Street Smart Success

With so much information available, it’s easy to get educated on an asset class or an opportunity before investing. Although there’s no substitute for hands-on experience, you can still reduce risk through education. Steffany Boldrini, Principal at Monte Carlo Real Estate Investments, invested in car washes in North Texas and learned the hard way that she didn’t know what she didn’t know. Six years later, Steffany is recouping her investment, but wishes she would have learned more about the asset class before jumping in. More recently, Steffany has invested in a 19 unit condo conversion in Dallas and a ground-up Self Storage development in Stockton, CA.

Despite some of the challenges that have faced multifamily in the past few years, some markets have been affected less than others. The Midwest in particular has fared better than most other parts of the country. There are many markets like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Louisville, and many others that have experienced minimal new construction combined with consistent renter demand. As a result, these markets have maintained high occupancy rates and fewer issues finding quality tenants. John Casmon, Managing Partner at Casmon Capital Group, focuses on buying and operating workforce multifamily within a two-hour radius of his home in Cincinnati.

Over the past several years, most of the returns in real estate have been generated because of declining interest rates and cap rates. If you just held on to properties long enough, even without successfully executing on a business plan, you fared well. However, an oversupply of capital resulted in overly unrealistic underwriting for both lenders and operators, and distress has ensued. In more recent years, the tide has changed, and a much higher degree of expertise is required to be successful. Jack Cohen, Managing Director of ArrowMark Partners, and prior owner of Cohen Financial, has a 40+ career in commercial real estate lending and investing, and was one of the largest commercial real estate lenders in the nation. 

Not only has commercial real estate been faced with escalating borrowing costs and lower rents, but it has also been challenged by rising expenses, especially taxes and insurance. In this environment, it’s become essential for survival to aggressively manage these expenses. Matt Buchalski, Head of Sales for Ownwell, helps property owners lower these costly line items in order to protect and increase their NOI and valuations. Ownwell serves both commercial property owners across all asset classes plus hundreds of thousands of individual homeowners.

The world of alternative investing can generate diversification, cash flow and tax efficiency. It can also be opaque and risky and has created massive losses for uninitiated investors. Unlike public companies, there’s a far lower regulatory threshold for private companies to provide transparency to investors. The key to being successful in this world is being able to assess risk quantitatively and qualitatively. Leyla Kunimoto, Co-founder of Accredited Investor Insights, is a successful investor in both the public and private markets and creates valuable content for passive retail investors.

One asset class that still has great deals on sub-institutional properties is Mobile Home Parks. Although larger parks near major metros are being acquired by REITs, Private Equity, and other institutions, parks with fewer than 100 sites are being acquired by smaller investors with far less competition. Smaller parks in secondary and tertiary markets offer great buying opportunities with value-add components that result in tremendous value and cash flow. Ferd Niemann IV, Mobile Home Park lawyer and investor, has acquired 25 parks in mostly small markets across five Midwestern states. 

Although the margins are thin in Multifamily, there are niches that provide outsized returns without undue risk. One example is government-sponsored affordable housing. By creating public-private partnerships, it takes a lot of risk off the table, Jesse Sells, Co-Founder and COO of Impact Growth Capital, recently began a partnership with the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority for a $300 million development to develop 600 new Multifamily units in Las Vagas. Jesse, with his brother Sam, are raising a $300 million fund to create similar opportunities in other similarly growing MSA’s.

Real Estate is a block-to-block business, especially multifamily. There are too many nuances involved to manage multifamily without boots on the ground. This is where a lot of operators went wrong over the past several years. In addition to buying in markets they didn’t know, many inexperienced operators followed the herd by overbidding on properties and used risky debt to make deals pencil. Most of these operators and their investors are now in a world of hurt. Bruce Fraser, Managing Partner of Elkhorn Capital Partners, avoided these overpriced assets and created a smart niche of buying highly distressed properties at deep discounts. As a result, his properties are doing extremely well. Elkhorn Capital oversees over 2000 units across Tulsa and Oklahoma City and plans on further expansion into these markets.

Like many other markets, the Dallas-Ft Worth market got oversaturated with new apartments over the last couple years. As the torrent job and population growth continues to flourish, however, new supply is getting absorbed, even C Class properties. Occupancy in these buildings is increasing because there’s a shortage of workforce housing. The key is being able to manage these properties effectively. Jimmy Edwards, Founder and Director of Acquisitions at High Five Group, has excelled at repositioning Class C assets. 

Even though the Real Estate market has contracted significantly as a result of interest rate hikes and rising operating expenses, it’s still difficult to find great deals, especially in large metros where there’s still a lot of money on the sidelines looking for deals. By comparison, it’s easier to find cash flowing opportunities in tertiary markets. Brian Ferguson, Founding and Managing Partner at Fergmar Capital Group, lives and invests mostly in his hometown of Victoria, Texas, approximately two hours from Houston, Austin, and Dallas. Brian can buy workforce multifamily buildings for $70,000-$80,000/door and equally enticing prices on small strip centers.