Street Smart Success

These days it’s become virtually impossible to get an attractive, conservative yield on commercial Real Estate. Cap rates have gone down and prices have gone way up. There’s one asset class, however, that’s held up comparatively well. That’s Sale/Leaseback industrial properties in secondary or terciary markets. Neil Wahlgren, COO of MAG Capital, is acquiring eight to ten properties a year with cap rates in the 7 to 8 range with long-term NNN leases.

Amongst other positive aspects of Real Estate, depreciation is a phenomenon that makes it like no other investment. Especially with recent changes around bonus depreciation, you can depreciate 100% of certain costs in the first year of ownership. This provides an exceptional opportunity to demonstrate big paper losses year one. Today’s guest, Yonah Weiss of Madison Specs, the largest real estate tax firm in the country, has a great way of simplifying how depreciation and cost segregation works.

Everyone who’s invested in real estate knows that the success of a deal can come down to property management. Today’s guest, Peter Lohmann, co-owner of RL Property Management, has built up a portfolio of almost 500 units in the Columbus, Ohio market by charging a flat fee to manage properties and providing proactive management and communication with landlords. 

Starting out in Real Estate can be the hardest part, but once you do, good things can come your way fast. Today’s guest, Lee Yoder, of Threefold Real Estate Investing, started out by scouring old deals on LoopNet and ended up making great profits. When other deals fall apart, prices can come down significantly. Lee is now buying bigger cash flowing deals in the greater Dayton area.

Unlike many other asset classes, Real Estate is a hard asset with conservative, long-term predicable utility that also provides cash flow. That’s why so much money in other asset classes has moved into Real Estate in the last few years. Today’s guest, Scott Kurland, co-founder of Acuity Partners, has a successful background on Wall Street and has applied that expertise successfully into investing in the Multifamily sector over the past five years.

This is episode two of a great conversation with super star investor, Nathan Petrowsky.

If you’re based in an incredibly expensive coastal market, looking inland may be your best option to get great returns. This thesis has made all the difference in the world for several operators with the vision to look beyond their backyard for more immediate, lucrative returns. Today’s guest, Nathan Petrowsky, ventured out of the SF Bay Area and acquired office buildings in Dallas right after the deep recession. This was the beginning of a quantum expansion into offices and warehouses that continues to this day.

A key to safe investing is finding the absolute best-in-class operators. Don’t just take someone’s word directly, but find others who’ve done business with them and can report success over a significant period of time. Today’s guest, Dave Zook, founder of The Real Asset Investors, is a successful business owner and savvy investor who’s created lucrative partnerships with proven, vetted, experienced operators.

Taking down 15 large multifamily deals in less than two years is no easy task, especially when you’ve just started out. But tirelessly doing all the right things like contacting brokers, sellers, lenders and lawyers and building the right teams can pay off if you’re relentless enough and willing to put in the hours. Zack Haptonstall, founder of Rise48Equity, started his multifamily trajectory in Phoenix in 2018 and has had major wins.

Having a niche is always an advantage. Having a niche within a niche is even better. Today’s guest, John McNellis, built his fortune with 100,000 sft neighborhood shopping centers. Founder of McNellis Partners, John is a Bay Area developer who believes in staying within a two-hour radius of where you live and has been incredibly successful with a repeatable, predicable formula that he’s perfected over three decades.

In order to get the best deals, the-old fashioned way still works the best, mailing and calling owners directly. There are no shortcuts. Today’s guest, Zach Quick, an Owner-Operator of 2300 Self-Storage units, buys his properties at the right prices and continues to fine-tune a disciplined, focused system of acquiring and operating Self-Storage facilities with great profits.