Multifamily Insights

David Tashjian is the Senior Vice President of Comcast's Xfinity Communities national business unit, where he leads strategy, transformation, and performance for one of the company's fastest-evolving growth segments. He has spent more than 20 years at Comcast and over three decades in telecommunications.

David started his career in restaurants, bars, and retail management before moving into telecom in the mid-1990s. He took on his first leadership role at 19 and has worked with multifamily properties throughout his telecom career.

In this episode, John sits down with David Tashjian of Comcast's Xfinity Communities to break down how apartment owners should approach connectivity and technology. David explains why deployment and service delivery decide the resident experience, how the Connected Building retrofit upgrades older properties using existing wiring, and how national owners are turning technology into higher rents and technology fees. He also shares where multifamily proptech is heading and why a fragmented market is ready for a single partner at scale.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Talk to every stakeholder, from owners to residents, before making technology decisions

• Use resident feedback and competitor comparisons to spot when an upgrade is due

• Consider retrofits that reuse existing wiring before committing to a full fiber rebuild

• Judge providers on deployment, service delivery, and long-term stability as well as price

• Tie technology upgrades to rent premiums or technology fees to capture a return

• Treat connectivity as the foundation for access control, cameras, and other proptech

From Restaurants to Telecom

• David grew up around his father's restaurants and bars, then moved into retail management

• A blind ad in the mid-1990s led him to a satellite company and into telecom

• He is approaching 21 years at Comcast

Serving Every Stakeholder

• David's customers include owners, developers, consultants, attorneys, property managers, maintenance teams, and residents

• A strong resident product fails without the right deployment strategy and on-site buy-in

What Owners Want Today

• Ease of use and ease of deployment top the list

• Xfinity Communities is a new business unit with dedicated leadership over multifamily sales, deployment, and product development

• David sees the service experience as the main differentiator

The 186 Steps Behind a Deployment

• A new-build managed Wi-Fi fiber deployment involves 186 steps across Comcast and the property

• Many connectivity complaints trace back to deployment or bandwidth issues

• Every property Comcast serves gets its own full engineering design

Connected Building and Legacy Properties

• Connected Building is a post-build retrofit that uses most of a building's existing wiring

• David says it costs pennies on the dollar compared to a fiber retrofit, with no walls torn apart

• It includes proactive network monitoring, real-time data, and proactive fixes

• Property-wide Wi-Fi can also support smart devices, security, access control, and cameras

Signs It Is Time to Upgrade

• Resident complaints, such as trouble working from home or dropped connections

• Occupancy that lags nearby properties

• Competing new builds charging more in rent or amenity fees

The ROI of a Technology Upgrade

• Residents will pay for what they want, through higher rents or a technology fee

• Many national accounts are upgrading portfolio-wide, timed with contract renewals

• Some have built dedicated revenue-generating technology teams

Proptech and the Future of Multifamily

• David describes multifamily proptech as fragmented, much like single-family home automation

• Xfinity Communities is running three to four beta deployments toward an integrated, white-label experience

• The team is evaluating acquisitions and partnerships with proptech companies

• Residents increasingly expect keyless entry, garage access, and entry cameras

• Scale lets one provider serve owners with properties spread across multiple states

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

Failure that set David up for success: Believing he had leadership figured out after early success. By his mid-30s he was not seeking enough help from others. Learning to slow down, accept feedback, and bring in diverse perspectives produced far better results.

Digital or mobile resource: Manager Tools and Blinkist.

Book recommendation: The Truth About Leadership by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, for its ten truths of leadership, including that leadership is an affair of the heart.

Daily habit: Color-coding his calendar by his top priorities for the year, setting up each week in advance, and rebalancing when any color takes up too much or too little time.

#1 insight for leveraging technology at your apartment community: Talk to your residents about what they need, then find a partner who can deliver it.

Favorite restaurant in Philadelphia, PA: Vetri Cucina, plus Dalessandro's for a cheesesteak and John's Roast Pork for a roast pork sandwich.

• Learn more about Xfinity Communities here: xfinitycommunities.com

• Connect with David on LinkedIn

• Ask your residents what they need from connectivity and technology

• Compare your rents, amenity fees, and technology offering with nearby competitors

• Evaluate retrofit options that reuse existing wiring

• Review whether an upgrade can support higher rents or a technology fee

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

This week, learn how to decide whether to sell or hold a multifamily property you already own. John Casmon answers a question many investors are asking him, and explains why holding an asset indefinitely can cost you upside. The longer your equity stays locked in one deal, the higher the opportunity cost, and there is an ideal window to sell and maximize returns.

John walks through the questions he asks before making the call: how the property is performing today, how the current market would receive it, what you plan to do next, how much upside remains, and what options your loan, your investors, and your reinvestment opportunities leave you. He also explains why current conditions are unfavorable for sellers and how cap rate expansion erased value for operators who successfully grew NOI.

If you own an asset and are weighing an exit, this episode gives you a practical framework for timing that decision.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Account for the opportunity cost of equity locked in a deal

• Let current property performance guide the decision to sell or hold

• Fix operational issues yourself before passing them to a buyer

• Weigh remaining upside against the risk of cap rate expansion

• Review your loan term, investor needs, and reinvestment options before selling

• Stick to your business plan and avoid getting greedy

The Hidden Cost of Holding

• John believes investors should always be buying, with a clear business plan and debt strategy

• Holding a property too long gradually reduces your upside

• At some point, locked equity can create more value in another deal

Start With Property Performance

• Strong current performance tends to signal strong future performance and supports holding

• A property that held up over the last 3 to 4 years has proven its resilience

• Persistent occupancy, collection, or expense problems strengthen the case to sell

Fix Problems Before You Sell

• Buyers will either inherit your operational issues or need to address them upfront

• If you can solve those issues, John recommends doing it so the buyer starts with a clean slate

• Emotional fatigue from a difficult property is a valid factor in the decision

Read the Market Conditions

• Assess whether a sale would achieve fair value or only attract discount buyers

• Identify whether weak demand stems from the market, location, asset class, or operations

• The less you can control, the stronger the case for exiting

• At the time of recording, conditions favor buyers and sellers are missing out on premium pricing

Define What Comes Next

• John shares a coaching client weighing a refinance against a sale

• Long-term goals determine whether a sale should fund the next opportunity

• Without a next deal in mind, the decision rests on the current asset alone

Measure the Remaining Upside

• A $3 million purchase now worth $5 million, with a path to $8 million, makes a strong case to hold

• A path from $5 million to $5.5 million may not offset the opportunity cost of reinvesting

• Many operators grew NOI and still lost value when cap rates expanded

Know Your Options

• Review loan maturity, investor appetite, and reinvestment options such as a 1031 exchange

• Limited options favor holding and weathering the storm

• An expiring loan or investors who want out push the decision toward selling

• Years left on a fixed-term loan and satisfied investors remove the pressure to sell

Revisit Your Business Plan

• Changing your planned hold period requires a compelling reason

• If you hit your numbers, avoid holding on to squeeze out extra profit

• If you are close, have protected downside, and see real upside, holding can make sense

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

• Explore the Apartment Investing Mastermind and request more details here.

• Join the free Investor Insights community on Facebook for discussions, live webinars, and expert guests

• Review the current performance of every asset you own

• Resolve operational issues before taking a property to market

• Compare the remaining upside on each deal against the opportunity cost of reinvesting

• Check loan maturity, investor expectations, and reinvestment options

• Measure your results against your original business plan

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

Tom Brodie is a National Account Executive with CSSI, the nation's premier engineering-based consulting firm specializing in tax law surrounding commercial buildings. With over 23 years of experience and more than 65,000 studies completed, CSSI has a proven track record of delivering significant tax savings without triggering a single audit.

Tom spent 27 years at Shell Oil before taking early retirement and moving into the scuba industry, where he worked for a Houston-area scuba retailer. Wanting work that was less dependent on discretionary spending in an oil-driven local economy, he found cost segregation and assumed every building owner already knew about it. Most did not. Today, based in Houston, Tom works with commercial and multifamily owners to reclassify building components into faster depreciation schedules and to correct costly errors buried in existing depreciation schedules.

Most building owners have never run a cost segregation study, and many who have are still leaving money on the table. In this episode, Tom Brodie of CSSI walks John through what a study actually does, why a CPA cannot perform one, and the land valuation error he keeps finding on depreciation schedules that quietly costs owners six figures. Tom shares two real examples, explains how recapture and 1031 exchanges change the math, and clarifies when it is too late to act.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Break a building into 5, 7, and 15-year asset classes instead of one 27.5 or 39-year schedule

• Claim 100% bonus depreciation on anything a study identifies with a life under 20 years

• Audit your depreciation schedule for an inflated land value, because land can never be depreciated

• Hold at least 3 to 5 years after a study, or use a 1031 exchange, so recapture does not erase the benefit

• Use a change of accounting method to catch up missed depreciation without amending prior returns

What Cost Segregation Actually Does

• A study divides a building into faster-depreciating asset groups instead of one straight-line schedule

• The structure stays at 27.5 years for residential or 39 for commercial; interiors and site work move to 5, 7, or 15 years

• Parking lots, irrigation, security systems, lighting, landscaping, and flagpoles all fall in the 15-year bucket

Why the Strategy Stayed Obscure

• Cost segregation dates to the late 1990s but was originally priced for owners of skyscrapers

• CSSI brought the cost down far enough to study buildings valued from $200,000, excluding land

• Tom says most CPAs lack the time and resources to do it, and many never raise it with clients

Why It Takes an Engineering Study

• Counting every window, door, appliance, and countertop across a portfolio is an engineering exercise

• CSSI delivers dollar totals by asset class for the CPA to plug into the depreciation schedule

• Tom notes CSSI does not prepare returns, so the handoff stays clean

A Medical Office Building Example

• A 53,000 square foot medical office building completed in December 2023, valued at roughly $12.9 million

• Straight-line depreciation for that first month came to $13,790

• The study identified about $1.1 million in tangible personal property and $3.1 million in land improvements

• At the 80% bonus rate then in effect, that produced roughly $3.4 million of first-year depreciation

The Land Value Error Hiding in Depreciation Schedules

• A Colorado rental carried $500,000 in land value against a county assessment of $125,000

• Reallocating the $375,000 overage lifted the building basis from $522,384 to roughly $897,000

• The owner had held the property four years without knowing the error existed

• Tom recommends validating land value against county records, or a commercial realtor's opinion as of the purchase date

Correcting Past Years Without Amending Returns

• A change of accounting method form allows a catch-up deduction in the current tax year

• The IRS treats the filing as an automatic acceptance, so prior returns stay untouched

• CSSI prepares the form as part of every study for the CPA to submit

Recapture, Hold Periods, and the 1031 Exchange

• Selling soon after a study can let recapture consume the entire savings

• Tom recommends holding at least 3 to 5 years so reinvested savings outrun the recapture

• A 1031 exchange defers the gain entirely and is the cleanest way to avoid recapture

What Qualifies and What Does Not

• Personal residences do not qualify; commercial and investment property does

• An owner-occupied duplex can be studied for the rental portion only

• A vacation rental is prorated based on the owner's personal use during the year

Cost Segregation Inside a 1031 or a Syndication

• Tom recommends a study on both the relinquished and the replacement property

• Carryover basis reduces the new study's base, and the benefit still holds

• In syndications and JVs, depreciation flows by ownership percentage under the partnership agreement

When It Is Too Late, and the Biggest Mistake

• Properties owned under ten years are worth evaluating; past twenty, there is usually little left to accelerate

• CSSI runs no-cost, no-obligation estimates before any commitment

• Tom says the biggest mistake is simply failing to pursue every tax benefit in the code

• He notes 100% bonus depreciation returned with no scheduled phase-out, unlike the version that stepped down after 2022

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

Failure that set Tom up for success: On one of his first large projects he accepted the stated land value without questioning it. Looking back, he believes he could have saved the client more, and he now scrutinizes land allocation on every study.

Digital or mobile resource: LandGlide, a mobile app that pulls public ownership records for a parcel while you are standing on the property.

Book recommendation: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller.

Daily habit: Working from a CRM pipeline that shows every project's stage visually, so the day's priorities and next actions are clear at a glance.

#1 insight for using a cost segregation analysis: Have one done. Request a no-cost, no-obligation estimate and let the numbers decide.

Favorite restaurant in Houston, TX: Gringo's Mexican Kitchen.

• Reach out to Tom Brodie directly at [email protected]

• Learn more about CSSI here.

• Pull your depreciation schedule and check the land-to-building allocation against county records

• Request a no-cost estimate before committing to a study

• Confirm your hold plan, since selling within a year or two can erase the benefit

• Ask whether a change of accounting method applies to properties you already own

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

Jonathan Berryhill is a former US Army infantry sergeant and law enforcement officer turned real estate entrepreneur, broker, and multifamily investor. He has built multiple seven and eight figure businesses, three real estate brokerages, and a team of over 50 agents. Today he specializes in multifamily investing, real estate growth, leadership, wealth building, discipline, and entrepreneurship.

Jonathan grew up dirt poor in a broken home, served in the Army, worked narcotics in law enforcement, and walked on to play linebacker at the University of North Alabama at 25. He moved into medical sales, became a chief operations officer, then launched and sold his own medical device company. He and his wife now live on their farm in North Alabama with six children and four grandsons, and he leads America's Outdoor Realty and Elite Properties of the South across Alabama and Tennessee. His first book, Warrior to Wealth, is releasing this fall.

In this episode, Jonathan Berryhill breaks down how he rebuilt his marriage, his identity, and his finances after filing for divorce at 25 with no money and no plan. He explains why alignment at home comes before growth in business, how he wrote down the man he wanted to become and started acting like him, and what separates people who commit from people who try. Jonathan also shares the failure that redirected his real estate career and previews his upcoming book, Warrior to Wealth.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Define your why clearly enough that it survives setbacks

• Fix your home life before trying to scale a business

• Act like the person you want to become, starting now

• Pay for mentorship through books, podcasts, and lunches

• Surround yourself with people operating a level above you

• Know what you are bad at and move toward what you do well

From a Mobile Home Floor to a Vision

• Jonathan grew up dirt poor with plywood covering holes in the floor of his father's mobile home

• He could visualize a businessman version of himself and refused to repeat what he grew up in

The Turning Point at 25

• His marriage was in shambles and he and his wife had filed for divorce

• He called her in Hawaii and promised a life she could only dream of, with no idea how

• He left law enforcement and walked on to play linebacker at the University of North Alabama

Building the Entrepreneurial Track Record

• Jonathan moved into medical sales and became a chief operations officer

• He launched his own medical device company and sold it a few years later

• He and his wife started buying land 14 years ago, which led him into land sales

Pick Your Hard

• Fear of returning to poverty drove him for the first decade of his career

• He let it go after realizing that being poor is hard and building wealth is hard, so you choose which

Alignment Comes First

• Jonathan frames every area of life as either in line or out of line, starting with home

• His wife has been his biggest supporter since they reconciled

• Comfort kills progress in relationships, business, and fitness

Motivation vs. Discipline

• He runs a self-audit: do my daily actions match the goal I say I want

• Discipline means doing the work on the days you do not feel like it

Mentorship and Finding Your Tribe

• Most people will not spend on a book, a podcast, or a lunch that could change their trajectory

• Jonathan still seeks mentors at 49 and joins a weekly entrepreneur networking call

• Weak relationship building is what stalls most people at the next level

Forge the Identity, Then Do the Work

• He wrote down who he wanted to become and started doing what that man would do

• His advice to an aspiring CEO: study who that CEO knows and what he does daily, then copy it

• You become the athlete before the recruitment, not after

Warrior to Wealth

• The book is built on three statements: find your mission, forge your identity, build your legacy

• Jonathan writes openly about his biggest failure, being unfaithful in his marriage

• He aims to give readers belief that his path is repeatable

It Happens Because of You

• Trying something for 30 to 90 days is not a commitment

• Jonathan rejects "I have done all I could do" as an escape route

• Success, a strong marriage, and results all happen because of you

Serving Veterans on the Farm

• Jonathan hosts fishing, hunting, and rodeo events for veterans on his family farm

• Ruck and Rawhide, supported by the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, raises awareness for veteran suicide

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

Failure that set Jonathan up for success: House flipping. His last flip ate his lunch, which pushed him into flipping land instead. He became a land broker and was named broker of the year out of more than 140 offices in his first year.

Digital or mobile resource: Podcasts. Download a podcast app and fill your drive time and work hours with positive, influential voices.

Book recommendation: Atomic Habits by James Clear, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Daily habit: Speaking gratitude out loud before getting out of bed, naming at least a dozen things he is thankful for.

#1 insight for maintaining a positive mentality: Start with gratitude, then guard what you feed your eyes, ears, and mouth, because that input shapes your mind and your thinking.

Favorite restaurant in North Alabama: Cotton Row in Huntsville for family dinners, and Catfish Cabin in Athens for a quick bite.

• Preorder Warrior to Wealth and learn more about Jonathan here: jonberryhill.com

• Write down the identity you want to build, then list what that person does daily

• Audit whether your current actions actually match the goal you claim to want

• Find one person ahead of you in your industry and buy them lunch

• Join or build a group of entrepreneurs operating a level above you

• Get your home life and foundation aligned before scaling anything else

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

This week, learn how John evaluates the current multifamily market and decides whether to buy, sell, or hold. John opens with the question he hears most often from investors in the current portfolio: what is the outlook, and where does the firm stand as a buyer or a seller today?

John explains what has changed. Higher interest rates raised the cost of capital and made it harder to find deals that pencil, while higher savings rates gave investors a low risk alternative that did not exist a few years ago. He walks through the framework he uses in response: separate what you cannot control from what you can, start with operations and the value add upside still available, then weigh that against the runway left on the loan.

He also makes the case for thinking like a trader of assets, explains why leverage determines who wins a trade, and shares why he believes multifamily fundamentals remain healthy despite the short term pressure in the market.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Stop spending energy on variables you cannot control

• Evaluate every deal individually before making portfolio decisions

• Weigh the value add upside still available against the time left on the loan

• Never put yourself in a position where you are forced to sell

• Treat assets as trades and know where your leverage sits

• Expect forced sellers over the next 12 to 18 months to create buying opportunities

What Investors Are Asking Right Now

• Investors want to know the outlook and whether the firm is buying or selling

• Most deals in the portfolio are cash flowing, though not at past distribution levels

Why the Market Has Changed

• Higher interest rates raised the cost of capital and thinned the pool of deals that pencil

• High yield savings accounts now pay a decent return for far less risk

• Investors are more cautious after deals that did not perform as projected

Focus on What You Can Control

• John tracks the economy, the Treasury, and the value of the dollar without fixating on them

• Interest rates in 2027 and election driven policy changes sit outside any operator's control

• Awareness informs the projection; energy goes toward internal execution

Operations Come First

• Every deal gets reviewed individually for performance, cash flow, and remaining upside

• If rents can still be pushed and demand is strong, keep executing the business plan

• Once the value add is captured, the deal moves into a second phase

Loan Term Drives the Exit Decision

• A short runway with the value already captured points toward selling sooner

• A longer runway with upside remaining supports holding the asset

• Most deals fall between those two cases and require weighing both factors

Selling on Your Terms

• John is a seller at the right price but wants to stay in control of the timing

• He expects some operators to be forced to sell over the next 12 to 18 months

• Groups already exiting at a loss will create opportunities for prepared buyers

Why Multifamily Fundamentals Remain Healthy

• Population growth and the housing shortage have not gone away

• New construction starts have tapered off after several heavy supply years

• Midwest markets such as Cincinnati saw smaller swings in both directions

The Trade Mindset

• Brokers talk about assets trading, and John applies the same framing as an investor

• The mindset centers on a clear business plan and a defined exit instead of an indefinite hold

• John compares the approach to running a sports team as a general manager

Leverage Wins Trades

• Owning an asset other buyers want is what creates leverage

• Anyone forced to offload a deal rarely gets the number they wanted

• Positioning for competition, demand, and a strong story protects value at exit

Reading Market Sentiment

• What buyers are willing to pay matters more than John's own view of value

• The firm buys when the business plan works and the price makes sense

• Evaluation is continuous, not a position set in stone

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

• Explore the Apartment Investing Mastermind and request more details here.

• Join the free Investor Insights community on Facebook to continue the conversation

• Review each deal in your portfolio for the value add upside that is still available

• Map the time left on every loan against the value you have already captured

• Identify where you hold leverage and where you could be forced to sell

• Track what buyers in your market are willing to pay, not only your own valuation

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

Richard McGirr is the co-founder and CEO of Property Llama and Property Llama Capital, an income focused fund sponsor that helps accredited investors move underperforming real estate equity into passively managed, cash flowing investments. He also hosts Unlimited Capital on the Best Ever CRE network, where he covers capital raising, fund operations, and the business of building an investment platform.

Richard and his partner Chris Lopez launched their own firm roughly two years ago, after raising about $55 million in 18 months at a previous shop. The first twelve months were a grind. Today the firm runs about $42 million in its own debt fund, raised $24 million last year, and treats capital raising as a measurable sales and marketing operation rather than a relationship exercise.

Richard McGirr returns for part two to open the books on capital raising. He starts with why debt funds reshaped his business. Carried interest is collected every month rather than at a sale, which turns a raise into recurring revenue instead of a run of acquisition fees. With rates elevated, investors have pulled in their time horizons, and a fund that distributes within 60 days is a far easier sell than an equity deal that pays on exit in year five.

From there Richard walks through the machinery. He explains why launching his own firm nearly failed once the low hanging fruit ran out, why weekly dials are the leading indicator he manages against, and why he pays for access to trusted distribution instead of building an audience from scratch. He also lays out his full funnel, from a single webinar to a 50 email drip to a same day phone call triggered by a link click.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Debt fund carry is collected monthly, which turns a raise into recurring revenue

• Higher rates shorten investor time horizons and favor shorter lockups

• Manage weekly dials and new qualified leads, because both sit inside your control

• Buy access to trusted distribution rather than building an audience from scratch

• One webinar delivered repeatedly outperforms ten new ones

• Call every investor who clicks a link, the same day

Why Debt Funds Became the Engine of the Business

• Carried interest is collected monthly, not at a sale

• About $42 million in the fund throws off just under $2 million a year in carry

• At their previous firm, the debt fund quietly covered company payroll

Why Debt Funds Sell Faster Right Now

• Higher rates pull investor time preference in

• LPs receive a first distribution within 60 days

• Lockups run 18 to 24 months, with monthly loan payoffs providing liquidity

Why the Launch Nearly Failed

• The easy network at the previous firm was already tapped

• Every personal network runs out eventually

• Messaging, product selection, sales management, and email drips all had to be rebuilt

Dials Are the Metric You Control

• Sales results are input driven, and inputs are the only controllable variable

• Richard's team makes 200 calls a week

• Moving from 25 to 100 dials a week tripled soft commits within two weeks

Lead Quality Over Lead Volume

• Minimums are $100,000, with no exceptions

• Two paid Best Ever webinars raised $1 million each, at roughly half a percent media cost of capital

• A webinar swap with an estate planner produced 600 registrants and zero closes

• Large audiences skew toward broad content and non-accredited viewers

Brand Transfer From Paid Webinars

• Presenting on a trusted platform borrows that platform's credibility

• Investors arrive already willing to listen, so there is less convincing to do

• The result is a higher conversion rate in less time

Earned Media vs. Paid Media

• Earned media costs nothing and converts well, but the ceiling is low

• Richard hosts on Best Ever CRE and Chris Lopez hosts on PassivePockets

• Paid webinars buy speed, volume, and control over timing

One Webinar, Delivered Repeatedly

• The Intro to Private Lending webinar is the only one they run

• Staff are tasked with sourcing groups and pricing webinar slots

• Fear the operator who has delivered one webinar 10,000 times

Go Where Buyers Already Gather

• Publishing content and waiting to be found rarely reaches your ideal investor

• Target communities built around passive income and financial independence

• Capital raising is a two sided market, and plenty of people are already looking to deploy

Richard's Funnel, Start to Finish

• A webinar form on the site leads to the replay and a 50 email drip

• Any link click notifies the sales team on Slack and triggers a same day call

• Of 25,000 contacts, roughly 100 are actively in market at any given time

Winning the Attention Battle

• Investors triage hundreds of emails a day, and your offering sits at the bottom

• Rank your list by opens and clicks before you start dialing

• Ask for a specific commitment, such as watching the webinar within three days

• Interested investors rarely call to say they are on the fence, they simply go quiet

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

• Learn more about Property Llama Capital here: capital.propertyllama.com

• Watch the Intro to Private Lending webinar linked on the Property Llama Capital homepage

• Hear part one with Richard in episode 804, including his Round of Insights

• Track weekly dials and new qualified leads as your two core capital raising metrics

• Rank your lead sources by close rate rather than by volume

• Pitch communities that already invest passively instead of general audiences

• Build one webinar that converts, then get it in front of more qualified people

• Call the investors who open and click your emails, the same day

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

Jacob Kosior has over ten years of experience in the multifamily housing industry, spanning operations, marketing, and centralization efforts across conventional, student housing, affordable housing, and build-to-rent communities. He previously served as Vice President of Centralized Services at Cardinal Group Management and has held leadership positions with BH Management, The Dinerstein Companies, and CA Ventures.

In 2022, while founding a centralized services team at Cardinal Group, Jacob began testing AI tools across the housing space and co-developed a delinquency AI product for rent collection with the EliseAI team. Today he is at EliseAI, where he works with operators of all sizes to implement AI tools, manage the change required for the technology to stick, and rethink how work gets structured across a portfolio.

In this episode, Jacob Kosior breaks down how multifamily operators are actually deploying AI, where to start, and what agentic AI changes about the way workflows get built. Drawing on a decade in operations before moving to the technology side, Jacob explains why leasing is the natural entry point, why speed is becoming the metric that matters more than conversion rate alone, and why owners who call their own properties tend to misjudge voice AI. He and John also work through the harder question operators face once automation is in place: what the human team should be doing instead.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Start with leasing, where the tasks are repetitive and already documented

• Build AI workflows on the same follow-up cadence you train your onsite teams on

• Track speed alongside conversion rates, because faster cycles compound

• Decide where human touchpoints serve the customer, not just the org chart

• Redeploy the hours AI frees up into experience or revenue generating work

• Ask questions early, since lacking internal AI talent is the most common barrier

From Operations to the Technology Side

• Jacob spent over a decade in multifamily operations before moving into AI

• Founding a centralized services team at Cardinal Group in 2022 pushed him to demo every tool available

• He co-developed a delinquency AI tool and a centralized call center product with EliseAI before joining the company

What Agentic AI Actually Changes

• Generative AI answers prompts; agentic AI follows a workflow toward a defined goal

• Goals map to work teams already do: book the tour, collect the rent, sign the renewal

• Operators now control the steps the AI follows, mirroring how they train staff onsite

Why Leasing Is the Place to Start

• Leasing represents the repetitive, high-volume work teams handle every day

• The old five point follow-up has become 8 to 9 touches per prospect to convert

• AI works the weekend leads so agents start Monday on tours instead of backlog

Who EliseAI Serves

• The platform crossed 6 million units earlier this year, roughly 1 in 6 US apartments

• Clients range from top 50 operators to regional operators with a few hundred units

• Over a billion AI conversations give the platform context on industry edge cases

Speed as the Metric Owners Miss

• The industry tracks conversion rates closely and speed almost not at all

• A 20% lead-to-tour rate achieved in two hours beats the same rate in two days

• An assistant manager calls one delinquent resident at a time; AI calls the building

• Faster cycles give owners earlier visibility into collections, renewals, and leasing velocity

Rethinking the ROI Question

• Operators who never calculated the ROI of a leasing agent struggle to value the AI doing that work

• The 2025 conversation was about ROI; the 2026 conversation is about creating value

• Freed capacity opens the door to restructuring teams, not just cutting tasks

Deciding Where Humans Step In

• Human Touch Automations let operators choose where staff enter the customer journey

• One example is a personal call two hours before a scheduled tour

• The test is whether the customer wants that touchpoint, not whether the team is used to it

• Automating administrative work finally gives teams room to deliver the service they advertise

The Voice AI Misconception

• Owners calling their own properties judge voice AI against old press-one phone trees

• Consumers using AI daily are increasingly comfortable talking to it on the phone

Voice AI routes callers to the right person instead of forcing them through a menu

Regional dialects lifted both engagement and tour bookings in beta testing

What Voice AI Replaces

After-hours answering services and overflow call centers become optional

Call scoring rates every leasing agent call against a rubric, replacing quarterly mystery shops

Self-learning feeds those conversations back into the AI to improve automation rates

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

Failure that set Jacob up for success: Charging ahead on change initiatives without bringing his team members along, which rubbed people the wrong way. It taught him that change management requires as much communication with counterparts, ownership groups, and regional managers as it does with onsite teams.

Digital or mobile resource: IBM's YouTube channel for understanding AI concepts, use cases, and terminology.

Book recommendation: Deep Work by Cal Newport, which broke his belief in multitasking.

Daily habit: Stretching and morning mobility work before starting the day.

#1 insight for implementing AI into your business: Ask questions. Most operators have never done this before, and a recent 350 person survey found 28% named a lack of internal talent as a barrier to adoption.

Favorite restaurant in Chicago, IL: The Izakaya.

• Learn more about EliseAI here: eliseai.com

• Explore EliseAI case studies, change management toolkits, and industry surveys

• Audit which onsite tasks are repetitive enough to hand to AI

• Document your follow-up workflows before you automate them

• Start tracking response speed alongside conversion rates

• Decide where human touchpoints genuinely improve the customer experience

• Ask vendors questions early instead of waiting to build internal expertise

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

Richard McGirr is the co-founder of Property Llama and Property Llama Capital, an income focused fund of funds sponsor that helps accredited investors turn underperforming real estate equity into passively managed, cash flowing investments. He also hosts Unlimited Capital on the Best Ever CRE network, where he covers capital raising, fund operations, and the business of building investment platforms.

A lifelong entrepreneur, Richard started his first company in college and later spent eight years in China building a software engineering services firm to more than 85 employees. Wanting assets that worked for him instead of headcount, he moved into single family rentals and eventually partnered with Chris Lopez to launch Property Llama. Today his firm invests exclusively in debt funds, using a fund of funds structure to convert idle equity into contractual monthly income.

Richard McGirr joins John to explain why so many long-term single family landlords are sitting on millions in equity while earning almost nothing in cash flow. Using data from roughly 6,000 rentals inside the Property Llama platform, where the average return is negative 1% cash on cash, Richard breaks down how a decade of appreciation and debt paydown quietly eroded return on equity.

From there, the conversation turns to debt funds. Richard explains how hard money lending to flippers works, why six month loan terms and LTV cushions change the risk profile, and where the real danger sits. He also walks through the fund of funds structure behind Property Llama Capital, the fee discount he negotiated by committing scale, and the operational audit he runs on any lender before placing a dollar with them.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Re-underwrite your rentals at today's values, not your purchase price

• Track return on equity, not just cash flow, as debt gets paid down

• Debt funds pay contractual cash flow from day one, backed by an LTV cushion

• Shorter loan terms shrink the window for things to go wrong

• Fraud, not default, is the risk that wipes out lenders

• Diversify across a loan pool instead of funding one deal at a time

From Software Founder to Real Estate Investor

• Built a software engineering services firm in China to over 85 employees

• Left a headcount driven business in search of cash flowing assets

• Partnered with Chris Lopez by adding value to an already established operator

Why the Average Single Family Rental Returns Negative 1%

• Roughly 6,000 rentals in the Property Llama system average negative 1% cash on cash

• Rents are flat or falling while insurance, vacancy, and CapEx climb

• Richard's own Colorado Springs rent fell about 30% after a supply wave

The Return on Equity Problem

• The education industry teaches investors how to buy, not how to reassess what they own

• A property bought at a 7 cap can become a 3.5 cap when values outpace rents

• 80% LTV becomes 20% LTV, and returns slide from the high teens into single digits

The Equity Rich, Income Poor Landlord

• Typical client holds 3 to 8 rentals with several million in equity near retirement

• Most target $10,000 to $20,000 a month and sit closer to $3,000

• Cash out refinances no longer close the gap at current rates

Debt Funds 101

• A pool of performing loans secured by title on real property

• Hard money lenders fund flippers who need high LTV and five day closings

• Fully loaded returns run 15% to 18% including origination

Why Hard Money Risk Is Structurally Lower

• Six month terms limit what can go wrong versus a ten year horizon

• A 25% LTV cushion rarely erodes inside six months

• Single family homes are the easiest real estate asset to liquidate

Fund Investing vs. Lending on Your Own

• Private lending demands underwriting, fast closings, draw management, and workouts

• A single Denver flip loan can require $1.3 million of capital

• $100,000 into a fund buys a slice of 50 loans instead of one

Lending Is a Real Operating Business

• Lenders run origination, marketing, servicing, and accounting departments

• On a 50 loan book, roughly 8% pays off every month and must be replaced

• Richard's largest lender partner employs 40 people

Building the Fund of Funds Model

• Property Llama Capital launched asset light and headcount light by design

• Raising capital for another sponsor's deal without a license is a serious violation

• Committing $5 million earned a 30% fee discount, split evenly with LPs

How Richard Audits a Lender

• Request written credit box, servicing, and draw processes

• Sample 20% of the loan tape and match a document to every step

• Verify title at the county and confirm payoff wires in the bank account

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

Failure that set Richard up for success: Launching his first fund with his partner Chris after an earlier partnership ended, assuming they could raise what they had raised before. The raise collapsed and the business nearly folded. Bringing in consultant Lauren Brychell of Equity Elevated exposed how large the sales and marketing gap actually was.

Digital or mobile resource: Claude Code.

Book recommendation: $100M Offers, $100M Leads, and $100M Money Models by Alex Hormozi.

Daily habit: Working from home, which he considers a genuine performance advantage.

#1 insight for investing in debt funds: Fraud is the number one risk, whether committed by the borrower or against the lender. It is catchable with proper due diligence, and it is the scenario that wipes you out. Most other bad outcomes cost you 10% to 20%, not everything.

Favorite place to grab a bite in Denver, CO: Torchy's Tacos.

• Learn more about Property Llama Capital here: capital.propertyllama.com

• Connect with Richard McGirr on LinkedIn

• Listen to Unlimited Capital every Monday on the Best Ever CRE network

• Run your portfolio through Property Llama and re-underwrite at today's values

• Calculate return on equity across every property you own, not just cash on cash

• Compare your current monthly income against the goal you actually set

• Audit any debt fund's written processes, loan tape, and title records before investing

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

John McNellis is a veteran real estate developer and founding partner of McNellis Partners, where he has spent more than four decades developing over 100 properties across Northern California, primarily supermarket anchored shopping centers. He started as a journalism major, went to law school, and practiced litigation for less than a year before shifting into real estate law, where he learned to structure large transactions and met the people who would fund his first deals.

John built his first shopping center in 1983 alongside an older developer client and has worked with the same two partners, Beth Walter and Mike Powers, ever since. He is the author of Making It in Real Estate: Thriving as a Developer, now in its third edition, and writes a monthly column for the San Francisco Business Times and The Registry.

​​In this episode, John McNellis walks through 43 years of development, starting with a duplex he bought at 24 and ending with a firm that uses no outside capital at all. He explains how a law career gave him a shortcut into large deals, why he stopped raising money after his financial partners walked away during the early 1990s recession, and what he learned from losing a Sacramento shopping center in foreclosure. He also makes an argument most real estate podcasts avoid: keep your day job, because the failure rate in development is high and the cash flow takes years to arrive.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Learn large deal mechanics on someone else's payroll before risking your own capital

• Partner for the skills you lack, and accept that good partnerships can still end

• Weigh the control you surrender before accepting outside capital

• Owning 100% of a small deal can beat owning 1% of a large one

• Do not overpay, over leverage, or over develop

From Journalism to Law to Development

• Practiced litigation for less than a year before moving to real estate law

• Legal work exposed him to eight figure deals, entity structures, and capital contacts

Early Deals That Funded the Career

• Bought a duplex at 24 for $25,000 with roughly $1,500 down

• Traded up to a fourplex and turned $1,500 into $90,000 in about two years

The First Shopping Center

• Partnered with a developer client who had construction expertise but could not sell

• John raised $1 million in equity at $25,000 per investor and handled the legal work

• Built in 1983, still owned today, mortgage paid off and renovated twice

Why That Partnership Worked, and Why It Ended

• The partnership ran 5 or 6 years, until neither needed the other

• Beth Walter and Mike Powers joined in 1983 and remain his partners 43 years later

The Developer as Conductor

• John says he still knows nothing about construction after 80 odd buildings

• Development requires an orchestra of partners, consultants, and contractors

The Capital Ladder and Its Ceiling

• Friends and family money is a booster rocket, useful until you run out of friends

• Institutional capital costs more and carries total control over timing and exits

What Non-Recourse Actually Means

• Deregulation of savings and loans pushed money into commercial real estate in the 1980s

• Financial partners walked away mid-project during the early 1990s recession

• Non-recourse protects you from them and protects them from you

Moving to Their Own Capital Only

• John chose owning 100% of a small deal over a minority stake in a large one

• The firm buys junk, fixes it, sells it as antiques, and funds the next deal

Why He Tells Developers to Keep Their Day Job

• Development can take three to six years before a property cash flows

• John practiced law through his first ten years of investing

• He cites a failure rate above 60% for development firms in their first decade

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

Failure that set John up for success: A Sacramento shopping center bought with his first partner. They overpaid, overleveraged with a savings and loan that funded 103% of the purchase price, and tried to over develop the site. The deal ended in foreclosure about ten years later and taught him not to overpay, over leverage, or over develop.

Digital or mobile resource: Google Earth.

Book recommendation: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

Daily habit: Getting out of bed before 7 a.m. and getting to the office.

#1 insight for making it in real estate: Persistence first, risk evaluation second. Real money requires real risk, but too much risk ends the business and none of it leaves you consulting.

Favorite restaurant in Palo Alto, CA: Evvia.

• Reach out to John via email: [email protected]

• Connect with John McNellis on LinkedIn, where he reposts his monthly columns

• Read Making It in Real Estate: Thriving as a Developer, available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

• Follow his columns in the San Francisco Business Times and The Registry

• Audit whether your current capital structure gives you the control you need

• Pressure test purchase price, leverage, and development scope before you commit

• Identify the operating partners you need instead of trying to cover every role

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

Leo Young is the founder and managing partner of Cornell Communities, a private equity real estate firm revitalizing manufactured housing communities across eight states. He studied finance in college, then moved into sales at Tesla to build the communication skills he knew he was missing, working his way up to top regional salesperson before leaving to pursue real estate full time.

After earning his real estate license, working in brokerage, and investing passively in apartments, Leo launched his own firm. Cornell Communities acquires and operates middle market mobile home parks, expanding access to affordable housing while delivering risk managed returns to accredited investors.

Make sure to download our free guide, 7 Questions Every Passive Investor Should Ask, here.

• Stack skills deliberately, since finance, sales, and operations compound over a career

• Vet the operator harder than the pro forma, because execution drives returns

• Buy in the middle market where institutions with cheaper capital are not competing

• Underwrite infrastructure first, since older parks carry hidden CapEx risk

• Create value through expense discipline and rent normalization, not unit renovations

From Finance to Tesla Sales

• Leo studied finance but could not hold a presentation or speak in front of a room

• He joined Tesla to fix that weakness and became the top regional salesperson

Why He Left a Dream Job for Real Estate

• Sales income required constant output and did not build lasting wealth

• A first passive apartment investment and distribution check convinced him to go all in

Manufactured Homes vs. Mobile Homes

• Manufactured housing is the legal term tied to federal HUD construction standards

• Roughly 20 million Americans live in these communities, across a wide quality range

Buying in the Middle Market

• Institutions and REITs with cheaper capital absorb the top quality assets

• Leo targets workable properties where his team can execute a clear value add

What He Underwrites First

• Infrastructure leads: water, sewer lines, and roads on parks 50 to 70 years old

• Purchase price, location, and regulations follow, then his own team bandwidth

How He Vets Sponsors as a Limited Partner

• Most decks oversell the property and undersell the team

• He asks for case studies and how the sponsor responds when a deal goes wrong

Why the Economics Work

• Residents own their homes, which lowers the operating expense ratio and lifts NOI

• Heavy land improvement creates more depreciable value in a cost segregation study

• Lot rents sit at the low end of the housing market, so demand stays strong

The Two Main Value Levers

• Expenses: rebuild vendor contracts and move home and utility costs to residents

• Rent: normalize lot rents toward market while keeping the value proposition intact

• Site improvements like roads, fencing, signage, and lighting support resident relations

Why Homes Rarely Move

• Relocating a home can cost $7,000 to $10,000 and risks damage in transit

• Most residents sell in place and cash in the equity they built

Community and Retention

• Turnover runs near 5%, compared with roughly 50% in apartments

• Private yards and driveways make the setting closer to a subdivision than a building

📢 Announcement: Learn about our Apartment Investing Mastermind here.

Failure that set Leo up for success: His co-founder leaving the firm. It was a painful wake up call that forced him to build systems and put the right people in the right seats from the ground up.

Digital or mobile resource: Claude.

Book recommendation: Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson.

Daily habit: Listening to recorded mantras and affirmations after waking, on the view that the first thoughts of the day shape the day, the week, and the life.

#1 insight for investing in mobile home communities: Back the operator above everything else. Anyone can make a model or a pitch deck look good, but the operator drives the returns.

Favorite restaurant in New York City, NY: Rao's.

• Learn more about Cornell Communities and join the investor waitlist

• Check out Leo's website and connect with him on LinkedIn and Instagram

• Ask sponsors for case studies on comparable projects before you invest

• Underwrite infrastructure and deferred CapEx before you underwrite price

• Review which operating expenses belong to residents rather than ownership

• Benchmark lot rents against comparable housing in the same municipality

Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW, and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.