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

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?

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

Hiring general contractors can be a nightmare.

Use these 5 tips to find the best GC possible:

1. Check qualifications

Do your homework. Google the GC’s name and business name. See if any reviews are listed on public sites. 

2. Ask for referrals

The single most important part of hiring a GC is finding one you can trust. 

Reach out to other property owners and investors to ask for referrals. If you get a referral, take that GC out for a beer or coffee to get to know them better.

3. Ask questions 

• What is your payment schedule?
• How long have you been in business?
• Will I have a dedicated team for my project?
• How and where do you store your team’s tools?
• Do you have end-of-the-day clean-up procedures? 
• How far in advance do you order materials and where are they stored?

4. Vet the team

Talk with the job site superintendent and understand their expertise and approach to solving issues with subcontractors.

Who's going to run the painting crew? It's more important to talk with them than the salesperson for the contractor's company. 

5. Protect yourself when paying

Pay through a title company to ensure the contractors get paid and you avoid mechanics liens. This way, the owner is always protected since the title company will be providing a date-down endorsement.


To see the full list of 10 tips for hiring the right GC, check out our blog here: https://lnkd.in/dtdD2NjE

Getting financial advisors millions of dollars & impressions | $20+ million in capital & AUM raised from LinkedIn | 100+ million client impressions | 400+ meetings booked | $1+ million in client courses sold

If you work in finance or real estate and want to add clients or capital through LinkedIn, send me a DM.

If you want to write a memoir or lead-gen book, send me a DM.

Adam Knorr

LinkedIn 2022: "I miss the 2021 algorithm."
LinkedIn 2023: "I miss the 2022 algorithm."
LinkedIn 2024: "I miss the 2023 algorithm."
LinkedIn 2025: "I miss the 2024 algorithm."
LinkedIn 2026: "I miss the 2025 algorithm.

Please, shut up, all of you. 

Posts about how people "miss the old algorithm" are the only thing you can actually guarantee will persist on LinkedIn day-to-day.

Do you want to know the secret to success here?

Post good content people want to read. Make a bunch of friends. Do this consistently for a long time.

Getting financial advisors millions of dollars & impressions | $70+ million in AUM pipeline generated from LinkedIn | 120+ million client impressions | 500+ meetings booked | $2+ million in client courses sold

I used to dread Monday mornings. Now I go to bed early so they get here faster. I don't think I'll ever get used to loving work.

I get out of bed between 3-4 AM most days. Within 15 minutes, my laptop is open.

I used to think I did this because I was anxious — about work, about clients, about hitting 10,000 steps before 8:00.

But over the past few weeks, I've come to realize I start work so early because... I want to? Because it's fun? Because I love it?

Now, yeah, it's stressful. More stressful than any W-2 job I ever had.

But even on the (many) days where I have to remind myself that my lungs can take breaths deeper than the kiddie pool, it's invigorating.

I get to solve problems for myself. If I solve them properly, I reap the rewards. I am not accomplishing something so someone above me on the ladder gets a better bonus, and I am certainly not relying on someone else on the corporate food chain to make sure a project gets done right.

I just get to do it all. My brain vs. my brain.

Every week is this chaotic collage of testing new offers, figuring out the right pricing, threatening Claude, designing marketing materials, sending DMs, getting on sales calls, building new products, apologizing to Claude, managing clients, and — yeah — shipping over 50 pieces of content. Every week. 

It is playing Shell Game against yourself.

You know the prize is under there, somewhere, but can you really trust yourself not to sabotage it? 

It is constant uncertainty.

I sometimes hate it.

But man, do I love it.

I am so bad at raising my prices, I once had a client tell me he was going to start paying me $1,000 a month extra.

I am so bad at websites that I had a non-functional SquareSpace site for my first 18 months.

I am so bad at email marketing that the list I started in 2022 has 881 subscribers.

I am so bad at making my offers clear that people often tell me they're confused about how to work with me.

I am so bad hiring others than my business relies on me producing 50+ pieces of content every week. 

I am so bad at sales that I haven't made a single pitch deck in 3.5 years of business. 

I am so bad at invoicing that most of my invoices hit peoples' "junk" folders.

And I still built a business that pays me more than I ever made in a W2 in less than 4 years. 

Clients only care that you:

• Do the work.
• Do the work right.
• Do the work on time. 

You do not have to be the greatest in your field or uncover some secret hack or be Daymond John Rockefeller. 

You can be terrible at business and still have a great business.

I replaced Shield with a LinkedIn free dashboard I built in Claude. 

Here's how you can do the same: 

• Export all your posts from LinkedIn

•  Create a Google Sheet with columns for your key metrics, then copy in your post links and data (yes, this part is manual and annoying — you can hire someone to do it)

• In Google Sheet: File → Share → Publish to web. Change "Link" to Sheet 1, change "Embed" to CSV, copy the URL

• Give the URL to Claude and tell it to create an interactive dashboard

• Admonish Claude for not designing with Dark Mode

• Download the HTML file, rename it "index.html"

• Create a new folder titled "[NAME] dashboard," drag the file in, and upload the folder to Netlify

•  Enjoy your new dashboard

Now every time you go in and update the Google Sheet (I suggest every Friday afternoon — just pull that week's data), the dashboard will update. 

It takes a few hours to do on the front end, but once it's built, you have a Claude project that can slice and dice the data to draw all sorts of conclusions about what's working and what isn't.

The tradeoff is 5 minutes of manual entry per week. 

The upside is I control exactly what I'm tracking and I'm not paying $25/month for someone else's dashboard.

Getting financial advisors millions of dollars & impressions | $20+ million in capital & AUM raised from LinkedIn | 100+ million client impressions | 450+ meetings booked | $2+ million in client courses sold

If you're ever worried about how you're coming off on LinkedIn, remember I was writing posts like this 1 year ago.

And nobody — not one person — ever said:

"Hey man, you sound like a total hack. That post was really, really bad. You said nothing."

Even though that was the truth.

The only reason I've gotten to a point where I've developed any semblance of a writing voice is because I pushed through writing 500 posts of nook-at-the-cottage decorative signs first.

You'll never develop a voice if you only write with AI.

And you'll never get good at creating content if you aren't willing to be bad at it, publicly, for a long time.

I have now worked for myself for longer than I ever worked for a single employer. 3 years, 10 months. 

Whoa.

I can't decide if I have a million thoughts or none, so I'll just leave you with one:

Push yourself.

Socrates said, "It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

The same is true of your brain.

--

What do you want to know about working for yourself?

Ask me anything below.

The top 1% of business owners pay me thousands of dollars to interview them. Here's what  I've noticed they all have in common:

-> They all respond to emails and texts at warp speed.

-> They all value "Do what you say you'll do."

-> They've all had seasons in their life where all they did was work.

-> They're weirdly generous with their time for the right people. 

-> They all started at the bottom of their industries.

-> They all started their thing before they were ready.

-> They all came from modest/scrappy backgrounds. 

-> They're all people I genuinely look forward to talking to.

I'm 90% sure if I asked each one the secret to their success, they'd say some variation of:

"I worked harder than anyone else for an extended period of time." 

Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

I was walking through the Grand Rapids airport at 4:31 AM today when I stumbled across The Holy Grail. 

A 304-page book about "unleashing the power of LinkedIn." 

My favorite part is the "praise" from the Definitely-Read-This-Whole-Thing beta readers on the back cover:

"This book empowers you to create opportunities, build trust, and grow your business in tactical, practical, and methodical ways."

"Finally, a book that solves the real problem every salesperson faces."

And my favorite:

"This isn't just another LinkedIn book."

Phew.  I just finished  "Wuthering Hooks," "Love in the Time of Connection Requests," and "The Sales Navigator," and I simply cannot handle another epilogue about the most effective DM campaigns.

I see the irony here. I know I teach this stuff for a living.

But I can't stop picturing somebody waiting to board their red-eye to Topeka, taking diligent notes on "How to give genuine compliments via inMail."

It may be the funniest thing I have ever seen. I am buying 10 copies.

515,495 impressions in 7 days for a client.

Why? Hell, I don't know.

I have a pretty good sense for what drives viral content:

Topic selection + hook + firm stance + visual.

But I can't guarantee any post will go viral or drive 10 leads. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't.

This client and I are going into our 3rd year of working together. We've driven over 7 figures of revenue through their content.

And that has happened because we: 

• Post consistently
• Write to a specific audience
• Distinguish between impression + lead posts
• Run the playbook that works over time
• Avoid worrying about the algo
• Engage nearly every day

Not every week is like this! And my client never says,

"What's going on? Why isn't the number going up?!?"

Because they get that the Pareto principle is real on LinkedIn. 80% of your results come from 20% of your posts. You can only kind of control which 20%. I'm right about which posts will go viral more often than not — but not always. 

Lotta different ways you can win here.

But there are 3 variables that you can't win without:

1. Quality content
2. Consistency
3. Time 

There are reasons some people have success here and others do not, and I promise you—

It's not because the algorithm hates you.

Almost no one knows this, but you can sort your LinkedIn posts to find ideal clients to reach out to.

Step 1. Go to your post.

Step 2: Click "View Analytics"

Step 3: Scroll to "Social Engagement"

Step 4: Sort by Reactions or Comments

Step 5: Sort by Industry or Job Title (or both)

Step 6: See all ICPs who engaged with your post.

Step 7: Send them a DM and start a conversation.

Happy hunting.

Everyone is dooming about AI. Meanwhile, I'm just flabbergasted that humans went from scratching out cave drawings to making the literal sand on the beach read a chest X-ray and spot pneumonia as well as radiologists in like 40,000 years.

5 legitimately controversial opinions:

(Fitness edition)

1. Everyone should spend 1 year tracking calories, measuring portion sizes, and weighing everything they eat on a food scale.

The same people who call this "obsessive" are the same ones who can't figure out why they won't lose weight when they're walking 10,000 steps a day. 

Bad nutrition is the biggest detractor to health, and for most people, it's just a lack of awareness. 

Track, measure, and weigh everything for 1 year. It will change your entire life. 

I had no idea how easy it was to overeat until I did this.

2. Doing 4 sets of any exercise is nonsense.

Most people were just told to blast a bunch of sets of 4x10. It's bad advice — and it also makes you waste time at the gym. 

If you have enough left in the tank to move the same weight for 10 reps on your 4th set, you need to be lifting more weight. 

-> 2 sets per exercise 
-> 5-10 reps per set
-> 2-3 mins rest between sets
-> Go until you can hit 10 reps
-> Add more weight  

In and out of the gym in 45 minutes, max. That's all it takes. 

3. Weight loss is literally just calories in vs. calories out.

Somehow, the laws of thermodynamics have become a "legitimately controversial opinion."

If you expend more calories than you consume, you will lose weight.

Yes, being in a caloric deficit is harder for some people to achieve because of medical issues that make their metabolism slower, but the "calories in vs. calories out" formula still applies. 

If you've tried this and it didn't work, I'd genuinely bet that No. 1 is the missing piece. Track everything for a few months — down to the sauces and oils you're using. Everything. You'll see progress. 

4. It is difficult to *not* hit 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight

Build every meal around protein. That's literally it.

Modern society's obsession with protein has made this easier than ever. 

5. You don't need to eat your vegetables.

I was right about this when I was 13, I'm still right about this at 31. 


Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to fight with people in the comments to burn a few cals.

My AI tool will hurt your feelings. 

"This is generic advisor slop," it often points out. 

Here are 7 notes from our beta testers who have been using InfluenceLab.io for a couple of months now:

1. "It gives brutal feedback sometimes, which is what you need to hear, not what you want to hear."

2. "I love the harshness. I'm a former athlete — I need to be yelled at sometimes."

3. "I also enjoy the shots it takes at my writing."

4. "My favorite thing about the tool is the blunt feedback" 

5. "It can be a bit harsh at times."

6. "Sometimes it makes me feel like a really bad writer."

7. "Your tool has given me major insecurities but has totally helped my writing become so much better."

This wasn't intentional. It's not like we were like, "Take on the personality of literary Gordon Ramsay."

It was just trained directly on tens of thousands of words of writing feedback I've given clients, and I am... not one to beat around the bush. 

InfluenceLab is already yelling at 42 users.

See how harsh it can be with a 7-day free trial here:

influencelab.io

--

(Some user feedback in the screenshot below.)

If you're a financial advisor who wants to get more reach on LinkedIn, the algorithm is showing you this post for a reason.

And I built something that will do that for you. 

In February 2025, I started editing posts for financial advisor clients. I charged $900/mo to edit 3 posts a week.

After I edited each post, I would leave 200-400 words of feedback on why I made the edits I did.

• Here's why we changed the hook
• Here's how we rewrote the body
• Here's where we added specificity
• Here's how we write a better CTA 
• Here's how we made this good 

I did this a lot. Hundreds of posts.

Then, one day, I got on a call with Ben A. Wise.

And Ben — who has been ghostwriting longer than I've been on LinkedIn — said:

"You should turn that feedback into an AI coaching tool."

"I don't know how to do that," I said. 

"I do," he said.

So he did.

And now, it exists.

An AI coaching tool specifically designed for financial advisors who want to get more reach and sign more clients on LinkedIn.

How it works:

• Paste your draft
• Get detailed coaching in seconds
• How to fix your hook
• How to fix your story
• How to fix your CTA

And a clear pass/fail so you know when it's ready to publish.

This works. Idk what else to tell you. It works.

Here's what our beta testers said:

Chris Brindle: "My business has genuinely grown on LinkedIn and that's at least partially due to my posts getting better with this tool."

Luke McElhenie, CFP®: "The workflow from taking the coaching feedback and putting it back into Claude has been awesome. Posts have been crushing it — 261,335 impressions in past 14 days."

Evan Wohl, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, RICP®: "It understands the overall message I'm trying to get across and drops the unnecessary parts or common LinkedIn AI 'fortune cookie' BS."

Anthony Degli Obizzi Jr.:  "My impressions have been through the roof on weekend posts with the tool."

Elijah Duduit, CFP®, CRPS®: "It's as if there's an actual human on the other side completely uninterested in flattering me with fruitcake feedback and is instead completely interested in fixing the mess I give to him."

Justin Pandy: "I love that it doesn't just say, this hook sucks, it goes into why it sucks, then offers ways to improve it."

Ryan Furlong, CFP®: "It's particularly helpful in cases where I feel like "something is off here" with the initial draft but I can't pinpoint it with the amateur eye. The tool lays all that out perfectly... Impressions have been through the roof at least by my standard this week. (154,421)"

Start getting more reach with a 7-day free trial here:

influencelab.io

P.S. My favorite testimonial:

Adrienne G.: "Your tool has given me major insecurities but has totally helped my writing become so much better." 

Adrienne is saying this because the tool can be quite mean. I don't believe in beating around the bush with my coaching, and it's built on my feedback.

So yes, this tool is mean and it will make you feel bad.

That'll be $49!

I'm giving away the 12-page report behind $53MM in qualified AUM pipeline — built by two financial advisors posting on LinkedIn for 12 months.

I broke down the data behind 460 posts that have helped my clients:

• Book 77 meetings across 25 states
• Attract 80%+ of those meetings as inbound leads
• Hire 5 people — including 3 CFPs — for $252 in ad spend

If you're a financial advisor who's posting on LinkedIn and wondering why it's not converting...

Read this report to learn everything that actually moved the needle:

• The exact character range where impressions peak — and where they fall off a cliff

• Which photo format outperform edevery other format by 1.6x 

• The hook type that averaged 10,884 median impressions — more than double everything else

• The two-track system that separates audience-building posts from meeting-booking posts

• The "character count curve" — a full breakdown of 460 posts plotted against reach

• Real LinkedIn analytics from two CFPs who started from ground zero

The report is backed by 460 tracked posts across two accounts, 10.2MM combined impressions, and 77 booked meetings that turned into $53MM+ in AUM and $150K+ in planning fee pipeline.

Want it?

Comment "REPORT" and I'll send you the full thing free (must be connected). 

--

P.S. This is for financial advisors only. Please do not ask for this if you are not a financial advisor.

I mean, you can ask. I'll take the engagement. But I'm not going to send it to you.

Yesterday, a financial services president signed up for my LinkedIn post editing tool at 12:25 PM. At 4:33 PM, he bought another subscription for his team. 

At 6:38 PM, he (Daniel Keever) sent me a DM:

"Hey Adam, a client of mine sent me your InfluenceLab as a research question. I told them I’ll check it out. Ended up signing up for myself and one of our team members. Surprisingly useful feedback. Appreciate appreciate the tool."

He was one (two) of 13 new subscribers yesterday, which brings us to 26 people using InfluenceLab.io. (Beta testers, plus a stealth rollout in the DMs the week leading up to yesterday's launch.)

Here's how advisors who are getting the best results are using it:

• Write your first draft.
• Pop it into the tool.
• READ the feedback
• Copy the feedback 
• Paste the feedback into Claude
• (Or ChatGPT, but you should be using Claude) 
• Have Claude punch up your draft based on the feedback
• Make your manual edits
• See your impressions jump

You can try it with zero risk for 7 days.

Worst-case scenario, you get a ton of free coaching about how to write effective LinkedIn posts.

Claim your free trial here:

influencelab.io

--

P.S. The screenshot below is from another user, not Daniel.

I downloaded one of those lead magnets that promises to "replace your $3,000/month LinkedIn ghostwriter" last week. 

The "ghostwriter" was a 192-word Claude prompt built on such gems as:

"Short paragraphs."
"End with a clear takeaway"

And my favorite:

"Hook must stop the scroll in the first 2 lines."

If your ghostwriter's strategy is, "Write short paragraphs, give readers a takeaway, and write good hooks lol" — you deserve to lose the $3,000 you're paying them and I do not feel bad for you.

My Hook Generator Skill alone is 7,100 characters.

Just an example of one facet of it: 

While that lead magnet prompts an LLM for "attention-grabbing hooks," my system runs a mandatory Source Verification Gate. It categorizes every single syllable into three buckets:

[SOURCE]: Real data, real client stories, and real Roth conversion trauma.

[CONCEPTUAL]:  Metaphors and hot takes based on established patterns.

[FABRICATED]: Anything the AI tried to "hallucinate" to make the hook sound sexier.

If a hook contains a single [FABRICATED] element, my system triggers an Automatic Rejection that forces the AI to start over until the hook is grounded in reality.

If your hook prompt is: 

"Hook must stop the scroll in the first 2 lines."

You're going to end up lying to people with hallucinated hooks quite often. And even the hooks that are true are going to make you blend into the crowd because you are literally prompting them to match generic LinkedIn hooks. 

That Hook Skill is the 3rd step in a 9-step Claude Skill workflow I've been tweaking and improving every day since Skills dropped in October 2025. 

It's built on real results from big data sets of content written for real financial advisors.

So, yeah.

You get what you pay for.

And if you don't pay anything — in money, time, or skill development — you're going to end up with nothing.

And btw: I charge quite a bit more than $3,000/month.

7 poisonous writing phrases (and the antidotes): 

--

Want to improve your writing in 2026?

Follow me.

7 Poisonous Writing Phrases (and the Antidotes)

When I work with a client who uses semicolons.

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The Battle

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