How Two Soccer Moms Went from Small Multifamily to $11M Real Estate Deals

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast, Show 806.

Breanne:
So I understand that we need all this money. How do you get it? I was just like, I don’t even know how we’re going to get like $1 million at first, and then as you start building it and talk to people, you’re realize, “Okay, there’s an avenue out there.”

Matt:
Getting one person to give you $1 million is very difficult. Getting 20 people to give you $50,000, if you’ve got the right systems and processes and the right mindset around it, is much easier.

David:
What’s up everyone? This is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast, the biggest, the baddest, the best real estate podcast in the world here today. Joined with my co-host Matt Faircloth. Matt is a good friend, fellow superhero fan, and really good multifamily real estate investor who is joining me today with two of his standout students from the BiggerPockets Multifamily Bootcamp, Breanne and Denise. First off, Matt, welcome, glad to have you here on the show today.

Matt:
Honor to be here. Real quick David, as you know, I’m a Captain America fan. Who’s your favorite superhero real quick?

David:
I like Beast from the X-Men as a kid.

Matt:
Oh, you went to Beast? Okay. I’m with you. All right.

David:
Yeah, I liked that he was savage, athletic and smart. He was kind of like Batman.

Matt:
He’s the beast trifecta. He’s a bit of everything. Yeah.

David:
Yes, but he loses every fight he’s in. He never does anything spectacular. So I always thought he was going to become a bigger player in the Marvel universe than he did. But yeah, he’s probably my favorite.

Matt:
That’s because they had Kelsey Grammar play him, but that’s what you’re going to do. Yeah. No, [inaudible] play a superhero, but that’s fine.

David:
That’s it.

Matt:
But anyway, thanks for that. As you know, I’m a Captain America guy and awesome to be here with you today and talk all things multifamily superheroes and all the phenomenal David Greene analogies coming at us today in the episode as well.

David:
Yeah. So let me ask you, as a newer investor, what’s something that people can look forward to getting out of today’s show?

Matt:
You know David, this is a phenomenal episode about scale, right? We’ve got some guests here, just the conversations about starting on smaller accessible real estate and scaling quickly into larger and larger real estate. So you don’t have to start at a 100-unit apartment building. You can start small and buy that 100-unit apartment building pretty quickly down the road once you learn the ropes and learn the lessons.

David:
And before we get deeper into these, today’s quick tip is every partnership needs a gas pedal and a brake pedal. If you want to accelerate your learning and investing, you can sign up for the BiggerPockets Multifamily Bootcamp with Matt Faircloth here. And as a bonus quick tip, go look for a partner and sign up together. It might work out for you like it did for today’s guests.
All right, let’s get to Breanne and Denise. Breanne and Denise, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. So happy to have you lovely ladies. Now, my understanding is that you both took the Multifamily Bootcamp with my buddy Matt Faircloth here, learned how to be better multifamily operators, and were the standout students from the class. So congratulations for winning a contest that you didn’t know you were in, but the prize is you get to be here on the podcast with us.

Denise:
We’re delighted. Thank you so much.

Breanne:
Yes, thank you,

Matt:
Breanne and Denise are go-getters man, and they set some big, hairy, audacious goals for themselves. They fully immersed themselves in the bootcamp. They actually set some of the standards in the bootcamp that we still carry now about what it is to go all in the BiggerPockets Multifamily Bootcamp. So they would bring deals ahead of time, they would come on the bootcamp, bring them on live, and they would chat with some things that they were working on and stuff like that. So far and away really grabbed onto opportunities that were in front of them through the bootcamp with both hands and latched on. And I think that we’ll hear more of their success stories today, but I think that they’re very committed, go all in. They really have each other’s back as partners that I see.
And one more thing that I really, really commend them for is they don’t chase shiny nickel when it comes to markets. So many people, David, you talk to are investing in chasing 30 markets across the continental United States. Breanne and Denise are smart enough to pick a specific market, which we’ll hear about today, and really, really triple down on that market of San Antonio, Texas and become experts there. So that’s why I’m a big fan and I’m really grateful to have them on the show today.

Denise:
Thanks. We’re excited. Can’t wait to tell you all about it.

David:
As a result of that bootcamp, you two got into contract on a 104-unit building, ended up deciding to not close on it, and we’ll talk about what came up during the process to get you out of it, but just what was that process like to get into contract on a hundred unit building after your first bootcamp?

Breanne:
It was a lot of hard work. I mean we put in so many LOIs, underwrote several deals, meeting with brokers and everything. A lot, so much work. So much work. You don’t even really realize until you’re in the thick of it how much work it is.

Denise:
But it was exciting. It was definitely a lot of upping our game and adding a lot more zeros to the type of deals that we’re used to doing.

Breanne:
Yes.

Matt:
It’s a great way to look at it, more zeros, right? I mean we’re going to talk about some of your origin story deals that you guys had. And in a lot of ways, a lot of the psychology is really being okay with a couple more zeros involved in the transactions, right?

Denise:
Yeah, absolutely.

David:
Now, you two are real estate investors and partners before you got into the bootcamp, correct? You knew each other earlier.

Denise:
That’s correct, yeah.

David:
Right, and you live and invest in the San Antonio area. You’ve partnered on two properties together prior to this, but way less zeros. And you’ve done 30 real estate transactions between the two of you, correct?

Denise:
That’s right.

Breanne:
That’s right. Yeah, mostly flips and then a couple of smaller multifamily properties together.

Denise:
And a few single family rentals.

David:
Right. So kind of the standard stuff most BiggerPockets listeners are going to be comfortable with. And then you decided to go from taking on the small little criminals in Gotham City to Thanos himself and jumping up into the big leagues here. Now, before we hear more about this deal that you bought, which I’m curious to learn more about, can you just share how the two of you met and started this partnership?

Denise:
Yeah, so I actually kind of stumbled into real estate investing. I had been a stay-at-home mom and a teacher before that and went through a divorce and found myself needing a job, basically needing to provide for myself. And my dad was very entrepreneurial, had grown a business and had some money he wanted to put toward real estate and just said, “Hey, would you be interested in learning about this with me?” So we did, we did some learning and then realized we could create a business that would allow me the flexibility that I wanted because I had little kids at the time and I really wanted to spend time with them and be able to pick them up after school. And it seemed like a great fit for my skillset, being able to project manage and run contractors. And I love the design aspect of being able to work on a house.
And so that’s kind of how I got started in it, was basically managing a bunch of flips and putting my parents’ money to work. So I was starting out stewarding their money and figuring out how to grow that for them, all the while providing for myself. So that’s kind of how we got started and I’ll let Breanne jump in and share how we met.

Breanne:
Yeah, I got started because we actually had a lot of debt, personal debt, student loans, car payments, and I was down the path of, as Dave Ramsey says, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” and I knew that something had to change, and I had always had a real passion towards design and real estate in general. When I was a little kid, my favorite show was Bob Vila’s Home Again and This Old House-

Denise:
Love that show.

Breanne:
-The OG HGTV.

Denise:
Yeah, exactly.

Breanne:
And I knew I wanted to get flipping houses, but I had no idea how to do it, and I was just determined. I made a decision that I was going to pay off all of our debt, that was going to happen no questions, and I was going to start flipping houses no questions. So the question then became how, and so I started talking to everybody and I started listening to the BiggerPockets podcasts and I was like, “All right, I’m going to pay off all this debt, and while I’m doing it, I’m going to educate myself.” I built a calculator on how to analyze the deals and how to estimate the rehab. And while I was networking and talking to people, somebody on our kids’ soccer team said, “Hey, that lady over there, she flips houses.” I was like, “Really?” So I picked up my camping chair and set it down right next to Denise and said, “Hi, I’m Breanne. I heard you flip houses.”

Denise:
The rest is history, right? So we started chatting and I basically said, “Well, you want to come see my spreadsheets? Do you want to come do some demo at a house?”

Matt:
Such a real estate investor pickup line right there, come on.

David:
That’s right.

Matt:
You know?

David:
How nerds meet each other.

Denise:
Yeah, I mean I was still fairly new at it. I’d only been doing it for a couple of years. I think we were on house number five or six, something like that. So I still felt like very much a newbie in a lot of ways, but we had some systems down. I had met a lot of contractors. I kind of generally knew what we were doing, and so I just said, “Hey, you want to come meet all these people? Come meet agents, come meet contractors, come meet wholesalers, go walk houses with me.”
And so during that probably almost a year of us getting to know each other and her coming along and showing that we have shared values and perspectives on what our goals are, we enjoyed hanging out and potentially working together. And then Breanne, she was searching for her first flip. She also ran across our first small multifamily, a triplex, and brought it and said, “Hey, I don’t see how this can’t be a great deal,” and she was right.

Breanne:
Yeah. So I found this $99,000 triplex, and it had two tenants living in it currently, one vacant. It was in pretty rough shape, but it was still habitable. And I was looking at the rents that they were bringing in compared to the purchase price and I was like, “Gosh, I mean I don’t know, I’m still new, I haven’t really looked at rentals, but I feel like this is a really good deal.”
But at this time, I had paid off a whole lot of debt and had only saved up a little bit of money, and that little bit of money I had given to another real estate investor who was doing a flip and he was kind of showing me how he ran his business with my investment. And so I was basically tapped out, but I knew I really liked Denise. She had already shown me how she ran her business, and I could see that she was a systems-oriented person and definitely somebody who I wanted to work with. So I brought this deal to her and I said, “Hey, I don’t have any money, but.”

Denise:
Also, I don’t have much either. I’m a single mom with little kids, but hey, my parents like real estate investing, and they-

Breanne:
Do you think they’d give us a loan?

Denise:
So we convinced them, we showed them our business plan. We basically proved to them that it would be worth it, and they allowed us to borrow bridge funding from them to make the deal happen, which was a tremendous gift. I know that not everybody has easy access to that, but in our case, again, it was very much, “All right, we know that they get paid first. Of anything that comes out of this, they’re getting paid first.” And sure enough, when we were able to refinance out of it and do basically a birth strategy with a triplex, we were able to pay them off, and that was such a fantastic feeling, and it was great for them because they made some money. They’re like, “So, you going to put this money back to work for us?” Which we love.

Breanne:
We did.

Denise:
Yes, we did.

David:
So bonus quick tip here. When you meet someone and they ask if you’d like to see their spreadsheets, that’s them trying to be your friend. That’s the equivalent of a five-year-old who’s like, “Hey, do you want to play or do you want to see my toys?” Always say yes

Matt:
That’s a real estate investor, “Do you want to be my friend?”, right?

Denise:
Yes, absolutely.

Matt:
Quick comment guys. I really love a bit of your backstory there, thank you for sharing that. I find that though those real estate investors or business owners in general but had the biggest why, that they want to get going. For Breanne for you, it was to get you and your family out of debt. For Denise, it’s obviously a single mom, live a bigger lifestyle, stand on your own two feet, all those kinds of things. Those are big whys. And those real estate investors that I know that have a big enough, why are the ones that are willing to hustle, grind, not just looking for the world to bring them deals or anything like that. They’re looking to do whatever it takes to succeed. David, what do you think?

David:
Yeah, there’s definitely … That’s such a good question. It revolves mindset. Entrepreneurialism in general, I tend to refer to it as the house cat versus the cat in the wild. We’re raised in a W2 world where someone brings us our tuna every day and they say, “Here you go, eat your tuna.” And then we complain about the fact that, “Well, I can only eat the tuna they bring me. There’s a ceiling. I can only go so high.” We see all the negatives of having a job. They have to show up every day and have to punch a clock. There’s got to be more to life than this. And there is, but when you leave that world, what I call the W2 world where you get tuna brought to you every day, you have to learn how to hunt, and that never sinks in till people get there.
You get rid of the ceiling that held you back, but you lose the floor that was safe to you. Now you have to develop the skill of finding what you want to eat and then knowing is that a thing worth chasing, right? Cheetahs don’t chase every single gazelle, they try to find the one they have the better chance of shaking down. You can’t spend your whole day analyzing every deal that comes your way. You’ll never get anything done. You’ll burn up all your time and your calories and your energy. You have to learn how to hunt when you do it. And we can call it grinding, we can call it hustling, then people go, “Oh, I don’t want to do that. That’s hustle poor and I don’t want to work my life away.”
We could call it whatever we want to call it, but what I refer to it as is hunting. You have to find the opportunities that you want in life and then build the skill to take that down. It doesn’t have to be a dirty word. It actually I think makes life more fun. There’s a confidence and a swagger that you walk around with knowing, “I can get that person to be my friend. I can raise capital for these people and make them a return. I can take down a deal and I can manage it well,” where you just hold your head a little bit higher because you feel good about yourself, but no one’s going to do it for you.

Matt:
I just want to acknowledge the first glorious David Greene analogy has been dropped. So fantastic house cat versus wild animal guys. Where in your life right now are you being a house cat when you really ought to be a wild animal? Well done. Love that David. You got me thinking about that. Sometimes I’m like, “Where’s my tuna?” I’m like, “No, I got to go get it. I got to go find the tuna. Nobody’s bringing that to me.”

Denise:
I do not naturally come by that hunter personality. That is not something that I had five years ago. I feel like I’ve kind of, again, sort of stumbled into that. But what I have realized is that if you are not already that person, if that is not something that you feel confident and strong in, that going out and talking to every single person about real estate, find those people who are and just kind of show up and be willing to show them your spreadsheets and offer to introduce them to somebody. You have something to offer, you have something to bring to the table.
And a lot of people who get into real estate investing, they do it because they already have money and they don’t necessarily have the time and they want to put their money to work. But then there are a lot of people who, if you don’t have that money, you’re going to be bringing the time and energy, you’re going to be putting in that sweat equity. But there’s something really fantastic about that partnership between people who have one or the other and can team up and go really far with it.

David:
I think that’s a wonderful point Denise. I’ve referred to that in other real estate books as fish catching versus fish cleaning. Sales and the 1099 job is a little bit more how do you catch a fish, what do you put on the hook, how do you find them, where are the fish? There’s a skill in setting the hook and getting the fish in the boat. And then there’s fish cleaning, once the fish has been caught, it just sits there and rots if you can’t actually manage the operation, keep the thing profitable. So you have to have people that know how to do both, and then how they combine synergistically is what makes a great partnership, which I know we’re going to get into later in the show. You two found each other with similar values, but different skills, and that I think is the key to a successful partnership, and it’s wonderful at seeing how that worked out.

Matt:
So what are your roles? You guys are partnered up now, right? What do each one of you do in the partnership? Who’s catching the fish and cleaning the fish, everything like that? Talk us through with more specifics what each of you do for your business, and maybe also weave in some things you guys have done past that triplex it sounds awesome that you did with your parents coming in to finance that as well.

Breanne:
Yeah, so when we first started working together, that actually was a concern of mine because I had learned enough about owning and operating a business to know that you need people who have complimentary skills to you. And when I first was getting to know Denise, I was a little concerned that we had too much in common and that we weren’t different enough because we both loved the design. We both loved managing the projects and we had some strong opinions one way or the other.
And so it did take owning that first property and managing it. At first, we didn’t really define any roles. We definitely have done that now, but at first we were just kind of figuring it all out. And we each tend to gravitate towards a different job. And as we kind of practiced working together, we were able to actually see that actually we’re very different. We have very different skillsets and they compliment each other quite well. So I knew that she was somebody I wanted to keep partnering and to hunt for that next deal, which we did find.

Matt:
So you did the hunting, if you will, and the investor relations capital raising. Denise, what was your side? You were cleaning the fish, but in real estate talk, what was that?

Denise:
Lots of operations. So again, I love running a project, accounting aspect. That part to me, I enjoy, I like the spreadsheets and things like that. Just making sure that every task gets done, that nothing’s overlooked, that’s really where my strength is. I don’t love hunting. I had said for years, “I wish someone would just bring me deals,” and then I met someone who, which was fantastic because she brought both of the deals that we had, a triplex and then a fourplex that we actually just recently sold. And so that was a full cycle deal that was excellent. We were able to create the returns that we had hoped for. We executed on the project that we planned. So it was a very good feeling. For anyone who knows that feeling of executing, getting full cycle on a deal, it’s such a great feeling.

Matt:
It is because you go into a deal with thoughts and potential and possibility, and then you are able to generate cashflow and sell it, and it produces the results you anticipated. So there’s nothing better than that.

David:
Matt, I know you’re a fan of superheroes. You look a bit like a superhero. We were talking earlier about the fact that you’ve become ridiculously fit, you’ve lost a ton of weight, put on a whole bunch of muscles, and you look like Steve Rogers recording right now. You tend to look at investing through this prism of superheroes. So I’m going to throw it to you and let these ladies describe what their superpowers are when it comes to investing.

Matt:
Well thank you, David. And as you know, I’m a superhero junkie. And so when we developed the personalities that we know exist that are required around real estate investing, I just said, “Hey, this is an opportunity for me to throw out a little superhero shout out.” So I called them the four superpowers of real estate investing, and this is one of the concepts that we teach in the Multifamily Bootcamp.
Briefly, those superpowers are the person that goes out and networks and has lots of relationships and kicks in doors to produce deals. That’s called the Hunter, right? In this conversation, that’s Breanne. Then there is the person that underwrites the deals and analyzes them and creates a business plan from that deal. We’ll talk about in a second on who’s doing that in your team, because awesome story there. Then you’ve got the person that takes that deal and takes that business plan and gets investors excited about that, and also assembles the debt and puts together the money. And that person is creatively called the money, and that money person goes and gets the investors that signed up to enroll and everything like that. Then you’ve got the most important yet the most under-promoted and under-bragged about role, right Denise, on the superpower-

Denise:
The fish cleaner.

Matt:
-Avengers team. Right, the dish cleaner.

Denise:
The fish cleaner, yeah.

Matt:
The fish cleaner, and that’s the person that we call the hammer. And that’s because what they’re doing is they’re taking this deal, this business plan, these dollars, which is all that is is potential, and [inaudible] the potential to make a lot of money for yourself and for investors or potential to completely wrap all that potential around a tree and drive it into a ditch and completely jack the whole thing up. And that’s what turns that potential into reality, and some call it asset manager, I like to call it the hammer, right?
So you guys got clear I’d like to think on the Multifamily Bootcamp because I saw some real assemblage happen on your team between the two of you guys and us explaining those roles and getting a lot of meat and potatoes around those things during the bootcamp. But also, could you guys tell us how you met that missing link in your team, the one that creates a business plan, who in our superpower assessment we call the brain?

Denise:
So, Breanne had been trying to encourage me to look at larger multifamily deals. She’s like, “Denise, this is where the future is for us. This is what we need to be doing.” And I was dragging my feet very much, not super excited about it, feeling very overwhelmed. And so she had already been learning some about multifamily syndication, and we had signed up for a program. They ended up canceling the session and I guess the day before the cutoff for the Multifamily Bootcamp through BiggerPockets last summer, I heard a podcast through BiggerPockets and you all mentioned it. And I texted Breanne and said, “Hey, I think we should do this.” And Breanne likes to remind me that when the person who’s dragging their feet says go-

Breanne:
You go.

Denise:
-You go. So we signed up for that. And while we were there, again, Breanne being an excellent hunter, posted on the shared forum, “Who’s interested?” You want to tell-

Breanne:
Yeah. So one of the first exercises you guys had us do in the bootcamp was to determine if we were more of a brain, a hammer, or a hunter or a-

Denise:
Money.

Breanne:
Money, thank you. And so actually, we went through it and we each did it independently, and we compared notes and we kind of said, “All right, what are we lacking? What skillset are we lacking?” And it was clear that we needed a third partner in there to kind of fill in some of the gaps, at least one more. And so when we got into the bootcamp, we actually kind of went into it with two separate objectives. Denise was really just trying to learn the ins and outs of syndication. And I was looking for a business partner, I was looking for somebody to bring into the team. And so I actually posted in on all the Slack channels and in all the different groups, because that’s the communication program we were using when we did the bootcamp. And I said, “Hey, I’m looking for a 100-plus unit apartment complex in the San Antonio market. Who’s crazy enough to do it with me?” And …

Denise:
There were several people crazy enough to do it with us. We were very thankful for that.

Breanne:
So I had a bunch of people reach back out to me like, “Hey, that sounds really interesting to me. Tell me more.” And so between the bootcamp classes, we were scheduling Zoom calls with these different people to get to know them, to make sure that they’re a good fit for us, both personality wise, like did we even like them, goal wise, and then also strength wise using that chart that you had given us. And we knew we really needed help understanding the underwriting of a large multifamily because that was something we didn’t have experience with, and a little bit more just the general understanding of how to manage a project like this.

Denise:
Right, the asset management, kind of the unique aspects of asset management that go with a really large multifamily compared to a smaller multifamily or single family.

Breanne:
Right, because they’re different.

David:
Very different. And I will add to this, for those listening to podcasts, you typically only hear the exciting part of the deal, which is the hunt.

Breanne:
Yes.

Denise:
Yep.

David:
When we watch National Geographic, you watch the cheetah chasing the gazelle, that’s where all the drama is, the tension. Are they going to get it? You’re either rooting for the cheetah or you’re rooting for the gazelle, people pick sides. That’s the fun part of investing, assuming that you like that stuff. It can also be wildly stressful and cause anxiety and some people hate it. But in general, the people that are actively seeking their education, they’re like, “Yes, yes. How did you find the deal? How did you underwrite the deal? How did you take it down? What were the negotiations? What did you do to get a better deal or how did you beat the other side?”
And that is good stuff to talk about. I’m not putting it down, but it’s like 10 to 20% of the whole thing. Now, you’ve caught that thing and you got to figure out what you’re going to do with it. And no one talks about this, but it’s 80% … I’m making these numbers up. I have no idea if that’s actually accurate, but hopefully you guys agree with me. It’s 80% of the success is how do you manage it, how is it operated, how do you create efficiencies, how do you take advantage of economies of scale, how do you solve the problems that continue to pop up? There’s deferred maintenance, we have to pave a parking lot, there’s a roof that’s going to be leaking. Tenants are asking for this, employees are having this problem. The guy across the street added these things to his apartment. Are we going to do the same? When should we refinance? What should we do with our investors? That stuff usually makes or breaks the deal and it never gets talked about.
We just show the fishermen catching the fish. They got a live well full of fish and no one sees are we getting those things clean before they go rotten? How are we selling them in the market? How are we making sure that we’re getting the most filet out of the fish or whatever? What can you share with our audience about this experience of operations and how much attention it should get to have a successful investment?

Denise:
So I think even before we started looking for deals together as a team, we had to create a team. So Breanne and I had already had three and a half years together operating a business, so we had figured out and worked out a lot of the kinks. And so we more or less understood what our roles were, but now we’re braiding in a third person, we’re adding another person to the team who first of all, he’s not local, he doesn’t live here, but he has tremendous experience in the underwriting and asset management world, which was perfect for us. He had not already owned investments, so we were a perfect fit for him as well, because he wanted someone who had that expertise and experience knowing what it’s like to have your money on the line, have someone else’s money on the line that you’re responsible for.
And so when we brought Brent Romeo into our team and created this new business, I mean it took several months of us meeting weekly. I think that was one of the things that may have even been mentioned on the bootcamp is, “Hey, let’s meet every week and start having a business meeting, having a team meeting together.” And so I think a lot of it was talking through, “Okay, what are our goals? What are each of our strengths? Where are we struggling?” And then figuring out who’s struggling in different areas, what are some of those pain points, and solving those problems together and learning how to do that. So I think that lays a good foundation then for when you actually have a deal and you have to solve problems or someone has a unique family situation that comes up and someone else on the team has to step into their role briefly. So I think that was a big part of it. I don’t know what else you want to add Breanne to the operations side of that.

David:
She’s like, “I’m just glad I got a fish cleaner in the house. Thank God.”

Matt:
I want to go to Breanne from fish catcher to fish catcher. Isn’t it phenomenal to have people like Brent and Denise on your team that can clean the fish and you can really focus. Because I can tell you, my business really grew quite a bit when I had people behind me that were really able to handle the ops because yeah, the fun part for you and me is going out, finding deals, talking to investors, but the necessary part of the business that allows us to do that side of the business is the other side of the house. So Breanne, what has it opened up for you in having Denise and Brent on your team that are able to run that side of the company for you?

Breanne:
It is the best thing ever. I feel like I’m on a basketball team and I’m just giving the alley-oop, and they’re the ones dunking them. So actually it’s pretty great because I really can focus on networking and talking to people and opening up opportunities, finding different brokers, all the things that I love. I’m a social butterfly. I can talk to people all day long to the point where they get sick of me.

Denise:
Nah.

Breanne:
Yeah, it’s okay. I know how it is. I can talk real estate all day long. And I don’t know why, people like to help me. They want-

Denise:
You’re nice.

Breanne:
I guess. They want to help me. And so people are like, “Hey, I heard about this thing. I heard about this thing.” And they are constantly sourcing opportunities for me. And when I find these great opportunities, I can give them a quick precursory glance and be like, “Yeah, that looks like a real opportunity,” or, “I don’t want to waste everybody’s time.” But if it looks like a real opportunity, I can give it to Denise and to Brent, and they can underwrite it, they can analyze it, they can manage it. I toss them the ball, they’re dunking it, and it’s a great way to run your team.

Denise:
Well, and I’m grateful because I don’t love the hunt. That is not my favorite part. I don’t love the going out and sourcing deals. That is not something that is my strength, that is not my favorite part. And so being able to work on a team with someone else who’s great at that really allows both of us to be stronger.

Breanne:
And that’s something we also have noticed. We were in a few different masterminds in different groups, and even through the bootcamp, we had noticed that because we were working together, we were able to accomplish so much more.
And I think one of the things that I appreciate with the bootcamp and the reason why you learn and you grow so much is because they give you all this stupid homework and nobody wants to do the homework. The homework is not fun. It gets you out of your comfort zone and everything. But by the end of the bootcamp, we were divvying up homework assignments as a little study group where we could put our efforts in different directions for the same common goal and able to actually go a lot farther. And as we have been working together, hunting for deals, underwriting deals, we have seen our team move faster than other people who are trying to get into multifamily by themselves.
And that’s one thing too, when we got this one under contract, we were putting in 50, 60 hours each, and we’re just like, “There’s no way you could do this by yourself.” I mean especially new.

Denise:
Yeah.

Breanne:
I mean maybe if you were way more experienced, but I mean it’s so much, so much that you have to do that the team is where it’s at.

Matt:
I will forgive you for calling the homework we gave you stupid, and you’re welcome. Yeah, and you’re welcome because it seems like it made a difference, but everybody thinks homework’s stupid at first. Yeah.

Breanne:
Well, I’m also a fitness instructor and I get people in my classes complaining every week that I make them do squats, but they still keep coming back.

Denise:
Yeah.

David:
Well, oddly enough, and Matt, don’t forget your point there, many people will say they hate it, but the reason they’re there is for that.

Breanne:
Yeah.

Denise:
Yeah.

David:
It’s for the accountability. That’s one thing as I’ve gotten older in life I’ve learned is oftentimes we’re afraid of disagreement or conflict because we think it’s going to make people mad. But it ends up making people respect you more, as long as it’s handled in a classy way where you don’t take things personal. Sometimes giving people resistance will draw them to you in a subconscious way, even though you would think it would push them away. Same is true for homework, same is true for accountability. We will grab and complain and moan about it, but then we’ll show up the next day because we know that’s actually what’s going to get us in shape.

Breanne:
Yeah.

Denise:
Yeah. Breanne and I regularly talk about how we know how to argue productively. That is something that we have learned how to do. And we also regularly will tell people, “Look, we’re not easily offended. Neither of us is easily offended. I’m trying to get my kids to learn how to not be easily offended when their brother or sister bumps into them. Again, more often than not, when you have those conflicts, even in a partnership, it’s not because that person was intentionally trying to step on toes or something. It’s just that you’re different people with different strengths and weaknesses and different perspectives, and so we regularly practice, “Okay, I am not going to be easily offended and I’m going to offer this other person a lot of grace.” And then it’s a lot of communication and saying, “Hey, I’m open to critique. How did that go? What do you think? Where can I be stronger?” And then trusting that person to listen and learn from them as well.

Breanne:
Yeah.

David:
Well, that was a question I wanted to ask you each about relationships, because this is not talked about often, but this is the truth, and I’m sure you guys are going to admit it. Resentment creeps into relationships. How have you two navigated those emotions that are going to come up and then the thoughts that come out of the emotions saying, I should be getting this or I should be doing that?

Breanne:
I am actually, one of the things that I have very consciously tried to work on myself is to compliment people more. And I think showing a lot of gratitude and appreciation for your partner, business, romantic, or whatever, goes a long way. And I mean I try to acknowledge both the things that she has accomplished and also the progress that she has made. I hope that she agrees with me.

Denise:
I do very much. I think that’s actually a huge thing. Breanne is excellent at that. She’s very much an encourager. And that’s one of the things that I have realized about the power of partnerships in general is that it does require some nurturing. It does require making sure that you are pouring into that other person. So encouraging that person, but also I think being willing to communicate well, asking each other regularly, “Hey, what is not going well here? What is going well?” So having those touch base moments of, “All right, how did that work out? What didn’t work?”
I think early on in our investing journey together, one of the things we discovered is that when we were having a conflict over what’s the best use of this $2,000 when we have $10,000 worth of repairs that need to be made on this property, we know that at some point we’re going to get to these, what’s the highest priority or what’s the best way to address this issue with the tenant? Early on, there were many conversations about who has the stronger opinion on this particular issue. And so for one of us, it’s like, “Well, we both have an opinion about it, but one of us, it really doesn’t matter all that much. We don’t feel that strongly about it.” And so I think being willing to say, “This is my perspective, but I really don’t care that much and I trust you, and I’m going to let you pick this one,” and then the reverse happening as well.

Breanne:
And we check in with each other regularly. Honestly, in any endeavor, one person is going to be super excited, raring to go over the hill and just crushing it. And the other is just like, “I’m just not feeling it.” And so you have to bolster each other up. And also, we have built the relationship around each other where I can be like, “Denise, I’m drowning. I need help. Where is the life raft?”

Denise:
Yeah, no, really. And then you have to be willing to actually step in and say, “Okay, I got this. I’m going to take this. I don’t love doing this. This is not my strength, but.”

Breanne:
Or we’ve even said, “Okay, you are not going to do this anymore. I know I’m not going to do this anymore. Who are we hiring?”

Denise:
The who not how idea. Yeah. Yeah.

Breanne:
Yeah.

Matt:
So guys, that’s awesome. Thank you. Bringing it back here to we had talked about more zeros, right, I want to just touch that because I think something you guys got from the bootcamp is you got connected to Brent. That’s awesome. You guys got clarity on the roles that each of you bring to the table, what your superpowers are, right?
Another thing that we got into in the bootcamp was talking about larger deals that were perhaps a little bit larger than what you all were looking at at the time, right, AKA adding more zeros. I know there’s a bit of your journey that as you guys became comfortable in talking about prices that began with an M, millions, instead of with a T, right? Just that there was a mindset shift. Could you guys talk us through briefly what that mindset shift was, what the experience was like to graduate up into the millions through changing your mindset?

Breanne:
Yeah. I remember the very first apartment complex that I had convinced some broker to tour with me and I’m there and I had learned to ask what the whisper price was. So I’m like, “Hey, what’s the whisper price on this one?”

David:
Can you define that briefly, do you mind?

Breanne:
Yeah. For some reason, they don’t put stickers on apartment buildings.

Matt:
There’s no big old For Sale sign in the front yard.

Breanne:
There’s no price tag, there’s no For Sale sign. And even when they post it up on the internet for you to peruse, they don’t put a price tag on it.

Matt:
They call it a whisper price.

Breanne:
They call it a whisper price.

Matt:
But they don’t really whisper it. They’re very proud of it.

Denise:
Oh, yeah. They’ll tell you straight up, you just have to ask them, “What is the whisper price?”

Matt:
It is the opposite of whisper, they’ll shout it at you.

Breanne:
It’s the most ridiculous thing, just put a price on there. So this is my first apartment complex that I’m touring with a broker, and I ask him what the whisper price, and he whispers, “$12 million,” and I about fell over, like my heart-

Matt:
And you shout, “What?”

Breanne:
Yeah, I mean obviously I played it cool like, “Oh yeah, okay, $12 million, that makes sense.” But in my heart I was like, “Holy cow, $12 million. Our first property was $99,000. It wasn’t even 100.” And it really took me a minute, and I think I even called Denise and I was like, “Denise, $12 million. Even if we only have to put 20% down?”

Denise:
“How are we doing that?” Yeah.

Breanne:
“That’s so much money. How is this even done?” And it did, I say we had to acclimate ourselves to that world. We had to be around other people who were actively working in multifamily. And it took about a year before we’re like, “Yeah, $12 million. Yeah, no big deal. That’s what it is. $12 million property? Okay.”

David:
Did taking the bootcamp help with any of that?

Breanne:
Yes.

Denise:
Oh yeah, a ton. A ton. Because again, you’re around all these people that are operating in that space, and so you’re seeing the normalcy of, “Oh, okay, these deals are getting done by all these other people who are similar to us.” We don’t have any kind of special guru status or anything that allows us to step into that space. We’re not coming in as multimillionaires, but we’re coming in as wanting to learn, eager, committed to making sure that we’re providing for ourselves and for our investors, and taking care of tenants and providing good housing and all of those things that we had already been doing. And so shifting toward, “Okay, these same things can be applied in this larger format, in this more expensive context.”
But again, we know how to do this. We know how to do these things. It’s just a matter of learning those applications and how do we tweak it to really work on that larger scale? And so I think the bootcamp was a huge part of getting us to that point.

Breanne:
Yeah. One of the most valuable parts of the bootcamp were the office hours that they offered and the opportunity where we had to actually directly ask questions to Matt or Herve or Justin or Hone like, “Okay, so I understand that we need all this money. How do you get it?” And to have a little bit of back and forth and to ask those very specific direct questions where we were getting the hangups and to help move past it.

Denise:
Yeah.

Matt:
And talking about that Breanne on the capital raising side, I remember I talked to you offline about there are investors that you’re buying a triplex, there’s certain investors that are interested in being the only investor or whatever isn’t a triplex. When you start looking at a $12 million apartment complex, there are other investors and perhaps more investors. It’s actually some investors get excited by the larger number by being involved. What was your experience in talking to investors as you guys started to pursue larger projects?

Breanne:
Yeah. It actually was very encouraging for me as I was talking to people because I knew we were going to need to bring in several people to help raise those dollars and to raise that capital. And as I was talking to people, I realized that a lot of my friends that I thought were not as well off were actually quite well off, and were really excited for an opportunity of someone that they can invest with that they already knew and trusted. And they had been watching my real estate journey and knew that I would do a good job managing their money and helping to manage the asset.
And as I talked and networked with more people, I was introduced to people with really substantial personal net worth. And you start to realize when you hear in your head that you have to raise $5 million, sounds like a ridiculous amount of money. But if you’re really pushing and networking and talking to people, you can actually find that actually $5 million sounds attainable. I was just like, “I don’t even know how we’re going to get a $1 million,” at first, at first, and then as you start building it and you talk to people you realize, “Okay, there’s an avenue out there.”

Matt:
Getting one person to give you $1 million is very difficult, getting 20 people to give you $50,000 if you got the right systems and processes and the right mindset around it, is much easier.

Denise:
Yeah.

Breanne:
Yes.

Denise:
And I think I was especially surprised by how many people have money sitting around earning next to no interest. I think that to me was very shocking to realize how many people do not know where to put their money. And for us being able to say, we have an opportunity for you to put your money in a place that it’s backed by a hard asset. We have this really solid business plan with it. We’ve already proven through these other investments that we know how to put other people’s money to work.
And seeing and hearing from people who are excited about being able to put their money into real estate passively without having to be landlords, without having to go out and hunt, without having to manage the property themselves, I think to me that was really encouraging and exciting because I love being able to do that for people that I know and have met and say, “I can get you really fantastic returns on the money that you’ve already worked hard to get for yourself. Let us help you do more with it, right, instead of it just sitting in this account earning next to nothing.”

David:
Well, that’s a bit of a superpower in and of itself. If you have the ability to take a person who knows nothing about real estate, nothing about finance, they just saved a bunch of money, or maybe they inherited it, they don’t know what to do, and you can make that grow for them.

Denise:
Absolutely. We love it. I mean that to me I think is one of the most exciting parts about getting into the multifamily syndication space of group investing. That’s what a syndication is. Being able to pool a bunch of people’s resources together and go out and buy this large real estate property.

Breanne:
$12 million.

Denise:
$12 million, yeah.

David:
Now, if only we could get BlackRock out of the pool so that we could have more people doing that for all the people we know instead of these humongous private equity firms coming in and just gobbling everything up like Godzilla in Tokyo.

Matt:
Yeah. Another analogy, there it is.

David:
Next segment of our show is the world-famous Deal Deep Dive. In this segment of the show, we ask every guest about a deal they’ve done.
In this section, Matt and I are going to fire questions off at you guys taking turns. Matt, you ready to go?

Matt:
I’m ready to go. And guys, I want to acknowledge something that this is still a great conversation about the deal and that even though the outcome wasn’t quite what you wanted, and I won’t let the cat out because we’re going to ask that in just a second, but there’s the … I’ll say this. No matter what the deal is, there is a lesson. And that deal doesn’t necessarily have to close or not for there to be the lessons learned. Sometimes the ones that don’t close have the best lessons for us to learn. So with that, let us hop in. David, take it away.

David:
Question number one, what kind of a property is it?

Breanne:
All right. It’s a 104-unit apartment complex in San Antonio, Texas.

David:
How’d you find it?

Denise:
So Brent, our underwriter/asset manager expert, he had been talking with brokers left and looking at deals online, and I think he was the initial one that did just a cursory pass at it. So he’s actually stepped into the hunter role in a lot of ways. And so he found this one, brought it to us and said, “Hey, you all should go take a look.”

David:
All right. And how much was it?

Breanne:
So it was $11 million.

David:
$11 million.

Denise:
$11 million.

Breanne:
$11 million, which was substantially cheaper than $12 million.

David:
I mean it’s $1 million dollar discount, right? Nothing to shake a stick at.

Denise:
But I mean by this point, we had been underwriting and looking at deals and placing offers for 10 months, right?

Breanne:
Yeah.

Denise:
So $11 million after 10 months felt-

David:
Like a sale, right?

Denise:
Yeah. I mean this is great.

David:
How did you negotiate it?

Breanne:
So we actually had placed an offer on it way before for a lot less, and I think it was like 10.2, something like that, originally. And it was not accepted. They went with somebody else and they fell out of contract, and the broker reached back out to Brent and said, “Hey, what can you do? Give me a realistic number.” And in the meantime, we had learned a lot more about underwriting specifically deals in San Antonio, and we found that there was room that we could come up. And I mean basically the broker said, “Hey, if you can get to $11 million, it’s yours.”
So we sat down and we really dove deep like, “All right, what kind of returns can we realistically get at 11? Do we feel confident in it?” And we found that yes, we could. So we offered them $11 million, sent the letter of intent, which is basically apartment speak for we wrote an offer.

David:
Isn’t that a good feeling when the guy decided to date a different girl, and then that girl turned out to be not quite the performer she said, and he comes crawling back. He’s like, “Hey, hey, Miss 10.2. I know I kind of dissed you, but I mean do you think maybe we could get over that and we could try it again?” And you’re like, “Well, let’s see.”

Matt:
“Can’t we make up?”

David:
Yeah. Where are we going to have this conversation? I’m thinking Forbes Steakhouse would be a nice place if you really want to make it up to me.

Denise:
Well, and that happens a lot in real estate, right?

Breanne:
Yeah.

Denise:
I think anyone who has been in the real estate investing world, that happens a lot where things don’t always go exactly as planned. Things fall out of contract. Somebody’s lender doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do. And so again, you don’t burn bridges, right? You stay in contact. Again, Brent maintained a good relationship with his broker and kept reaching out and saying, “Hey, just checking in. How’s everything going?” And so of course the broker reached out back out to Brent and said, “Hey, we’re interested. You want to take another stab at it?” And so that was a very exciting thing to have happen.

Matt:
Which would not have happened had you not made an offer. And so that’s the lesson there before we move on is the way you negotiate great deals, you can’t negotiate a deal you didn’t make an offer on. Let’s go there. So you made an offer, you get a phone call.

David:
Yep. I say all the time if your offer’s accepted the minute that you sent it, you might have offered too much, unless it’s a multiple offer situation where you get one shot, you got to knock them out with one punch. In general, you want that offer to be a jab. I want to kind of feel out how the other side is. Do they counter me? How do they respond? You learn more about the situation by putting that offer. So it’s a part of the process, it’s not the process. Next question. How did you fund this deal?

Breanne:
So we plan to syndicate it, hired a attorney to set up the security with SEC, and we’re actively raising capital.

Denise:
So the biggest part of it is debt, right, so getting a loan, which again, in multifamily speak, we were looking at an agency loan, which is basically just a Fannie/Freddie loan. Most people are familiar with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So looking at a large government backed loan for I believe we were looking at about $7 million of it would be covered by that loan. And then the remaining part of the purchase, which would be about $4 million, plus the operating cost, reserves, and then the money to do some renovations on it was another million. So we were looking at fundraising over $5 million from limited partners to bring into the deal to participate in it alongside that debt that we were going to have.

Breanne:
[inaudible] equity.

Matt:
Yeah, that’s great. And multifamily can have a different hold cycle. It’s not like you can’t fix and flip a multifamily or do a BRRRR strategy or whatnot, a multi, you can do all those different things in that. So what was your strategy on this property, meaning like hold cycle? Give us a brief rundown of the business plan.

Denise:
Yeah, so the plan going in was to hold it between four and five years. So again, part of our debt of our loan, it was a five-year loan with a fixed interest rate, which is a really big deal right now. When you’re looking at these larger deals, oftentimes you end up with variable interest rates, and so we are really excited about having a fixed interest rate for that full five-year term. And we would be looking to sell it at around four and a half years or so. So that’d be the whole time. And then during that first couple of years, about half of the renovations that we were going to put into it were interior updates, so making sure that the interiors of the units were brought up to kind of the status of what the clientele, what the residents would be looking for, new tenants would be looking for in the area.
And the owners had already renovated about half the units and they had already proven rents, so they already had some tenants in those units at the rents that we were targeting. So that was exciting because we could see we know that we can get these rents, so we’d be renovating the other half. And then there were also some additional kind of deferred maintenance items and some updates to some exterior stuff that would help bring about a little more community and drive just the general-

Breanne:
Retention.

Denise:
Yeah, retention and amenities on the exterior. So fresh coats of paint, updating a sport court, things like that. So those were the primary parts of the business plan.

David:
All right. Now, what was the outcome with this deal?

Breanne:
So early on during … Well, about a couple weeks in, we lined up all of our property managers to do due diligence, which is where we really get in with a fine tooth comb and really look at the property. And I got to give a shout-out to Simplicity Property Management because they really did us stellar job. She showed up, Jodi, with her crew of-

Denise:
A dozen.

Breanne:
-A dozen people, and she grouped them into … In every group there was a handyman, there was an HVAC, there was an electrician, and there was a plumber. And the group of four, several groups of four, went into every single unit of that property, and we got pictures and notes on every single unit of that property. So we knew exactly what the condition of the inside of the property. She also brought with us a roofer and a plumber to do the outside landscaper. I mean just a foundation guy, all the major things that you’re going to have issues with on a property.
And while going through due diligence, we found a few things that were unknowable up until that point. And one of the biggest one was that the roofs actually had severe wind damage and there needed to be a claim for the wind damage on the roof that we asked the sellers to do that. And then also we found some foundation issues on a couple of the properties. And so in order to compensate for these extra CapEx that we discovered, we asked for them to do a claim on the roof and just a $200,000 reduction on the price, but they were not willing to play ball. They wouldn’t do anything.
So it got to the point where with the extra money that we were going to have to put into this property, we would no longer be able to confidently give our investors the returns that we knew was going to be marketable.

David:
It makes you wonder, is that the same reason that it didn’t work out with the last girl?

Breanne:
There’s a good chance.

Denise:
You have no idea.

David:
Did they find the same thing?

Denise:
Yes.

Breanne:
At a certain point you have to wonder is it me or is it you?

David:
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. Now to be fair, I think a lot of people make the mistake in today’s environment that this operator’s probably looking at comps from nine months ago when rates were lower and there was a frenzy to buy real estate. And they don’t realize the market has changed, especially with anything that is underwritten financially with commercial standards where cap rates play a factor and interest rates affect demand, which then affects cap rates. They’re highly sensitive to rates. It’s not like residential real estate that’s mildly sensitive to rates. Commercial real estate is incredibly sensitive, and you can go from being on top of the world, all the attention, you’re the belle of the ball to nobody wants you like that. And then you have to pay attention to what’s going on with market. So I’m glad that you guys were able to have that experience, share it with all of us, and let our listeners know these are legit reasons to back out of a deal. It needs a new roof. We’re going to have to do a capital call with all of our investors to get the money to come back. That’s not the way that I want to start a relationship with my in-laws here that immediately haven’t asked for extra money and destroying trust. So either they will do the deal or they won’t.
Now, I don’t know if this was relevant in your situation. The only thing I might add into it is in some cases, if they don’t want to reduce the purchase price, but you don’t have the money, there could be something where you get a $200,000 second position lien, assuming that the lender’s okay with it, or a promissory note or something where they fund you over time the money that is needed to fix the roof so that it doesn’t ruin the deal for your investors. They still get the money out of it. I think creative finance in those cases is much more practical to use than when it’s like, “I’m going to buy a $12 million property with pure creative financing,” when most sellers, they want that money to pay off the investors that they bought the property with. What do you think about that Matt?

Matt:
Well, I think that creative financing in general had gone away in multifamily over the last couple of years, but is going to be making a strong comeback. It’s going to be pretty much the only way you’re going to get deals done. And I think it’s a shame that the seller … And I’m also going to throw a rock right now at the real estate broker because real estate brokers tend to get in the way of creative financing because they sometimes feel that creative financing may put at risk their very, very precious commission of the closing and that kind of thing. So I think that it’s going to become necessary, a situation like that.
I talked to you guys offline about many, many different ways that this could have gotten worked out. The roof could have gotten fixed after closing. I don’t get why somebody doesn’t want to turn in an insurance claim unless there’s some insurance hokiness going on there, which is what I suspect was going on, but who knows. But for some reason, they weren’t willing to do that. But yeah, neither here nor there guys. You guys lived another day.
So aside from the lessons you’ve listed here, what lessons did you guys learn from this process that you’re willing to carry forward for your business? And that’s great about lessons is they’re going to stick with you and that so what aha moments and knowhow are you going to carry into your next deal because of this transaction?

Denise:
Yeah, so I think as we were talking about kind of creative financing, one of the things that we did again in trying to figure out can we salvage this deal, is it still a deal, is learning a lot of how can we be creative even with how we’re allotting funds? Can we make adjustments to our CapEx plan, to the renovation plan? Can we do different debt that would allow some changes there? Can we look at making adjustments to what our investors would get in terms of doing maybe a fixed rate for some of them, which is a preferred equity stance is what that’s called?
And so realizing there are a lot more creative ways that we can find deals and make sure that we’re able to look for opportunities in different ways. I think for me, that was a really big adjustment was realizing there are a lot more ways that we can keep a deal in play. But at some point you have to realize after having many, many hard conversations and realizing this is no longer conservative underwriting. At some point you get to a threshold where we want to be able to make sure that we’re providing a level of safety and security for investors. And when that’s no longer happening, then the deal doesn’t make sense anymore. And that’s definitely disappointing, but I think not as discouraging as maybe it would have been in the past because we saw so much progress.

Breanne:
Yeah. So lessons learned, I think we also … I mean honestly, this was really kind of an extension of more stupid homework because it gave us an opportunity to thoroughly vet our property manager and actually see them in action. And now when we get into our next one, we already have a piece of that puzzle solved and ready to go. We learned a lot about negotiating with a seller and some people … We’ve not new to negotiation, we’ve been doing it for years on all of our deals, but it’s another-

Denise:
Layer.

Breanne:
-Layer, another layer, another caliber of negotiations. And we also learned that, you know what, you can vet the property, but maybe you should also bet the sellers because we found some interesting things on that note as well.

David:
Oh, come on. You can’t make a statement like that and not give us some kind of juicy detail.

Denise:
Just reputation.

Matt:
The door is open already, go ahead.

Breanne:
There are some reputations.

David:
What does that mean? Are we talking about Jeffrey Epstein stuff? Are we talking about.

Breanne:
No, I think we should cut it there.

Denise:
Yeah, yeah.

David:
Really? Okay.

Denise:
But when you have multiple people that are on your team, whether that’s contractors, property managers, etc. saying, “Are you aware that this seller has a reputation?” When you hear that multiple, multiple times-

Breanne:
You should look that reputation up.

Denise:
-Oh, okay. Again, not to say that that would’ve ruined the deal, right? That’s not going to make or break a deal-

Breanne:
Necessarily.

Denise:
But certainly going in with more information is always useful on any situation.

Breanne:
Yeah.

Matt:
That’s a great lesson guys. It’s always good to look people up and it’s a big world out there, but it’s also a small world for people that operate in the playgrounds that we operate in.

Breanne:
Right.

Denise:
Which is why we’re cutting it there.

Matt:
No, and I get it. Just to touch a few things that have been in my experience, guys, there’s always a broker that’s done business with it. If a seller’s been around for long enough, there’s always a broker that’s worked with them, and it’s a good reason to call a broker to say, “Hey, what was your experience like?” This is a good way to find out firsthand what experiences have been.
In my experience on these kinds of things, just to give a consolation prize to everybody listening, doing a deal doesn’t always mean it’s going to get to closing. It’s because sometimes they don’t. And you’re much better to make a decision based on … There’s two decisions you make in a real estate transactions, either my decision is based on closing and that closing’s going to bring me a fee, is going to bring me reputation that I can flag up, say, “Look what I just bought.” And it brings me the Facebook post that I get to do to point to that apartment building with me standing in front of the sign in front of the property and all that that we all see. I get to do that.
That is a decision you do, so whatever it takes, I’m going to do this. Or I’m going to do right by my investors and I’m going to put them into a deal that’s going to make sense fiscally for them, and I’m not going to compromise investor returns based on me getting to take a selfie in front of the entry sign to the apartment building and say, “Look what I just closed,” right? I’m not saying, I’m just saying, but there are many folks out there that close deals that seem to be a little bit lean and you wonder which of those two that I just put out there are more important, closing the deal and getting a fee and a selfie, or doing right by your investors.
And I’m sure, I can tell you guys did the latter, which is doing right by your investors. I’m sure you told them, “Hey, listen, didn’t work out. I’m going to damage your returns to close this deal. We’re just as upset as you are, but we’re going to go out there and find you the next one.” And I can guarantee those investors are going to be at your side the next time you guys find a deal. So it’ll just make you that much stronger in that.
So that’s my consolation prize to you guys and anybody here listening that’s swung and missed or had a deal go under contract and then not close. It actually can be a benefit long term, so that’s what I got. Thank you. Thank you guys for your honesty in the deal deep dive. That was a great conversation.

David:
Very much so, and thank you for joining us on the podcast today. This has been awesome to hear about your journey from doing small deals to taking a bootcamp to going after a big deal to getting super close but avoiding what would’ve been a bad deal on your first multifamily investment, which is not when you want to make the mistake. You don’t want to make a huge mistake on your first one that you can’t recover from. And then sharing all that information with us. For people that want to know more about you, where can they find out about each of you?

Denise:
Yeah, so the primary place is on our website, investwithbraid.com. So our company is Braid Capital, and so we’re doing large multifamily deals through that. And then you can also find us on Instagram and other socials through 2 Moms Investing. That’s what we are. We are two moms investing, that’s the number 2 Moms Investing. And then you can also look for us individually on socials as well.

Matt:
That’s great. Guys, I got to tell you, I really enjoyed working with you on this project. We were lucky enough for DeRosa to be a bit of a fly on the wall or maybe kind of involved in it peripherally in this project. So really grateful to see you guys do this, and I am really excited to see what’s next for Braid, and also enjoyed chatting with you guys here on the show.

Breanne:
Awesome.

Denise:
It’s been a blast.

Breanne:
We love working with the DeRosa Group too. You guys have been awesome.

David:
Matt, where can people find out more about you?

Matt:
Well, they just said it, DeRosa Group, D-E-R-O-S-A, derosagroup.com. They can pick up the new and improved revised edition of Raising Private Capital, my book, at that website and also at biggerpodcast.com/rpc with a new forward written by my man Pace Morby and a bunch of new content written by yours truly as well to bring the capital raising game up into today’s market, today’s conversations. That’s either at biggerpockets.com/rpc or at my website, derosagroup.com where they can hear all kinds of great stuff that we offer as a company.

David:
Funny you did that. I was just talking to BP Publishing a couple months ago about needing to write an updated version of BRRRR and long distance investing. So apparently I’m not the only one with great ideas.

Matt:
Yeah, and you should do it. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a great way to touch content that’s already helped a lot of people to kind of bring it back to today’s conversations. And those two books are phenomenal and it’s helped a lot of people, so I’ll take that as a commitment right here, David, you’re going to do that, so awesome.

David:
That’s exactly right. Yeah. I also get to go back and see how cringey I was when I was writing before I knew what I was doing, be like, “What on earth was this?” Like looking at high school photos of how people were dressing, it’ll probably be a very similar experience.
Thank you ladies. If people want to find out more about me and whether I actually am cringe, suss, or all the other things that young kids are saying, you can rizz me up by going to my online profiles at DavidGreene24 or visiting DavidGreene24.com. Maybe we need to put a webinar together where we go over all the stupid things that young people are saying and all of the weird things that multifamily operators say and just create a key, “When you hear agency debt, what that means is Fannie Mae,” and just kind of bring some ease and comfort to the doesn’t need to be so complicated world of multifamily investing.

Matt:
[inaudible] game show David to guess, Multifamily Lingo or Young Child Lingo?

David:
That’s funny.

Matt:
Just throw out the word and guess which one is it?

David:
That’s really funny.

Matt:
Yeah.

David:
Yeah, vintage and … It’s like Family Feud and they’re sitting there putting their hands together, trying to figure out which one does this mean? Also, I started posting on my Instagram, it’s not a word of the day because I don’t do it every day, but words that I just think need to die. We can stop saying this now please. There’s nothing worse than when 15 year olds on Fortnite start saying something and then 60 year old men on ESPN start using the same language. And I’m like, “Oh geez. Please.”

Matt:
It’s over now.

David:
Stop this. Yes, exactly. So you can check that out. Thanks again ladies, I appreciate you being here and sharing your stories. We will make sure to follow up with you. Keep fighting the good fight. Catch those fish, clean those fish, and I hope and pray that your partnership stays a positive one for years to come.
This is David Greene for Matt Steve Rogers Faircloth signing off.