The Sage Investor

In his 2014 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter, Warren Buffett wrote something so true it’s stayed in my mind ever since.  “Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent.” Buffett watched 50 years of businesses grow, thrive, struggle to survive, and eventually find themselves in the graveyard of onc...

Everyone wants to talk about the deals they did. Nobody wants to talk about the deals they walked away from—and those are usually the ones that make you the most money. Every acquisition has skeletons in the closet. Some are fixable. Some just aren't worth the effort, no matter how much you've already fallen in love with the deal. Today I'm speaking with my partner and CIO of Sunrise Capital Inves...

I grew up sharing a pullout couch as a bed in the living room of a mobile home in South Side, Chicago. 30 years later, I sit at the other side of the table—a steward of nine figures in mobile home park communities, treating our residents with the same respect and dignity I wished for my mother, my brother, and my sister when I was a child.  How does someone starting from nothing build up to seven,...

Your company is growing too fast. You built something customers love, and demand is peaking week after week, month after month; you’re riding on the excitement and adrenaline. But here’s the problem—you can’t sustain this. Your revenue is rising, but your profits are stagnating, if not dipping. You hire on more talent and pay for more tools as the business grows, but it never ends.  How do you ste...

Almost overnight, Travis Wallace went from private schools and weekends at the ranch to his family struggling to stay afloat. Midway through his childhood, Travis’s wealthy grandfather passed away, leaving 100% of his estate to his fourth wife. The rest of the family was cut out, and the money was cut off. This forced Travis to choose: rebuild the life he loved as a child or settle for less. Travi...

Every property has a piece to play in your portfolio. A great deal might not be a great fit for what you’re trying to achieve, so how do you know which properties match the profile that will build your wealth? That’s where an asset manager comes in—the architect of a profitable, scaling real estate portfolio where operations and finance are on one page, and sizable (sometimes over six-figure) NOI...

Too many entrepreneurs have a great business idea, but no real business strategy. You could create a revolutionary new product or service, one with massive potential for demand, but it won't reach its full potential without the strategy to back it up. A good idea gets you into the business, but a good business strategy keeps your business producing cash flow for decades, even centuries, to come. I...

Time can make you wealthy, but the same time ticking away is the wealth once you’re ready to retire. While compound interest trades time for growth, passive investing gives you your time back to enjoy the wealth you spent so long growing. And with enough cash flow, you can have it all—time, freedom, and money to spend, donate, and save how you’d like. That’s Steve Hostetter’s why, and for many suc...

Passive investing opportunities have become significantly more accessible in the past decade. Instead of what was once a closed-off country club type of exclusivity in private real estate investing, the deals being sent your way are now coming in the dozens. So how, in a crowded market where every GP is wrestling for your attention and your hard-earned dollars, do you separate the signal from the...

One word changed David Phelps' life in an instant. “Leukemia.” At the peak of his career, earning a high income and owning his own dentistry practice, his daughter, just a toddler at the time, had her life on the line. David made good money; he had a life worth envying, yet none of it could give him more time with his daughter.  But David had one thing many of his fellow dentists did not—an income...

This is the most expensive mistake in investing. A deal goes sideways and your return shrinks. Who do you blame first? Your partners, the market, your management team, your residents—there’s an obvious answer, but it’s a painful pill to swallow—it’s you. What at first seems like a siloed feeling of guilt turns into a worldview that changes everything you do for the better. It’s time to take extrem...

A single mobile home park investment changed Kip Lewis’s life forever. He knew nothing about mobile home park investing and had never even thought of the asset class before, but through boots-on-the-ground operations and diligent value-add, Kip turned a $500,000 park into something worth millions.  He quit his job to go all-in. But, within a few years, he was almost on the brink of losing it all. ...

Most real estate businesses use accounting as a way to confirm what they already know, or, at the very least, pay their taxes. But the best businesses, those in the top 5% or 10% of operations, use financial systems not only to see problems before they arise, but also to plan for growth years, even decades, in advance. That’s what we’ve done here at Sunrise Capital Investors, and today, our own CF...

There’s $50 trillion sitting in retirement accounts—almost all of it tied up in stocks, index funds, mutual funds, and bonds. Their returns? Around 4% - 10%. The ultra-wealthy’s returns on retirement accounts? Often double that. How? Self-directed IRAs (SDIRA). Instead of trapping themselves in traditional retirement accounts, family offices and high-net-worth individuals tap into this account, un...

I spent a week surrounded by the best real estate entrepreneurs on earth—and something surprised me. This wasn’t a casual meetup that most real estate investors are used to. This was Harvard Business School’s YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization)—an elite organization of entrepreneurs, CEOs, family offices, REIT executives, and exceptional investors doing seven, eight, and nine-figure deals.  It qu...

Anyone can buy a mobile home park, but only a few can run one. Your pro forma may look perfect on paper, but the way you manage, maintain, and mold your community changes everything about your returns. Today, we’ve brought on a pro, Todd De Leon, who has over two decades of experience in mobile home park management, overseeing more than 20,000 sites across 20 states and operating these assets as e...

Investing isn’t the end goal—freedom is. Lane Kinney put three kids through college, took numerous trips to Africa, became a record-setting crossbow hunter, and now enjoys a comfortable retirement, all thanks to building a portfolio that prioritized freedom, not riches. No one would have expected a state law enforcement officer from rural Florida to become a sizable self-made entrepreneur, but tha...

Most investors spend all their time maximizing returns, but the Sage Investor focuses on something much more meaningful: after-tax cash flow.  A great return means much less when Uncle Sam gladly takes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars out of your hand. So, what’s the “magic elixir” that allows you to take almost all of your gains home, while staying in the governmen...

Do you own a business or just a taxing, high-stress, often low-paid job? Without knowing how to delegate tasks, the “business” you run slowly begins to run you. You’re making every decision, signing every check, putting out every fire, dealing with every client communication, and before long, you burn out. I’ve been there too, but made a pivot at the right time, choosing to delegate in business ra...

A decade ago, Kevin Bupp and I ran Sunrise Capital Investors as a lean lifestyle business. There were no huge teams, global workforces, or hundreds of millions in assets under management. It was Kevin and I, finding deals, closing, integrating, and repeating, with some family and friends along the way. Now, in 2026, we manage over $400M in assets. No capital calls. Zero principal loss. Close to a...

This is what financial freedom looks like. Within a matter of months, Adam Cranmer is packing up his family and moving abroad to Spain—not for a few weeks, but for good. His goal of expanding his son’s worldview is becoming reality, and Adam’s life of European travel, slow days, and savoring Spanish wine has only just begun—and it’s being funded by passive cash flow. When most people think of fina...

Most wealthy investors don’t need more deals—they need to structure deals more intelligently to survive taxes. Imagine keeping the same portfolio and getting higher after-tax returns without gimmicks, risky tax strategies, or chasing every deduction.  It’s more than possible if you’ve got the right real estate tax strategy.  Today, we’re welcoming our first guest to The Sage Investor podcast, Kim...

Many investors spend their entire life building wealth, amassing a sizable nest egg, on the premise that it will fund their retirement, support their children, and give them the peace they’ve spent decades sacrificing for. This is a lie—and it’s why many Americans, even high-net-worth investors, are riddled with anxiety, sitting on a fragile foundation that won’t support their life the way they in...

Most limited partners spend hours analyzing the deal, the market, and the potential returns. They see a high IRR, growing demand for a property, and maybe even economic tailwinds. They put tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars into the deal, assured that it would be a home run. Then months go by, distributions are paused, a capital call email lands, and the investors are wond...

Most high achievers spend their lives accumulating—growing their bank accounts, growing their investment portfolio, growing their legacy. But what if you’re saving for a life you’ll never live? All those millions of dollars represent decades of discipline, every penny put in its place so your family can live a fuller life than you experienced. And while it’s a noble pursuit to strive to put your c...