Meet Dr. Elayne Brunson

We were lucky to catch up with Dr. Elayne Brunson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Elayne , really appreciate your meeting with us today to talk about some particularly personal topics. It means a lot because so many in the community are going through circumstances where your insights and experience and lessons might help, so thank you so much in advance for sharing. The first question we have is about divorce and how you overcame divorce and didn’t allow the trauma of divorce to derail your vision for your life and career.
During the pandemic many people across the world went through financial, mental, and emotional stress. It was during the pandemic that I realized more than ever that my 15yr marriage had reached the point of no return. Having been married since I was 24yr old I was filled with many emotions and needed to make many decisions about my future. My intitail thoughts were how I would excape the situation with minimal loss. To my surprise real estate was up for grabs and lets just say promises that were made earlier in the union were not kept during the dissolution of the marriage. The number one lesson I learned, PRENUP. The second lesson I learned was how to scale back to propel forward.

The first thing that I did was to take a risk. I knew if I were ever in a similar sitiuation again having more real estate doors would make a split easier. Fighting over 19 doors was absurd and I quickly took the back seat in that arguement. While divorce lawyers sorted through those doors I focused on expanding and quickly as possible. I took a risk and I sold the very first peice of real estate that I ever purchased with 100% insurance money that was solely left to me by my father. I felt this property was perfect to sale for various reasons, number one if I could let go of and sale my most prized possession I knew I could accom[plish ANYTHING! The second reason I chose to sale a property I purchased with 100% insurance benefits left soley to me was because the supreme court has already ruled on the situation. Ritcher Vs Ritcher in 2020 a Husband recieved a life insurance gift and his wife whom he was divorcing wants a slice of the cake. The husband had not purchased the policy nor had he contributed to the payments of the policy therefore the policy and any assets he purchased with the funds were considerd a gift and not marital property.

Once I sold my first door I used the proceeds to purchase a block of real estate located in the historic Main St District where my business’s office was located. With that purchase I plan to create so many doors that I stopped focusing on what I may loose and I started focusing on what I will gain. That’s how I overcame divorce, by moving forward.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
While I am not a CPA or attoney who can offer you legal advise, I am highly qualified to speak from my level of experiene and knowledge in the field. My focus professionally is real estate developing, investing, and coaching fo investors. My real estate investing became a business when I began managing multiple properties and teaching others how to do the same. Urban Property Fim was desingned to invest in properties located throughout Main St. Districts and more specifically those in designated opportunity zones in South Carolina. I used buy and hold properties that I owned to start the business while simultaneously teaching others how to invest in real estate ownership and create generational wealth.

I enjoy teaching others about my real estate journeys and whats kept me going, as well as trade secretes that I have learned from others. While I have no current experience with fix and flips or real estate crowd funding, ive been able to amass well over 7 figues in real estate value with a projected annual revenue of the same within the next few years.

So whats new? Currently I am working to redevelop a historic municipal power plant into a mixed use tech smart village to be located in the historican Main St district of Sumter SC. This project will bring opportunity to the low to moderate community its locted in while helping further develop the area’s opportunity zone. The project is titled Sumter Power Village and is slate to be completed by summer 2026. As for now you can catch the project reveal in season 12 of the greatest reality show on entreprenuership called the Blox. More specifically outside of the season intro you can catch me in Season 12 Episodes 2,3, and 6 competing to improve the business plan for our tech village.

Teaching others real estae investment strategies has been the most rewarding part of being a real estate investor. Every real estate market analysis is different as results range based on the location of the market. To expand Urban Property Firm had to ninch down and “:go where you realtor wont” eliminating competition by focusing on the less desirable properties in a desirable market. Its here we have been able to find the most lucretaive deals.

Its a goal at Urban Property Firm to consult 100 families this year on getting started or growing a local real estate investing portfolio. The folks we work with may already own real estate, may have a sum of money readily available, or little to no upfront cash on hand. We use creative financing to aquire real estate deals daily. Feel free to check out our website to stay up to date on our products and services such as e-books, booking for speaking engagements, and more to come.

Watch The Blox season 12 to learn more about the Main St development project.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
The most impactful thing that my parents did for me include my mother showing me to live each day to the fullest and my father leaving me insurance money that I could actually control myself. My mother was given a death sentence by her doctor at the age of 13 years old. Doctors expected my mother to die before her 18th birthday. Despite having a massive brain tumor, my mother was able to have a full life to include having a child and becoming a wife to my father. My mother was a house wife and she loved to cook esquistite meals that she learned how to cook from cook books and cooking shows. She loved taking care of my father and I. From my father I learned how to take several insurance policies that he had left me when he died and invest them into wealth building opportunities. Prior to my fathers passing my father had several conversations about how not to be taken advantaged of with the insurance money he left me as I had been with the insurance money left behind from my mothers passing. When my father passed away he left me the sole beneficiary to multiple insurance policies and I invested it all in real estate. Investing in real estate during the housing market crash was the best thing ever because I got many properties at wholesale value. My parents gave me the keys to success at an early age to enjoy life and invest wisely.

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