BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 721: Commercial Real Estate Could Crash, But Are Everyday Investors Impacted? w/BiggerPockets CEO Scott Trench
Episode Date: January 31, 2023A commercial real estate crash is looking more and more likely in 2023. Rising interest rates, compressed cap rates, and new inventory about to hit the market is making commercial real estate, and mul...tifamily more specifically, look as unattractive as ever to a real estate investor. But with so much money still thrown at multifamily investments, are everyday investors going to get caught up in all the hysteria? Or is this merely an overhyped crash that won’t come to fruition for years to come? Scott Trench, CEO of BiggerPockets and host of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, has had suspicions about the multifamily space since mortgage rates began to spike. Now, he’s on the show to explain why a crash could happen, who it will affect, and what investors can do to prepare themselves. This is NOT a time to take on the high-stakes deals that were so prominent in 2020 and 2021. Scott gives his recommendations on what both passive and active investors can do to keep their wealth if and when a crash finally hits. But that’s not all! We wouldn’t be talking about multifamily without Andrew Cushman and Matt Faircloth, two large multifamily investors who have decades of experience in the space. Andrew and Matt take questions from two BiggerPockets mentees, Philip and Danny, a couple of California-based investors trying to scale their multifamily portfolios. If you want to get into multifamily the right way or dodge a lousy deal, stick around! In This Episode We Cover: The commercial real estate crash and bad news for high-interest rate investors Cap rate compression, rent stagnation, and red flags for the multifamily market Recommendations for both active and passive multifamily investors How to vet a real estate syndication deal when raising private capital Scaling from small to large multifamily and why the jump is easier than you think Cash flow vs. appreciation and which is a better bet if valuations start to tank Balloon payments, adjustable-rate mortgages, and risky financing options putting new investors in a tough spot And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Investor-Friendly Real Estate Agent BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets Merch Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Learn About Real Estate, The Housing Market, and Money Management with The BiggerPockets Podcasts Get More Deals Done with The BiggerPockets Investing Tools Find a BiggerPockets Real Estate Meetup in Your Area David's BiggerPockets Profile David's Instagram David’s YouTube Channel Understanding Rental Property Depreciation—A Real Estate Investor’s Guide House Hacking 101—What It Is and How to Get Started Your Debt-to-Income Ratio Can Make or Break Your Investing Career On The Market Podcast 65 with Ben Miller On The Market Podcast 71 with Brian Burke BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast 708 BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast 719 Book Mentioned in the Show The Hands-Off Investor by Brian Burke Connect with Andrew, Matt, Dave, and Scott: Andrew's BiggerPockets Profile Dave's BiggerPockets Profile Matt's BiggerPockets Profile Scott's BiggerPockets Profile Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-721 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Check out our sponsor page! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show number 721.
Keep in mind, bigger is mentally more daunting, but bigger is easier.
It's the same amount of work to take down a 10 unit as it is to take down 100 unit.
So, you know, my philosophy is go as big as you comfortably can.
And what I mean comfortable is without putting you or your investors at financial risk.
But just don't, don't be scared by the fact that, well, it's 100 units.
I've never done that yet.
If you've taken down a 10, you've taken down 100, and it's just the amount of the finances,
and it actually gets easier, the bigger you go.
What's going on, everybody?
This is Scott Trench, temporary guest on the Bigger Pockets podcast here with the host, Dave Meyer.
Sorry, I stole that from you, Dave.
I don't know if I'm the host of the guest, whatever it is.
We're here together, and we're taking over the show today.
Well, yeah, thank you for having me on today, Dave.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, you're very smooth of that intro.
You're an old hand at this.
And yeah, we wanted to have you on because we've had a couple of questions.
You and I have actually had a lot of great conversations offline about this.
And you have some really interesting thoughts and, frankly, some concerns about the multifamily
commercial space that we're going to talk about here for the first 20 minutes of the show.
Yeah, I do.
And I think that the commercial multifamily has enjoyed a really phenomenal run in creating a
tremendous amount of wealth over the past 10, 12 years, as rents have really grown almost an
accelerating fashion for the last decade, as interest rates have come ticking down over that time,
and as cap rates have come down. And that's created an incredible environment for wealth
creation that I think is, I worry, has run its course and is set for to give a lot of that
back in the next 12 to 18 months. And I want to voice those concerns really, you know, and ring the
arm bell here so that investors are very, very wary of this asset class heading into
2023 in particular.
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prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. For decades, real estate
has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been
sort of complex, time consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly
easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense.
That's the power of the Fundrise flagship fund. Now, you can invest in a $1.1 billion
portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features 4,700
a single-family rental home spread across the booming sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet
of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave. The flagship fund
is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified, and it's a very important. It's a
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Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns, and start investing in just
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fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. All right, great. Well, this will be a great
conversation. I'm looking forward to it. I have a lot of questions for you. And just for everyone listening,
we're going to talk to Scott for about 20 minutes, and then we're going to turn it over to Matt Faircloth
and Andrew Cushman, who are going to be answering some mentee and listener questions about the
multifamily space. So we have a great show for you today. We're going to cover a lot about
commercial and multifamily. So you'll definitely want to stick around for this. So you have some
thoughts about what's going on in the multifamily and commercial space. And we'd love to hear
what you're thinking. Yeah. So I think the first thing that's concerning me in the multifamily or
commercial, in multifamily and commercial real estate space is that cap rates are lower than
interest rates right now in a lot of this space. So what that means is when I'm buying a piece of
commercial real estate, I'm buying an income stream. And if that's at a 5% cap rate, I might spend
$10 million to buy a property that generates $500,000 a year in net operating income, right?
Well, if my interest rate is five and a half or six and a half percent, like Freddie Mac
30-year fixed rate mortgages are averaging 6.42% as at the end of the year, that means that my
debt is dilutive, right? I'm actually going to get a better return by buying all cash or being on
the debt, the lending side, instead of the equity side, unless I'm really bullish on appreciation,
right? And in the case of commercial real estate, that means I'm really bullish on rent growth,
or I, for some reason, believe I can reduce operating expenses, right? And so this is a huge
problem. This is not sustainable, in my opinion. And when the average of the market
is sees cap rates lower than interest rates, that means that the market is going all in on these
assumptions for growth. And I don't understand that I think it's a really risky and scary position,
right? So let's go through what has to be true for this to work out for investors in the commercial
space, right? One is rent growth has to go up, right? So one way that could happen is supply and
demand dynamics. Right. On the supply side,
we're going to have the most inventory coming online since the 1970s, right? Ivy Zellman
estimates that there are going to be 1.6 million units coming online the next 12 to 18 months
in the backlog here. And builders will complete that inventory and they will monetize it.
It's possible that if things get really bad, they can stop construction, but then that just
proves the point that there's a big risk in this space. And then the other side of this, so I think
that's a headwind to that rent growth assumption that the market's going all in on, right?
Lots of supply coming online, lots of construction. All you got to do is peek out the window here in Denver, and you see the cranes more prolific than they ever have been. And that's saying something because this city has been booming for a long time. Now, this will all be regional, right? Some cities will not see this supply coming online. Some cities will see tons of supply coming online and still have no trouble with absorption of those units.
Well, just to reiterate, to emphasize that point, Scott, we are already seeing that rent specifically in multifamily are flattening and starting to decline.
in some areas. And that's even before what you're saying, this increase in supply comes online,
because I think that's sort of towards the middle of 2023 when that's intended to happen.
So we're already seeing this before the supply glut even starts to impact that dynamic.
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I think a better bet is that rent stay flat or maybe even decline
over the next 12 months in the multifamily space versus the implicit assumption when cap rates are
lower than interest rates, that they're going to explode, right? On the demand side, I think we
have a wildcard here, and I don't really have any forecasts that I feel really confident in on
demand, right? One of the big arguments for demand is that there are more people. Household
formation is accelerating. There's long-term trend supporting that. That's true,
but there's a whole bunch of volatility from the whole COVID situation. Lots of people moving out,
getting divorced, breaking up. That creates household formation, in my opinion, artificially.
It's a metric that can move and confuse economists.
And so I don't know how to predict household formation in 2023 one way or the other.
And I think the safest bet is to assume very little household formation.
If there's a mild recession or interest rates keep rising, it's going to put pressure on the economy.
It's going to result in less wage growth, and we might give back some of those rent increases.
So I think that's – I think if anything, there's reason to believe that rents, again, stay flat or decline year over year.
and again, that's problematic. So I worry that in 2023, we could see cap rates increase,
which means multifamily asset valuations decline, right? So that same property that's generating
500,000 in net operating income goes from being worth $10 million at a five cap to 7.7 at a
six and a half cap, right? That's a 23% crash in the asset value of that property.
And if you're levered 70-30, you used 70% debt, 30% equity, that's going to wipe out the vast
majority of your equity.
And this is the problem that I see brewing in this space or that I worry could be brewing
in the 2020-3 space.
So do you see this across all multifamily assets and or bigger syndications or smaller
multifamily is disproportionately going to be impacted by this?
Yeah, I think that this is a threat to, uh,
commercial real estate assets across the board, which would include office, office space,
retail, multifamily, and other assets. I think that you're going to see more pressure on
larger assets. You're going to see pressure on assets that are not financed with, you know,
Freddie Mac loans at 30-year fixed rates. And I think you're going to see, so I think that folks
will be disproportionately impacted. I also think you're going to see folks simply not selling in this
period, right? So, you know, if you're invested in a syndication, your syndicator is probably
just not going to sell for the next year to and hope that prices recover. My worry, though,
is that if interest rates stay high, and they don't have to, they can even come down a little bit,
I know you're thinking that mortgage rates will actually come down, you know, are probable to
come down next year. But as long as they just stay much higher than they were for the last couple of
years, I think you're going to see cap rates reset at a higher level, like maybe six and a half,
7% on a nationwide basis. Again, varying by region. Well, and also, you know, ideally most
syndicators and operators will probably hold on, but given the nature of commercial lending,
most of them don't have long-term fixed debt and some of them might have balloon payments coming
due or an adjustable rate mortgage that's adjusting in the next couple of years. And that could
potentially force a sale or further negatively impact the cash flow of the properties, right? I think
that's true, and I think that's a really big unknown in the space. I don't know anyone who has
great data on averages in commercial multifamily real estate debt terms, right? Like, what is the
average weighted life of these debts? Is it five years? Is it 10 years? Is it 30 years? As everyone
getting fixed rate, Freddie Mac loans on this? And we're all set. My guess is there's going to be,
there's a big spread in these areas and that different folks are going to get impacted very
differently. And my best guess is that there's going to be a process rather than an event
for this cap rate reset. There's just going to be continual grinding pressure on operators
of these assets over 12 to 18 months. But there could always be some sort of event issue
where things come to a head at once. By the way, this is not news. Asset values in the space have come
down 20 to 30% in many markets already, right? And for some of those markets, it was like a light switch,
and some of it was over time, right? Brian Burke, I think, has some really good detail on this,
on a previous BP podcast. And then I also want to call out, you know, you had Ben Miller on the
on the market podcast, this is CEO of Funrise. And he really has a good handle, I think, on the timing
and credit issues that are coming up in the space. And the fact, you know, how folks are leveraged
and why, you know, your lender A borrowed from lender B to finance property C and everybody
needs liquidity at once, that could create problems.
I think that's really hard to predict.
And I think, again, that's the space where nobody has great data.
And there's a big unknown here.
Yeah, it is really hard to find that information.
And if you want to check out that podcast, Scott was talking about, it came out around
Christmas on the on the market feed.
You can check that out.
It's called the great de-leveraging with Ben Miller.
But Scott, I think this is fascinating and appreciate your take.
I'm curious what you would recommend investors do.
And I guess there's two sides of that, right?
Like as an operator, multifamily syndicator, what would you recommend they do?
And then as people like me who invest passively in syndications and multifamily deals, what would your advice be?
Well, you know, I think if you're in a current syndication, you got to just kind of pray and hold, right?
there's not really another option, right? You're a limited partner and there's nothing,
there's nothing to do. So it all comes down to what you can do going forward. And I think that if
you're considering investing in a syndication, make sure that it's a huge winner, even in a no
rent growth environment, throw out the syndicator's projections, right, on market rent growth and say,
if there's no rent growth, does this thing still make sense over the next couple of years for me?
And does it make sense where even if I have to sell the property with 150 basis point increase
in cap rates in that market, right?
That's a general rule of thumb.
Each region will vary.
You definitely can modify those assumptions by your region if you have a, you know,
one of those markets that has a lot of net migration with very little new construction, right?
Another one is, instead of getting on the equity side in a syndication, consider being on the debt side.
There's preferred equity, which is really consistent with debt.
in the and it turns of its return profile, although it's junior to the more senior debt at the
top of the stack.
Or you can just be, you know, get into a debt fund, right?
If you're going to earn, if the cap rate is 5% and the interest rates are 6.5%,
why not just earn 6.5% interest rates or even higher with other debt funds, right?
That's a lower risk way to earn better cash flow for a period of time, right?
and when things change or if they change, you can always go back to being on the equity side
or when you have confidence in rent growth.
If you're going to go in on an equity deal, maybe consider finding somebody that is going
to syndicate with no leverage at all, right?
Again, if the property is going to produce a five, yield at a 5% cap rate, consider using
no debt at all.
That's actually going to increase your returns in a no or low rent growth environment,
right, while being lower risk.
So that's really attractive.
So these are super bold opinions that I'm trying to bring in here, but I really want to voice this concern because I feel like folks don't understand this.
And I feel like they're getting information.
If you're getting all of your information from people who syndicate real estate deals, recognize that these syndicators, they're great people.
They do a great job in a lot of cases.
But this is their livelihood.
And it's hard to see perhaps some of the risks in this space if your livelihood depends on raising large amounts of capital, buying deals.
and earning money through acquisition fees, management fees, and then having a spin at a carried
interest on the come.
That's great advice, Scott.
Thank you.
Do you see this potential downturn in commercial real estate?
And from what you're saying, it sounds like, you know, I personally believe we'll see a modest
downturn in residential real estate, but this commercial one has more downside, according
to your analysis.
Do you see it spilling over into residential or any other parts of the real estate?
estate industry? This is not good news for real estate in a general sense. So look, I think that you have a
really good handle on the residential market in particular. You have a good handle in all the markets.
I don't think you spend quite as much time in the commercial space. I would say, by the way,
you should take some of my opinions here with a grain of salt because I'm an amateur, aspiring
journeyman in understanding the commercial real estate markets here. But in the residential space,
I think we've got a reasonable handle on that. There's a whole variety of outcomes.
But no, commercial real estate asset values declining will likely be, you know, hand in hand with
residential real estate asset values declining, right?
And we already predict that.
I think three to 10 percent declines, three to the ballpark that you've been discussing
for residential, depending on where interest rates end up at the end of the year next year.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that's super helpful.
But by the way, if you're considering investing in residential real estate, put it on
the bigger pockets calculator and look at the property with a 30-year mortgage and reasonable
appreciation and rent growth assumptions and put it on there without a mortgage and see what
the returns look like. In a lot of cases, the returns are going to be better without a mortgage
on the property, which again is something that is really interesting and something that should
get the wheels turning. You need to really find some good deals right now in order for this to
work, and you might want to consider being on the debt side.
Awesome. Well, Scott, we really appreciate this very sober and thoughtful analysis, and it's clearly
something our audience and anyone considering investing in real estate should be thinking about and
learning more about. Well, Dave, one question I have for you is, is what do you think? I'm coming in
hot with some, you know, some little bit of doom and gloom here, worrying that there's a really
big risk factor brewing in the commercial real estate space. Do you think I'm reasonable with that?
Or do think I'm way off? No, I do. I think that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
It's a serious concern.
I really have a hard time envisioning cap rates staying where they are.
You know, it's just I can't imagine a world where they don't expand.
And as you illustrated really well, just modest increases in cap rates have really significant,
detrimental impacts on asset values.
And we're just seeing conditions reverse in a way that cap rates have been extremely low for a very
long time. And economic conditions, I don't think really support that anymore. And so I think
what you said about rent growth is accurate, the party that we've all seen over the last couple of
years where rent growth has been exploding, the economic conditions don't really support it
anymore. And I think it's time to be very cautious and conservative. I don't see any downside in being
really conservative. And if you're wrong, and if I'm wrong, then it's just a bonus for you. If you
invest really conservatively and rent growth does increase and cap rates stay low, good for you.
But as you said, I think that the most sober and appropriate advice, both in commercial and
residential right now, is assume very modest rent growth, if any at all, assume very little
appreciation. And if deals still work, then that makes sense. But I don't think hoping for improving
conditions is a wise course of action, at least for the next year and maybe two years.
Well, great. I'm, you know, I, again, I feel very, I feel a little nervous, you know,
voicing this concern, right? I'm, I'm essentially coming on the show and saying, I'm predicting a pretty,
I'm not predicting. I'm worried about an up to 30% decline in asset values in commercial
multifamily, right? And that's one area where, you know, I, I, I really enjoyed Ben Miller's
podcast where he talked about the credit risks in here. But I really think multifamily is not insulated
from this.
His risk was for a commercial, like a retail office, there's other other asset classes.
I think multifamily is very exposed right now and that I worry that some of these things have not
been priced in appropriately in the market.
And again, it just comes back down to the simple fact of we're trying to make money as investors.
And how can you make money if rents aren't going to grow and your debt is more expensive
than the cash flow that you're buying?
That has to change.
and I think I think that a reasonable spread between cap rates and interest rates on a national average
is about 150 basis points. And that amounts to a very large increase. That's going from about
five on a national average right now to six and a half percent cap rates. And again,
that destroys a lot of value. So hopefully this is helpful. The only alternative there is that interest
rates go down, right? Cap rate, like if you're saying you need this spread, but I personally think
mortgage rates might go down by the end of 22, 23, but not a lot. You know, I don't think by
100 basis points from where they are right now. And it's, that's a, that is my thought, but I don't
believe that very strongly. I think there's a lot of different ways that this could go. And so I
think that the more probable outcome, as you've said, is that cap rates go up to, to get to
that historic, healthy spread rather than interest rates coming down. Yeah. And there may be,
there may be a combination, right?
That could be a mitigating factor.
They could come down some,
and cap rates could still go up a portion of this, right?
But I'm very fearful of this space over the next year.
All right, Scott, Will, we really appreciate this,
this honest assessment and you're sharing your feelings with us.
It's super helpful for everyone listening to this
and giving me a lot to think about.
Before we let you get out of here,
what is your quick tip for today?
My quick tip is if you're analyzing commercial real estate
or any other real estate, right?
in today's environment, try analyzing it with and without debt first. And then second,
if you're looking at syndicated opportunities, if you're still interested in syndicated opportunities,
make sure that the sponsor is buying deep, buying at a steep discount to market value,
that there's significant opportunities for rent increases just to bring current rents to market
and that the property can still generate an acceptable profit when the syndicator needs to sell it
three to five years later, even if that is at a six and a, you know, a cap rate that is
150, one point five percent higher, 150 basis points higher than what it was purchased at today.
All right. Well, thank you, Scott Trench, the CEO of Bigger Pockets. We appreciate you being on
here. And with that, we are going to turn it over to Matt Faircloth and Andrew Cushman,
who are going to be doing some answering some mentee questions about getting into multifamily investing.
Thinking about wholesaling or flipping your first property, but not sure where to start.
The truth is, deals don't just fall into your lap anymore. You need to go out and create opportunities.
That's where PropStream comes in. With PropStream, you get instant access to over 160 million properties nationwide.
Use 20 pre-built lead lists such as pre-foreclosures, tax delinquencies, and vacant homes to find motivated sellers fast.
And now PropStream has integrated batch leads and batch dialer to provide you with a complete all-in-one solution.
That means you can not only find motivated sellers, but you can also reach out right away.
Skip trace phone numbers free on select plans, then send postcards, emails, or call sellers directly.
Don't worry if you're new.
PropStream also gives you AI-powered insights and comms that are over 99% accurate.
So you know you're making smart offers.
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Start your seven-day free trial and get 50 free leads at Propstream.com slash BP.
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Don't just dream about real estate.
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For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios.
But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive.
But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy,
all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense.
That's the power of the Fundrise flagship fund.
Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10.
The portfolio features 4,700 single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt.
They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought-after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave.
The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind.
It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals.
And it's now available to you.
Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns,
and start investing in just minutes.
Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund
before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at
Fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. For decades, real estate has been a
cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios, but it's also historically been sort of
complex, time-consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly
easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense.
That's the power of the Fundrise Flagship Fund. Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion
dollar portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10.
The portfolio features 4,700 a single-family rental homes spread across the booming
sunbelt.
They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks
to the e-commerce wave.
The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind.
It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals.
And it's now available to you.
Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio,
check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes.
carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise
Flagship Fund.
This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship.
This is a paid advertisement.
Philip Hernandez, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
How you doing, sir?
I'm doing well.
I am super stoked to be here.
Yeah, thank you so much, Andrew.
You are part of the inaugural group of the Bigger Pockets mentee program, and you're here
with a few questions that hopefully we can help out.
with today. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, no, super stoked. And yeah, thank you guys so much for
your time. Yeah, so my question, so in the multifamily world, but also just in the regular,
the real estate world in general, a lot of times when we're starting out, the advice is given to,
you know, partner with somebody that has more experience than you by providing them with some value.
like either finding the deal or or managing the deal or somehow making it easier for the person
that has more experience than you.
What if you're a, the thing that you're able to do to add value is raise capital.
So I'm starting to find some, I'm starting, my network is starting to be interested in investing
with me more.
And, you know, I,
What if I don't have the deal? What if somebody else has a deal? But I'm just starting to get to know them. How would you vet the person that you're thinking of, you know, bringing your friends and families money into a deal for? Yeah. What would your checklist look like? So you do that in a good way.
Important topic. So just to make sure we've got that right. So your question is basically if I'm kind of starting out as a capital raiser, how do I, what's the
checklist look like to pick the right partner or co-sponsor to invest that money with?
Yeah, exactly. Because I feel like I, you know, like vetting a deal as far as doing my own
due diligence, I feel like reasonably competent at that, but, but that's if I'm in control
of everything, you know, so like, what if I'm not in control of everything, you know? So, yeah.
Yep. No, you're right on. And Matt, Matt, Matt's probably had a lot to say on this. So I'm going to just,
I'm going to roll off a few.
things and then I'll let him take over. Number one is I would say go read Brian Burke's book,
the hands-off investor, because it is written towards LP passive investors, but it is the most
detailed in-depth manual for how to vet an operator that I've ever seen in my life. So if you are
looking at raising money and putting that money with somebody else, you need to be an expert in
that book. That's the first thing that I would do. And I, even as someone has been doing,
this for a decade and a half. I read every page of his book. And there's a lot to learn in there.
So do that. Second of all, is if you're going to raise other people's money and then put it in
someone else's deal, do not be just in a limited partner. Make sure that you are either part of
the general partnership or at bare minimum have some level of input or control in the deal.
I unfortunately just last week a friend of mine raised money put it with another sponsor in a deal in Texas
they had a fire the deal is going bad 100% of the equity is going to be lost in the one of the
biggest frustrations with the friend of mine who raised the money is he has no control he can't
he doesn't he doesn't even get all of the information into what's going on so make sure that
you have some level of input some level of control I would also
recommend when you're looking at a specific deal underwrite the deal and do
due diligence on the deal as if it was your own deal and you found it you want
you're you're you're basically duplicating the the underwriting and the
research that the sponsor is supposed to be doing hopefully everything
lines up and you're like wow this guy's great but if not you're gonna
find that and you're gonna save yourself a lot of your save your investors risk
and save your own reputation and
And then, you know, also realize you are really betting more on that operator than you are in any specific deal, especially as the market is now shifting.
Asset management and good operations is where the money is truly made.
We've all been riding a huge wave for the last 10 years.
That has crested.
And the good operators are going to be the differentiating factor going forward.
And then also really from your perspective, Philip, just understand that no matter what, you,
to some degree are placing your reputation in somebody else's hands and you know go
through that vetting process do it slow and and make and if you do it right it can
be in a wonderful thing for growing and scaling and being in focusing on what you're
good at but just keep keep that in mind so Matt I'll toss it over you see what
you see what you have to add well I could just say you know hey I agree with Andrew
which I do most of the time.
So everything Andrew said is 100% correct.
Yes.
Vet them as if you were investing your own capital.
And that's how you should look at it above everything else, Philip, is look at this as if this were your money going into this other operators deal.
Do what you would do if you were writing this check.
Because in essence, the person investing is not investing in that deal.
They're investing in you.
They're coming to you.
Look to help them find a place to park their capital.
They're not so much like, oh, they could just go to that operator direct.
You know, why would they need to go through you?
The reason why they have to go through you is because they trust you, right?
And they're investing with Philip Hernandez and his network and his underwriting prowess and his market knowledge.
So do that.
And, you know, go go through and vet the market, you know, find out why the market's amazing.
Don't just listen to the syndicator, the operator, the organizer, come up with your own homework as to why.
Why get don't just and don't just rely on the these syndicators, you know, PDF documents that
show financials.
Get their real numbers in Excel.
Underwrite the deal yourself.
Get the rent roll and profit and loss statements from the current owner that they're
buying the property from and do your own analysis of the property.
Maybe come up with your own, your own vetting, your own underwriting.
And, you know, and stress test the deal, too.
All these things are done by good LP investors that want to invest in a deal and you need to
act as if it's your powder going into this deal, not your investors. That's number one. I can also
offer you some thoughts if you're looking for it on how you can protect yourself in raising money
for someone else because my guess is you're a great guy, I happen to know that, but you're not doing
this for a hobby, right? You're doing this because you would like to get some sort of compensation
in exchange for placing one of your investors in the deal, correct? Yeah, definitely. The problem is,
And unless I'm wrong, you don't hold a Series 7 license.
You're not a licensed securities equity broker, are you?
Correct.
Okay.
So it's that operator can't compensate you for raising capital because what you're doing
is you're selling a security for them, right?
And I can't cut you a check in dollars in equity that you raise in exchange for raising
capital because that would be compensating you as an equity broker for selling a
security.
And you need a license to do that.
but you don't have. So you need to be, but, but, you know, rest assured, I got you covered.
So the way do you do that is you become a member of the GP, the general partnership, as Andrew had said.
Now, there's a carve out there. You can't just become a GP as a capital raiser. You need to have an
active role in the company. And a capital raiser's job pretty much is over after the, after the company
gets formed. You know what I'm saying? It's not like you need more capital forever. You raise the capital
and the deal closes and then you're done. So what,
you're what the SEC will want to see if there's ever scrutiny on the deal. And to be straight,
not what your investor is going to want to see is do you remain an active partner in the deal.
So Phillips job does not end once the capital is raised because that gets you an active role in the
company as an owner. And if you're an owner of a company in any size owner, you're allowed to sell
equity. You don't need a securities license if you own a portion of the company. You follow me?
Yeah. So you own a portion of the company, but you also need to do something more than just raising
So you could sit on the asset management team.
You could, as we do at Dorosa for my company, what we do is we form a board of directors,
you know, and that board of directors has a voice.
They have say.
We do regular board of directors meetings.
We keep minutes.
We even are total dorks and do the Roberts rules of order where there's motions and seconds
and eyes and that whole thing.
So you can do all that as the board of directors with the capital raisers having a regular
voice on the company.
If the operator is willing to play ball with you and set things up that way, then that's a great way for you to become a member of the GP, for you to have a say and have control, right?
And also for you to become a member of the GP so that the main organizer can legally compensate you in whatever form or fashion you negotiate for yourself.
Yeah.
So if it's a smaller deal and, you know, if there's like three people on the deal, four people on the deal, what is, you know, and.
you said make sure you have a certain level of control what does that actually look like like
control as far as in the dis like the dispo or control like what would I say oh this is how I want that
to look as far as control control in as much as possible right so you get to vote on like you
said on disposition when how approval of price you get to approve does it get refinanced
are you going to fire the property manager and hire a new one? You should have some input into that.
You get input on whether or not to make large capital expenditures. Should they be held back or should
you go forward with them? You get to have input on should distributions be made or should they be held
back to preserve the financial position of the property to get through potential rough times?
So the more input you have, the better that is for your investors. And then also you're going to learn more too, right?
especially if you're on the capital raising side, you know, you're not going to be spending as much time in operations.
You're going to learn more by doing that as well.
So what's interesting, Philip, is that you had talked about, you know, this is a small deal, right?
There's only three to four of you involved in this project, correct?
And I didn't want to scare you or anybody else thinking about like, oh, board of directors.
Well, geez, you know, Microsoft has a board of directors, but this is like a little, however many size, you know, deal.
It doesn't need a board of directors.
Well, yes and no, right?
You don't have to let terms like that.
that scare you or anyone else. There are ways that just, there's just ways to operate real estate
that involves, you know, a couple of partners that also involves private capital coming into the
deal. And every partner having a say, as Andrew said in the project is imperative. Every partner
having a vote. And by the way, it doesn't have to be what Philip says goes. It just to be Philip has a
vote. Philip has a voice. And in all these things, it's typically a consensus or even a, you know,
I say I, nay say nay kind of thing to determine whether or not you take the offer or whether
not you decide to replace the roof. This is how semi-complex real estate happens. And this could be
a four-unit property or a 10-unit property, whatever it is. It doesn't, I don't want people to
view this as any more complex than it needs to be. This could be a very up and down quick
Zoom call that you just make record that the Zoom call happened. And maybe ever here and again,
put yourself on an airplane, fill up and go out and look at the property.
The last thing I'll leave you with and everybody else too.
Too many folks do real estate, do real estate investing like this as a dabble, right?
If you're raising private capital for an operator, you should not raise capital for that
operator unless you're planning on doing it 10 times for their next 10 deals.
Or, you know, maybe growing into your own thing eventually, but you shouldn't dabble in raising
capital for an operator.
You should do it over and over and over again so that your brand gets attached to them and so
that people view you as a capital source for them, and it's something you can do over and over and over
again. It's not something you can try on one time because a typical real estate project could last
five years. And if the economy changes a bit, it could be a bit longer than five years in these
projects to take. So you got to make sure that you like working with these folks and you want to do
a lot more work with them. That's great advice. Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it.
Philip, before you split, man, I want to let you know you were an awesome, awesome, awesome juggernaut.
multi-family boot camp that we had in the one that we kicked off a few months ago.
And I want to thank you for bringing the sauce you brought to that.
It sounds like you're doing just the same for the mentee program.
And I am really grateful to see you here.
Saw you at BPCon.
And I just love your vibe, love your energy, even though you're bundled up there in Los Angeles.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Appreciate you guys.
Take care for help.
Andrew, we got another question lined up here.
I want to bring in, I got Danny.
Danny Zapata.
Danny, welcome to the Bigger Pockets,
podcast, man. How are you today? I'm doing excellent. Thank you for having me on. You are,
you are quite welcome. What is on your mind? How can Andrew and I brighten your day a bit?
What is your real estate question you want to bring for Andrew and I to answer and for the masses to hear our thoughts on?
Yeah. Yeah, let me give you a little context. So I'm a small multifamily investor currently.
I have some properties in Sacramento. And I'm looking to take that next big step to scale. So it's really great
opportunity to pick both of your brains here right now. The question I have is around, you know,
besides differences in lending between small and larger multifamilies, what are some of the other
things you look out for when you're scaling from, you know, that less than five units to 10 to 20
unit properties? Well, Andrew, I know you and I have friendly debates on which is better. Andrew got
pretty much right into big multifamily real estate because he's a superhero and he's able to do that.
most commenters like myself have to climb their way up from like five to 10 to unit to 30 to 40
and scale up in that. But here's, and I'm sure, Andrew, I know you have thoughts on this as well,
but I'll give you my thoughts briefly, Danny, in that when you, the profit and loss statement's
still the same, right? There is still profit and there's still losses and that. There's still
income and expenses. So you're still going to have an income stream, but as multifamily gets,
As you get into bigger and bigger deals, it perhaps becomes a few more income streams.
Perhaps it's not just rental income.
Perhaps it's your P&L is going to show laundry fees and all kinds of other fun things like
trash valet or charging the tenants for cable or other things that come in so that it gets more
complex on the revenue side.
Additionally, things like late fees and that I got scrutinized for showing late fee as income
on a four unit property because, you know, you're showing that as revenue.
You're kind of trying to stretch it.
guess what? On bigger multifamily, it becomes more common and it becomes expected for that to be part of revenue.
Additionally, on the expense side, that can get very big on the expenses on multifamily, not big in the dollars, but big in number of line items you may have.
Like, on a five unit property, you could have, what do you got?
Real estate taxes, insurance, maintenance, maybe four or five other line items.
For a larger multifamily property, you could have 30 or 40 line items on an expense sheet.
that. And you've got a big one that a lot of people on small multifamily don't think about. And that is
payroll. Right. And here's what that means, right? For a four unit property that you own, like,
give me a real life example, Danny, of a small multi that you own right now. So yeah, I have a fourplex in
West Sacramento, a mix of two bedrooms in one studio. Who's managing it? We have a property manager for
that. Okay. Do you, you, you don't write a check, a W2 check to that property manager's salary,
that collects your rent and runs that property for you, do you?
Correct.
Okay.
For a larger multifamily, you will charge a, you will see a property management fee,
but you're also going to see staffing charges.
And it's a good to bad thing because that means that you've got full-time personnel.
And the rule of thumb is somewhere over around 80 units.
A property can't afford full-time personnel.
And that's awesome because that means that person's career, their job is based on making your
multifamily property, you know, meet its goals.
Correct? So that could be a leasing agent. It could be a maintenance tech, those kinds of things. But you do not have those line items in your four unit or in your 10 unit or in your 30 unit doesn't have those things. And so you need to budget for full-time staff whose job it is to make that multifamily sing the song you want it to. Leasing agents, perhaps larger units may, larger properties may have a site manager. Larger properties may have multiple maintenance technicians whose job is to repair things that come up on the
property, big and small. That is far and away the line item that a lot of smaller investors,
as I did, get surprised and say, oh, wow, I have to budget for that. But also exciting,
I now can give these people job descriptions and give them task lists and use software or
whatever to make them fully optimized. It helped them fully optimize their positions in what
they do and help that bring along my property. So it's a good thing, but just to get a budget for it.
Andrew, do you kind of John, what other, I know you've thought of this too, but what other things
do you see in the buckets on bigger multifamily that are maybe not in the buckets on smaller
multifamily income or expense-wise? Yeah. And, you know, your comments. So I jumped straight
to 92 units because of one of the things you said is that the bigger properties will hire,
will be able to support their own full-time staff because I was like, I don't want to manage
a 30 unit from out of state. That's really difficult.
So, you know, you really mentioned quite a few of them and a lot of the really important ones.
Some of the other ones that are actually not necessarily line items on the on the P&L, but some of the other differences, Danny.
One, keep in mind, bigger is mentally more daunting, but bigger is easier.
It's the same amount of work to take down a 10 unit as it is to take down 100 unit.
So my philosophy is as go as big as you comfortably can.
And what I mean comfortable is without putting you or your investors at financial risk.
But just don't be scared by the fact that, well, it's 100 units.
I've never done that yet.
If you've taken down a 10, you've taken down 100.
And it's just the amount of the finances.
And it actually gets easier, the bigger you go.
The other difference when you're starting to scale from like four plexes to 10 units and 20 units is demographics become.
that much more important. If you have a fourplex and it's in the market that's flat or maybe even
declining a little bit and it's not that hard to fill a vacancy or two, right? Because you don't
need that many people to stay full. But if you've got a 20 unit and people are moving out of the
area and you start getting two, three, four vacancies, it's actually going to get harder and
harder to keep that property full and it's less and less likely for rents to go up. So as you scale up,
graphics becomes more and more important because you're not you're becoming a bigger fish in the pond
right when you're when you're a fourplex in the msa with a million people you can kind of swim your
own direction and get away with it as you collect 10 and 20 30 unit properties you're a little bit more
subject to the the currents that are flowing around you and then also another thing to keep in mind when
you get to 10 and 20 units is if you buy a fourplex let's say you house hack it you get f fs
FHA loan, you move in, you get a vacancy, you probably have the reserves to cover that vacancy
for a month or two or three. When you start going to 10 and 20 units, it's a mental shift of
no, I am not personally going to be able to cover all of these properties as I add them to my
portfolio because if you buy 5, 20 units, now you're talking about 100 units. And so you have to
shift the mentality to really running them each as a business. And that means capitalizing
it well up front. So yeah, you're not going to be able to float that $30,000 a month
mortgage, but that's okay because you brought an extra $250,000 to the table when you bought it
and you set that as a reserve account. So those are also some of the differences that I would
keep in mind as you shift from like smaller fourplexes to 10, 20 and then on up from there.
That's a great perspective because I've always kind of looked at, you know, the larger scale
in terms of, you know, if you have 20 plus units, one vacancy doesn't hurt you nearly as much as a small multifamily,
but at the same time, you got to consider all those other things and, you know, declining areas and demographics
that can affect you and make it super hard to fill and keep it that way.
Yeah. It's a double-edged sword, Danny, meaning like, it can be very difficult to take a larger property and bring it.
I mean, I've brought a 200 unit from 30% occupancy up to 95% occupancy.
And I can tell you that was a grind.
It's where I got most of my gray hair.
It was tough.
Because each time you lease one unit, well, great, that's a half a percent occupancy.
You just move the needle.
Whereas you lease an apartment on a four unit, that's 25 percent occupancy.
Just move the needle.
And leasing one apartment could take you from being in the red into the black.
You might have to lease 30, 40, 50 units in a larger multifamily to really make significant
cash flow differences.
The good side is that it can take a, you know,
properties like that can take a bit of a hit from the market with regards to occupancy,
maybe 5%, whatever, it's not going to put you underwater.
You know, and so you lose a couple of apartments.
It's not the end of the world.
Your budget is going to have vacancy baked into it, whereas for a four unit, you're either
vacant or you're not, you know.
I mean, it's not like you can bait.
You're either 75% occupied or you're 100% occupied.
Whereas for a 100 unit apartment building, you could be 85% occupied and be doing okay.
So other questions, other thoughts, Danny, would it have?
How else can we, what other lake can we shine before you hear?
Yeah, that's great.
Thank you.
So, you know, when I look, as I mentioned, I have a few small multifamilies that, you know,
they do okay, cash flow wise.
And I've actually budgeted some of that stuff that you've talked about in terms of
the larger units and kind of keeping accounts for vacancy and different line items there.
But when, you know, what I understand, I've gotten some good advice or some interesting advice
recently around balancing cash flowing versus appreciating properties. So I'd like to get kind of your
advice on is how do you balance those? Because, you know, you have cash flow properties that kind of
pay the bills and then you may invest in appreciating properties where you see a lot of potential,
but they may not necessarily pay the bills or barely break even. So is there kind of a calculus
that you do in terms of how much of each do you have in your portfolio? Yeah, you know,
Danny, I can jump in. I've got a few thoughts on that. I know David talks a lot about this kind of thing on the podcast as well. And it changes when you move from like, you know, this kind of smaller stuff into the bigger stuff. Number one, it also changes with the market, right? So like David's talked about a lot of times, he would buy stuff the last few years with almost sometimes negative cash flow. And, you know, because he knows in three or four years it's going to be worth a lot more. And that was a great multifamily strategy for the last seven years.
as well. You could buy a value ad that had negative cash flow, get it fixed up nice. Like Matt was saying,
he took something from 30 to 95% occupied. Well, it was negative cash flow at 30, but probably
was cash fooling pretty well and worth a lot more at 95%. We're in a different part of the market.
So if you're looking at a 10 unit, 20 unit, I would stick with something that at least cash flows
so that in a worst case scenario, if you can't, if the market shifts against you or the
rent doesn't grow or you can't exit or you can't execute your value ad yet or
whatever your business plan is your worst case scenario is you hold it and you
wait right we're in a point now where the greater focus is hedging against
downside risk and then once that's hedged now you focus on okay what can I do
for upside the other beautiful thing about multifamily compared to single family is
with single family you really are at the whim of the market it's the sales
comps with multifamily if
If you are a good operator, you can execute a plan that increases net operating income and
you can force value increase of that property by increasing the net operating income.
So for me, if I'm looking at a 10-unit property, the current cash flow is important in terms
of hedging downside risk and then future cash flow by executing a business plan and buying
in the right markets, that is important in terms of creating equity.
So with multifamily, you really can have the best of both worlds.
You don't have to say, well, I'm going to stack, I'm going to get no cash fill just so
I can get appreciation.
Multi-family, to me, is one of the best investments out there because you can do both.
You know, also take a global view.
Can you carry it personally or within your business?
We talked a bit ago about, well, if I've got a 20 unit and I got one vacancy, that's
probably not going to affect me.
Okay, that's correct.
correct and again that's one of the advantages if you're going to buy a 20 unit that's almost
completely vacant how are you going to cover that until it is not vacant are you going to you know
can you do it personally are you going to raise a big interest reserve up front before you buy it
there's there are ways to mitigate that but just you know make sure that you have it covered
and in today's market environment make you know factor that in much more than we have the last five to
years. So, you know, just kind of as a quick recap, multifamily, my approach is to try to get both
cash flow and then be able to force appreciation. If you forego the cash flow to try to get even
more appreciation, make sure you bring lots of reserves to the table, whether it's yours, whether
it's investors, whether it's partners to carry you through that period and get you out to the other
side. Matt, got anything else you want to add? Yeah, man, I'll throw just, Andrea, you and I are both
old enough to be able to say we both invested in 2007, 2008, when the bottom fell out, right?
And I do not believe that's what's going to happen again to the market, but I do certainly
believe the market's going to change, you know, it's going to go somewhere in 2023, right?
And I would not be banking on appreciation. Appreciations made a lot of people look like geniuses
over the last 10 years. But really what they did was they picked the right markets and they made
a lot of money on appreciation that they had no control over, meaning like just cap rates went
down, property values went up, certain markets blew up off the charts, and a lot of people
have made a lot of money on activities that they had no real control over. But they were able
to tout that they did. And so I think you're going to see a shift. And I personally today,
from just given what I learned in 2007, 2008, cash flow is king. And I think it'll become more
king over the next couple of years. The properties that I owned in 2017,
2008 did just fine during that recession if they were cash flowing. The properties that were cash
flowing, they might not have been worth what I paid for them a year or two ago, but if they were cash
flowing, you can weather the storm. You're not just having to throw money at them to keep them
going. I personally, my investment strategy would be invest in nothing that doesn't cash flow
the very first day that I own it. I'm not doing negative appreciation. I don't judge anybody that does.
That's just not our strategy. And I would be investing in cash flow because cash flow gives you time.
right cash flow would give you time to hold it for a while until and cash flow with fixed interest
rate debt will give you time to hold it if things get funky in the market for a little bit just keep
cut you know keep cash flowing it until until you can sell at some point in the near future at this
point buying a property with a goal of appreciation to meet your long-term investment goals for yourself
or for your investors is really investing in something you can't control you know and yet you can push
forced appreciation by increasing rents, by increasing N.OI on the property. But the other thing that
the other factor in forced appreciation is cap rate. And cap rate is how a property gets valued.
It's, you know, NOI divided by that cap rate is the value at the time, right? So if cap rates can
expand a bit, if interest rates stay high for a while, cap rates may start going up. And the multifamily
that was worth X today could be worth X minus 10 percent a year or two from now if cap rates continue to
stay if cap rates come up and investors aren't able to pay for properties,
but they're able to pay today.
So I can't control what cap rates do.
I can't control NOI.
I can control, you know, the way I operate my property in that.
So I'm investing 100% in things I can control over the next couple of years.
I've got no faith in the market delivery, you know, taking me to the promised land anymore.
I concur with Matt.
I do not buy.
Personally, I don't buy negative cash flow anymore.
We did that in the beginning.
I don't do it anymore.
And I think 2023, a lot of the, let's say, motivated sellers are going to be people who bought in the last year or two and don't have the cash flow they need to hold on to the property, unfortunately.
I 100% concur.
Again, I don't think a bubble's going to burst and the bottom is going to drop out.
But I do think you're going to see properties on the market for people that, as Andrews said, they just need to get out to just to stop the bleeding or whatever it may be.
Yeah, quick follow up here.
So it's really interesting.
You mentioned kind of how the market's changing and you have all these folks who have properties which don't cap.
cash flow, which may present an opportunity for, you know, investors who want to get more in the
market. So how do you consider? And then you both kind of mentioned, you know, we don't invest in
things or don't want to invest in things where it doesn't cash flow on day one. But I also live in
California, which has some really interesting tenant laws pretty restrictive. So I look at some of
these properties. And from my experience, from the smaller ones, the tenants that you acquire the
property with aren't always the ones that you want to keep long term when you reposition.
So from that perspective, I've been thinking lower occupancy is actually better because it
helps you accelerate the repositioning.
But if I'm listening to your folks correctly, it's not an ideal for this kind of market
situation.
So maybe get a couple thoughts on that.
I'll throw quick thoughts on that one, Andrew.
Remember, Danny, when I talk about negative cash flow properties or properties aren't
performing. Occupancy you can solve. It's 70%. Again, we got into a property that was performing
economically at 30%. I probably would do that deal again today. I would. Because if a deal gets brought
to market and whatever market rate occupancy is, 90, 95%, and it's still lean on cash flow,
that's not a good deal. But if I can do what I can control, I can lease up, I can run leasing specials,
I can put in beautiful kitchens and beautiful bathrooms and those kinds of things.
and I can do what I can control to get a property to cash flow, I'm all in, right?
And if you're talking about a property that's maybe, you know, 70% occupied in a market where
there's a lot of rent control and those kinds of things, that's perhaps an opportunity.
With those, the other 20% of units you can put back on the market, you can put back on a market,
I like that.
You know, Andrew, what do you think, 60, 75% occupied property in today's market?
You know, again, just make sure you can cover it and make sure you can cover it for longer
than you would have planned last year or the year before.
There is opportunity there.
There's just greater risk.
And so risk, you know, there's ways to mitigate it.
And if you're going to take on that risk, just make sure you're doing that.
Danny, this has been an awesome conversation and hopefully relatable to everyone here.
I appreciate you, man.
Thanks for coming on the show today.
Good dog with you, Danny.
All right.
Thank you very much.
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