Wealth Independence Podcast

Plenty of single-family investors have split a deal 50/50 with another partner and never thought twice about it. But put a passive syndication in front of them with an 80/20 LP/GP split, and the sponsor’s 20% suddenly becomes a dealbreaker.

Dustin and Adam dig into that double standard: why some investors feel that a split that leaves you with 80% is somehow worse than one that leaves you half, and what a sponsor actually does for their share – sourcing the deal, qualifying for the debt, and managing every investor relationship in it (among dozens of other things).

Then they get to where the scrutiny actually belongs in a syndication: fees. How acquisition fees should scale with deal size, what those fees actually pay for, and the alignment signal when a sponsor leaves their fees in the deal as equity.

The profit split is the headline number – but the fees are where the gotchas live.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• Episode v2.27 – No Investor Left Behind: Investor Splits, Waterfalls, and Preferred Returns – https://www.wealthindependencepod.com/2432117/episodes/19459737

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV-4HwqjBt4

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

Every deal that shows up in your inbox leads with the same summary: a projected return, a hold period, a market, an asset class. Comparing those side by side feels like diligence. But two deals projecting the same return can end in completely different places...and the reason isn’t on the summary pages.

Mike Sullivant has seen where the deals actually end. As Director of Fund Partnerships at Aspen Funds, he’s spent the last four years in conversation with the firm’s roughly 1,000 limited partners – hearing both the wins and the horror stories of investing in private alternatives.

Mike joins Dustin and Adam to share what those thousands of conversations taught him, starting with why the gap between two identical-looking deals almost always comes down to the operator – the thing newer investors often treat as an afterthought.

From there, they get into the rest of what a summary page won’t tell you: how aggressive the assumptions are, where a deal sits on the “risk pyramid,” and what to ask the fund-of-funds manager standing between you and the asset.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• Aspen Funds: https://aspenfunds.us
• Invest Like a Billionaire community: https://investlikeabillionaire.org

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCHdQvUaTvc

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

The Wall Street Journal is calling a new kind of tax-loss harvesting the hottest trade on Wall Street – funds built to deliver index-like returns with a smaller tax bill. Dustin and Adam read the coverage and land on a simpler summary: tax-loss harvesting only works when you lose money.

They walk through the mechanics – sell the losers, realize the losses, offset the gains on your winners – and why fund managers are now assembling portfolios designed to produce losses on purpose, since a rising market makes losers hard to find.

Stock market tax-loss harvesting contrasts sharply with real estate and oil and gas. Depreciation is a paper loss: a deduction with no money actually leaving your account. It’s how investors can collect cash flow yet still take a sizable tax deduction.

If the stock market is your entire investing universe, tax-loss harvesting is a fair tool. But step outside it, and there are tax strategies that don’t require losing money first.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• [WSJ]: Stock Gains Without All the Taxes? How the Hottest Trade on Wall Street Works - https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/stock-gains-without-all-the-taxes-how-the-hottest-trade-on-wall-street-works-ed321611

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B14TcsTfdY

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

The first time you put money into a commercial real estate syndication, the way the profits get divided up can look surprisingly complicated – tiered splits, preferred returns, and something sponsors call a “waterfall.” It’s easy to read this complexity as a sign the sponsor knows what they’re doing.

But Dustin and Adam make the opposite case: most of it is marketing, and it tells you almost nothing about whether an operator can actually operate.

That doesn’t mean you can ignore it. The structure is how you and the operator split what a deal earns – and it sets the order everyone gets paid in.

In this No Investor Left Behind episode, Dustin and Adam walk through how these structures work – straight profit splits like (80/20 or 70/30), tiered waterfalls that shift the split once a deal hits a target return, and preferred returns, where investors collect the first cash flow before any split.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• WIP episode v1.45 – The Complexity Trap in Real Estate Syndications: https://www.wealthindependencepod.com/2432117/episodes/18068846
• Passive Perspectives PP050 – Preferred Returns: Risks, Benefits, and Common Misconceptions: https://bigspringcap.com/passiveperspectives/preferred-returns-real-estate-syndication
• Passive Perspectives newsletter – passiveperspectives.com

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8vIEPgDA4I

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

For most individual investors, “private equity” is usually associated with “inaccessible” – something reserved for the Elon Musks and Blackstones of the world. Buying and running established companies has been an institutional game with large minimums and no obvious way in.

Sequoya Borgman spent nearly two decades in public accounting before leaving a partner’s seat to buy businesses himself. A decade and 20-plus acquisitions later, he joins Dustin and Adam to walk through how private equity in the lower-middle-market space actually works: buying founder-led companies from owners who need a succession plan, layering bank debt, seller notes, and equity, then paying that debt down with the company’s own cash flow. The tried-and-true leveraged buyout (LBO) model.

They get into where this sits on the investment risk scale, why he’ll walk from a deal everyone else loves, and how accredited investors can now reach a space that used to require a Goldman Sachs-sized check.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• Pass the Hat: https://www.passthehat.com
• Borgman Capital: https://www.borgmancapital.com/
• Connect with Sequoya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sequoya-borgman-8a6057a

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1aSMxSRdMM

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

Most real estate investing means owning the building – and taking on the tenants, toilets, and trash that come with it. But there’s another way to invest in real estate: owning the debt instead of the property, and collecting the payments as the lender.

“The Note Guy” Scott Carson has spent nearly two decades doing exactly that, buying and selling mortgage debt on residential and commercial property. He joins Dustin and Adam to break down his process: buying a delinquent mortgage from a bank at a discount, why picking up a note at half its face value can double your effective yield, and why he aims to “rehab the borrower” not the property.

They cover a note’s exit strategies (reselling a reperforming loan, foreclosure, cash-for-keys), Scott’s rule never to buy a note on a property he wouldn’t want to own outright, the surprising tax benefits, and using a self-directed IRA to buy notes.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• We Close Notes: https://weclosenotes.com
• Scott’s free note investing training - Note Weekend: https://noteweekend.com

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6DGhk2WJNQ

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

The loan on your house is simple: take out a 30-year mortgage, make your payments, own the house at the end. But commercial real estate debt is a different animal, with widely-varying structures that don’t exist in the residential world – and unique terms that directly affect the risk and returns of any deal that carries them.

Dustin and Adam break down how it actually works with real-world examples: five-year loans written on 20- or 30-year amortization schedules, the balloon payment that comes due at the end, interest-only periods, and rates that can be fixed, floating, or reset to a benchmark like the five-year Treasury plus a spread.

They also get into the terms that quietly move returns: prepayment penalties, extension options, and why the length of the loan should match the business plan. A longer fixed loan isn't automatically the safer one.

For a passive investor, knowing how a deal’s debt is structured (and whether the sponsor has a real plan for paying it off) is a basic piece of diligence – not a technicality.

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QVahWdc1Jg

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

Most real estate investors chase houses, apartments, or self storage. But Brent Bowers built his business on something almost nobody talks about: buying cheap vacant land and selling it at a profit…often with a brand-new manufactured home placed on it first.

A former US Army officer, Brent walks Dustin and Adam through how it all works. He buys land well below market value, then resells it…becoming the bank himself and collecting monthly payments. More recently, he adds a new manufactured home to the land before selling – a version of the deal that can net anywhere from $45K to nearly $100K.

Dustin and Adam dig into why this niche stays overlooked, how a 24-year-old closed seven deals in his first nine months of land investing, and why rising home prices are pushing more buyers toward new manufactured homes on their own land.

It’s a look at a corner of real estate most investors have never considered, and the simple math behind it.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• The Land Sharks: https://www.thelandsharks.com
• Subscribe to Brent’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@brentlbowers
• Follow Brent on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brentlbowers
• Connect with Brent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent1

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXf5mLR5U2o

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

What’s actually backing the money you’re counting on for later? Dustin and Adam take that question through two Wall Street Journal articles: one on what’s quietly accumulated inside pension funds, the other on a shift in how distressed commercial real estate loans are getting resolved.

The first article traces how pension funds chasing yield in private markets ended up holding a hidden slice of the tech economy, and what AI might mean for those positions. Dustin and Adam tie it to private credit exposure in software, and why "I don't own tech stocks" no longer means you're not exposed.

The second covers the quiet end of "extend and pretend" in commercial real estate: the floating-rate debt that piled up after the 2022 rate hikes, and why the predicted fire sale never hit the courthouse steps. Banks are instead shopping distressed loans privately to operators they already trust.

For passive investors, both stories are a reminder that the risk and the opportunity often sit beneath the surface – in what’s quietly backing a pension, or in which distressed deals are trading hands out of public view.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• [WSJ] Think Tech Has Taken Over Your Portfolio? You Should See What's in Your Pension - https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/think-tech-has-taken-over-your-portfolio-you-should-see-whats-in-your-pension-de0ae31a
• [WSJ] Lenders to Commercial Real Estate Owners: Pay Up Now - https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/lenders-to-commercial-real-estate-owners-pay-up-now-a4509562

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k4BDiFUps0

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.

Cameron Philgreen photographed ~400 weddings before he bought his first rental property. He’s now up to 25 rentals, a specialty coffee shop, and a 50,000 sq. ft. commercial building in Waco, Texas – all of it sparked by one dinky house he bought in 2017.

He walks Dustin and Adam through the BRRRR method (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat), a house-hack so lean he shared a bathroom with his own Airbnb guests, and the 2022 sale that turned $110K in tax-free gains into For Keeps Coffee…and how that opened the door to bigger commercial deals.

They get into the habits behind it all: why you have to be willing to walk away from any deal, why Cameron pays a premium for speed and quality, and how a small but powerful team can keep a real estate investing business from becoming its own full-time job – plus why Cameron would rather build “rivers of cash flow” than have one big lake.

Episode Release Notes & Resources:

• Cameron’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameron_philgreen
• Cameron’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cameron_philgreen
• Cameron’s mentorship program & BRRRR course: https://linktr.ee/cameron_philgreen

Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foyFsPug-Lw

See all Wealth Independence episodes at https://www.wealthindependencepod.com

Connect with Dustin:

• Big Spring Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/TheDustinBailey)
• Twitter/X (@TheDustinBailey)

Connect with Adam:

• Bidwell Capital
• LinkedIn (/in/AdamJPenn)

This show is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. All investments carry risk, and investors should always conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified professionals before investing.