Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Northwest
Arkansas Investing Podcast, your
go-to source for real estateinvesting in Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
With your seasoned
investor just starting out.
We bring you expert insights,market trends and practical
strategies to help you buildwealth through real estate.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
From buying and
selling to property management
and long-term investmentplanning, we cover it all so you
can make smart, informeddecisions in this fast-growing
market.
Let's dive in.
All right, welcome back toNorthwest Arkansas Investing
Podcast.
I'm here with co-host BrianWagers and back here with Mr
Henry Washington.
Thanks again for being with us,Henry.
We just went through the lastepisode talking a little bit
(00:43):
about debt paydown strategiesand some scaling and some other
things that we're kind oflooking at in our own portfolios
Henry especially, of course andwe wanted to just talk through
kind of what multifamily versussingle family investing looks
like, and Henry's got a wealthof knowledge in that, obviously
with that being kind of the bulkof your portfolio.
(01:04):
So again, thanks, Thanks forbeing here and thanks for being
a part of this.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Anytime, anytime,
happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yes, sir.
So if you haven't, if you don'tknow Henry's story, go back and
listen to the last episode orthe episode we did about six
months ago with Henry.
But I think we want to justkind of dive right in and get to
know a little bit about kind ofHenry, your portfolio again and
we talked a little bit about itin the last episode, how you
went from zero to 30 units inthe first year.
But I think it's important forfolks to understand a lot of
(01:36):
people that are looking to getinto investing and North Dakota
Sargants are looking at maybesmall multifamily exclusively,
but you obviously haveexperience with some single
family as well, being being kindof spread out, uh in there, and
so tell us about what thatportfolio looks like for you.
Um, how much of your currentportfolio around 100 units is
(01:57):
single family and how much ismulti?
Speaker 4 (01:59):
my largest property
is an eight unit.
So I've got an eight unit infayetteville and then I've got
an eight unit rooming house inPittsburgh, kansas.
So both university properties,rooming house too.
What does that mean?
Yeah, it means they're just onebedrooms.
They share a bathroom, sothere's a kitchen on the first
floor, kitchen on the secondfloor, there's multiple
(02:19):
bathrooms on the first floor andthe second floor and then
there's two living areas.
So they pay weekly and they payby the room, so they rent a
room.
So it's like a college dorm.
It's literally across thestreet from the university in
Pittsburgh, kansas, and my eightunit in Fayetteville is
(02:40):
literally across the street fromthe university.
So those are my two biggestproperties.
I at one point had a 12 unitwhich I renovated, rented out
and then sold.
Well, I halfway renovated,rented out and then sold, and
then I've got I think my nextbiggest is I've got a six unit,
(03:01):
I've got a five unit, I've got acouple quads and a bunch of
duplexes, some single familyhomes okay, would you define
what?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
would you define
multi-family?
Uh, some people say five unitsand up, some people say as soon
as that's a duplex.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, I just a duplex
, duplex more than one door.
That small scale, small scalemulti-family to me is like
duplex to 100 units.
Yeah, once you get over 100units, then it's like the large
scale multifamily, and this isjust my.
That's Henry's definition.
It's nothing to do withanything in any book.
That's just how I define it.
I love it.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah.
So just looking at single,let's just look at single family
specifically.
Why is that an asset class thatyou you buy and hold?
Because a lot of people I meanyou're in the flip business
especially there's probably mostof those opportunities that you
bought you could have flippedand made some cash I'll keep a
single.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Um, like the last one
I I'm keeping is uh, it's a
three, it's a three two.
Now.
It was a 3.1 and a half inBella Vista and I bought it for
50.
We're going to put 90 in it andARV on it is 265.
(04:15):
So I can make a pretty pennyselling it as a flip.
But it's literally across thestreet from the lake and the
public access to the lake islike a few houses down from it
and it sits up on a hill, and soI was like I got it that cheap,
I'll just keep it, airbnb itand then my family can use it as
(04:38):
a lake house.
That's awesome.
I'll keep the ones thatstrategically make sense for me
to keep.
Maybe they are just going tocash flow so well because of how
cheap I got it, or maybe it'sin an area that I know it's
going to appreciate, and so it'sjust.
It all depends on location andwhere my money needs are at the
time.
If I need money, I'll flip thatthing and and and and, and but
(05:03):
I prefer to keep the multis andsell the singles.
Yeah, keep a single if it makessense.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Gotcha, do you think
that's changed for you since you
started?
That's been the same Been, thesame Day one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Why do you like
single family, as in?
You know, appreciation, loan,pay down depreciation.
What do you say?
The main?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah, I like singles
um cash flow wise they don't
kick out a ton of cash flow, um,but I like the safety of the
asset class, um, I like um.
The main reason I like singlefamily really doesn't have much
to do with how much money theymake.
(05:43):
It's more to do with how I canserve the people in the
community.
I can be a lot more flexiblewith people in that single
family to small multifamilyasset class because it's just me
, um, and if I have to letsomebody live there for free for
a few months because theyaren't ready to move yet or
(06:06):
can't afford to move yet orwhatever their weird life
situation is, um, I can be superflexible and help them uh in
that by either letting them stayor like uh.
One example I always gave is Ibought a bought a quadplex four
unit and in the bottom one ofthe bottom units, there was a
(06:28):
little old lady in there and shehad been there for over 20
years, so this is the only placeI mean.
She lived there forever.
She raised her kids, fromchildren to adults, there, right
, yeah, um, and only one familyhad owned the thing the whole
time, so like they never raiseda rent, it was just a little old
lady that owned it and just letthis lady live there.
(06:48):
She's paying $350 a month inthis apartment.
So I bought it and $350 a monthis not enough rent for me to
cover.
And she smoked like a chimney.
I mean years, years had beensmoking.
And so we bought it and werenovated every single unit
(07:12):
around her, one at a time.
I never raised a rent, I didn'tput her out, I let her stay
there and by the time we hadfinished everything else and we
got to her unit and we had to doit.
We gave her I think we gave her90 days to find a place to live
.
Like I hadn't looked for aplace to live in 20 something
years.
She was paying 350 bucks amonth rent.
You think she's just gonna findsomething in a couple of weeks,
(07:33):
right?
Um, and then I got my propertymanager involved to help her
find a place to live and thiswhole thing would help her move.
And so, like, if I am buying,you know, a hundred unit, 200
unit, multifamily building, likeI can't take 25% of the people
and allow them to stay cheap,rent and take their time finding
(07:56):
a place to live, cause Iprobably have investors who've
put money into this deal and Ihave to get them a return Right.
It's just it's.
I can be much more flexiblewith the community and take care
of people in a way that wouldbe more challenging in a
multifamily space, and I meanthat's just important to me.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
So that's really the
main reason why I tell people I
like single and smallmultifamily because it gives me
the warm fuzzies.
Yeah, I can help people.
That's cool.
The cool part about real estateis it doesn't matter which
niche you pick, you'll makemoney.
Yes, you just have to figureout what niche makes sense for
you.
So I don't stay in single andsmall multifamily because it's
the most lucrative asset class.
(08:38):
Yeah, I do it because it doeshelp me hit my financial goals
and it helps me hit my I cansleep at night.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Goals, yeah,
absolutely, that's almost my
counter argument.
Exact argument for it formultifamily is there's less
emotion involved in multifamily.
You have one.
You have another layer betweenyou and the rest, like when
you're doing multifamily.
It's built in the businessmodel to have a property, a good
property manager, your propertywill do better, everyone will
be doing better.
So you have like a layerbetween that little old lady,
but you also have a layerbetween the guy who's a
(09:11):
professional tenant and he'sscamming, trying to scan the
system, and they're helping youscreen those, or you have, you
know, there's also not good, sogood people out there too.
Yeah, you can, that's very true, you can, uh, I have found
those as you.
Yeah, as you do, I think, uh,and too, with multifamily.
On the emotional thing, you knowthe, the valuations aren't as a
(09:32):
tied to to emotion, becausesomeone might pay.
You know, just because thecomps are around, someone might
be emotional and buy that houseon the lake and then overpay
what the market says and someonemight come into a financial
doubt.
You know, someone got laid off,they got to sell their house
really quick and now they soldtheir house for fifty thousand
dollars less.
Now that hurts my valuationbased off their emotion.
(09:54):
So you know, with multifamilyit's noi, you know.
You know comps have have weightinto it, but not as much in a
single thing.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
No, I think that's
cool.
I mean, I like how you'vealways hit on that every time
we've had you on that.
There's an actual people aspectto it and it's not all just Big
harsh, Big harsh yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
We need real estate
investors like that 100%.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, because I mean
the reality is, and you 100%
yeah, cause I mean the realityis and you know, at some point
this will change.
But we're in a time where youhave a lot of boomers that have
property they've owned for 20,30 years, like you said, have it
, you know they collect cash orwhatever, and they they don't,
they haven't raised rents in 20years, like that, and so there's
people that have had theirwhole lives in there.
Um, and you know it, it's goingto change regardless.
(10:40):
So kind of being human about itand giving them an opportunity
to get out with plenty of timeand all that kind of stuff I
think is important.
So that's cool.
I want to keep going a littlebit on single family though,
things that other things thatyou like about it.
Obviously, you have theflexibility there.
You could Airbnb, you couldmidterm rent, you could
short-term rent or, excuse me,you could long-term rent, you
(11:00):
could Airbnb, you could midtermrent, you could short term rent
or, excuse me, you could longterm rent.
But other things, I think thatI think that are cool and that
even Zach would say you know whyhe buys single family is the
ease of selling it.
Like you know, with multifamilysometimes your buyer pool,
obviously in general, is smaller.
Being able to show the propertycan be difficult because you
have tenants in both sides oryou have a bigger property, so
(11:23):
it's hard to show it.
Is that something that you takeinto consideration as well as
one of the benefits?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Well, it's definitely
a benefit, but, yes, I do like
the liquidity of it because Ican sell it to, especially now,
people who want to house hack.
So I'm not just selling mymultifamilies to investors, I'm
selling them to regular folkswho want to live in it and house
hack, and so that does help onthe buyer's pool.
(11:52):
Yes, it can be more liquid, butmore liquid in terms of one
asset.
If I'm trying to free up amillion dollars of liquidity, I
probably have to sell multipleproperties, which would probably
take me the same amount of timeto sell, whereas if I sold one
100 unit multi-family building.
Right.
So some liquidity from thatperspective.
(12:13):
Yes, ease of management I thinkI think starting out with a
single or a multi is a safe playfor new investors, because we
may think we want to be the nextyou know monopoly bajillionaire
and a 350 unit property.
But I can tell you like there'sa lot of stress in that space.
(12:37):
Right, you've got a lot ofpeople who are like tapping you
on the shoulder to say what theheck's going on with this
property?
Why aren't we doing this?
Why aren't we doing likethere's a lot of things that
people don't think about, whatit takes to truly operate
properties at that scale and,like I said, you just don't know
what you don't know.
So going in doing a couplesingles, a couple small multis,
(13:00):
can help you really understandwhat's it truly like to operate
property and then you may learnlike you know what.
That's not my thing.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Or you may learn that
like, oh yeah, give me more
Absolutely, but you don't wantto take on a massive project,
get in over your head and thenhurt not just you but other
people, cause I think in inmultifamily and large scale
multifamily it's hard to do iton your own.
You're probably going to haveto raise some money.
And like there is a weight,there's a you know, a stress and
(13:32):
a burden that comes withborrowing money at that scale
and not being able to produce.
Yeah, and you don't't wanna.
And this is a small business.
In other words, like, yeah, youdo business here in Northwest
Arkansas, you do business inTexas, but it's a small world.
You screw up and people in allthose states know who you are
(13:53):
and it's harder to continue togrow Like you don't wanna damage
your reputation just startingout.
So you might wanna take a smallswing first.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I understand it's so
different of a game too when
you're taking other people'smoney versus it's your own money
.
So there's that added, like yousaid you're going to have.
It's going to be hard to puttogether a 300 unit apartment
without more than a couple ofpartners.
Yeah, awesome.
And I think also to your point.
Reputation is everything.
You should have that mindsetwhether you're buying a single
(14:21):
family or a multifamily or alarge one, and I am in the
mindset of, I think startingsmall is good.
My first one was an $89,000home in Springdale.
My mortgage was like $500,000.
Rent was $950,000.
And for me it was the guy paidme first of the month.
I knew that I got lucky, Ithink because he paid me venmo
(14:42):
first.
I use venmo and like a samplelease and I think one of brandon
turner's like book on rentalproperty using almost like shit.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Okay at least right I
screen him right.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
But like the worst
thing, like his burner went out
one time and that was it.
And like I called myfather-in-law, I was like hey,
can you come?
Can you come help me fix hisburner?
Because I too am not handy.
You mentioned in the lastepisode you don't have to be
handy to be in real estate.
But it made me learn that Idon't want.
For me it was just scalability.
(15:15):
I didn't see the scalability insingle family.
I was like I'm'm gonna buy onehouse a year for 10 years and
look up You're a go getter man.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Yeah, I can see you
like knowing Brian.
I was just doing the math.
It's like he's gonna pay me afour year.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah he's like.
But for me it was like thatfirst one.
I was like I need to get intoreal estate.
Okay, let's do this.
Okay, now I'm in real estate.
I could say I'm in real estate,but then I was like I'm in real
estate and I'm going to do thisonce a year for 10 years.
Like no, that's not gonna,that's not gonna work.
(15:50):
So I was like, okay, everyone Ilistened to in multi, like
bigger pockets, had a lot ofsingle family, but they had some
commercial real estate guys,some guys doing bigger thing.
And you know, it was like theyalways ask them what's one thing
you would have changed?
And they're like I wish Iwould've got started.
The guys in commercial realestate said they wish they
would've got started incommercial real estate.
It kind of was with my visiontoo.
(16:11):
I was like, okay, I need to putlike the niche down.
That was the next.
Was that 12 unit, the 12 unit?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
didn't look back from
there.
I love that.
Well, I guess the other con too, or thing that I'm thinking
about obviously a lot of realestate guys out there would say
you know the limited cash flow,obviously that we talked about,
but you know, when it's vacantyou don't have like another side
pulling anyway.
It's just you have one singlefamily home and so if they move
(16:37):
out you're footing the bill.
Yeah, you know, if you havemultiple single families, then
you have, you've got multipleroofs, instead of if you had a
duplex or something or fourplex,you've got four units under one
roof.
You know, maybe, maybe the costefficiencies there and stuff
like that.
Another thing, though, that I'mcurious about in your
experience is it easier tofinance as an investor a single
(16:59):
family or a duplex or a?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
small family?
I don't think so.
I think it's again.
I'm probably going to use alocal community bank.
Yeah, and I'm probably going touse a community bank that loves
that asset class.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
And so it doesn't
matter if it's 300 unit
apartment building or one doorsingle family home, they're just
going to care about.
Are you getting it for a goodprice, right?
Is it going to produce theincome that it's supposed to
produce?
So, if they like that assetclass, like it's not the size of
the deal, that makes it easy tofinance.
It doesn't make money, right?
(17:32):
Um, but it could be a challenge, yes.
If you're talking to the wronglender, yeah, and I think that
happens a lot with new investors, is they think lenders and
financing are, uh, they'll usethe wrong tool for the job,
right?
So if you're struggling to getfunding for your deal, it's
(17:55):
probably one of two things yourdeal sucks.
And it's not as good as youthink it is, um, because you've
got these professional deallooker adders looking at it and
wanting to give you money whichmeans either your deal sucks or
they don't care about that kindof asset and that and so like I
could be buying the best deal inthe whole world if I'm talking
(18:16):
to a lender who doesn't want tolend on single family and
they're just going to say Idon't want to do this, so I just
you either need to go find alender who doesn't want to lend
on single family.
they're just going to say Idon't want to do this, so I just
you either need to go find alender that does what you want
to do or your deal sucks.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
So it's easy.
I think it's easy to financeany asset that is, that you're
buying at the right price.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, that makes
sense.
I love that so kind of I meankind of wrapping up single
family there.
I'd love get into intomulti-family now and and
obviously you've got a lot ofexperience in this as well up to
eight units, as you said, isyour biggest one down in
fayetteville.
That's a great property.
I drive by that one all thetime.
But for you you know mostpeople this is kind of the holy
(18:54):
grail and this is what they wantto get into.
Yeah, maybe not.
Maybe they don't have anyinterest in single family at all
.
What do you see as the biggestbenefits in owning multifamily
over single family?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
I mean the biggest
benefits is the multipliers on
the income right and theprotection of having multiple
tenants, right.
If you can maintain, somewherearound you know, 80 to a hundred
percent occupancy and in yourproperties you're probably going
(19:27):
to make money.
If you're buying a really gooddeal, um, which is cool, um,
it's uh it.
You know people get into realestate cause they want passive
income, right, and then theyrealize that being a landlord
isn't really passive, yeah, butif you are in more of a large
scale multifamily space, it'smore passive than the single
(19:51):
family space.
Right, because of what Briansaid earlier.
There's layers in between.
You've got built in propertymanagement, right, like Brian's
not showing up to his 310 unitbuilding looking under
somebody's sink, right.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Like he probably
rarely ever has to go because
there's built in layers inbetween the owners and the
everyday operations of theproperty.
So it's much more passive thansingle and small multifamily.
So I totally see that benefitfor people.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, you're asking
the single family guy, the
multifamily benefits, and Ithink I mean you mentioned it
too that you're going to have togo replace 10 HVACs.
You're not going to have to godo that multifamily One because
you probably have a maintenanceguy or the property management
team that you're hiring has amaintenance guy that's going to
go over there.
You probably don't even see,like, depending on what you tell
you, tell them they may say,hey, we got a couple quotes for
(20:46):
a thousand, but a lot of thisstuff you don't.
A lot of this stuff you don'tsee.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
uh, which I like in
the past well, you don't
physically see like I'll go seeit at a property.
He sees it on pnl.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, yeah that's a
big thing, and that goes back to
the emotion too.
It kind of it helps.
It forces you to take theemotion out of it too right,
because you are.
It is based on thosemultipliers too.
At the end of the day, it'swhat's on that spreadsheet right
, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And then just kind of
going back to the, the cash
flow potential, cold, heartlessmultifamily, exactly, guys,
exactly.
It doesn't make money.
Get them out of of here.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
There you go Exactly.
There's good causes I cansupport.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Yeah, there's need to
be there.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
There's need to be
the cheering.
That's funny.
No, I think a lot of what guyswill talk about out there is the
benefits of multifamily.
Two-plus units is the moreunits you have, let's say a
four-plex.
If you're raising the four plex, each unit, 50 units, there's
200 more dollars a month andyou've now created this much
(21:49):
more in value.
Um, the multiplier is beautiful, yeah, and a lot of times too.
I mean tell me if I'm wrong orwhere this kind of flips over,
but in, I guess, in a lot ofcommercial, most all commercial
really is based off of netoperating income, whereas, you
know, even two to four units isnot, I wouldn't say as as much.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Uh, you know the the
sale price isn't necessarily as
dictated on the on the netoperating income, would you say
that's the truth, or Around herefor sure, like that's something
you'll learn too is everymarket is different.
So you could buy four units innorthwest arkansas and it'll be
value on the comp approach, andyou can buy four units in
(22:31):
chicago and it'll be valued onthe income approach.
Yeah, so it's really like it'skind of locally specific to how
it's.
Your poor uh, assets,especially in that smaller range
, like if it's above four units,most of the time they're going
to.
How the assets, especially inthat smaller range, like if it's
above four units, most of thetime they're going to use the
income approach.
But when you get that, that,that four unit, then yeah, that
that's a.
That's a weird one.
(22:52):
It can be dependent on whereyou're at, but anything less
than that and it's just comps.
Yeah, exactly.
But you know it's interestingtoo, because I am refinancing a
six unit in Joplin and theydidn't do the income approach.
They valued it based on compsand we got a very low appraisal
(23:16):
based on the comps, even thoughit's making more money than that
.
So you really do have tounderstand your market, how they
value properties, how yourbank's going to value that
property.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Interesting.
Would you say that that's morebank-specific, or you think
banks in that area in generalwould do it the same way?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
It's bank-specific,
because they're the ones that
are going to give you the money.
So they're going to dictate howthey want to value the property
.
That's fair.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I like the way you
can capitalize multifamily too.
You know you can have the.
You know it's a lot built tohave the investor partner and
then the quarterback the guywho's putting the deal together
is managing the property manager, you know, and then you have
just the investor partner andyou can do that too with single
family.
But I like that that model isbuilt to capitalize with the
(24:00):
true investor partner and thetrue operator.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, that makes
sense and what you'll see in
multifamily a lot of times,especially commercial, based on
the income approach.
Really, brian, your job is tobuy properties at a good deal,
create more value throughraising their income whether
that's, you know, renovatingunits or creating other sources
(24:23):
of income and now you've createdthis new value where you will
exit in three to five years ormore that's that's what that
looks like for them from the Ahundred percent and that could
be just operating it better.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It could be from a
mom and pop that hasn't raised
rents, or or maybe they havereally high expenses, maybe they
have their own managementcompany and they're spiking
expenses.
So sometimes a lot of the commonthing is value add is I'm going
to fix up the exterior and fixup the interior and raise the
rent, which is a great businessplan.
But sometimes you can run itbetter than the next person If
(24:56):
you're looking at the comparablerents and you're looking at the
comparable expenses and vacancyand seeing how they're taking
it and completely mismanaged.
So, yeah, I think that's a bigpart of the business plan too.
And then I want to make sureI'm putting the right debt on it
too, like capitalizing it withthe right lenders, with the
right structure too, that it canwithstand if vacancy goes up,
(25:18):
or if you know I have thesebuffer months that I you know.
Sure, the market says 5%, butwhat happens if a bunch of units
came online?
Or you know we're in a slowseason, like what, what, what
are we?
Are we dipping into reserves?
Do you have enough reserves?
So I think capitalizing that issuper important too.
Yeah, and part of the businessplan.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
That makes sense,
henry, on uh on multifamily.
On multifamily, tell me alittle bit more about challenges
that you feel like you see inthere.
One thing specifically is whenyou were first buying small
multifamily, was it moredifficult to collect rent from
like a two to four unit or thetenant wise?
(25:57):
Did it change at all?
Speaker 4 (25:59):
challenge.
The challenge isn't tied to itbeing a multi or a single.
The challenge is tied to tenantselection, and tenant selection
is tied to who the propertymanager is.
So if you're self-managing,that person is you, and if
you're not self-managing, that'sa property manager.
And brian mentioned earlier,like that quarterback manages
the property manager.
Like, yeah, I think in themultifamily space that's
(26:20):
something that you need to put alot of time and effort into,
because good property managersare hard to find.
I don't care if you're a singlefamily in the multifamily, it
doesn't matter in the commercialspace.
Like a good property manager ishard to find and so your job as
the property owner is to getgood at tenant selection or to
(26:41):
get good at property managementselection yeah yeah, um, and
evaluating that, evaluating themand then not just picking one
that's good and then neverfollowing up to make sure that
they're actually performing anddoing what they said they're
going to do.
So I actually what brian does inthat quarterback position as a
multi-family operator.
I did as my nine to five before.
(27:01):
So I left Walmart and I wentand I worked for a fund that
manages apartments who buyslarge scale multifamily and then
manages assets all over thecountry, and my job was the.
I was the asset manager, so Imanaged like 10 properties and I
managed the property managersthat manage those properties,
and so I would say I would sayit was more work for me managing
(27:30):
those property managers than itwas for me actually managing my
single family portfolio.
Yeah, because these propertymanagers they're not.
They're not tied to theseproperties in any sort of
financial way other than thefact that you know your property
manager, who's actually ongrounds managing the property,
is just a salaried or hourlyemployee of a company.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
And so, like their
level of care for what happens
there can really vary betweenlike they're really bought into
that company or they could givetwo craps about what's going on
with that property, and likeit's your job as the owner of
that asset to be able to dig inand find out what's going on
with my property managementcompany, but also what's going
on with the person who'sactually sitting at the desk at
(28:16):
the front when people arewalking in.
Like am I losing money out thedoor because they're not doing a
great job of renting theseunits Like it's it's.
There's a lot to that, rightit's it's different.
So you've got to be really goodat tenant selection period, no
matter what asset class you'rein, and if you're in single
family, that's either you doingit or your property manager
(28:36):
doing it, and you better knowhow to evaluate a good property
manager and then stay on top.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, have you had to
go through multiple property
management companies in yoursingle-family journey.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Yes, yes, single
family.
Yes, yes, we're on our secondone.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And when you do that,
do you switch your whole
portfolio over?
What kind of strategy do youhave?
Speaker 4 (28:56):
So I only got a few
units with one person, with one
company, and I just didn't,didn't like the way it was going
and then so when I turned overeverything here, when I turned
over everything here, I did turnover the majority of the, the,
the, the units to them, butthat's because they were
managing a couple of units forme in a different city, so I had
(29:16):
seen how they operate in adifferent city.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
That's cool, yeah, so
seeing how they operate in a
different city.
That's cool.
Yeah, so experimented, not justsaying here's my whole 90 unit
or 800 unit portfolio.
It gives them a good trial run.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Yeah Well, they had a
trial run because they were
really one of the only games intown, in the other city and so,
but I thought they were doing agreat job.
So when they moved to this city, they actually came to me and
they were like you should let memanage your units, because I
like managing my units and Ithink you're not going to care
about my units as much as I am.
And I don't know if I talkedabout this on the last episode,
(29:49):
but the thing that sold me onthem was they're like look, man,
we don't care about your unitsas much as you do.
We're not an owner, but we arewell more equipped to take care
of your units than you are.
We can be much more efficientthan you can be.
And so he basically told me hewas like you're paying for a
(30:10):
property manager now.
You just in the lost grants andthe and the you know
maintenance things that gounchecked, and you're paying
more than 10% for propertymanager right now.
You're just paying for a badmanager.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
So you're doing
property manager, and that's the
perfect way to put it.
Yeah, yeah, that's likeanything like.
You know you get a good cpa,they're worth their weight in
gold.
You know you get a goodattorney, you get a good
property manager they're worththat.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
You get a good broker
you they're worth that
commission, you know so yeah, uh, henry, as we, as we wrap up,
one thing I wanted to hit realquick uh that I think a lot of
people like to hear, after wetalked through single family and
multifamily, and that you'vebeen a part of both of those.
Tell me about your favoritedeal, how you got it, how you
financed, and we'll see whichone this falls into.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Yeah, my favorite
deal.
Another eight unit actually itwas four duplexes.
Is it my favorite deal?
It was just an interesting deal.
Yeah, you got a lot offavorites.
Yeah, I got it.
My eight unit by the universityis probably my favorite deal,
but we've talked about that one.
So this first eight units Ibought, we ended up finding it.
(31:20):
So I was driving for dollars, Ifound a townhouse kind of
apartment complex is probablylike eight, eight or 10 units
and it looked pretty run down.
And so I was looking up theowner on county records and I
pulled I saw a picture of thedeed and then on the deed I saw
the title company who closed it.
And so, instead of just likesending mail to this owner, I
(31:43):
saw that the title companyclosed.
It was the title company I use.
So I called my closer and I waslike hey, do you know X Y Z
that owns this building?
She was like, yeah, no, I waslike great, can you set up a
meeting?
And she was like sure.
So she called him.
She set up a meeting.
We went to lunch, he walked us,he showed us these units because
he was like, yeah, I'll sellthem and sell them.
And so he showed us the units,but the price that he wanted for
(32:04):
them just didn't make sense foras much work as they needed.
And so after that lunch we weregetting ready to leave, and
before we did he always saidthere's always one question.
You ask every investor what'sthat question?
(32:27):
You got anything else and he waslike yeah he was like yeah, I
got like these duplexes butthey're bad, bad, you don't want
them.
And we were like, no, they'relike no, they're real bad.
And they were like, well, let'sgo see him.
And he was like all right.
So we pull up on this street,it's this little cul-de-sac, and
there's probably there's thesefour duplexes and then there's
one, two, three, four, fivesingle family homes.
That's all that's on the street.
(32:48):
So it's a little cul-de-sac, um, and so he's like, all right,
come on, and he just pulls adrill out and because there's no
keys, he's just got the doorsall just nailed and drilled shut
.
And we walk into them and someof them it's just missing holes
in the roof, it's raining inside, like it's moldy, it's
disgusting.
And three of them people werelimiting them.
(33:08):
Well, that's the bad news.
And he was like man, I'll justget it.
If you give me what I got ondebt on these, plus five grand
for my pocket, you can havethese.
And we were like, all right,well, what you got.
And he was like I think I owe$200,000.
I think I owe $200,000.
So I think we contracted thosethings for $205,000 for all four
duplexes.
That's crazy.
(33:28):
We got a lot of credit to fixthem, we fixed them, and now I
think we get, I don't know,$1,100, $1,200 a door, yeah, out
of that thing, crazy yeah.
And then valuations got up likecrazy.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
So driving for
dollars works.
So driving for dollars works.
Driving for dollars works.
Yeah, even in the deal weweren't looking.
He's like you don't want these,we definitely yeah, that's a
great point.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Some of the best
deals I've ever done were just
you got anything else.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah and uh kind of
flows from so many different,
you drove for dollars to get areferral.
From that referral you thenasked if you had anything else.
So you kind of used like threedifferent methods in one.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
Yeah, cold called
yeah, cold call called my title
agent.
Yeah, that's amazing andeverything I love it.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Hustle.
Well, henry, we appreciate yourman.
They always appreciate yourtime.
We value it a ton and uh.
Thankful for your insight andwhat you do.
And and uh, I think there's alot of nuggets in here, talking
about single family andmulti-family, the good and bad,
and where can people reach you.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Also, Best place to
find me is on Instagram.
I'm at the Henry Washington onInstagram Awesome.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
We appreciate your
time, man.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Thank you, man.
Thanks to see you on the ground,Appreciate it.
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Speaker 2 (38:30):
Special thanks to one
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Speaker 2 (40:59):
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Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.