Multifamily Investor Situation Room

Ola Dantis is living his dream and is helping others do the same.  He’s a serial entrepreneur, and founder of Dwellynn.com, a multifamily real estate investment firm, and hosts The Dwellyn Show.  Join us as Ola discusses how he raises capital from institutional investors.

If you think you are busy, wait until you hear from Chris Roberts.  He is actively invested in many businesses and real estate investments, yet he still seems to have enough time in the day to not only accomplish all essential business tasks, but he also has enough time to spend with his family and maintain his physical health.  To date, Chris has successfully invested in over 2,200 units across the country and has a wealth of knowledge to share.  Listen in as he reveals his secret to accomplishment and the importance of speaking directly with the decision-maker in a recent deal.

Brook Katzen is a real estate investment and development professional that primarily focuses on multifamily and hospitality acquisitions.  He has extensive experience in developing office, retail, industrial products, and large mixed-use developments.

Nick Ameluxen is a partner at Quantum Capital heading acquisitions and asset management.  After spending years pursuing safety in his  W2, he realized he had not reached his full potential and he wanted more.  Shortly after beginning real estate investing in 2015, he has achieved the elusive freedom so many desire.  Now, his goal is to help others understand the benefits from owning multifamily complexes and show them how they can achieve the same freedom has.

Matt Moreland is a Realtor and investor in Lubbock, Texas.  After working as a real estate financial analyst and analyzing thousands of deals, Matt decided to invest in his own properties.  After successfully raising the rents on his first quad deal to $10,000 monthly, he became hooked.  Now, Matt specializes in multifamily and other investment real estate, and he assists other investors in growing their portfolio.

Jason Yarusi is a real estate syndicator and founder of Yarusi Holdings, a multifamily real estate investment firm.  He is currently a general partner on over 800 units with 450 units under management.  He is also co-host of The Jason and Pili Project, a project to serve those looking to lead a Fit, Rich Life.  With 15 years of business under his belt, Jason shares with us how tracking your market can give you an edge and set you on the path to success.

Rodney Thompson has worked in IT for 36 years and management for the last 20 years.  He started out investing in single-family homes and soon realized the challenges with scaling the single-family business model.  He eventually changed his strategy and began investing in commercial real estate.  Early on, he was the lead sponsor on his first deal, when several days before closing, he realized they were short on the capital raise.  In this episode, find out Rodney’s key takeaway and what happened with his first deal.

Tim Kelly is an active duty Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy and has been serving his country for 14 years. Now stationed on shore duty in Pensacola, Florida, he is fully pursuing his dream of owning and operating multi-family real estate and helping others realize their financial freedom goals!  Through his years in the military, Tim has not only learned the power of high-level leadership, teamwork, discipline, and grit; he became a certified Command Financial Specialist, educating hundreds of Sailors and Marines on personal finance and creating financial freedom.  Tim is now a Senior Managing Partner of both Kelly Housing Group and ADPI Capital where he and his partners invest in and syndicate multifamily property in the affordable and workforce housing spaces with a focus on apartment communities, mobile home communities, and storage facilities.

David Gutierrez is an active duty Naval Officer that has been serving the country more than 18 years.  He’s the co-founder of Storehouse 3:10 Ventures, LLC which is a real estate investment company that invests in cash-flowing rental properties.  He is passionate about helping other active duty service people develop a transition plan through real estate investing.

Brian Briscoe is cofounder of the real estate investment firm Four Oaks Capital, LLC, which currently holds nearly $8 million in assets under management. He is the host of the Diary of an Apartment Investor podcast, which brings together experienced and aspiring investors in its weekly “ask the expert” episodes. He is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps stationed at the pentagon until he retires in 2021.  Join us as he shares why active duty service people should have a transition plan and how skills learned from serving in the military has helped him in his real estate investing business.

Kyle Mitchell is a real estate entrepreneur that focuses on syndicating multifamily properties and currently has over $17 million in assets under management.  He is also the co-host of the weekly real estate podcast, Passive Income through Multifamily Real Estate.  His background in operations, management and logistics has given him insight into the importance of systems, and in our case, asset management.   You can have an outstanding deal in a great market, but still lose if you don’t manage the asset properly.  Join us in this episode as Kyle shares some tips on how you can level up your business with asset management.  Also, if you haven’t done so yet, make sure you get registered for the asset management summit Kyle is hosting.  You can go to AMSummit2020.com and register there.

Thomas Castelli is a CPA, a podcast co-host for The Real Estate CPA, and a multifamily real estate syndicator.  He completed his first syndication as a general partner of an 82-unit apartment community, and he has participated in many deals as a limited partner.  In this episode, he shares with us the thought process of a limited partner when looking at investing in other people’s deals.

Matthew I. Paletz is the Chief Executive Officer of Paletz Law, located in Troy, Michigan.  Matthew practices in the area of real estate litigation in Michigan and Ohio with an emphasis in landlord-tenant law, protecting the rights of creditors in bankruptcy and national fair housing defense of property owners. He also regularly presents training sessions for his clients on both legal best practices and the technology that is offered through PaletzTrack, the Firm’s mobile app that allows clients to monitor the status of their eviction cases online 24/7.   In this episode,  we discuss:Ways the COVID-19 pandemic has affected his clients and how they operate.How the pandemic may change how the legal system addresses landlord-tenant cases in the future.Recommendations for communicating with tenants about rent collection during a time of uncertainty and more.

Shannon Robnett is a real estate developer, and CEO of Shannon Robnett Industries, and he has completed over $200 million in construction projects ranging from multifamily, office buildings, schools, industrial, mini-storage, and more.  Shannon sees tremendous value in development strategies versus value-add.  In this episode, he shares some snapshots of his 40 years in the real estate business, including how he works with city government and residents to determine the right product to develop, and how development makes even more sense especially when we are expecting little to no rent growth in the immediate future.

Dugan Kelley is co-founder of Kelley Clarke, PC, which is a boutique law firm with a national presence.  He chairs the firm’s securities and real estate practice group, where he focuses on assisting clients of multifamily, commercial, and residential acquisitions and sales.  He has structured acquisitions in excess of $2 billion.  With more than 20 years of experience, Mr. Kelley helps us understand some of the important legal aspects of both the real estate transactional and securities sides.Disclaimer:  This content is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as direct legal advice.  Consult with an attorney for your specific situation.

In our industry, we are typically told to stick with larger MSA’s that have a minimum population of one or two hundred thousand, has had consistent growth in population, income, and jobs over the past ten or more years, consistent rent growth and more.   The challenge is there are so many investors throwing money into those markets that cap rates have compressed to a point where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make the numbers work.  Why not consider a path less traveled by the masses?  This is exactly what George O’Brien did when he began investing just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  While the surrounding area may not be one of the first places that comes to most people’s mind as an ideal place to build wealth in real estate investing, George has found tremendous success, including developing consistent deal flow, hitting double-digit cash-on-cash returns, and achieving support of community banks willing to bank roll his investments.  You may not have massive appreciation at the end of the holding period in these markets, but you can receive solid cash flow.

San Eng is an international investorpreneur that has an institutional investment background in venture capital, private equity, and family offices.  In his early days as an entrepreneur, he raised over $100m, and he has deployed more than $500m in capital as an investor.  Many of us out there working on syndicating real estate investments typically focus on attracting HNW individuals, which could be either accredited or sophisticated investors.  There aren’t many people in our space that raise capital from institutional investors.  I have found those individuals that are able to raise institutional money, tend to grow much faster.  While our entire conversation is not solely focused on real estate investing, there are some important parallels you can grab onto and apply them to your business.  One of those key points that stood out is the timing of the exit.  When is the right time to exit?  Join me as we step into the mindset of an institutional investor.

Cody Laughlin is just like many of us out there that grew up in a household that stressed the importance of education and its relevance to earnings power.  In 2008, after seeing first-hand how people he knew having worked for 30-40 years were unable to retire because their retirement funds were wiped away, he knew there was something wrong with the narrative society had framed over the years.  After becoming an accidental landlord, and succumbing to the “shiny object syndrome” a few times, he circled back and returned to real estate investing.  Now he is transitioning into the multifamily space, where he attempted his first raise for a deal last year.  Find out how Cody changed his mind set and how you too can do the same if you are willing to learn and grow.

After acquiring 20 rental properties, Venkat sought to quickly scale up his portfolio with multifamily syndication.  Even though he had a lot of success in the single-family space, it was challenging for him to convince brokers in his target market to give him and his partner a chance at some apartment communities that were on the market.  They shifted strategy and a few months later, took down their first 100 units, and 120 units immediately following their first deal.  In this episode, Venkat shares with us tips on how new syndicators can get started and have brokers take them seriously. He also shares with us his reasoning behind vertically integrating his company and why you should consider it as well.

Joseph Bramante decided that if he were going to invest in real estate, he was going to go big or go home.  People he knew were buying up single-family properties at rock-bottom prices and he wanted in on the action.  The only thing was he wanted to buy 80 properties at once rather than buying one property at a time.  After running into repeated roadblocks with lenders, there was one lender that suggested he simply by a multifamily apartment community instead.  He purchased a 26-unit property, sight unseen, that seemed as though it was a home-run, or so he thought.  Today, Joseph is the CEO of TriArc Real Estate Partners based in Houston, Texas where he is leading the company’s development and strategy for creating long-term investor value as they seek to acquire over 20,000 units in the next ten years.

Gary Lipsky is a real estate entrepreneur who focuses on multifamily syndication and currently has $17 million in assets under management.  He is the managing partner and co-founder of APT Capital Group.  Gary is the co-host of the weekly real estate podcast, Asset Management Fridays.  Gary is also the co-organizer for the Virtual Asset Management Summit, which is going to be held between September 21st and October 4th, 2020.  Head over to AMSummit2020 (dot)com to reserve your spot and have the opportunity to hear from the best in the industry on successfully managing your real estate assets.

Jim Biggs has been an entrepreneur for the larger part of his life after serving in the military.  He is a Partner at Jiroma Enterprises, which is an apartment syndication group investing in real estate assets across the country.  Jim is a powerhouse of knowledge and experience, having been in the business for more than 22 years, experienced many economic cycles and closed multiple deals.  In this episode, Jim shares his key takeaways from a deal he went into contract in on December 25th, 2019.  He walks us through five months of him and his team feverishly working to close the deal amidst uncertain and rapidly changing economic conditions.  He goes into detail about his mindset on some of the critical variables that changed, including the business plan, property management company, lender and more.  You don’t want to miss this one!

Having traded real estate loan portfolios in excess of $4 billion, Darin Batchelder is currently invested in 3,944 units as a limited partner and over 486 units as a key principal.  After learning about the positive impact of investing in multifamily real estate syndications has had on the lives of others, he quickly began to seek out active syndicators and invest with them.  In this episode, Darin shares with us how he went about identifying syndicators he wanted to invest with, his thought process when selecting some of his earlier deals, and his reasoning behind believing that having the right personnel at the property level, and partners are critical if you want to succeed in this business.

Mike Migliaccio is Co-founder and Chief Managing Director with Dual City Investments, a real estate investment company that has holdings in multifamily, self-storage, hotels, and medical office.  He co-authored a book called, “Missed Ops” where he talks about the importance of learning from the experiences of others so that you do not duplicate the same mistakes.  I remember hearing many years ago that “discipline weighs ounces, while regret weighs tons” and over time I began to really think about the reasoning behind those that succeed versus those that don’t.  While we may not being to boil it down into a single factor, I think everyone would agree that discipline is one of those critical variables. Having spent more than 20 years in federal law enforcement, Mike understands the importance of discipline.  He learned early on that simply writing down a goal is not enough; you have to have the discipline to see it through, and one small step you can take to developing discipline is showing up on time.

Whenever I see Ellis Hammond on social media, the first words that enter my mind are “faith-based investor.”  I find there is no separation between Ellis’ faith and him as an entrepreneur.  For many years I thought good Christians could not be entrepreneurs as the bible states “money is the root of all evil” so I sat down with Ellis and had a “no-holds-barred” unedited discussion about being a Christian entrepreneur.  We didn’t talk about real estate in this episode, rather we focused on pressing questions some faith-driven people out there may be facing.  I sincerely hope this episode can help open your heart and help you develop a better understanding of why we can still remain steadfast and true to our Christian beliefs while building wealth.  

Heshel Mangel is a business analyst and real estate investor keen on problem solving.  When he came across his first multifamily deal, a 20-unit in Cincinnati, Ohio, he knew the best way to bring the deal to fruition was to establish a strong relationship with city council and members of the community.  Heshel walks us through his first multifamily deal, the thought process and reasoning for going after affordable housing, and how building relationships with the city can help fund your deals.

Juan Vargas is the managing principal at GenWealth Capital Group, a multifamily real estate investment company based in Houston.  He started out with single-family investments and after achieving success and desiring to scale up, he transitioned into multifamily syndications.  His first deal didn’t come about through some of the typical channels we use in the multifamily space.   Moreover, he used a direct mail tactic he learned when he invested in single-family properties.  In this episode, Juan shares with us how he sourced his first deal, we talk about a challenge he is currently facing in his business, and finally, we touch on pricing strategy for leasing-up new developments.

Who would want to have worked for many years, accumulated an income producing real estate portfolio, and finally retired, when shortly after, a litigator comes in and takes away all of your assets leaving you with nothing in your nest egg?  Randy Hughes, also known as “Mr. Land Trust,” has been a real estate investor since 1969 and uses land trusts as a privacy and asset protection strategy.  He also teaches others how to set up their own land trusts.  In this episode, Randy shares with us the benefits of using a land trust, along with sharing some incredible personal stories of how land trusts protected him and his assets from frivolous lawsuits.

After transitioning from the corporate world to real estate, Whitney Ward found herself heading multifamily real estate sales in the office of a nationally known brokerage firm.  In pursuit of more challenges and unlimited growth, Whitney decided to open her own commercial brokerage firm that focuses mainly on multifamily property management and sales, where she offers investors a full-service alternative, including deal-sourcing, due diligence, business plan implementation, asset management, and divestment.  In this episode, Whitney shares with us how she developed a business that is adaptable, flexible, and can operate virtually.

If you were to look up “hustle” in the dictionary, Chris Rood’s picture would appear next to it.  He’s the author of “The Source of the Deal,”  an entrepreneur, a real estate “wholetailer,” investor in multifamily, mobile home parks, and a real estate coach.  Chris made an appearance on Grant Cardone’s show a couple of years ago.  In this episode, Chris shares with us how he is making it big in real estate and why mobile home parks are hidden gems.

Sterling Chapman spent considerable time in financial services, and the telecom industry where achieved extraordinary success climbing the corporate ladder.  After reading, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” he realized he would need to have a backup plan should anything happen to his full-time career.  He began buying single-family residences and duplexes two years ago, and is now transitioning into multifamily real estate syndications.  Find out his reason for transitioning into syndications and what he believes to be the biggest obstacle holding people back from achieving their dreams.

Samer Khatib has worked in the oil and gas industry in seven different countries over the past 15 years.  After gaining extensive experience abroad, he realized he needed to have a transition and repatriation plan so that he could return to Florida and spend more time with his family.  Last year, he closed on his first multifamily property and has already supplemented his entire income on his first deal.  In this episode, Samer walks us through his first deal and gives us some insight into how he is managing his property while living over 7,000 miles away.

Oftentimes when underwriting and assessing a deal, investors tend to consider the insurance implications last, hence we often find ourselves asking, “why is the insurance binder the last thing that comes through?”  J.T. Lynch provides both perspectives, one where he is an insurance broker, and the other where he is the multifamily real estate investor.  In this episode, J.T. shares with us his thoughts on the effects a global pandemic may have on property insurance premiums; how to speed up the process so you can receive an insurance binder sooner; and a few key elements of a property you should consider that can significantly weigh in on insurance costs.

Jedi Hill experienced success leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and then took a turn to the downside like many other investors during that tumultuous period.  Now, after returning to the investing space, he is making incredible progress and is quickly growing his business to include investments in multifamily apartments and mobile home parks.  He believes our current market is full of opportunities, but people are getting taken because they don’t know their numbers.

After serving as a Broker for his own firm for many years, and his company merging with SVN, Reid Bennett is currently the National Council Chair for the Multifamily Division of the firm.  With 225 offices around the country and 266 multifamily focused advisors, Reid has a good grasp of the multifamily market all over the country.  Reid sees many parallels between 2008 and our current economic environment.  In this episode, we discuss how he sets seller and buyer expectations, rent collections strategies, and why he feels now is the best time to get started in real estate.

After completing his engineering degree in university, Fernando Angelucci began work in the corporate world to quickly realize that the corporate track was not a good fit.  He turned to real estate at the age of 23 and after achieving success inside of 13 short months, he quit his full-time job and began investing in real estate full-time.  He was heavily investing in both single-family and multifamily apartment buildings, when after managing for a period, he learned the State where he held his portfolio was too tenant friendly.  After spending nearly a year trying to evict a professional tenant, he decided to pivot and focus on self-storage.  In this episode, Fernando shares with us the benefits of self-storage, or as he puts it, the reasons why he prefers to store things, versus housing people.

Abel Pacheco is the Principal of 5t CRE, a multifamily real estate investing company.  He is currently invested in over 800 units on both the passive and active side.  Abel is an investor that believes in taking action and that actions come from confidence developed from competence, which is attained through education.  His first major investment in his real estate education came at a cost of $20,000, which he later found the course syllabus was incongruent to his investment goals.  He later discovered alternative ways to get the education he needed that allowed him to scale from 8 units to over 800 units in a short two year period.  In this episode, Abel shares how you can best maximize your returns on real estate education, whether it is paid, or unpaid.

Kevin Gardner is the managing director of Multifamily Utility Solutions, a company that helps multifamily property owners across the country to increase revenues and reduce expenses.  Kevin’s experience has resulted in his company negotiating favorable terms for telecommunications access and utility agreements.  In this episode, Kevin shares with us how they help multifamily property owners tap into a not so commonly known additional source of revenue.

Upon learning about the syndication model when his company was hired to work on a multifamily job site for another investor, Jorge Abreu decided to dive straight in.  In the past three years, Jorge has rapidly scaled his business and is currently invested in more than 3,200 doors and has a goal of reaching 10,000 doors by the end of 2021.  In this episode, we talk about his reason for switching to the syndication model, his critical scaling variable, and his outlook on the multifamily industry given the current economic environment.

There are many ways to get involved with real estate, wholesaling, fix-and-flip, rentals, and property management to name a few.  After graduating from university, Jimmy Murray wanted to get rid of his 9-5 and go into real estate.  He began with house hacking and then transitioned into wholesaling.  He quickly realized that wholesaling was not for him, but he was very adept at speaking with and getting through to tired landlords.  He pivoted and started a property management company as a means for him to get on track to achieving his dreams in real estate.  In this episode, Jimmy shares why he feels on a net basis, property management is a great alternative, how he is leverage technology, and some best practices for developing a solid team to improve profitability.

His favorite book is “The Intelligent Investor” written by Benjamin Graham, a book that discusses value investing and is the foundation upon which investing titan Warren Buffet built Berkshire Hathaway.  After leaving his career in financial services for the stability and tax benefits, Carlyle Tiller began to study more of the economics of areas, specifically focusing on wealth migration to essentially follow the money and determine areas where he can find undervalued assets.  In this episode, he shares with us his thought process and reason for going after smaller undervalued multifamily deals.

Property management companies are not having honest discussions with building owners about their ability to manage smaller projects resulting in unresponsive management and higher tenant turnover.  Some of the larger investment groups tend to bring in their own property management, but find their offering to be slightly misaligned with the submarket resident demand.  In this episode, David shares with us one of the critical success factors he has found that allows smaller operators in his market thrive when larger out of state operators enter the market and underperform.

Jason Postill was a professional baseball player for 5 years before an injury pushed him into sports retirement.  He had always dreamed of getting into real estate, thought getting a brokerage license was the way to do it, and so he did.  He ended up working for Marcus & Millichap where he focused on multifamily investment properties.  He later decided he wanted to pursue his long-term vision which was to create his own full-service brokerage and investment firm, which he did last year.  In this episode, Jason walks us through his transition and one of the most important lessons he has learned over the years; narrowing your focus.

After achieving success in his professional career as an attorney, life-threatening illness temporarily derailed him.  Jeff Holst won his fight against leukemia, after which, he made the decision that he would live his best life ever on his terms.  He began to aggressively invest in real estate and is not free to live the way he wants.  In this episode, Jeff takes us through his journey from single-family properties, shopping, and retail investments, to multifamily real estate syndications.  He shares with us some of the earlier mistakes he made, including the biggest one he wishes he had changed early on.

After having achieved financial freedom as a real estate investor, Soddee has had ample time to reflect on some of the challenges he faced in his business, one many of us investors out there can relate to being,  how to effectively deal with contractors.  Failure to meet your value-add timeline or construction cost overruns could erode away your returns.   From contractors not showing up, being inconsistent on work their work schedule, doing shoddy work, or renegotiating price and scope mid-renovation, you want to make sure you have done the best you can to cover you and your investor’s basis.  In this episode, Soddess shares with us some tips and best practices that he implements in his business to mitigate risk when working with contractors.

After having achieved financial freedom as a real estate investor, Soddee has had ample time to reflect on some of the challenges he faced in his business, one many of us investors out there can relate to being,  how to effectively deal with contractors.  Failure to meet your value-add timeline or construction cost overruns could erode away your returns.   From contractors not showing up, being inconsistent on work their work schedule, doing shoddy work, or renegotiating price and scope mid-renovation, you want to make sure you have done the best you can to cover you and your investor’s basis.  In this episode, Soddess shares with us some tips and best practices that he implements in his business to mitigate risk when working with contractors.

I always have my eyes open for innovative ideas that can save investors money.  If a by-product of that idea also protects the environment, then I am open to learning more.  I was contacted by the assistant to the CEO of Roof Maxx a while ago and had the opportunity to catch up with Mike Feazel and learn more about his business and how they can add up to 15 years of life on an asphalt roof.  We talk about the savings and the positive impact their bio-friendly technology has on the environment. 

Many people get started with real estate investing for various reasons.  Perhaps you want to supplement your income so you can take your family on dream vacations, or maybe you want to leave your job and do something more fulfilling.  Frank Patalano was a middle school history teacher for 17 years that always had an interest in finance and real estate investing.  Over the past 15 years, Frank has found and developed his niche strategy in middle-market multifamily commercial properties.  In this episode, Frank discusses some of the early challenges he faced, as well as, some challenges he is currently facing while managing at a distance.

Maurice Philogene is a highly successful man of many talents.  Through conscious decision-making, he took a deep introspective look to discover his underlying reasons for investing.  He learned what variables ignite his zest for life and realized that he could AND could not achieve his dream by investing in real estate.  In this episode, Maurice talks about avoiding the matrix, negotiating your time, and living the best life you are supposed to live.

Deal sourcing is an on-going challenge faced by everyone in the industry, especially for syndicators competing in the multifamily value-add space.  As brokers aggressively pocket more listings, large institutional investors purchase for all-cash and offer a quick close, many non-institutional money-backed new and even experienced operators are finding it increasingly difficult to get off-market properties where the numbers work.  Malon Johnson grounds us and reminds us that deals are out there for the taking, but only those that “hustle” and put in the time will reap the rewards.  Malon walks us through his grassroots deal sourcing process from the perspective of a wholesaler.  He focuses on single-family and small multifamily properties.  However, the fundamentals he applies in his business can be used in our syndication business to significantly improve deal flow.  The challenge: are you willing to shift your mindset to do what is necessary to be the first in front of off-market deals?

A lot of people thinking of purchasing value-add real estate may think of properties that have 85% or greater occupancy, some deferred maintenance, and have some light interior renovations needed on units.  Over the past several decades, Pankaj Sharma and his family have been taking on some of the toughest multifamily projects, one of which had occupancy around 20% at acquisition.  Pankaj’s real estate investment strategy centered around his company’s motto of “strong, steady, stable” has helped him rebuild communities while achieving incredible success.