December 4, 2024 • 38 mins
ABOUT CHARLES SEAMAN
He resides in Charlotte, NC and serves as a Managing Partner of Cash Flow Champs. He’s responsible for building and maintaining broker relationships and performing and overseeing the company’s underwriting activities. He’s also involved with contract negotiation and capital raising to make sure that the deals close, remaining involved after closing to manage the assets so that they perform in a manner that provides investors with exceptional returns. He’s currently a general partner in five (5) multifamily properties totaling 663 units, having gone full cycle on six (6) multifamily properties. He’s also a Multifamily Coach with Master Passive Income and is a co-host of the Charlotte REWBCLUB and the MPI Multifamily podcast.
THIS TOPIC IN A NUTSHELL:
Charles's career and journey to real estate
Investing in single-family homes and wholesaling
Getting into the Syndication space
What’s the difference between Single Family vs Commercial RE?
Building relationships with brokers
Dealing with partners/sponsors
About the 64-unit deal in Charlotte
Price, metrics, and Value Add Plan
Section 8 tenants and rent collection
How they deal with promise-to-pay tenants
What was the projected hold time for this asset?
Average Annual Return
Challenges in the deal
Projecting expense ratios in your market
How to know that an onsite manager makes sense
Connect with Charles
KEY QUOTE:
“The fundamental difference between single-family homes and commercial real estate is that SFH tends to be transactional, whereas commercial is more relationship-based. “
ABOUT THE WESTSIDE INVESTORS NETWORK
The Westside Investors Network is your community for investing knowledge for growth. For real estate professionals by real estate professionals. This show is focused on the next step in your career... investing, for those starting with nothing to multifamily syndication.
The Westside Investors Network strives to bring knowledge and education to real estate professionals that is seeking to gain more freedom in their life. The host AJ and Chris Shepard, are committed to sharing the wealth of knowledge that they have gained throughout the years to allow others the opportunity to learn and grow in their investing. They own Uptown Properties, a successful Property Management, and Brokerage Company. If you are interested in Property Management in the Portland Metro or Bend Metro Areas, please visit www.uptownpm.com. If you are interested in investing in multifamily syndication, please visit www.uptownsyndication.com.
#RealEstateInvesting #RealEstate #AparmentInvesting #AssetManagement #MultifamilyInvestment #CommercialRealEstate #CashFlow #MultifamilyCoach #PropertyManagement #SingleFamilyHomes #Transactional #RelationshipBased #MultifamilySyndication #Brokers #NegotiationSkills #Charlotte #NorthCarolina #Underwriting #Section8Tenants #Landlords #Tenants #BrokerRelationships #BuildingRelationships #InvestmentReturns #AverageAnnualReturn #ExpenseRatio #CashFlowChamps #MasterPassiveIncome #RentalProperty #PassiveWealth #JoinTheWINpod #WestsideInvestorsNetwork
CONNECT WITH CHARLES:
Website: https://linktr.ee/charles_seaman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro speaker (00:03):
Welcome to the Westside Investors Network. Win,
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(00:24):
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Trent Werner (00:41):
Welcome back to another episode of the Deal Deep
Dive segment on the WestsideInvestors Network podcast. I'm
your host, Trent Werner. In thissegment, our featured guests
will share their unique storieson a specific deal they've
invested in. We will dive deepinto finding the deal, financing
the deal, writing an offer, andthe due diligence. Do us a solid
and smash that subscribe button,leave us a rating, and share
(01:03):
this episode.
And now, let's dive deep.Welcome back to the Westside
Investors Network podcast. I'myour host, Trent Werner. On
today's deal deep dive episode,we're joined by Charles Seaman
with Cashflow Champs. Charles isgonna share about his career and
how he got exposure tocommercial real estate and
running businesses as young as20 years old in New York City.
(01:24):
Charles then took a leap offaith and moved to North
Carolina to go all in on realestate multifamily syndication.
We're gonna hear about a 64 unittownhome deal in Charlotte,
North Carolina and all thetrials and tribulations with it.
Now let's welcome CharlesSeaman. Charles Seaman, welcome
to the Westside InvestorsNetwork podcast. Thanks for
joining us today.
Charles Seaman (01:44):
Brett, thanks for having me on.
Trent Werner (01:46):
So Charles and I are going to talk about how he
went from wearing all thedifferent hats in terms of real
estate business management tonow wearing all the different
hats in syndication andmultifamily management and hear
about Charles's deal in NorthCarolina. We'll get to that here
in a little bit. But Charles,where did your career start off?
I know it wasn't specifically insyndication, but it was in real
(02:08):
estate in some capacity. Youwanna share a little bit about
your background?
Charles Seaman (02:12):
Yes. Absolutely. So I I probably took a little
bit of an unconventional path toto get to where I am. My my
commercial real estate exposurestarted when I was 20 years old.
And, you know, when I when Itell people, I say joking, I was
I was young, dumb, broke, and Ineeded a job.
And, you know, I wound upfinding a a position that
allowed me to gain exposure andaccess to a a lot of different
(02:33):
industries, and one of those wascommercial real estate. So when
I started that position, it was02/2005. I was working for a
very successful, you know,serial entrepreneur, for lack of
a better term, in New York. AndI was I was pretty much his
right hand man. So that gave mevery close access to a guy that
was very successful and anopportunity to probably learn
(02:54):
way more than I ever would havebeen like an MBA program.
So in that, commercial realestate was always the the side
that I really enjoyed mostbecause that's what really spoke
to me. And I knew that waseventually something that I
wanted to to be in. So I didn'tknow when I started the job, but
I kind of gained that knowledgeworking there. Fast forward, you
(03:16):
know, a couple of years, when Ifirst started there, you know,
like any job, especially at 20years old, you're you're, you
know, kind of on the lowest sideof the totem pole. But after a
while, I gained a lot of trustand responsibility and and,
moved up.
So I wound up becoming in chargeof running all of these
different businesses andproperties. And through that
experience, you know, I startedmaking more money, started doing
(03:39):
better for myself, and sometimeswe kinda get lost along the way.
Because initially, when I firststarted there, my goal was to
stay there two or three years,go out and run my own business.
And, you know, as you startmaking a little more money and
you start gaining moreresponsibility, sometimes you
you forget that path. So fastforward about a decade, you
know, now we're in 02/1415, andI'm thinking to myself, I always
(04:02):
wanted to go out and do my ownthing.
What happened? And, you know, Istarted dabbling in single
family. I I would have preferredto be in commercial, but I also
knew that I personally didn'thave the budget to go out there
and and, you know, go out andbuy commercial deals myself at
that point. So I starteddabbling in seeing a little
family, started looking atwholesaling. And as I as I
(04:23):
looked at those, you know, I Iwent out, I hired a man to work,
who has a little bit, you know,good relationship with to this
day, but I realized prettyquickly that it just wasn't the
right fit for me.
And for two reasons, one, Ididn't like it, and two, I
wasn't good at it. And part ofit may have just been like, boy,
I'm working on these big dealsat work, and then I'm going out
and doing these deals in my myown time, which is just it
(04:45):
didn't excite me. And I took astep back, continued working my
job, and then in 02/2016 for thefirst time, I I heard about
syndication. And when I heardabout syndication in the past,
it was usually associated with,you know, television or or or a
good mafia story. But looking atthis, I said, oh, this is pretty
cool.
So I could use the the skillsand the expertise I have. I can
(05:06):
go out and do the deals I want,and I can go out and use other
people's money. So that was thatwas something that was very
attractive to me because itallowed me to be in the space
that I wanted to be. And, youknow, '2 from 02/2017 on, I
started, you know, activelylooking for deals. Initially, I
was doing that part time aboutten to fifteen hours a week
while I was still working myfull time job.
(05:27):
And in February, I decided totake the plunge and go full time
in in syndication. And my mythinking was, well, you know,
I've made some progress over thetwo years, but it's not really
as much progress as I reallywant. I can keep going at the
same pace and see what happens,but, you know, jokingly, it
would have probably taken me tenyears to close a deal, Or I can
just go all in and and see whathappens. So I feel like I'm
(05:50):
gonna be clear. I'm notrecommending this approach if
you're brand new.
Some people will work, some itdoesn't. But I I decided, okay.
Well, let's totally uproot mylife, leave my my job for the
last fourteen years, move to adifferent city because I wanted
to focus on the business and beable to be closer to that market
so I could really understand it,and, go all in. So that's what I
decided to do, and that's that'skind of, you know, fast
(06:12):
forwarding to where we are now.
Trent Werner (06:14):
I love it. So you have you have an unconventional
path in terms of, I guess Imean, it is unconventional
because you got a lot ofexposure to real estate very
early on where I think a lot ofother people that invest in real
estate and get into syndicationsmaybe come from different
industries. They have a highpaying W2, are sick of it, and
(06:35):
then want to get into realestate. But you also have a
conventional aspect orconventional path when it comes
to starting in single family andthen working your way up. I have
a couple of questions for you.
The first one is when you firststarted your job, obviously you
got exposure to commercial realestate and all these other
businesses. How come you didn'twant to go be a restaurant owner
(06:55):
or, you know, start a laundromatbusiness or something like that
and wanted to focus on realestate?
Charles Seaman (07:00):
Great question. So admittedly, I did wanna do
those things, but I also knewthat I lacked the capital to do
them successfully. Now now Iguess I could have went out and
found Capital Partners, but thatwould never really crossed my
mind at that point. Andcommercial real estate always
gravitated to me. You know, Ithink part of it was, for lack
of better term, the gamefriendship that you see.
I kinda like the back and forthnegotiation that, you know, it's
(07:22):
almost like a a real life chessgame. And I was like, okay. This
guy moves here. Now what am Igonna do to counter that?
Trent Werner (07:29):
I like that. Okay.
Charles Seaman (07:31):
And that's that's something that's always
really attracted me. I I enjoythat part of it.
Trent Werner (07:35):
And then my other question was you so you got you
invested in single family realestate. Was that local to New
York, or did you go out of statefor that?
Charles Seaman (07:44):
So it was actually in Philadelphia because
when I first hired a mentor, Idecided that it wasn't gonna be
a good fit to invest in NewYork. One, because of tenant
landlord laws, but two, becauseof pricing, which just would
have been very, very expensive.So more Philadelphia. That's
really where I was where I waslooking at and where I was where
I was spending my time focusing.
Trent Werner (08:04):
And then you said that you weren't good at it, in
terms of single family investingand it didn't it didn't peak
your interest.
Charles Seaman (08:11):
Right.
Trent Werner (08:11):
Why why do you say that you weren't good at it? If
you had all this experiencedoing these larger deals, you'd
think that you could do thesmaller deals pretty easy.
Right?
Charles Seaman (08:19):
Great question. So, you know, part of it may
have just been my interestlevel. I'm sure that I could
have developed the skills. Sothere are some fundamental
differences between singlefamily and and multifamily, or
really anything commercial. Andthe fundamental difference that
I see is single family, a lot oftimes, tends to be very
transactional, whereascommercial is very relationship
based.
(08:39):
And what I do really well, youknow, you don't put this on a
resume or a profile, is I'm verygood at building relationships
and being able to, you know,leverage those relationships
with both parties to becomesuccessful with it. So in single
family, you can do that, but notreally as effectively because
most times you're buying a oneoff transaction from somebody.
(09:01):
But in in multifamily orcommercial, you know, whether
it's a broker or a seller, youknow, a lot of times you're
really working on that long termrelationship and it's not just
doing one deal together, butit's doing five and ten and and
hopefully more deals together.And even like like the deal
we'll talk about today, that wasthe first deal I did with the a
broker I've been building arelationship with for two years.
(09:23):
But since then, we've done moredeals.
So once you close that first oneand they they see you as legit
for lack of a better term, theythey wanna do business with you
and they wanna give you moredeals because now it's like, oh,
this guy can this guy canperform. We wanna keep working
with him.
Trent Werner (09:38):
I I wanna I wanna reiterate that because that's
something that we've ourbusiness is solely focused in
Oregon. We've been trying to getto other markets and building
these relationships with brokersout there and trying to get them
to take us seriously, eventhough we have a very solid
sized portfolio here, it's verydifficult. And for all the
listeners that want to get intosyndication, I mean, Charles has
(10:00):
said it doesn't happenovernight. He spent two years
building a relationship with thebroker before finally getting
the opportunity to perform on adeal. But once you show that you
can close, those brokers willrun to you because they know
that you're serious.
They know you're not justwasting their time, and that
takes, you know, two years toget to that point.
Charles Seaman (10:20):
Right.
Trent Werner (10:20):
So definitely, if you wanna get started, you gotta
start now building thoserelationships and the buckets
that you're identifying.
Charles Seaman (10:26):
And they're gonna test you and give you the
bad deals first because theywanna see if you stick it out
and you keep coming back. Sodon't don't expect when you
reach out that you're gonna getthe top notch deal the first
time or even the tenth time. Youknow, they're gonna test you
with some real duds, and they'regonna see, you know, one, how
much you know, and two, how howbad you want it.
Trent Werner (10:44):
Yeah. And and that's, I have a buddy. A buddy
of mine's dad is a commercialinvestor here and is trying to
get to the Nevada market. Andthey bought a place down there
because he wanted to be closerto the market like you did and
building relationships. And hetold me one time he was, I just
have to buy a crap deal to showthem that I can buy a crap deal
(11:05):
so they'll keep sending mesomething.
And I think he ended up doingit. But, you know, like you
said, they're testing you andtrying to see what you know and
how bad you wanna get into thatmarket.
Charles Seaman (11:14):
Yeah. Very true. You know, just a a little tidbit
because it's funny you mentionedthat. Well, two things I would
say. So one of the biggestmistakes that I made starting
out is for, like and and and andI'm generally a fast learner,
but I guess sometimes I can bestubborn.
So, you know, I I have to seethat something's gonna fail
before I realize that I can'tjust let anyone tell me it's
(11:35):
gonna fail. So, you know, I I Ididn't pick a target market when
I first started. And classicmistake. Right? Like, everybody
tells you go out and pick atarget market.
Well, I I said, okay. I'm notgonna do that yet. You know? So
I was bouncing around. I waslooking at deals in you know, my
my partners and I at the time,we we were looking at anything
East Of The Mississippi River,which apparently with a map,
(11:55):
that's a pretty pretty wideregion.
Yeah. So one month, you know,we're looking at a deal in Ohio,
one month in Indiana, twice inKentucky, one of my partners
went to Tennessee. And what werealized doing that, after about
a year of doing this, we finallygot smart and chose a target
market. What happens is youdon't have any relationships in
those markets. Because everytime you're going into that
(12:17):
market, you're the new guy.
And they don't know you, andthey're not gonna vouch for you
because, you know, especially inthe brokerage industry, their
reputation means everything.Because if if they bring a
seller somebody that doesn'tperform, that seller's not gonna
wanna deal with them again. He'sand he's probably gonna say some
foul words about them. So, youknow, they they wanna be very
selective that they're bringingbuyers they feel confident in.
(12:38):
And a lot of times, the wayyou're gonna build that
confidence is just throughrepetition.
You know, you're gonna have togo back and you're gonna have to
show them that you're serious.And, eventually, they start
giving you a shot, but it's it'sgonna take some time to bring
that guard down in their end.
Trent Werner (12:51):
Well, and to the to that point, so clearly your
target market was CharlotteMetro Area. You moved there. And
was that was that specificallyfor this this business?
Charles Seaman (13:03):
The answer is it was. Interestingly enough, one
of the things I've discovered isthat Charlotte is ultra
competitive. I kinda knew thatalready anyway, but I I didn't
realize how competitive. We'vehad a lot more success in the
Atlanta market, ironically. But,yes, that that was really the
reason I moved down because Ifigured how do you get to know
the the market better thanliving and working there every
(13:24):
single day?
Trent Werner (13:25):
Yeah. And I would say well, I mean, I guess I've
never done it, but I wouldassume that building those
relationships is a hell of a loteasier living there than us
flying in and out all the timeany anytime you wanna go get
lunch with a broker.
Charles Seaman (13:38):
You know, that was exactly my thinking. So and
there's truth to that. So a lotof times, my my greatest
advantage is that I'm in themarket. You know, I make it a
priority to see the brokers thatI I have good relationships with
usually every two to threemonths, and sometimes more, but,
you know, every two to threemonths, you know, for drinks,
for lunch, whatever it might be.There's a lot of times I've
(13:59):
toured properties that I reallydidn't have interest in just to
get more face time in front ofthem.
And now let me be clear, Iwouldn't recommend flying across
the country for that, but if youcan do it in, like, a
reasonable, you know, thirty,forty, sixty minute drive, you
know, sometimes it's worth theinvestment just to go to go
build a relationship. And mostof my deals have been worked out
over the launch meetings. Youknow, a lot of times you're
(14:20):
like, okay. Let's let's work outthe terms. And and, like, when
you're having lunch, it justcomes up in conversation and all
of a sudden, you know, thebroker or seller, if you're
going direct to a seller,they're gonna think, What do I
have for this guy?
You know? And they'll say, youknow, how about this deal? Would
you be interested in this? Andmost times, my answer is yes
because, you know, I I neverlike to close the door before
seeing what's there. Yeah.
(14:42):
And and then it's like, okay.Well, if if it pencils out,
let's let's let's look, and thenwe'll we'll put it on paper and
make it work.
Trent Werner (14:49):
Well, so to kinda to kinda dive a little bit
deeper on these relationshipsand the and the target market
aspect or, I guess, idea thatwe're talking about. You said
you've had more success inAtlanta. I know that's not
thirty minutes from Charlotte.
Charles Seaman (15:03):
Right.
Trent Werner (15:03):
But it is it is out of state. How did you, I
guess, start having more successthere when you weren't living
there?
Charles Seaman (15:09):
Great question. So the first deal I did was
actually in the Atlanta market.And while that wasn't really a
market we were looking in,again, it came from a
relationship. In this case, itwas a sponsor relationship. And
what happened is we have beenlooking at deals for a a year or
so, and we were working with thesponsor, submitting offers with
him.
(15:29):
You know, he was very diligentabout, you know, you know,
working with us, which wasgreat. But he could see we were
serious. You know? You know? Onething I never did, and I would
recommend this to anybody who'sbrand new, do not send sponsors
garbage.
If you do that, you're gonnaquickly be on their their their
their shortlist were going tospam and trash. So so I always
made sure that I always had myducks in a row when I sent them
(15:52):
stuff. And even though we didn'twin any of those deals, and they
were all in different marketsbefore we really picked the
target market, he knew that wewere serious. He knew we were
hungry. So in May of of twothousand nineteen, he came to to
me and he said, would you guysbe interested in this deal?
And he lived in the Atlantamarket. Almost all of his deals
(16:14):
are in the Atlanta market. Heowned the property and the
company that focused pretty muchsolely on the Atlanta market. So
he knew Atlanta like the back ofhis hand. And, you know, when
when we looked at that deal Imean, keep in mind, the sponsor
brought us the deal, not theother way around.
It was a '92 unit deal, and andat that point, he wasn't really
interested in doing that himselfbecause he was doing two and
(16:36):
three and four hundred unitdeals, but he thought of us. And
and, admittedly, my firstthought was when I underwrote it
myself, it it didn't make sense.But like many people when
they're starting out, sometimesmaybe you're a little too
conservative on things. So thenI looked at it with the sponsors
on the ring, and I said, well,he owns 2,500 units. I have
(16:57):
none.
He owns his own propertymanagement company. I don't. And
he's done x number of deals, andI'm still looking for the the
first one on on the ownershipside. So I said, maybe he knows
something I don't. Yeah.
Yeah. So so so we decided to runwith his numbers, and that was
our first deal. So as soon asyou close that deal, you know,
(17:18):
you automatically have a littlemore credibility in that market,
and then other people startreaching out to you. Right. So
it's really through osmosis.
It kinda worked out. It startedwith that one. And then even a
lot of the broker relationshipsthat I have in the Carolinas,
many of them are with nationwidefirms that have offices in most
major cities. And a lot of timesthose firms talk. You know, they
(17:40):
say this buyer is good.
This seller is good. This one'sthis one's a pain in the butt.
So just the rest most is it kindof spread organically. And for
whatever reason, there seems tobe a little less competition in
the Atlanta market where we'vehad greater success actually
winning deals there.
Trent Werner (17:54):
Interesting. Well, so so like you said, all these
people are talking, thebrokerage firms that are
national companies, globalcompanies in some cases, they're
all sharing stories. They're alltalking. You close a deal in
Atlanta. Your target market isstill Charlotte to this point.
Correct?
Charles Seaman (18:11):
Correct.
Trent Werner (18:12):
Alright. And we we're gonna talk about a a deal
in Charlotte. Was it your firstdeal in Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (18:18):
That was actually my third one.
Trent Werner (18:19):
Okay. So third deal in Charlotte, Sixty Four
units. What made you wanna buy64 units in Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (18:28):
Yeah. Well, let let let me give a little
clarity. So that is my thirddeal overall, but the first one
in Charlotte.
Trent Werner (18:33):
Okay. Okay.
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Charles Seaman (19:31):
So there was a few of these. One, we got that
property on the contract in qfour of twenty twenty. So for
anybody who remembers, that waskind of, you know, a lot of
uncertainty still with thepandemic. We didn't know what
was happening. So there was afew things.
One, it was in Charlotte. We'vebeen trying to win something in
Charlotte for a long time. Weactually looked at that deal
(19:52):
about a year before, but didn'twant it. And then I happened to
work it out, you know, at alunch meeting with the broker.
And I said, okay.
Well, let's let's let's let'smake it work. What we liked
about it was a few things. Soit's literally a seven minute
drive from where I live. Now thearea I live in is is definitely
a much better area than wherethe property was. But being so
(20:13):
close to the property, we couldalso see that gentrification is
heading in that direction.
Now now keep in mind, you know,if we're only brand new, you
know, gentrification doesn'thappen overnight. So so it's not
gonna you know, you're not gonnabuy there and then six months
see a totally different area.It's It's gonna take time. So we
knew that going into it, but wewe could see, okay, they're
they're gonna be building atrain line over here. It's in an
(20:35):
opportunity zone, but it's anopportunity zone that has some
development going on.
So those are all things that aregonna start changing the area.
And literally, right next to theproperty itself, they were
starting development on a 48unit townhome community. So I
was like, okay. Well, thesethings seem pretty favorable.
You know?
And if it was in a differentarea that I didn't live so close
(20:57):
to, I probably would havereconsidered just because it's
it was kind of a rough area. Butbeing that I I I lived there and
I could see that gentrificationcoming, it was like, okay. Well,
it seems like if we can get thisat a halfway decent price, you
know, it probably makes sensebecause I think it'll just
depreciate as the area improves.
Trent Werner (21:15):
And and the 64 units that we're talking about
are townhomes as well. So youkinda were able to compare
classic townhomes with the newconstruction townhomes that were
going on right next door.
Charles Seaman (21:26):
Yep. And with the new ones, they were actually
gonna be townhomes that weresold off, so that was the
developer's intent. They weren'tgonna be rentals. But it was
like, okay. Well, as soon asthey build these, all of a
sudden, our property will be alot more valuable just by having
that thing next door.
Trent Werner (21:41):
Absolutely. So so 64 townhomes, what were the unit
mixes? Are they all the same?
Charles Seaman (21:47):
So so the unit mix was two threes and fours.
There were eight two bedrooms,28 threes, and 28 fours. Okay.
Very unique unit mix. You know,there's probably not too many
multifamily properties that havea ton of four bedroom units.
So that certainly gave us anadvantage because for people
with larger families thatcouldn't afford or didn't want
the house, You know, they theywere left with very few options
(22:08):
to really pick from, and ourproperty was one of them.
Trent Werner (22:10):
Very nice. And what was the price of purchase,
if you don't mind me asking?
Charles Seaman (22:14):
Yeah. So we we purchased it for 7,400,000.0,
right around $1.15 a door inFebruary of twenty twenty one.
Trent Werner (22:21):
Very nice. And when was the property built?
Charles Seaman (22:24):
So it was built in phases, 1966, '60 '9, and
'70.
Trent Werner (22:28):
Okay. And did you I'm assuming you had a value add
plan going into a deal that wasbuilt forty, fifty years ago.
Charles Seaman (22:35):
Sixty nine? Admittedly, it was really just
more an operational play. Myfavorite value at a lot of times
you know, I look at it and saythere's really two types of
value needs. The first is gonnabe going in, putting a lot of
CapEx, aiming to push rents, andthe second to me is more an
operational play. And what Ilooked at was that well, what I
liked about that property was afew things.
(22:57):
One was just the area improving,but two was with all the
uncertainty at the time, thisproperty had about 70% section
eight. And, like, some peoplemay look at that and say it's a
bad thing. At one time, I wouldhave looked at it and said it
was a bad thing. But thepandemic changed my thinking a
little bit. I'm like, well, 70%sounds pretty good.
I kinda like that certainty ofcollection every month. You
(23:17):
know? Just the wreck hitting,you know, on the third or fourth
or whatever it is in the month,and it's like, okay. Well, you
get a large part of the propertycollected in one one big check.
Right.
So so it was really well, justoperating the property,
continuing to maximize the thesection a vouchers we had in the
area, and writing out the theimprovement in the area so that
(23:38):
way we could capitalize on someof the gentrification.
Trent Werner (23:41):
So when you see 70% section eight, I know it's a
a guaranteed rent or guaranteedrent, you know. Are you able to
increase those rents or or ifthey're below market, get them
to market as easy if it wasn'tgonna be section eight in
Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (24:01):
Great question. So the answer is yes and no. So
you you could often increasesection eight, especially if
there's a gap from what thetenant's paying and what section
eight's maximum allowance is.But it's a lot tougher to do
with an existing tenant than anew tenant moving in. So many
times, you you need to bebringing some new tenants in to
(24:21):
really capitalize on thosebecause a lot of times, they're
giving you, like, a cost ofliving increase on the year over
year renewal, which is great.
But if that if that renewal isgonna leave you substantially
below where their their currentmax value is, you wanna try and
max that so you do wanna get somany tenants in there to to
leverage that.
Trent Werner (24:38):
Yeah. And so you're focused on operational
improvement as we're talkingabout. Was there any operational
improvement that needed to bedone with the property
management side of it, or didyou bring in your own property
management company? How did youdo that?
Charles Seaman (24:52):
We did. Great question. So so initially so
it's it's funny. When when theseller was running the property,
and now keep in mind, this is 64units, so it's not a massive
property. He had six guys onpayroll, which is an absolutely
astronomical amount.
And he told, you know, he toldme, you know, he said, this is
how he does charity. I said, Iand I said, I can see because
(25:15):
these guys are useless. I said,so so so we we knew we weren't
really gonna keep most of themwrong because it just wasn't the
right fit. And I said, you know,I I said, I'm not sure that
we're we're ready to do thattype of charity yet, but I said,
I I respect your, yourinitiative. So right off the
bat, we knew we were gonna makesome staffing changes.
When we first took the propertyover, we we wound up using third
(25:37):
party management. But what wefound is that after about five
or six months, we weren't reallyhappy with the results. And this
is with a lot of managementcompanies. It's not to single
any anyone out. But the thing isa lot of times, especially on
these properties that are, youknow, less than a hundred units,
it's tough to really get a lotof attention from them, and
things always take longer tohappen than you than you really
(25:58):
want them to.
So we we worked out an agreementto, you know, exit the agreement
we had with them, and then wedecided to bring it in first
party and just have one of thepartners had a first party
company. So we decided to bringthat in and have their team run
it. So at that point, thatdefinitely made a difference
because, you know, you'rewatching the expense dollars a
lot closer. Even little things,you know. So, like, the little
(26:21):
things that people don't realizeif they're not hands on
operationally, but, like, like,filing evictions on time, making
sure that you're actuallyfollowing up on on promise to
pays, you know, because a lot oftimes, especially in c class or
lower properties, you're gonnaget promise to pays from
different tenants.
But some of those tenants willthrow it out there very loosely
just to avoid the eviction. Ifyou don't follow-up on them,
(26:42):
they may never actually makegood on it, so you have to
really be diligent.
Trent Werner (26:46):
Yeah. No. And I I heard one time at a at a
convention. I was at the bestever conference, and one of the
panels was saying in housemanagement is great because if
you have third party management,it's harder to get the managers
to manage it like an owner.They're just managing it because
they want the check every month.
Charles Seaman (27:05):
And
Trent Werner (27:06):
what you just said is very true because we have in
house management as well. Andyou're able to control the
expense dollars, see what themanagers are doing because
you're hands on and you're ableto meet with them directly. You
don't have to wait weeks or daysto get reports from them. You
can log in to your own systemand pull reports right away.
It's it's a great way to go.
Charles Seaman (27:27):
Yep, I agree.
Trent Werner (27:29):
So 64 units in Charlotte, Cambridge Park
townhomes is what we're talkingabout. We know the purchase
price. We know the value add, Iguess, plan that you were gonna
take or you took for this. Whatwas the projected hold time, and
how many investors did you havecome in if you raised outside
capital for this deal?
Charles Seaman (27:47):
Yeah. Totally. So with with most of our deals,
we usually project a three toseven year hold. We like to give
a range, and this one was thesame. We usually do our
underwriting on a five year holdjust because that's what's kinda
typical in the industry.
Mhmm. You know, we had about, Ithink, 20 I think about 26 or so
investors in the deal. So a lotof which were, international
(28:09):
investors, which certainlyhelped. So they they have a
different threshold for whatthey're looking for a lot of
times in the the domestic ones.And, you know, that you know, we
we wind up holding it rightaround three years.
So we we sold it actuallyFebruary of this year, just just
a few days more than three yearsabove when we bought it.
Trent Werner (28:27):
What was your projected returns on this when
you were going into it?
Charles Seaman (28:31):
So we had projected you know, a lot of
times, we like to give a rangewith different terminal cap
rates because that's always sucha a big variable. But the most
probable scenarios we had, wewere projecting between 1618%
average annual returns.
Trent Werner (28:46):
Which is solid. And I like how you're talking
about AAR instead of IRR. I feellike Yeah. Average annual return
is easier for a, I guess,anybody to understand, whereas
IRR seems more fugazi, fugaziall over the place.
Charles Seaman (29:00):
Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that. I I say that
all the time. So I think there'sa value in both of them, but you
have to know the audience. And,like, for most of the people
that are investing in thesedeals, I think even though they
may talk about IRR, even thoughmost of the syndicators for us,
you know, a lot of us can'treally explain it.
Mhmm. If you're a financeprofessional and if you've done
that your entire career, it's adifferent story. But for most
people, average out of returnjust makes it a lot more
(29:22):
relatable.
Trent Werner (29:23):
Yeah. And 16 to 18% AR seems very solid for a
three year window. Right?
Charles Seaman (29:29):
Yeah.
Trent Werner (29:31):
What so you sold it in in 2024. Is that what you
actually hit?
Charles Seaman (29:36):
So we fell just shy of that. We were in the mid
fifteens on the average on areturn.
Trent Werner (29:41):
Still solid? Was there anything you could have
done differently with the deal?
Charles Seaman (29:45):
So I don't think so. I think one of the
challenges, and I guess thisthis is with any older property,
is you need to be really carefulwith estimating the CapEx.
Because even if you're notplanning to go in there and make
improvements, things break,things go wrong, you have pipes
that are old, then all of asudden things need to be
(30:06):
repaired. So so we generally tryto be pretty conservative, but
there were probably some moreCapEx expenditures than we we
anticipated. So we thought thethe time to exit was probably
right.
So so overall, I think it was asolid deal. You know, and I
don't think there's too much wereally could have done better
there.
Trent Werner (30:24):
And this is a I guess this is a question I like
to ask people that are indifferent markets from where I'm
at, or maybe there are listenersthat wanna get into Charlotte.
So, you know, projecting, Iguess, more conservative CapEx
on older buildings, that shouldbe, you know, kind of a given to
some people. In terms of expenseratios, what are you projecting
and underwriting and expenseratio to be in Charlotte? If
(30:46):
someone wants to get into there,what should they use for
underwriting?
Charles Seaman (30:49):
You know, it's funny. I've always felt the
expense ratio to be overrated.And and the reason why is I
think it's like I think it's asimple metric, but I think a lot
of times it's misleading. What Ifind to be a lot more effective
is a per unit number. Now thechallenge with that is that's
gonna vary from market to marketwhere the ratio can be kinda
consistent.
Yeah. But but in Charlotte, whatI would say, you know, for a c
(31:10):
class property. So so, like, oneof the mistakes we make here is
we we thought we would need anon-site manager for the the
first six months, and that we'dbe able to write it with no
on-site manager after that. Andfor anybody who's who's out
there and if you haven't done adeal yet, a lot of times that
sounds great in the theory andwith an a class property, that
(31:33):
could probably work fine. Butwhen you're dealing with, like,
a c class or a lowerdemographic, you need that
on-site manager.
It's almost like a babysitter.So so so that was definitely
something like, okay. We shouldhave factored that in all the
way through. But but I think,you know, a lot of times you're
probably gonna be withoutpayroll, 30 or 40%, I think, is
(31:53):
realistic. But once you get intopayroll, 50 to 55 a lot of times
for for a rough number.
But the per unit number, Ithink, will guide you a lot more
because where the differencecomes in is the rent. And, like,
what I always tell people is,well, think of it this way. If
you are charging if you if youown Property A and you're
charging your tenants a thousanddollars, and the guy across the
street owns Property B and he'scharging $1,200, is it gonna
(32:16):
cost you any any less or anymore to fix a leaky pipe? You
know, so so so the plumber'sgonna charge you the same price
either way regardless of therent you're charging. Same thing
with the staff a lot of times.
Right? So you're not you're notgetting a discount on a
maintenance van because youcharge less rent. Most times.
Yeah. Sometimes you could, butthen you're also probably
getting a discount on qualityand service.
So so I look at that per unitexpense and a lot of times for c
(32:39):
class properties in Charlotte,you know, I think nowadays you
probably wanna be in that 6,000to 6,500 a door range. That part
probably puts you in a goodspot.
Trent Werner (32:47):
I like that. That's interesting. I'm gonna
have to look at our portfolioand break it down on the per
unit range and see what thevarying differences are from the
different pockets that we have.Moving on. So we talked about,
you know, purchase price, holdtime, all the different
variables of the deal, thereturns, some mistakes that you
(33:09):
admitted to and are learningfrom going forward.
Is there anything else that youwanna share about this 64 unit
deal in Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (33:18):
You know, I think that kinda sums it up in a
nutshell. What I would tell foranybody listening here, there's
three things I find that arecommon in the deals I've had
that have went really well. Youyou buy right. You finance
right. And if the property isbig enough to have on-site
staff, you get good on-sitestaff.
You know? The the propertiesI've been in that operate really
(33:40):
well have those things incommon. So those are really,
like, your your pillars, I feellike, when you get into these
deals.
Trent Werner (33:46):
I remembered what I was gonna ask you. So what is
your threshold in terms of doorcount to say an on-site manager
makes sense, you know, fulltime, you're not getting rid of
them after six months?
Charles Seaman (33:58):
So a hundred units would be that threshold. I
think you can go as low as 75units, but it's really gonna
depend on how well the propertycash flows. If it if it's a
property that doesn't spit out alot of cash flow, it's gonna be
very tough affording that staffafter six months or or or even
at the beginning. But the closeryou get to a hundred units, the
easier it gets.
Trent Werner (34:18):
Okay. Yeah. That's that's what I wanted to ask you.
And I'm glad I'm glad youmentioned on-site again because
I I've always asked people thatwhen we're talking just, you
know, on a normal conversation.And it's interesting to hear the
different unit count that peoplethink the on-site managers make
sense.
So 100 doors is what you wouldsay?
Charles Seaman (34:38):
Yep.
Trent Werner (34:39):
Okay. I like that.
Charles Seaman (34:40):
And 100 doors is a no brainer. Less than that is
really gonna be dependent on howwell the cash flows.
Trent Werner (34:45):
And you said 75 would be the absolute minimum?
Charles Seaman (34:48):
Yeah. Now in this case, even with the 64 unit
property, you know, one of thethings that I think we often
think when we get into deals,like, as we're starting out is,
like, oh, I should be able tomanage this off-site. And even
though the cash flow can'treally support that staff, it's
like, okay. Managing it off-siteis a lot tougher than you might
(35:09):
think. You know?
And, again, it depends on thedemographic. So if you get that
a class property, you'll befine. Right. With the c class
property, you you need thatbabysitter. That that's who that
on-site manager is, and you needthem to go there and, you know,
really knock on the 10 inchdoors because some of these
people, they're not gonna pay.
And, you need to follow-up, andit's routine that their phone
service gets disconnected. Soyou need to go there physically
(35:31):
and just knock on the door.
Trent Werner (35:33):
And so obviously, we just talked about how your
your minimum number is 75, the64 unit, you know, you said it
might make sense to have anon-site manager. If the if the
64 unit isn't cash flowingenough to support an on-site
manager, have you everconsidered giving them, you
know, a free unit and, you know,maybe a smaller, I guess, salary
(35:54):
on top of the unit to help makethat make sense?
Charles Seaman (35:57):
So it's funny you mentioned that. That's
actually we did this for theproperty. Yes. So so so it is
definitely a strategy. You know,what I would tell anybody here
is that when you have that lowerpaid staff, what you're also
getting is lower quality a lotof times.
Mhmm. And the challenge with itis is how do you still maintain
quality while while not blowingthe budget out of line? I don't
(36:19):
think there's any perfectsolution to it. But, like, one
one example again for adifferent property, like, we own
the 48 unit property in SouthCarolina. And that property, you
know, by itself definitely couldnot have supported on-site
staff.
But one thing that worked reallywell is we we found the
management company that managedthree of the properties in the
area. And with all four of thoseproperties together, it was
(36:41):
enough scale to go ahead and getan on-site manager. And that way
it didn't burden our propertywith the full course. We just
had, you know, a portion of itfor whatever she spent at our
property, and each propertycontributed to whatever, you
know, she did for them. So I waslike, okay.
That that was a good way to doit also because at least she's
still getting a quality managerwho, you know, who's confident
(37:01):
and they care about what they'redoing. And it's like, okay. You
know, you you didn't blow thebudget out. So so sometimes you
have to find that creative way,and you need to figure out,
okay. How do I how do I see apath forward here?
And if you can't see that pathforward, you probably better off
staying out of the deal. Yeah. I
Trent Werner (37:20):
love that idea. I love that. Well, Charles, we
talked about your career, yourbusiness, the deal that we, you
know, we just covered inCharlotte. Is there anything
else you wanted to share today?
Charles Seaman (37:32):
So, you know, I think this has been a great a
great experience. No. Nothingelse to share at this one.
Trent Werner (37:37):
Awesome. And where where can people hear more from
you and connect with you?
Charles Seaman (37:41):
Absolutely. So best way is gonna be on my
Linktree. So I'll give you thatso we you can include that in
the show notes, and that'll haveall the best spots to find me.
Trent Werner (37:49):
Awesome. We'll make sure we add that in there.
Thank you, Charles.
Charles Seaman (37:52):
Likewise. Thanks, Trent.
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Trent Werner (00:41):
Welcome back to another episode of the Deal Deep
Dive segment on the WestsideInvestors Network podcast. I'm
your host, Trent Werner. In thissegment, our featured guests
will share their unique storieson a specific deal they've
invested in. We will dive deepinto finding the deal, financing
the deal, writing an offer, andthe due diligence. Do us a solid
and smash that subscribe button,leave us a rating, and share
(01:03):
this episode.
And now, let's dive deep.Welcome back to the Westside
Investors Network podcast. I'myour host, Trent Werner. On
today's deal deep dive episode,we're joined by Charles Seaman
with Cashflow Champs. Charles isgonna share about his career and
how he got exposure tocommercial real estate and
running businesses as young as20 years old in New York City.
(01:24):
Charles then took a leap offaith and moved to North
Carolina to go all in on realestate multifamily syndication.
We're gonna hear about a 64 unittownhome deal in Charlotte,
North Carolina and all thetrials and tribulations with it.
Now let's welcome CharlesSeaman. Charles Seaman, welcome
to the Westside InvestorsNetwork podcast. Thanks for
joining us today.
Charles Seaman (01:44):
Brett, thanks for having me on.
Trent Werner (01:46):
So Charles and I are going to talk about how he
went from wearing all thedifferent hats in terms of real
estate business management tonow wearing all the different
hats in syndication andmultifamily management and hear
about Charles's deal in NorthCarolina. We'll get to that here
in a little bit. But Charles,where did your career start off?
I know it wasn't specifically insyndication, but it was in real
(02:08):
estate in some capacity. Youwanna share a little bit about
your background?
Charles Seaman (02:12):
Yes. Absolutely. So I I probably took a little
bit of an unconventional path toto get to where I am. My my
commercial real estate exposurestarted when I was 20 years old.
And, you know, when I when Itell people, I say joking, I was
I was young, dumb, broke, and Ineeded a job.
And, you know, I wound upfinding a a position that
allowed me to gain exposure andaccess to a a lot of different
(02:33):
industries, and one of those wascommercial real estate. So when
I started that position, it was02/2005. I was working for a
very successful, you know,serial entrepreneur, for lack of
a better term, in New York. AndI was I was pretty much his
right hand man. So that gave mevery close access to a guy that
was very successful and anopportunity to probably learn
(02:54):
way more than I ever would havebeen like an MBA program.
So in that, commercial realestate was always the the side
that I really enjoyed mostbecause that's what really spoke
to me. And I knew that waseventually something that I
wanted to to be in. So I didn'tknow when I started the job, but
I kind of gained that knowledgeworking there. Fast forward, you
(03:16):
know, a couple of years, when Ifirst started there, you know,
like any job, especially at 20years old, you're you're, you
know, kind of on the lowest sideof the totem pole. But after a
while, I gained a lot of trustand responsibility and and,
moved up.
So I wound up becoming in chargeof running all of these
different businesses andproperties. And through that
experience, you know, I startedmaking more money, started doing
(03:39):
better for myself, and sometimeswe kinda get lost along the way.
Because initially, when I firststarted there, my goal was to
stay there two or three years,go out and run my own business.
And, you know, as you startmaking a little more money and
you start gaining moreresponsibility, sometimes you
you forget that path. So fastforward about a decade, you
know, now we're in 02/1415, andI'm thinking to myself, I always
(04:02):
wanted to go out and do my ownthing.
What happened? And, you know, Istarted dabbling in single
family. I I would have preferredto be in commercial, but I also
knew that I personally didn'thave the budget to go out there
and and, you know, go out andbuy commercial deals myself at
that point. So I starteddabbling in seeing a little
family, started looking atwholesaling. And as I as I
(04:23):
looked at those, you know, I Iwent out, I hired a man to work,
who has a little bit, you know,good relationship with to this
day, but I realized prettyquickly that it just wasn't the
right fit for me.
And for two reasons, one, Ididn't like it, and two, I
wasn't good at it. And part ofit may have just been like, boy,
I'm working on these big dealsat work, and then I'm going out
and doing these deals in my myown time, which is just it
(04:45):
didn't excite me. And I took astep back, continued working my
job, and then in 02/2016 for thefirst time, I I heard about
syndication. And when I heardabout syndication in the past,
it was usually associated with,you know, television or or or a
good mafia story. But looking atthis, I said, oh, this is pretty
cool.
So I could use the the skillsand the expertise I have. I can
(05:06):
go out and do the deals I want,and I can go out and use other
people's money. So that was thatwas something that was very
attractive to me because itallowed me to be in the space
that I wanted to be. And, youknow, '2 from 02/2017 on, I
started, you know, activelylooking for deals. Initially, I
was doing that part time aboutten to fifteen hours a week
while I was still working myfull time job.
(05:27):
And in February, I decided totake the plunge and go full time
in in syndication. And my mythinking was, well, you know,
I've made some progress over thetwo years, but it's not really
as much progress as I reallywant. I can keep going at the
same pace and see what happens,but, you know, jokingly, it
would have probably taken me tenyears to close a deal, Or I can
just go all in and and see whathappens. So I feel like I'm
(05:50):
gonna be clear. I'm notrecommending this approach if
you're brand new.
Some people will work, some itdoesn't. But I I decided, okay.
Well, let's totally uproot mylife, leave my my job for the
last fourteen years, move to adifferent city because I wanted
to focus on the business and beable to be closer to that market
so I could really understand it,and, go all in. So that's what I
decided to do, and that's that'skind of, you know, fast
(06:12):
forwarding to where we are now.
Trent Werner (06:14):
I love it. So you have you have an unconventional
path in terms of, I guess Imean, it is unconventional
because you got a lot ofexposure to real estate very
early on where I think a lot ofother people that invest in real
estate and get into syndicationsmaybe come from different
industries. They have a highpaying W2, are sick of it, and
(06:35):
then want to get into realestate. But you also have a
conventional aspect orconventional path when it comes
to starting in single family andthen working your way up. I have
a couple of questions for you.
The first one is when you firststarted your job, obviously you
got exposure to commercial realestate and all these other
businesses. How come you didn'twant to go be a restaurant owner
(06:55):
or, you know, start a laundromatbusiness or something like that
and wanted to focus on realestate?
Charles Seaman (07:00):
Great question. So admittedly, I did wanna do
those things, but I also knewthat I lacked the capital to do
them successfully. Now now Iguess I could have went out and
found Capital Partners, but thatwould never really crossed my
mind at that point. Andcommercial real estate always
gravitated to me. You know, Ithink part of it was, for lack
of better term, the gamefriendship that you see.
I kinda like the back and forthnegotiation that, you know, it's
(07:22):
almost like a a real life chessgame. And I was like, okay. This
guy moves here. Now what am Igonna do to counter that?
Trent Werner (07:29):
I like that. Okay.
Charles Seaman (07:31):
And that's that's something that's always
really attracted me. I I enjoythat part of it.
Trent Werner (07:35):
And then my other question was you so you got you
invested in single family realestate. Was that local to New
York, or did you go out of statefor that?
Charles Seaman (07:44):
So it was actually in Philadelphia because
when I first hired a mentor, Idecided that it wasn't gonna be
a good fit to invest in NewYork. One, because of tenant
landlord laws, but two, becauseof pricing, which just would
have been very, very expensive.So more Philadelphia. That's
really where I was where I waslooking at and where I was where
I was spending my time focusing.
Trent Werner (08:04):
And then you said that you weren't good at it, in
terms of single family investingand it didn't it didn't peak
your interest.
Charles Seaman (08:11):
Right.
Trent Werner (08:11):
Why why do you say that you weren't good at it? If
you had all this experiencedoing these larger deals, you'd
think that you could do thesmaller deals pretty easy.
Right?
Charles Seaman (08:19):
Great question. So, you know, part of it may
have just been my interestlevel. I'm sure that I could
have developed the skills. Sothere are some fundamental
differences between singlefamily and and multifamily, or
really anything commercial. Andthe fundamental difference that
I see is single family, a lot oftimes, tends to be very
transactional, whereascommercial is very relationship
based.
(08:39):
And what I do really well, youknow, you don't put this on a
resume or a profile, is I'm verygood at building relationships
and being able to, you know,leverage those relationships
with both parties to becomesuccessful with it. So in single
family, you can do that, but notreally as effectively because
most times you're buying a oneoff transaction from somebody.
(09:01):
But in in multifamily orcommercial, you know, whether
it's a broker or a seller, youknow, a lot of times you're
really working on that long termrelationship and it's not just
doing one deal together, butit's doing five and ten and and
hopefully more deals together.And even like like the deal
we'll talk about today, that wasthe first deal I did with the a
broker I've been building arelationship with for two years.
(09:23):
But since then, we've done moredeals.
So once you close that first oneand they they see you as legit
for lack of a better term, theythey wanna do business with you
and they wanna give you moredeals because now it's like, oh,
this guy can this guy canperform. We wanna keep working
with him.
Trent Werner (09:38):
I I wanna I wanna reiterate that because that's
something that we've ourbusiness is solely focused in
Oregon. We've been trying to getto other markets and building
these relationships with brokersout there and trying to get them
to take us seriously, eventhough we have a very solid
sized portfolio here, it's verydifficult. And for all the
listeners that want to get intosyndication, I mean, Charles has
(10:00):
said it doesn't happenovernight. He spent two years
building a relationship with thebroker before finally getting
the opportunity to perform on adeal. But once you show that you
can close, those brokers willrun to you because they know
that you're serious.
They know you're not justwasting their time, and that
takes, you know, two years toget to that point.
Charles Seaman (10:20):
Right.
Trent Werner (10:20):
So definitely, if you wanna get started, you gotta
start now building thoserelationships and the buckets
that you're identifying.
Charles Seaman (10:26):
And they're gonna test you and give you the
bad deals first because theywanna see if you stick it out
and you keep coming back. Sodon't don't expect when you
reach out that you're gonna getthe top notch deal the first
time or even the tenth time. Youknow, they're gonna test you
with some real duds, and they'regonna see, you know, one, how
much you know, and two, how howbad you want it.
Trent Werner (10:44):
Yeah. And and that's, I have a buddy. A buddy
of mine's dad is a commercialinvestor here and is trying to
get to the Nevada market. Andthey bought a place down there
because he wanted to be closerto the market like you did and
building relationships. And hetold me one time he was, I just
have to buy a crap deal to showthem that I can buy a crap deal
(11:05):
so they'll keep sending mesomething.
And I think he ended up doingit. But, you know, like you
said, they're testing you andtrying to see what you know and
how bad you wanna get into thatmarket.
Charles Seaman (11:14):
Yeah. Very true. You know, just a a little tidbit
because it's funny you mentionedthat. Well, two things I would
say. So one of the biggestmistakes that I made starting
out is for, like and and and andI'm generally a fast learner,
but I guess sometimes I can bestubborn.
So, you know, I I have to seethat something's gonna fail
before I realize that I can'tjust let anyone tell me it's
(11:35):
gonna fail. So, you know, I I Ididn't pick a target market when
I first started. And classicmistake. Right? Like, everybody
tells you go out and pick atarget market.
Well, I I said, okay. I'm notgonna do that yet. You know? So
I was bouncing around. I waslooking at deals in you know, my
my partners and I at the time,we we were looking at anything
East Of The Mississippi River,which apparently with a map,
(11:55):
that's a pretty pretty wideregion.
Yeah. So one month, you know,we're looking at a deal in Ohio,
one month in Indiana, twice inKentucky, one of my partners
went to Tennessee. And what werealized doing that, after about
a year of doing this, we finallygot smart and chose a target
market. What happens is youdon't have any relationships in
those markets. Because everytime you're going into that
(12:17):
market, you're the new guy.
And they don't know you, andthey're not gonna vouch for you
because, you know, especially inthe brokerage industry, their
reputation means everything.Because if if they bring a
seller somebody that doesn'tperform, that seller's not gonna
wanna deal with them again. He'sand he's probably gonna say some
foul words about them. So, youknow, they they wanna be very
selective that they're bringingbuyers they feel confident in.
(12:38):
And a lot of times, the wayyou're gonna build that
confidence is just throughrepetition.
You know, you're gonna have togo back and you're gonna have to
show them that you're serious.And, eventually, they start
giving you a shot, but it's it'sgonna take some time to bring
that guard down in their end.
Trent Werner (12:51):
Well, and to the to that point, so clearly your
target market was CharlotteMetro Area. You moved there. And
was that was that specificallyfor this this business?
Charles Seaman (13:03):
The answer is it was. Interestingly enough, one
of the things I've discovered isthat Charlotte is ultra
competitive. I kinda knew thatalready anyway, but I I didn't
realize how competitive. We'vehad a lot more success in the
Atlanta market, ironically. But,yes, that that was really the
reason I moved down because Ifigured how do you get to know
the the market better thanliving and working there every
(13:24):
single day?
Trent Werner (13:25):
Yeah. And I would say well, I mean, I guess I've
never done it, but I wouldassume that building those
relationships is a hell of a loteasier living there than us
flying in and out all the timeany anytime you wanna go get
lunch with a broker.
Charles Seaman (13:38):
You know, that was exactly my thinking. So and
there's truth to that. So a lotof times, my my greatest
advantage is that I'm in themarket. You know, I make it a
priority to see the brokers thatI I have good relationships with
usually every two to threemonths, and sometimes more, but,
you know, every two to threemonths, you know, for drinks,
for lunch, whatever it might be.There's a lot of times I've
(13:59):
toured properties that I reallydidn't have interest in just to
get more face time in front ofthem.
And now let me be clear, Iwouldn't recommend flying across
the country for that, but if youcan do it in, like, a
reasonable, you know, thirty,forty, sixty minute drive, you
know, sometimes it's worth theinvestment just to go to go
build a relationship. And mostof my deals have been worked out
over the launch meetings. Youknow, a lot of times you're
(14:20):
like, okay. Let's let's work outthe terms. And and, like, when
you're having lunch, it justcomes up in conversation and all
of a sudden, you know, thebroker or seller, if you're
going direct to a seller,they're gonna think, What do I
have for this guy?
You know? And they'll say, youknow, how about this deal? Would
you be interested in this? Andmost times, my answer is yes
because, you know, I I neverlike to close the door before
seeing what's there. Yeah.
(14:42):
And and then it's like, okay.Well, if if it pencils out,
let's let's let's look, and thenwe'll we'll put it on paper and
make it work.
Trent Werner (14:49):
Well, so to kinda to kinda dive a little bit
deeper on these relationshipsand the and the target market
aspect or, I guess, idea thatwe're talking about. You said
you've had more success inAtlanta. I know that's not
thirty minutes from Charlotte.
Charles Seaman (15:03):
Right.
Trent Werner (15:03):
But it is it is out of state. How did you, I
guess, start having more successthere when you weren't living
there?
Charles Seaman (15:09):
Great question. So the first deal I did was
actually in the Atlanta market.And while that wasn't really a
market we were looking in,again, it came from a
relationship. In this case, itwas a sponsor relationship. And
what happened is we have beenlooking at deals for a a year or
so, and we were working with thesponsor, submitting offers with
him.
(15:29):
You know, he was very diligentabout, you know, you know,
working with us, which wasgreat. But he could see we were
serious. You know? You know? Onething I never did, and I would
recommend this to anybody who'sbrand new, do not send sponsors
garbage.
If you do that, you're gonnaquickly be on their their their
their shortlist were going tospam and trash. So so I always
made sure that I always had myducks in a row when I sent them
(15:52):
stuff. And even though we didn'twin any of those deals, and they
were all in different marketsbefore we really picked the
target market, he knew that wewere serious. He knew we were
hungry. So in May of of twothousand nineteen, he came to to
me and he said, would you guysbe interested in this deal?
And he lived in the Atlantamarket. Almost all of his deals
(16:14):
are in the Atlanta market. Heowned the property and the
company that focused pretty muchsolely on the Atlanta market. So
he knew Atlanta like the back ofhis hand. And, you know, when
when we looked at that deal Imean, keep in mind, the sponsor
brought us the deal, not theother way around.
It was a '92 unit deal, and andat that point, he wasn't really
interested in doing that himselfbecause he was doing two and
(16:36):
three and four hundred unitdeals, but he thought of us. And
and, admittedly, my firstthought was when I underwrote it
myself, it it didn't make sense.But like many people when
they're starting out, sometimesmaybe you're a little too
conservative on things. So thenI looked at it with the sponsors
on the ring, and I said, well,he owns 2,500 units. I have
(16:57):
none.
He owns his own propertymanagement company. I don't. And
he's done x number of deals, andI'm still looking for the the
first one on on the ownershipside. So I said, maybe he knows
something I don't. Yeah.
Yeah. So so so we decided to runwith his numbers, and that was
our first deal. So as soon asyou close that deal, you know,
(17:18):
you automatically have a littlemore credibility in that market,
and then other people startreaching out to you. Right. So
it's really through osmosis.
It kinda worked out. It startedwith that one. And then even a
lot of the broker relationshipsthat I have in the Carolinas,
many of them are with nationwidefirms that have offices in most
major cities. And a lot of timesthose firms talk. You know, they
(17:40):
say this buyer is good.
This seller is good. This one'sthis one's a pain in the butt.
So just the rest most is it kindof spread organically. And for
whatever reason, there seems tobe a little less competition in
the Atlanta market where we'vehad greater success actually
winning deals there.
Trent Werner (17:54):
Interesting. Well, so so like you said, all these
people are talking, thebrokerage firms that are
national companies, globalcompanies in some cases, they're
all sharing stories. They're alltalking. You close a deal in
Atlanta. Your target market isstill Charlotte to this point.
Correct?
Charles Seaman (18:11):
Correct.
Trent Werner (18:12):
Alright. And we we're gonna talk about a a deal
in Charlotte. Was it your firstdeal in Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (18:18):
That was actually my third one.
Trent Werner (18:19):
Okay. So third deal in Charlotte, Sixty Four
units. What made you wanna buy64 units in Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (18:28):
Yeah. Well, let let let me give a little
clarity. So that is my thirddeal overall, but the first one
in Charlotte.
Trent Werner (18:33):
Okay. Okay.
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Charles Seaman (19:31):
So there was a few of these. One, we got that
property on the contract in qfour of twenty twenty. So for
anybody who remembers, that waskind of, you know, a lot of
uncertainty still with thepandemic. We didn't know what
was happening. So there was afew things.
One, it was in Charlotte. We'vebeen trying to win something in
Charlotte for a long time. Weactually looked at that deal
(19:52):
about a year before, but didn'twant it. And then I happened to
work it out, you know, at alunch meeting with the broker.
And I said, okay.
Well, let's let's let's let'smake it work. What we liked
about it was a few things. Soit's literally a seven minute
drive from where I live. Now thearea I live in is is definitely
a much better area than wherethe property was. But being so
(20:13):
close to the property, we couldalso see that gentrification is
heading in that direction.
Now now keep in mind, you know,if we're only brand new, you
know, gentrification doesn'thappen overnight. So so it's not
gonna you know, you're not gonnabuy there and then six months
see a totally different area.It's It's gonna take time. So we
knew that going into it, but wewe could see, okay, they're
they're gonna be building atrain line over here. It's in an
(20:35):
opportunity zone, but it's anopportunity zone that has some
development going on.
So those are all things that aregonna start changing the area.
And literally, right next to theproperty itself, they were
starting development on a 48unit townhome community. So I
was like, okay. Well, thesethings seem pretty favorable.
You know?
And if it was in a differentarea that I didn't live so close
(20:57):
to, I probably would havereconsidered just because it's
it was kind of a rough area. Butbeing that I I I lived there and
I could see that gentrificationcoming, it was like, okay. Well,
it seems like if we can get thisat a halfway decent price, you
know, it probably makes sensebecause I think it'll just
depreciate as the area improves.
Trent Werner (21:15):
And and the 64 units that we're talking about
are townhomes as well. So youkinda were able to compare
classic townhomes with the newconstruction townhomes that were
going on right next door.
Charles Seaman (21:26):
Yep. And with the new ones, they were actually
gonna be townhomes that weresold off, so that was the
developer's intent. They weren'tgonna be rentals. But it was
like, okay. Well, as soon asthey build these, all of a
sudden, our property will be alot more valuable just by having
that thing next door.
Trent Werner (21:41):
Absolutely. So so 64 townhomes, what were the unit
mixes? Are they all the same?
Charles Seaman (21:47):
So so the unit mix was two threes and fours.
There were eight two bedrooms,28 threes, and 28 fours. Okay.
Very unique unit mix. You know,there's probably not too many
multifamily properties that havea ton of four bedroom units.
So that certainly gave us anadvantage because for people
with larger families thatcouldn't afford or didn't want
the house, You know, they theywere left with very few options
(22:08):
to really pick from, and ourproperty was one of them.
Trent Werner (22:10):
Very nice. And what was the price of purchase,
if you don't mind me asking?
Charles Seaman (22:14):
Yeah. So we we purchased it for 7,400,000.0,
right around $1.15 a door inFebruary of twenty twenty one.
Trent Werner (22:21):
Very nice. And when was the property built?
Charles Seaman (22:24):
So it was built in phases, 1966, '60 '9, and
'70.
Trent Werner (22:28):
Okay. And did you I'm assuming you had a value add
plan going into a deal that wasbuilt forty, fifty years ago.
Charles Seaman (22:35):
Sixty nine? Admittedly, it was really just
more an operational play. Myfavorite value at a lot of times
you know, I look at it and saythere's really two types of
value needs. The first is gonnabe going in, putting a lot of
CapEx, aiming to push rents, andthe second to me is more an
operational play. And what Ilooked at was that well, what I
liked about that property was afew things.
(22:57):
One was just the area improving,but two was with all the
uncertainty at the time, thisproperty had about 70% section
eight. And, like, some peoplemay look at that and say it's a
bad thing. At one time, I wouldhave looked at it and said it
was a bad thing. But thepandemic changed my thinking a
little bit. I'm like, well, 70%sounds pretty good.
I kinda like that certainty ofcollection every month. You
(23:17):
know? Just the wreck hitting,you know, on the third or fourth
or whatever it is in the month,and it's like, okay. Well, you
get a large part of the propertycollected in one one big check.
Right.
So so it was really well, justoperating the property,
continuing to maximize the thesection a vouchers we had in the
area, and writing out the theimprovement in the area so that
(23:38):
way we could capitalize on someof the gentrification.
Trent Werner (23:41):
So when you see 70% section eight, I know it's a
a guaranteed rent or guaranteedrent, you know. Are you able to
increase those rents or or ifthey're below market, get them
to market as easy if it wasn'tgonna be section eight in
Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (24:01):
Great question. So the answer is yes and no. So
you you could often increasesection eight, especially if
there's a gap from what thetenant's paying and what section
eight's maximum allowance is.But it's a lot tougher to do
with an existing tenant than anew tenant moving in. So many
times, you you need to bebringing some new tenants in to
(24:21):
really capitalize on thosebecause a lot of times, they're
giving you, like, a cost ofliving increase on the year over
year renewal, which is great.
But if that if that renewal isgonna leave you substantially
below where their their currentmax value is, you wanna try and
max that so you do wanna get somany tenants in there to to
leverage that.
Trent Werner (24:38):
Yeah. And so you're focused on operational
improvement as we're talkingabout. Was there any operational
improvement that needed to bedone with the property
management side of it, or didyou bring in your own property
management company? How did youdo that?
Charles Seaman (24:52):
We did. Great question. So so initially so
it's it's funny. When when theseller was running the property,
and now keep in mind, this is 64units, so it's not a massive
property. He had six guys onpayroll, which is an absolutely
astronomical amount.
And he told, you know, he toldme, you know, he said, this is
how he does charity. I said, Iand I said, I can see because
(25:15):
these guys are useless. I said,so so so we we knew we weren't
really gonna keep most of themwrong because it just wasn't the
right fit. And I said, you know,I I said, I'm not sure that
we're we're ready to do thattype of charity yet, but I said,
I I respect your, yourinitiative. So right off the
bat, we knew we were gonna makesome staffing changes.
When we first took the propertyover, we we wound up using third
(25:37):
party management. But what wefound is that after about five
or six months, we weren't reallyhappy with the results. And this
is with a lot of managementcompanies. It's not to single
any anyone out. But the thing isa lot of times, especially on
these properties that are, youknow, less than a hundred units,
it's tough to really get a lotof attention from them, and
things always take longer tohappen than you than you really
(25:58):
want them to.
So we we worked out an agreementto, you know, exit the agreement
we had with them, and then wedecided to bring it in first
party and just have one of thepartners had a first party
company. So we decided to bringthat in and have their team run
it. So at that point, thatdefinitely made a difference
because, you know, you'rewatching the expense dollars a
lot closer. Even little things,you know. So, like, the little
(26:21):
things that people don't realizeif they're not hands on
operationally, but, like, like,filing evictions on time, making
sure that you're actuallyfollowing up on on promise to
pays, you know, because a lot oftimes, especially in c class or
lower properties, you're gonnaget promise to pays from
different tenants.
But some of those tenants willthrow it out there very loosely
just to avoid the eviction. Ifyou don't follow-up on them,
(26:42):
they may never actually makegood on it, so you have to
really be diligent.
Trent Werner (26:46):
Yeah. No. And I I heard one time at a at a
convention. I was at the bestever conference, and one of the
panels was saying in housemanagement is great because if
you have third party management,it's harder to get the managers
to manage it like an owner.They're just managing it because
they want the check every month.
Charles Seaman (27:05):
And
Trent Werner (27:06):
what you just said is very true because we have in
house management as well. Andyou're able to control the
expense dollars, see what themanagers are doing because
you're hands on and you're ableto meet with them directly. You
don't have to wait weeks or daysto get reports from them. You
can log in to your own systemand pull reports right away.
It's it's a great way to go.
Charles Seaman (27:27):
Yep, I agree.
Trent Werner (27:29):
So 64 units in Charlotte, Cambridge Park
townhomes is what we're talkingabout. We know the purchase
price. We know the value add, Iguess, plan that you were gonna
take or you took for this. Whatwas the projected hold time, and
how many investors did you havecome in if you raised outside
capital for this deal?
Charles Seaman (27:47):
Yeah. Totally. So with with most of our deals,
we usually project a three toseven year hold. We like to give
a range, and this one was thesame. We usually do our
underwriting on a five year holdjust because that's what's kinda
typical in the industry.
Mhmm. You know, we had about, Ithink, 20 I think about 26 or so
investors in the deal. So a lotof which were, international
(28:09):
investors, which certainlyhelped. So they they have a
different threshold for whatthey're looking for a lot of
times in the the domestic ones.And, you know, that you know, we
we wind up holding it rightaround three years.
So we we sold it actuallyFebruary of this year, just just
a few days more than three yearsabove when we bought it.
Trent Werner (28:27):
What was your projected returns on this when
you were going into it?
Charles Seaman (28:31):
So we had projected you know, a lot of
times, we like to give a rangewith different terminal cap
rates because that's always sucha a big variable. But the most
probable scenarios we had, wewere projecting between 1618%
average annual returns.
Trent Werner (28:46):
Which is solid. And I like how you're talking
about AAR instead of IRR. I feellike Yeah. Average annual return
is easier for a, I guess,anybody to understand, whereas
IRR seems more fugazi, fugaziall over the place.
Charles Seaman (29:00):
Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that. I I say that
all the time. So I think there'sa value in both of them, but you
have to know the audience. And,like, for most of the people
that are investing in thesedeals, I think even though they
may talk about IRR, even thoughmost of the syndicators for us,
you know, a lot of us can'treally explain it.
Mhmm. If you're a financeprofessional and if you've done
that your entire career, it's adifferent story. But for most
people, average out of returnjust makes it a lot more
(29:22):
relatable.
Trent Werner (29:23):
Yeah. And 16 to 18% AR seems very solid for a
three year window. Right?
Charles Seaman (29:29):
Yeah.
Trent Werner (29:31):
What so you sold it in in 2024. Is that what you
actually hit?
Charles Seaman (29:36):
So we fell just shy of that. We were in the mid
fifteens on the average on areturn.
Trent Werner (29:41):
Still solid? Was there anything you could have
done differently with the deal?
Charles Seaman (29:45):
So I don't think so. I think one of the
challenges, and I guess thisthis is with any older property,
is you need to be really carefulwith estimating the CapEx.
Because even if you're notplanning to go in there and make
improvements, things break,things go wrong, you have pipes
that are old, then all of asudden things need to be
(30:06):
repaired. So so we generally tryto be pretty conservative, but
there were probably some moreCapEx expenditures than we we
anticipated. So we thought thethe time to exit was probably
right.
So so overall, I think it was asolid deal. You know, and I
don't think there's too much wereally could have done better
there.
Trent Werner (30:24):
And this is a I guess this is a question I like
to ask people that are indifferent markets from where I'm
at, or maybe there are listenersthat wanna get into Charlotte.
So, you know, projecting, Iguess, more conservative CapEx
on older buildings, that shouldbe, you know, kind of a given to
some people. In terms of expenseratios, what are you projecting
and underwriting and expenseratio to be in Charlotte? If
(30:46):
someone wants to get into there,what should they use for
underwriting?
Charles Seaman (30:49):
You know, it's funny. I've always felt the
expense ratio to be overrated.And and the reason why is I
think it's like I think it's asimple metric, but I think a lot
of times it's misleading. What Ifind to be a lot more effective
is a per unit number. Now thechallenge with that is that's
gonna vary from market to marketwhere the ratio can be kinda
consistent.
Yeah. But but in Charlotte, whatI would say, you know, for a c
(31:10):
class property. So so, like, oneof the mistakes we make here is
we we thought we would need anon-site manager for the the
first six months, and that we'dbe able to write it with no
on-site manager after that. Andfor anybody who's who's out
there and if you haven't done adeal yet, a lot of times that
sounds great in the theory andwith an a class property, that
(31:33):
could probably work fine. Butwhen you're dealing with, like,
a c class or a lowerdemographic, you need that
on-site manager.
It's almost like a babysitter.So so so that was definitely
something like, okay. We shouldhave factored that in all the
way through. But but I think,you know, a lot of times you're
probably gonna be withoutpayroll, 30 or 40%, I think, is
(31:53):
realistic. But once you get intopayroll, 50 to 55 a lot of times
for for a rough number.
But the per unit number, Ithink, will guide you a lot more
because where the differencecomes in is the rent. And, like,
what I always tell people is,well, think of it this way. If
you are charging if you if youown Property A and you're
charging your tenants a thousanddollars, and the guy across the
street owns Property B and he'scharging $1,200, is it gonna
(32:16):
cost you any any less or anymore to fix a leaky pipe? You
know, so so so the plumber'sgonna charge you the same price
either way regardless of therent you're charging. Same thing
with the staff a lot of times.
Right? So you're not you're notgetting a discount on a
maintenance van because youcharge less rent. Most times.
Yeah. Sometimes you could, butthen you're also probably
getting a discount on qualityand service.
So so I look at that per unitexpense and a lot of times for c
(32:39):
class properties in Charlotte,you know, I think nowadays you
probably wanna be in that 6,000to 6,500 a door range. That part
probably puts you in a goodspot.
Trent Werner (32:47):
I like that. That's interesting. I'm gonna
have to look at our portfolioand break it down on the per
unit range and see what thevarying differences are from the
different pockets that we have.Moving on. So we talked about,
you know, purchase price, holdtime, all the different
variables of the deal, thereturns, some mistakes that you
(33:09):
admitted to and are learningfrom going forward.
Is there anything else that youwanna share about this 64 unit
deal in Charlotte?
Charles Seaman (33:18):
You know, I think that kinda sums it up in a
nutshell. What I would tell foranybody listening here, there's
three things I find that arecommon in the deals I've had
that have went really well. Youyou buy right. You finance
right. And if the property isbig enough to have on-site
staff, you get good on-sitestaff.
You know? The the propertiesI've been in that operate really
(33:40):
well have those things incommon. So those are really,
like, your your pillars, I feellike, when you get into these
deals.
Trent Werner (33:46):
I remembered what I was gonna ask you. So what is
your threshold in terms of doorcount to say an on-site manager
makes sense, you know, fulltime, you're not getting rid of
them after six months?
Charles Seaman (33:58):
So a hundred units would be that threshold. I
think you can go as low as 75units, but it's really gonna
depend on how well the propertycash flows. If it if it's a
property that doesn't spit out alot of cash flow, it's gonna be
very tough affording that staffafter six months or or or even
at the beginning. But the closeryou get to a hundred units, the
easier it gets.
Trent Werner (34:18):
Okay. Yeah. That's that's what I wanted to ask you.
And I'm glad I'm glad youmentioned on-site again because
I I've always asked people thatwhen we're talking just, you
know, on a normal conversation.And it's interesting to hear the
different unit count that peoplethink the on-site managers make
sense.
So 100 doors is what you wouldsay?
Charles Seaman (34:38):
Yep.
Trent Werner (34:39):
Okay. I like that.
Charles Seaman (34:40):
And 100 doors is a no brainer. Less than that is
really gonna be dependent on howwell the cash flows.
Trent Werner (34:45):
And you said 75 would be the absolute minimum?
Charles Seaman (34:48):
Yeah. Now in this case, even with the 64 unit
property, you know, one of thethings that I think we often
think when we get into deals,like, as we're starting out is,
like, oh, I should be able tomanage this off-site. And even
though the cash flow can'treally support that staff, it's
like, okay. Managing it off-siteis a lot tougher than you might
(35:09):
think. You know?
And, again, it depends on thedemographic. So if you get that
a class property, you'll befine. Right. With the c class
property, you you need thatbabysitter. That that's who that
on-site manager is, and you needthem to go there and, you know,
really knock on the 10 inchdoors because some of these
people, they're not gonna pay.
And, you need to follow-up, andit's routine that their phone
service gets disconnected. Soyou need to go there physically
(35:31):
and just knock on the door.
Trent Werner (35:33):
And so obviously, we just talked about how your
your minimum number is 75, the64 unit, you know, you said it
might make sense to have anon-site manager. If the if the
64 unit isn't cash flowingenough to support an on-site
manager, have you everconsidered giving them, you
know, a free unit and, you know,maybe a smaller, I guess, salary
(35:54):
on top of the unit to help makethat make sense?
Charles Seaman (35:57):
So it's funny you mentioned that. That's
actually we did this for theproperty. Yes. So so so it is
definitely a strategy. You know,what I would tell anybody here
is that when you have that lowerpaid staff, what you're also
getting is lower quality a lotof times.
Mhmm. And the challenge with itis is how do you still maintain
quality while while not blowingthe budget out of line? I don't
(36:19):
think there's any perfectsolution to it. But, like, one
one example again for adifferent property, like, we own
the 48 unit property in SouthCarolina. And that property, you
know, by itself definitely couldnot have supported on-site
staff.
But one thing that worked reallywell is we we found the
management company that managedthree of the properties in the
area. And with all four of thoseproperties together, it was
(36:41):
enough scale to go ahead and getan on-site manager. And that way
it didn't burden our propertywith the full course. We just
had, you know, a portion of itfor whatever she spent at our
property, and each propertycontributed to whatever, you
know, she did for them. So I waslike, okay.
That that was a good way to doit also because at least she's
still getting a quality managerwho, you know, who's confident
(37:01):
and they care about what they'redoing. And it's like, okay. You
know, you you didn't blow thebudget out. So so sometimes you
have to find that creative way,and you need to figure out,
okay. How do I how do I see apath forward here?
And if you can't see that pathforward, you probably better off
staying out of the deal. Yeah. I
Trent Werner (37:20):
love that idea. I love that. Well, Charles, we
talked about your career, yourbusiness, the deal that we, you
know, we just covered inCharlotte. Is there anything
else you wanted to share today?
Charles Seaman (37:32):
So, you know, I think this has been a great a
great experience. No. Nothingelse to share at this one.
Trent Werner (37:37):
Awesome. And where where can people hear more from
you and connect with you?
Charles Seaman (37:41):
Absolutely. So best way is gonna be on my
Linktree. So I'll give you thatso we you can include that in
the show notes, and that'll haveall the best spots to find me.
Trent Werner (37:49):
Awesome. We'll make sure we add that in there.
Thank you, Charles.
Charles Seaman (37:52):
Likewise. Thanks, Trent.
Intro speaker (37:54):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the
Real Estate ProfessionalsInvesting podcast on Wynn, your
community of investing knowledgefor growth. We hope that this
episode has increased yourknowledge and added value to
your path to freedom. If youwould, please take a second to
rate us so that we can get moregreat investors to interview. If
you or someone that you knowwants to be on, please visit
(38:14):
westsideinvestors.com and fillout our form to be on the show.
Thank you again and enjoy yourday.
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