factor for me is that I’ve had over 25 one-on-one phone calls with high-net-worth investors. I also run an investor community called the Wealth Forum, so I have many conversations with wealthy people. A lot of times on these calls, I’ll ask, “What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish?” And most investors don’t know. Then, I’ll ask, “Do you want cash flow? Do you want tax benefits? Do you want appreciation?” And they’ll usually say, “Yes, I want all of them.” And I get that; I want all of them too. But the real question is, what’s most important right now? The challenge for many of us is that we don’t know what we want. For investors, it’s really important to get a clear idea.
In my book Fire Yourself (an Amazon bestseller), my coauthor and I discussed cash flow extensively. Cash flow is the most important thing because having a lot of money someday is great, but it doesn’t help you pay bills today. It doesn’t help you leave a job or cover your current expenses. Cash flow does. If you can increase your cash flow by a few thousand dollars per month, every year, that’s huge. You can eventually reach a point where work becomes optional. That’s the perspective I come from.
Today, many people say, “Real estate used to produce cash flow, but it’s really hard to find now.” So, the question becomes: what assets are producing cash flow today? Once I identify that my main goal is cash flow, I look at a few areas.
Real estate debt funds were one of those areas. For a long time, even as an operator, I didn’t fully understand debt funds or how they worked. But I’ve learned that there are partners and funds that typically provide monthly cash flow, and these days we’re seeing annual returns in the 10% to 15% range, paid monthly. This is usually a lower-risk position, especially when you’re in the first position or senior debt, meaning there are no other creditors ahead of you. Low leverage makes it even better, around 50% to 60% loan-to-value. That makes a safe, real-estate-backed asset where you’re basically becoming the bank, or part of a pool of loans, providing lending for people buying properties.
We also like oil and gas for the cash flow benefits. Another area we love talking about is private businesses. About 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every single day, and many of them own businesses. Most don’t know how to sell them, don’t want to run them anymore, and their kids usually don’t want to take over. These aren’t huge businesses that private equity would buy, but they might generate $500,000 to $1 million in annual profit, which is a great business. We like buying businesses because they sometimes sell for three times their profit, which is incredible. If you converted that to a cap rate compared to multifamily, you’d be talking about something like a 30 cap. That’s massive cash flow. Those are a few avenues we like regarding cash flow.
Cash flow is important, and sometimes it comes at a cost. The return may be lower than with a ground-up development, where you have to wait longer to see returns, but it can be higher. It comes down to the investor’s goals. Some younger people are fine waiting for returns, while some older people who are about to retire just want the cash. As you said, it depends on what people want to achieve. It seems like you have to guide many investors. What are your goals?
It’s important to get clear on what you want and your goals, and to keep coming back to them. Often, we’re presented with many different deals and have to run each one through a filter. We ask ourselves, “Okay, this deal does what it does, but does it actually get me closer to my goals?” If the answer is no, it might still be a great deal. It’s just not the right deal for you, and that’s okay. We say no to about 90% to 95% of what we see, and that’s normal. You should say no to almost everything so that you can focus on doing the right deals.
As baby boomers retire, many also own substantial real estate, and many of their kids don’t want to manage or operate it. Because of that, there are many opportunities to buy—not at 30% cash-on-cash returns or cap rates—but opportunities are there. I’m seeing a lot of deals coming from people who are retiring as well.
There are always opportunities. Every market presents different opportunities. You just have to be willing to look in different places sometimes. I don’t necessarily love real estate itself. As we’ve talked about, I love what real estate does for me. I love what investing does for me. If an investment gets me where I want to go, and other assets can get me there faster, then those may be a better fit for me.
You briefly mentioned that you have some development coming up in California, where the fires were.
There’s a little bit of a story there. I believe the fires occurred on January 6, 2025, and I live in North Pasadena. The fires mostly hit Altadena, which is a town near the foothills, and the Palisades, which is near the water. Homes in Altadena typically range from about $1 million to $1.5 million, while homes in the Palisades are commonly in the $3 to $5 million range. Where I live, it’s much more workforce housing. Of course, across the country, prices like a million to a million and a half sound outrageous, but that’s how Los Angeles is. Thankfully, my house was okay. We evacuated for a few days because of heavy smoke. But when we came back, I had a lot of friends who had lost their homes. That really got me thinking about what I could do to help.
I went down a big rabbit trail, wondering about what some things are out there. I’ve learned that you can build a house in a factory. They build these in seven days. They’re considered prefabricated or manufactured homes. This is very different from the metal boxes people usually picture when they think of mobile homes. These homes use two-by-six construction, have R-21 insulation, and share the same roof and windows. They appraise at normal market value once completed. These are not tiny homes or ADUs; they’re 2,000- to 3,000-square-foot homes. They’re built in two or three sections, transported by truck, and installed on-site in just one day. What’s incredible is that they appraise at close to retail value but cost about 50% less than a traditional stick-built home.
We’re now in the process. We’ve been approved to do a fund, but as of this recording in February 2026, we’re still a bit early because there aren’t any new sales comps there. We’re going to work with investors and build, but we just don’t see appraisals against older properties rather than new ones. We don’t want to be early because we won’t be able to do more rounds, so my plan now is to build one as a kind of owner. We’re going to build one for private tours so people can walk through and see the nine-foot ceilings, quartz countertops, and tile backsplashes. They can see themselves living there. That’s something we’re working on, and we’re really excited about that project.
That sounds very interesting. Are the lots being sold at a discount nowadays?
We’ve been watching this pretty closely over the last year, and there are typically over 100 lots for sale. In total, more than 4,000 to 5,000 single-family homes burned, which was about 40% of all the single-family homes in the entire city.
And for many people over 50, the thought of building a house themselves is absolutely overwhelming. After losing their home, they don’t know what they’re going to do. So, most people have already moved on and figured out other living arrangements. At this point, about 43% of homeowners have submitted plans or have a plan to rebuild. That still leaves close to 60% who haven’t made those plans. A lot of those people are saying, “Let me just get the insurance money,” or they were underinsured.
We can help in those situations. We have two options. First, we want to acquire land, build homes, and help increase housing in the area. Second, we want to help people who lost their homes, especially those who were underinsured or uninsured. The national average is 40% of homes are owned outright. If you had a home you owned outright and didn’t have a loan on it, and maybe you’re underinsured, you have some equity there. You want to leave, or you want to rebuild.
Stick-built construction is commonly quoted at $450 to $650 per square foot, and that doesn’t include permitting and other costs. Our approach is under $300 per square foot. That means we can build much more cheaply and much faster. For some people who cannot rebuild, we can help.
Sometimes I feel guilty about not wanting that, so nobody else would either. For example, I don’t rent storage units myself, yet I own storage facilities. But other people want a cheaper home. The same thing applies here. Some people want a more affordable home. As you mentioned, many are older and don’t want to deal with the hassle of contractors, architects, permitting, and everything else that comes with building a house. For them, it’s worth it to have a home for the rest of their lives that is cheaper but looks and feels exactly like an actual home.
Yes, exactly. When you look at these homes, they look like modern houses. In a place like the Palisades, they might not make sense because of the cost of the homes, but in areas like ours, especially in Los Angeles County, outside the City of Los Angeles, they’re very open to building new things.
Normally, when you build a house, you’re doing a stick-built home. There is a general contractor and around 22 subcontractors. You have plumbers, electricians, insulation crews, drywall, taping, and so on. The general contractor usually handles subcontracts, the foundations, and the foundation work. Then you basically place the house, hook up the utilities, reinstall the floor, and you’re done. There may be a little drywall patching from transportation, but overall, it’s a much simpler process.
I think that’s why a lot of stuff can drag on, because you’re trying to coordinate so many things. In a factory, the same guy handles the same tasks every single time: plumbing, electrical, etc. And these guys build about 13 houses a week at the factory. They’re moving it down the line.
This is a great solution for many people. We’re planning to offer a few different options. One is simply selling the units themselves and then working with the general contractor. They can do their part, or we can do the whole thing. We can be an owner/agent for you. We’ll come along and help you with some of this. You’ll still be doing it, but we’ll assist with permitting and handle some of the work for you. It’s much more manageable for people.
You’ll be selling directly to the buyer, in this case?
Yes, there are two routes we find. One is that we’ll do this ourselves with investors. Or, we’ll do it ourselves with land. For people whose homes burn down and want to rebuild, we’ll help them.
With the investors, are you going to keep the homes and rent them out? What are you going to do there?
It’s yet to be seen. Ideally, if you can keep something, it is valuable. If we’re going to keep them, we’ll probably build a little differently. We’ll have a 2000-square-foot house with a separate 300-square-foot interior space. That’s a junior ADU that we can rent out in the back. We’ll also have an attached ADU, so we’ll have several units on each property, which makes the most sense. Then, you can do something called midterm rentals, which are furnished rentals where you’ll have nurses or other people, where you can get sometimes 50% to 60% more in normal rents, or even higher. These are for people who aren’t staying long-term, but are staying for eight weeks, six months, or something like that.
What’s something that you learned in the last year, in real estate or in owning your own business, that you think is important for people to also learn from your experience, not their own?
Reinvention is really important, and it requires being able and willing to learn and try new things. As a passive investor, sometimes it’s great to be a certain type of investor, and other times it’s great to do something different. In our business, we’ve continued to reinvent where multifamily properties have worked well for us. Then we were raising capital and doing deals, and we realized we weren’t seeing the cash flow there. Also, many investors have lost their appetite for doing a lot of family stuff. We’re doing different things we find exciting, and we feel like many investors are there trying to find ways to make it work.
Being willing to look at new things, like ChatGPT, is amazing for coming up with ideas. Someone said, “If you were to write down your biggest goals in life, what would they be?” Are you looking at your legacy with your kids, your spiritual life, or your health? Then imagine someone sitting right next to you with a 1-in-10,000 IQ, helping you solve these problems. That’s what ChatGPT is. It doesn’t always get it right. It does hallucinate. You’ve got to filter everything. But in a way, I get that the ideation is huge. Often, we fail because we’re not willing to keep coming up with new ideas and keep trying new things, and I think ChatGPT is great at helping with that.
How often do you use it?
I use it every day, just like I use Google, but now I want to know everything. You can just get on chat, and it will give you an answer. I also use it for internet research. I used to spend time researching something, but now it only takes me five seconds. I think that is really valuable. I think the people who do well going forward will find ways to use it in their business and in their lives. The more fluent you are in it, the more value it’s going to give you. And I think it will change. The interface will change, and that’s interesting. We don’t know what that will look like, but I think being able to continue innovating with it is helpful.
That’s a big unknown that some people can potentially predict if they are super involved in it, but it’s going to be fascinating to see what will happen in the next five years. Is there anything else that you think is important for our audience to know?
We talked about reinvention, continuing to learn and grow. I think 2026 will continue to offer opportunities. There’s going to be volatility. We’ve seen my precious metals investor, and I bought a bunch of physical silver and gold. Some of the stuff is gone, which has done very well. That’s been one of my best investments over the years. Gold has tripled at least, and even as it’s come down recently, it was probably at least five or six times what it was. It’s amazing what you learn getting around people and doing things.
Bronson Hill
Bronson Equity
Text Cashflow to 33777 to get his Favorite Cashflow Investments Guide