A former Super Bowl-winning NFL placekicker, Brien got his start in real estate following the collapse of the housing market in early 2009, when he and Colin Wiel began buying single-family homes to renovate and rent out. Together, they were able to scale up their company in an industry that had been the domain of smaller players, building a $3 billion portfolio with over 17,000 single-family rental homes that attracted institutional investors and competition from private equity firms. With the success of Waypoint Homes, Wiel and Brien defied critics to put the single-family residential sector on the map as a profitable and scalable financial asset class.