He Raised $600K For His First Deal In 6 Weeks

How Nelson Diaz Uses Multifamily Capital Raising Strategies to Scale

In this episode of the Lifetime Cash Flow Podcast, Nelson Diaz breaks down the multifamily capital raising strategies that allowed him to transition from small deals to larger, scalable apartment investments. For wealthy professionals and business owners looking to diversify into multifamily real estate, this conversation highlights how strategic capital formation can accelerate portfolio growth while minimizing personal capital exposure. Nelson explains that success in today’s environment is less about finding deals and more about structuring opportunities that attract serious investors.

Multifamily capital raising strategies have evolved significantly in 2025, especially as interest rates, underwriting standards, and investor expectations continue to shift. Nelson emphasizes that credibility, clear communication, and conservative underwriting are critical when raising money from high net worth individuals. He shares how building trust through transparency and consistent performance reporting creates repeat investors who participate in multiple offerings over time.

Building Investor Confidence in Competitive Markets

One of the most valuable insights Nelson Diaz offers is how to position yourself when competing for investor capital. He explains that sophisticated investors want clarity around risk mitigation, operator experience, and exit strategy. Rather than overpromising returns, Nelson focuses on educating investors about market cycles, debt structures, and downside protection.

He outlines several key elements that strengthen multifamily capital raising strategies:

• Presenting conservative projections supported by real data

• Demonstrating operator alignment through meaningful co investment

• Communicating a clear business plan tied to net operating income growth

These principles resonate strongly with established professionals who want both upside potential and capital preservation.

Scaling From Smaller Deals to Institutional Level Thinking

Nelson Diaz also discusses the mindset shift required to scale in multifamily real estate investing. Early in his journey, raising capital felt transactional. Over time, he learned to treat investor relationships as long term partnerships. This shift allowed him to move into larger assets and compete more effectively in competitive markets.

For business owners and high income earners exploring apartment syndication, this episode clarifies how multifamily capital raising strategies serve as the engine behind growth. The ability to structure deals properly, align incentives, and communicate clearly often determines who can scale beyond a handful of units into substantial portfolios.

About Nelson Diaz

Nelson Diaz is a multifamily real estate investor and syndicator focused on acquiring and repositioning apartment communities. He specializes in building strong investor relationships and implementing disciplined acquisition strategies that prioritize long term value creation. Through his experience in raising capital and structuring deals, he has helped investors participate in multifamily opportunities designed for scalable growth and income stability.

If you want to hear the full conversation and detailed insights, watch the podcast video or read the complete transcript below.

Multifamily Capital Raising Strategies FAQ

What are multifamily capital raising strategies?

Multifamily capital raising strategies are structured methods real estate sponsors use to secure equity from investors for apartment acquisitions. These strategies typically include syndications, joint ventures, private placements, and structured partnerships. The goal is to combine investor capital with operational expertise to acquire and scale multifamily assets while sharing profits based on predefined terms.

Why are multifamily capital raising strategies important in 2025?

In 2025, tighter lending standards, higher interest rates, and increased competition for quality assets make strong multifamily capital raising strategies more important than ever. Investors are more selective and expect transparency, conservative underwriting, and clear communication. Sponsors who can clearly articulate risk management and value creation plans are more likely to attract and retain capital.

How do multifamily capital raising strategies work in apartment syndications?

In an apartment syndication, the sponsor identifies, acquires, and manages the property while passive investors provide most of the equity. Multifamily capital raising strategies focus on structuring preferred returns, profit splits, and clear exit strategies to align interests. The sponsor earns compensation through acquisition fees, asset management fees, and a share of profits once performance benchmarks are met.

What makes multifamily capital raising strategies successful?

Successful multifamily capital raising strategies rely on credibility, consistent communication, and a proven track record. Investors want clear financial projections, conservative assumptions, and a transparent business plan tied to net operating income growth. Strong operator alignment through meaningful co investment also increases investor confidence.

How do you attract high net worth investors using multifamily capital raising strategies?

Attracting high net worth investors requires positioning yourself as a trusted operator rather than simply a deal promoter. Educational content, detailed webinars, in person networking, and professional investor presentations are essential. Clear reporting systems and regular performance updates also help build long term relationships and repeat investment.

What legal structures are used in multifamily capital raising strategies?

Most multifamily capital raising strategies use private placement offerings under SEC regulations, often structured as Regulation D 506(b) or 506(c) offerings. These structures allow sponsors to raise capital from accredited investors while complying with securities laws. Proper legal documentation, subscription agreements, and disclosure statements are critical to protecting both sponsors and investors.

What are the biggest risks in multifamily capital raising strategies?

Key risks include overpromising returns, underestimating expenses, poor market selection, and misalignment between sponsors and investors. Regulatory compliance is also critical, as securities violations can lead to serious legal consequences. Conservative underwriting, clear communication, and experienced legal counsel are essential for mitigating these risks.

How do multifamily capital raising strategies compare to self funding deals?

Self funding limits the size and speed of portfolio growth because the investor relies solely on personal capital and lending capacity. Multifamily capital raising strategies allow sponsors to leverage outside equity, acquire larger properties, and scale more quickly. While profits are shared, the ability to control more assets often results in significantly greater long term wealth creation.

Can passive investors benefit from multifamily capital raising strategies?

Yes, passive investors benefit by gaining access to institutional quality multifamily assets without handling day to day operations. Through structured offerings, they can earn preferred returns and participate in upside profit distributions. This approach allows busy professionals and business owners to diversify into real estate while relying on experienced operators for execution.

Disclaimer: This summary was written with the help of AI and reviewed by Rod’s Team.

00:00:28:23 – 00:00:55:09
Mark Nagy
Welcome back to multi family rock stars. So this is where we deep dive into our students deals. And I’m excited specifically for this one. Rod is had on vacation. Lucky him. He’s on a cruise today. So this is a solo episode of me and our guest Nelson. And this is the perfect episode to do a solo because Nelson is actually a new partner of mine on a deal that we just closed in Tulsa, which we’re going to get into, and we’ll be able to get into some stuff that we usually wouldn’t get into.

00:00:55:09 – 00:00:58:06
Mark Nagy
But, Nelson, welcome to the show. Glad to have you.

00:00:58:08 – 00:00:59:21
Nelson Diaz
Thanks. Very glad to be here.

00:00:59:23 – 00:01:07:24
Mark Nagy
Awesome. So tell us a little bit about your background, single family. You know what your experience comes from. Why why listeners should listen to you.

00:01:08:01 – 00:01:24:15
Nelson Diaz
So growing up, you know, my family immigrated to this country fleeing a communist revolution a long time ago. And so they got here with nothing. And so my great aunt, I spent a lot of time with her. And one of the things they did to make money was buying apartments, renting them out, flipping houses, and building on vacant lots.

00:01:24:15 – 00:01:43:02
Nelson Diaz
And so. So I grew up kind of knowing a little bit about real estate and in that world. But when I went to law school, I kind of straight away from it a little bit and slowly kind of worked my way back. And so I bought over the years, you know, single family homes here and there. I’ve got a few in little Rock, in Arkansas, some in, in Tennessee.

00:01:43:04 – 00:02:02:07
Nelson Diaz
And, I’ve got some short term rentals in the Florida Keys, which I love. And it’s a lot of fun, actually. But little by little, and I wanted to get into some bigger stuff I knew I wanted, and I just could not figure out how to do it. I couldn’t figure out how to get into the 50, 60, 150 unit, deals.

00:02:02:09 – 00:02:11:11
Nelson Diaz
Until I came across a podcast and heard rod and, you know, hit the little magic numbers too on the phone to to join.

00:02:11:13 – 00:02:25:23
Mark Nagy
Yeah. So, we as we talk about this a lot because most of our listeners are probably single family investors or they haven’t done anything yet. What? Why did you want to do that? Why do you want to take the leap from the single to the multi instead of just sticking and trying to scale the single family stuff?

00:02:26:00 – 00:02:50:04
Nelson Diaz
Well, first and foremost, financial freedom, right? I wanted to I wanted to grow bigger and faster than I had been growing in the past with homes, you can only buy one at a time until you and then and that’s great. But you know, you can’t really grow fast, right? But having someone to help you, to coach you, to walk you through it with other other warriors to to help you and to really teach you with real life experience.

00:02:50:10 – 00:02:56:10
Nelson Diaz
Like on the deal that we did. Yeah. That is invaluable. There’s no there’s nothing that can do anything better than that.

00:02:56:12 – 00:03:16:11
Mark Nagy
Okay. Well, let’s talk about, you know, kind of, as you got started, brand new into multifamily, what were some of those things that you did when you got into this? How did you kind of figure out your superpower? What were some of the the basic skill sets that you spent your time to, to focus on here that I guess eventually got you into this first deal.

00:03:16:13 – 00:03:36:07
Nelson Diaz
Frankly, that I, you know, did not post on the Facebook page. You know, that Donato, my coach, asked me to to do and help me put it together with talking about myself, my goals, where, you know, my background and, you know, I got dozens and dozens of people who wanted to do zooms. And that’s how I learned where my superpower might be.

00:03:36:09 – 00:03:58:02
Nelson Diaz
In talking to other warriors who you said your background in, in the political world and in the legal world, you know, people with money and you don’t know this yet, but they will invest in your deals. And they were right. A lot of, a lot of the people that I never expected were the ones who really invested in in the Tulsa deal.

00:03:58:04 – 00:04:14:13
Mark Nagy
Really interesting. So tell us a little bit more about that. So, so you’re in politics, how so are these people that you went and talked to and, that invested in this deal and how how did you go about doing that? What what was the background to some of these people? Because I know people ask this question to me all the time.

00:04:14:16 – 00:04:18:16
Mark Nagy
How do I raise capital? Who do I talk to, etc.?

00:04:18:18 – 00:04:39:07
Nelson Diaz
So a lot of the people that I went to were very wealthy people. They did not invest, right? They they were not the ones. It was the ones who had wealth, who were sort of you, if you want to call them working wealthy or whatever, something like that. They were wealthy, but not, you know, sit at home all day doing, you know, or riding your boat all day kind of rich, right?

00:04:39:09 – 00:05:02:04
Nelson Diaz
They were just they were working wealthy people and they had worked to get to their point. And a lot of them just wanted financial freedom. Right? They want they want cash flow from investments that they don’t really have to work for because they’re busy. They have their jobs. One person told me he wanted to, you know, to sell some of his, his some other investments he has to invest in, these real estate deals.

00:05:02:04 – 00:05:15:11
Nelson Diaz
And and those are the those are the people who want, you know, cash flow and investment income without having to necessarily work for it. And they’ve got the cash sitting in the bank making 3%, 4%. And it’s nothing.

00:05:15:13 – 00:05:31:18
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Are are a lot of these people like stock. Did you find a lot of them were stock and crypto investors. I’ve had since Bitcoin has crashed about 50%. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me like, hey, when’s your next deal? Can we get into something else? Did you find that was the case when you were talking to these people?

00:05:31:20 – 00:05:53:12
Nelson Diaz
I haven’t, but I did do an email that I sent to my database of people comparing investments in the stock market with investments in real estate and in syndications in particular. And, you know, I did a lot, a lot of research on it to put together that email. And that email actually resulted in a number of people, a couple of people coming back and saying, you know what?

00:05:53:14 – 00:06:00:15
Nelson Diaz
I’m not I’m going to I’m not going to keep putting so much money into the market. Here’s what we’ll do. X amount of money for this deal.

00:06:00:17 – 00:06:01:20
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Smart.

00:06:01:20 – 00:06:04:01
Nelson Diaz
So yeah. Right. Yeah.

00:06:04:03 – 00:06:10:16
Mark Nagy
Right. How did you end up getting invited into this deal? Who who brought you in? How did you get the relationship with them?

00:06:10:18 – 00:06:13:15
Nelson Diaz
So, I don’t know. Am I allowed to use names?

00:06:13:17 – 00:06:15:22
Mark Nagy
Yeah, yeah, just not last name heavy first names.

00:06:15:24 – 00:06:36:14
Nelson Diaz
Okay, well, either way. So I did that post on Facebook and in one of those interviews, there was a wonderful, woman in Pennsylvania who was a teacher who I did, one of these, one of those zoom calls with and, and she was just such a kind and wonderful human being that she sent an email to a few other warriors introducing me to them.

00:06:36:16 – 00:06:56:21
Nelson Diaz
One of them was a warrior in Arizona who, after a few zooms with him and his spouse, we we just kind of hit it off. And he’s phenomenal. His superpower is not mine. Right. And that that helps a lot. He’s able to underwrite. And he’s a numbers guy and his and his wife is you know, they’re very organized.

00:06:56:23 – 00:07:09:24
Nelson Diaz
You know, then there are partners in the Tulsa deal. And and so he brought me in on it. I had only been a warrior for, I don’t know, maybe like a month and a half. Wow. And and I had no idea if I was going to be able to, to do it or not to raise the capital or not.

00:07:09:24 – 00:07:25:19
Nelson Diaz
But I was committed to if I couldn’t raise the money, I was committed to putting it in myself. I needed to finding a way to do it so I wouldn’t make him look bad. But but you know, I’m not saying it’s easy because it isn’t. You have to really learn. You have to learn the terminology. You have to learn.

00:07:25:21 – 00:07:35:23
Nelson Diaz
You have to be able to explain how things work to investors. And you really got to know your the information. Well, but it is it it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

00:07:36:00 – 00:07:40:24
Mark Nagy
Yeah. So how much this was, $1.8 million raise. How much did you raise again?

00:07:41:01 – 00:07:41:22
Nelson Diaz
600.

00:07:41:24 – 00:08:05:08
Mark Nagy
600,000. Wow. So a third of the entire raise coming out of one person brand new in. Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s freaking awesome, man. I mean, if you didn’t give yourself a pat on the back already, you should, because that first year is fantastic. We don’t see that happen very often. So obviously you have to be able to communicate to your investors, why this is a good deal.

00:08:05:08 – 00:08:23:00
Mark Nagy
And I’m going to give my opinion because there are some really cool nuances about this deal, which, you know, maybe you can talk about or I could talk about. But why did you like this deal? What were some of the things, as the underwriter, you went through analyzing, doing your own due diligence. They made you say like, hey, this is what I want to be a part of.

00:08:23:02 – 00:08:44:01
Nelson Diaz
Well, look, frankly, I, I’m the son of a Cuban refugee, so going to Tulsa was a probably the furthest thing on my mind. To some degree. I couldn’t have told you where Tulsa was, but I started doing homework on the Tulsa market and Oklahoma, and I really started to fall in love with that area. The, you know, it’s it’s a it’s a slow and steady kind of market that does.

00:08:44:01 – 00:09:05:04
Nelson Diaz
Well, it isn’t, you know, it’s not you know, some of these other cities are states that just have, like Miami, where I’m from, that have just explosive, rent increases. Right? At some point they have explosive rent decreases. But a place like Tulsa was just a good, steady market with, you know, growing. I just I really liked it a lot.

00:09:05:04 – 00:09:25:23
Nelson Diaz
And, and then when I looked at the underwriting that our partner did on that, it was really impressive. And frankly, I, you know, I guess I had a low bar because I’d never seen an underwriting done. But but when I looked at, I was like, wow, this is really detailed, like down to the penny, down to how many toilets needed to be replaced and a lot of work clearly went into that.

00:09:26:00 – 00:09:37:00
Nelson Diaz
And they were so professional and so well organized. You know, and as we went through the process, the team that was assembled just worked, worked really well together.

00:09:37:02 – 00:09:45:05
Mark Nagy
So for you, it was more about the market than I mean, obviously the deal had to make sense, but it was more about the market for you than is. Why? What drew you into.

00:09:45:06 – 00:09:48:10
Nelson Diaz
The market is a big deal. Yeah, the market is a big part of it.

00:09:48:12 – 00:10:08:23
Mark Nagy
Yeah, that the Midwest is doing so well right now. I mean, if you look at like all of the United States aggregated, you’ll see that like maybe rents are dropping and prices are coming down. But that’s because places like Florida, Texas, Nevada, they’re dragging the rest of the country down. But the Midwest is actually doing really well.

00:10:09:00 – 00:10:25:23
Mark Nagy
That’s actually part of why I moved into the Midwest. And this one is within a few hours of some of the other assets. Now, are you aware of the kind of complicated structure that we did on this to get some other value add? Because I’d love to share that as kind of a value add to our listeners. If you’re not.

00:10:26:00 – 00:10:33:01
Nelson Diaz
Yeah. You know, I’d rather hear from you in case I got it wrong. I mean, in terms of the in terms of the CapEx, is that what you mean?

00:10:33:03 – 00:10:53:11
Mark Nagy
No. So actually, the legal aspect. So this was something I had never done before, and I want to give this as a as kind of a gold nugget to the listeners because this was kind of I had never done this before. So when you typically buy a new multifamily property in any state, taxes get reassessed, right? The value has gone up since the last person bought it.

00:10:53:13 – 00:11:07:21
Mark Nagy
And so usually your taxes end up going up and you have to usually underwrite that into the property. If taxes are going to go up ten, 20, 30%, whatever they are, we were actually able to avoid that altogether. And not yeah. So you are aware that have it.

00:11:07:21 – 00:11:09:02
Nelson Diaz
Yeah. Yeah. When we bought the business.

00:11:09:02 – 00:11:24:12
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Yeah. And so that’s what we did. And I did not know this was a real or legit thing. But after I spoke to my personal CPA, they confirmed with me. Yes. This is legal. This is 100% legit. That was actually kind of scared. Like, is this is this actually real? Can we do this?

00:11:24:18 – 00:11:44:07
Nelson Diaz
We have I to even when they explain to me I yeah they explain to me. But in Florida you can’t do that in Florida. Yeah in Florida that’s not something you can you can pull off without the property appraisers, catching it and reassessing it. So, it, I mean, you can you can sell up to 50% of the LLC, but you couldn’t sell the entire thing.

00:11:44:09 – 00:11:53:24
Nelson Diaz
Okay, and get around the property tax increase. That just doesn’t work here. So when you explain to me, I’m like, yeah, I don’t think that works, but it does in Oklahoma. So, you know, all the better.

00:11:54:01 – 00:12:17:11
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Getting creative on deals right now is so, so important to making deals work when just the traditional buy a deal wait for values to go up, you know, maybe renovate some units. That’s that’s not the market that we’re in anymore, unfortunately. And you have to find creative ways to do this. But yeah, purchasing an LLC then from what I understand, they then sell the interest in the LLC into another LLC.

00:12:17:16 – 00:12:25:11
Mark Nagy
And so that transfers ownership to us without triggering the taxes. Is that the way that you understand it as well? Yeah, there’s oh, I understand it.

00:12:25:13 – 00:12:41:05
Nelson Diaz
There’s like some legal jujitsu that’s getting that’s being done. Yeah. You know, and the lawyers or lawyers figured out how to, how to get that done. But it works. It’s legal and it’s and it works. And you save a ton of money and it makes deals cash flow a lot better.

00:12:41:07 – 00:12:56:12
Mark Nagy
Yeah. The biggest thing for me, though, was that I actually spoke to the attorney that was doing this, and they had actually done this with other warriors as well. The Wells, Sam and John Wells. I don’t know if you know them, but I guess they had done this exact same thing in the Carolinas and had been successful with it.

00:12:56:12 – 00:13:18:07
Mark Nagy
And so that made me certainly feel more confident, but a few other things. And then I’ll let you talk about the deal is, number one, the fact that we’re not going after huge rent increases there either between 1 and $200, and we only have to renovate the units a small amount. The other stuff is like fixing up the amenities, citing doing landscaping, stuff like that.

00:13:18:09 – 00:13:48:09
Mark Nagy
And then lastly, we underwrote at a 7.5% interest rate, but we were lucky enough to catch those three rate drops at the end of last year. And so we actually ended up purchasing at a 6.75% rate instead of that seven and a half. So that was kind of a nice bonus. But oh. And on top of that, we’re partnered with, CCAR that the fact that we had, partnered with our property managers, their property managers on other deals and they’re actually in the deal as GPS and LPs.

00:13:48:14 – 00:13:57:14
Mark Nagy
They’re not just PMS, which is kind of unique as well. And so I don’t know, all those things together made me say, this is a awesome frickin deal, but I’d love to hear your kind of,

00:13:57:16 – 00:14:19:24
Nelson Diaz
Yeah, no doubt. Look at when when your property manager wants in on the deal. I mean, that’s a really good sign. Of course, we didn’t know that till the very, very end. Or maybe till just like, right after. Yeah. Right around closing. We we they stay wanted to join, but that just validates a lot of it. And when you look at a property like that and, and you see that, you know there’s that, that it needs some love, it clearly needs some TLC.

00:14:20:01 – 00:14:39:13
Nelson Diaz
But it doesn’t need to be, you know, rebuilt. Right. That’s a big that’s a big deal. You know, we the pool was green. Okay. Well, that’s easy to fix, right? You know, it needs it needs a few things here and there, some interior Reno, and you can really increase, spend a million bucks, if even that much, and increase the value by two.

00:14:39:15 – 00:14:58:15
Nelson Diaz
Over time. I mean, it’s just it’s a it was a win win. And we also the appraisal came in 100,000 over over value, which is nice. There were a few other things that the electric utility spent some money there on. Some, some stuff that we didn’t have to spend money on. So there were a lot, a lot started to go in in the right direction.

00:14:58:17 – 00:15:15:19
Mark Nagy
Yeah. So that makes the deal makes sense. What about the team? You know, I kind of mentioned I like the fact that they had partnered with, you know, the PPM in the past. What what what drew you to the team? Because that’s another question I get so often is like, why do our Warriors do so many deals together?

00:15:15:19 – 00:15:26:09
Mark Nagy
Where does this trust factor come from? Where was the trust factor for you? And just being willing to jump in on your first deal with people that you, you know, realistically, just met a few months ago?

00:15:26:11 – 00:15:45:21
Nelson Diaz
Yeah. Well, look, besides the underwriting, the two things that are most important are making sure the property managers are qualified and and the team putting the deal together. So the fact that, the sponsor of the deal had had worked with CCR, with the, property managers on other deals, and they were currently managing some of his other properties, and he was still recommending them.

00:15:45:21 – 00:16:07:21
Nelson Diaz
I think that was that validated the the value of the property manager. And the team man, you know, I had only known them for a few weeks. I’m in the relationship business. You know, I so I kind of tend to have a pretty good read on people, you know, after 30 years of doing that and, and plus I, you know, I deal with politicians.

00:16:07:23 – 00:16:09:05
Nelson Diaz
So I have.

00:16:09:05 – 00:16:12:11
Mark Nagy
The most trustworthy people. Right?

00:16:12:13 – 00:16:33:14
Nelson Diaz
They’re wonderful people. Yeah. So, you know, you know, you start, you can kind of get an idea of who’s, of how trustworthy is it? You can ask other warriors as well, you know, if you’ve ever done deals with or talked to your coach, too. I mean, I didn’t I didn’t do that, but, you know, Warriors can talk to their coach about other Warriors and see if they’ve been in deals with them or know anything.

00:16:33:14 – 00:16:45:04
Nelson Diaz
And, you can ask around. You know, there’s nothing wrong with trying to validate your partners, but but, but the people on the deal are critical. I mean, really critical.

00:16:45:06 – 00:17:05:12
Mark Nagy
Yeah, 100%. I, I actually did that myself. I spoke to another warrior that I trusted who had actually done a deal with the Boers mice and said that things had gone well and that was part of it. How? By the way, without, you know, going over the top about what we do, how how has your experience been just in our community and working with the other warriors?

00:17:05:14 – 00:17:12:20
Nelson Diaz
So, I mean, I did I must have done three dozen of those zoom interviews with other warriors, and I didn’t mean.

00:17:12:20 – 00:17:14:20
Mark Nagy
Like them working, by the way, when.

00:17:14:20 – 00:17:37:00
Nelson Diaz
You’re. Yeah, the network meeting is huge. Okay. Yeah. So on the when you post on Facebook who you are and you know that you’re in the program, which is I highly recommend you, a lot of people will reach out to you and ask to set up a zoom or for locals. I mean, I had lunch with some of them that were local in South Florida, and every single one of them was, we’re just like great people, varying degrees of experience, right?

00:17:37:02 – 00:18:13:06
Nelson Diaz
And when we started out looking at this program, we were like, man, do we really want to invest in this? And or should we just go out and do our own thing, you know, because there’s a cost to it and I’ll tell you that, like within, I recouped my cost within a few months. Right. Financially, I’ve learned I’ve gotten an entire college education, I mean, a whole degree in in the six months or so that I’ve been in this program, what I’ve learned from the experience of doing a deal, but also from watching all of the videos and the the courses that that, the program offers.

00:18:13:08 – 00:18:26:21
Nelson Diaz
It’s a whole education. You know, I thought I knew a little bit. I saw I’m buying. I’m also a real estate broker in Florida. I thought I knew a little bit about real estate. These courses just blew me away. I mean, I learned a lot, and it was worth it.

00:18:26:23 – 00:18:45:20
Mark Nagy
Okay. Very. We’re going to come back to that in a second before we do. For the people listening, by the way, if you are a single family investor wanting to scale or maybe like others, you want to just skip the single family and go straight into multifamily to scale, and you’re looking for some help, and you think that our group and ride might be the right group or the right mentor.

00:18:46:00 – 00:19:07:12
Mark Nagy
Text the word crush cruise to the phone number 72345. That’s crush two, seven, two, three, 4 or 5. My team will reach out to you and we’ll just have a call, see if we can help you. If it’s not the right thing, no big deal. We’ll still leave you in a better place. But, you know, if that’s something you’re wanting to do, especially in a world right now, we’re like, we’re at the bottom of the market.

00:19:07:18 – 00:19:24:00
Mark Nagy
AI is taking over and getting rid of so many jobs like multifamily. I feel I feel so grateful to be in this industry where robots and AI is not going to take over what we do, which is super nice. So if you’re wanting to get into that, you want some help. Again, text the word crush to seven, two, three, 4 or 5, but nothing.

00:19:24:00 – 00:19:41:20
Mark Nagy
Go back to what you just said, what would be, and you could say it in the context of working with us. Or even if people don’t want to work with us, what would be some of these action items that people can do and jump into as maybe some of their first steps to get educated or just start taking action on multifamily?

00:19:41:22 – 00:20:03:16
Nelson Diaz
Really. I mean, watching the courses is really the first part and then doing, you know, meeting with your coach on a regular basis. And the third thing is meeting with other warriors, asking questions. Ask your coach what questions you should ask of the Warriors. Right. How do you learn the most? And you know, it might seem like in joining a team, I wanted to make sure that I’m the person on the team that knows the least.

00:20:03:18 – 00:20:16:16
Nelson Diaz
Right? I want to make sure that everybody, everybody else on the team knows a lot more than I do, because that gives me a lot of confidence that the deal is going to go well. Right. And that reduces I feel like that reduces my risk. And I can learn from all of those people and they know more than me.

00:20:16:16 – 00:20:39:10
Nelson Diaz
I’m going to learn from them. And at the end of the day, this is all about learning. You’ve got to learn, you know, how to fly. Otherwise you’re going to fall. And to me, that was a big deal. Especially on the on the deal we did, it was clear that everybody on that team had a lot more experience than me and knew more than, I mean, you know, so that was really important to me.

00:20:39:12 – 00:20:57:02
Mark Nagy
What have been. Because I know and I give you credit, you’ve been showing up to all the calls, all the calls, which, even though they’re at 7:00 am in the morning while 7 or 8 of my time maybe not your time. Yeah, yeah, real early for me, but, what have I know? It’s only been, what, two months has since we’ve owned the asset.

00:20:57:02 – 00:21:11:02
Mark Nagy
But what have been some of those things and learning lessons that you’ve learned in terms of, like operations, working with the PMS, things that you could talk about, learning lessons, showing up to these calls and being a part of them.

00:21:11:04 – 00:21:31:17
Nelson Diaz
And honestly, I, you know, even just the questions that people ask, the questions that you ask on some of these calls, they’re not questions I would have come up with. I just didn’t know enough to even come up with those questions. Reading the, the, the, the monthly statements and the vacancy loss reports, you know, all the reports that come out from the property manager that we receive.

00:21:31:22 – 00:21:52:23
Nelson Diaz
I’ll look at them. Some of it is just Chinese to me, right? Right. Like so I just don’t know what it is until we get on these calls and someone starts asking questions and sometimes I’ll ask a question as well, or I’ll talk to the sponsor and ask questions on some of it. That’s how you start to learn how what after you’ve purchased the property, right?

00:21:52:23 – 00:22:17:07
Nelson Diaz
Post-Acquisition that’s sort of the next step is learning. You know, you caught the tiger by the tail. Now what do you do? Right. Yeah. You kind of have to figure that out. But luckily there’s a team which helps reduce the risk, which is another real advantage of the program is the risk of, of of investing. Your money is reduced by being surrounded with people who know what they’re doing and who have been doing it for a long time.

00:22:17:09 – 00:22:41:00
Mark Nagy
Yeah. And again, the team has been so important. You know, for the listeners this is 64 unit. So we’ve we’ve been on the fence of do we want to have someone onsite full time, part time offsite because it’s it’s kind of right at that size where it’s tricky. Right where it’s not necessarily big enough to have someone on full time, but you know, as we’re renovating and doing all these things, maybe we want someone on full time.

00:22:41:05 – 00:22:58:21
Mark Nagy
And Jay, you know, being willing to go out there for what was it, ten days a month to travel out there and be on the ground and actually do that himself? It just it just speaks volumes for the people on the team. Like, those are people that I want to continue to do deals with and same for my other teams.

00:22:58:21 – 00:23:16:02
Mark Nagy
Like I have a couple of guys like that that have done it just going above and beyond when you don’t have to to make the deal work and do the do the extra things and same for you, you know, that’s why like you’ll hear rod talk about the loss of the first deal. When you do your first deal, you’re kind of learning all these things, showing up to the calls.

00:23:16:02 – 00:23:29:09
Mark Nagy
And then when you get to your second deal, you’re going to have done all these things before, and probably you’re going to feel a lot more confident to be that person and then bring in the new people. And it kind of just becomes this circle of, of building upon itself, if you get what I mean.

00:23:29:11 – 00:23:46:17
Nelson Diaz
Yeah. No doubt. I mean, look, you can watch all the courses and take notes and I highly recommend you watch the courses. In fact, watch them twice. But doing the deal is, is where you will put all that knowledge into action. And putting knowledge into action is what results in you learning something. You know that muscle memory for the next deal?

00:23:46:19 – 00:23:47:19
Nelson Diaz
That’s critical.

00:23:47:21 – 00:24:02:05
Mark Nagy
Yeah. So how do you think what’s what’s kind of the next level thing for you then in terms of scalability? You know, your goal may be financial freedom, whatever it is. How do you think you’re going to get there and how long do you think it’s going to take, you know, working with us for you to get there?

00:24:02:07 – 00:24:19:15
Nelson Diaz
I’ve already to go. The next day was talking to the other day I’m like, let’s do another one, and then let’s do three more this year if we can, and let’s do four if we can, you know? Yeah, let’s do bigger and better. Let’s, you know, we worked well together, so let’s go get more, I’m ready to go and get more.

00:24:19:17 – 00:24:38:04
Nelson Diaz
And, and I don’t want to rush into anything because that’s how mistakes are made. Yeah. You know, you got to really analyze stuff, but, I’d like to be. I’d like to have, you know, $1,000 by the end of next year or so or the year after. I don’t want to force a number on myself because I will try to get to that number.

00:24:38:06 – 00:24:46:16
Nelson Diaz
Yeah. And I don’t want to rush into anything, but. Yeah, I mean, I do know, though, that, you know, the faster you know, the better. I, you know, I’m ready.

00:24:46:18 – 00:24:54:22
Mark Nagy
And do you see yourself continuing to just do capital raising and reaching out to your network, or is there anything else that you think you might want to do, or do you want to stick with that?

00:24:54:24 – 00:25:18:12
Nelson Diaz
Yeah, I mean, I can do a capital raising and and also the net worth, requirements and, and putting up a sponsorship I. Yeah. At risk capital. I’m doing that. I’m very comfortable doing all of those things. Okay. You know, I’m not very risk averse in that sense, so I’m happy to do those things as well. I, I do want to learn how to find the deals, get the deals, talk to brokers.

00:25:18:14 – 00:25:35:02
Nelson Diaz
I want to learn how to read the underwriting better myself so I don’t have to rely on others. But if there are partners who are who know how to do that really? Well, then my inclination is to let them do it. Okay? Right by the way. And I do want to be able to read it and understand it better myself so that I know I’m looking at.

00:25:35:02 – 00:25:35:16
Nelson Diaz
Right.

00:25:35:18 – 00:25:43:08
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Because then you can actually do those things in the future and actually be more involved in the asset management and bring that. Yeah. The table.

00:25:43:10 – 00:25:54:19
Nelson Diaz
Yeah. But I never thought I would like partnering with people. But but you know, I really enjoyed it a lot. It really is a team sport. And it’s great.

00:25:54:21 – 00:26:10:05
Mark Nagy
I want to come back to that before we do. Just just for the listeners who don’t know what we were talking about on multifamily, when we say the word sponsor, typically to get multifamily debt, they’re not like a single unlike a single family. They’re not looking at like your credit score and your income to like, get a mortgage.

00:26:10:10 – 00:26:33:07
Mark Nagy
They look at the team. And what is your liquidity and your net worth to make sure that, you know, if something goes south on the deal, that you guys can cover it, you have extra capital and things like that. And so we have lots of sponsors in the warrior program that you can partner with to help, get that financing and close on multifamily, because if you don’t have a bunch of money, like liquid, you can’t you can’t get the financing for multifamily.

00:26:33:09 – 00:26:50:05
Mark Nagy
But as you’re talking about this, what have you noticed have been some of those differences because you came from the single family world, working with a team versus doing everything yourself. What has been your experience? Kind of the the pros and cons and how to scale with doing this as a team?

00:26:50:07 – 00:27:04:16
Nelson Diaz
The biggest pro, I think is learning. I’m a big fan of learning new things. You know, after I graduated from law school, I took the bar exam. I swore I would never take another test in my life again. And then I then I started studying for the broker exam, and that was a little bit harder than I thought.

00:27:04:16 – 00:27:25:24
Nelson Diaz
And I said, I’ll never take another exam again. I’ll never study for anything again. And then I started to get into real estate. I started taking these courses and I’m like, well, here I am again. But learning really is the most important thing you can do in life. And if you’re going to jump into this, this, this world, you’ve got to learn it, before you, before you really go out and and join a team.

00:27:26:01 – 00:27:46:04
Nelson Diaz
So that first month and a half that I was in the warrior program, I and I probably listened to all of the all of them, all of those courses, maybe some of them twice took notes. I mean, I took it as if I was in school, like legitimately in class and, and learning so that when I got on calls with Warriors a month and a half later, I knew I understood the language right.

00:27:46:04 – 00:28:01:06
Nelson Diaz
I may not have been able to to know it in and out, but I understood the language enough to not feel, you know, like I’m not being able to communicate well. Yeah. And then doing the deal, really putting putting all that knowledge into action.

00:28:01:08 – 00:28:04:10
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Just jumping in and doing it right. Pull the trigger once you.

00:28:04:10 – 00:28:21:22
Nelson Diaz
Know enough, once you know enough and you studied it, you got to jump in. There’s some you know, I read a book by Mel Robbins called The Five Minute Rule. I mean, five second rule. And it’s not the five second rule. When you drop food on the floor, it’s it’s basically your mind is programed to stop you from taking risks.

00:28:22:02 – 00:28:42:10
Nelson Diaz
Right? Are Neanderthal mind doesn’t want you to go after that tiger because the tiger is going to kill you, right? So as soon as you start thinking about taking a risk on something, your brain starts working against you and you have about five seconds to take real action, like physical action, to do it. And so that’s how I got my first commercial property.

00:28:42:10 – 00:28:44:15
Nelson Diaz
I have a small commercial property in Miami.

00:28:44:17 – 00:28:45:17
Mark Nagy
Really? Wow.

00:28:45:18 – 00:28:51:17
Nelson Diaz
Yeah, it’s a little triple net property, which is great. I mean, I must spend maybe 30s a month on it.

00:28:51:19 – 00:28:54:18
Mark Nagy
So what’s the second rule? How do you. How do you break it then?

00:28:54:18 – 00:29:16:19
Nelson Diaz
What’s. So here’s the five second rule. You have five seconds to act when you want to do something. You have about five seconds to act before your brain starts to convince you otherwise. So, you know, I read that book, and then I’m at home and I’m looking through listings. I’ve, I see this small commercial property in Miami. I quickly look at numbers, and normally at that point your mind starts telling you to risky, get out of it, don’t do it.

00:29:16:24 – 00:29:32:08
Nelson Diaz
So I just started the broker, and as I’m dialing the broker as a as as ringing on my mind is like, don’t, don’t hang up, stop, stop. And and I thought in my mind I decided, well, if he if he doesn’t answer, I’m not leaving a message, I’m done. I’m not going to. And then he answered, yeah, yeah.

00:29:32:10 – 00:29:48:09
Nelson Diaz
But I had already decided I wasn’t going to leave a message and I didn’t let it go. But he answered, and once he answered, the train left the station right and we started moving forward, and I just, I would not that’s it. You know, the five seconds were up and my mind kind of shifted into, okay, well, now you’re taking this risk.

00:29:48:15 – 00:30:07:15
Nelson Diaz
Let’s see how we can de-risk this as much as possible. Right in your mind. Starts working that way. You know, start negotiating a lower price and start doing this or that and due diligence. And I just said, you know, I told the broker, listen, this is my offer. If it’s no good, no worries, no problem. No contingencies whatsoever.

00:30:07:17 – 00:30:23:06
Nelson Diaz
Take it or leave it. And they took it and they took it and my thought was, okay, well, they say, you know, I’m out, you know, no risk. But they took it and I was like, all right, well, no, you know, like I said before, I cut, I cut the tiger by the tail. What am I going to do with the tiger now?

00:30:23:08 – 00:30:42:00
Nelson Diaz
And it was great. You know, I, I googled what do I do due diligence. Do I do on this on something like this on a triple net and, and now we have I didn’t have it at the time and I, it’s very helpful for stuff like that. But it it worked out great. It was a, it turned out to be you know, a really good steady income.

00:30:42:02 – 00:31:00:18
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Triple net is great for cash flow. But it’s funny you mentioned the five second rule because most people in their mind as the phone is ringing, they’re thinking about all the things that like, what if this goes wrong? But you should be asking yourself, well, what if this goes right? Well, in your scenario, it’s what if they say yes at this super low offer and I get a great deal, right?

00:31:00:18 – 00:31:08:19
Mark Nagy
But most people don’t ask themselves that question. So that that is such good advice of just thinking about that in the first five seconds and just doing it anyways.

00:31:08:21 – 00:31:13:24
Nelson Diaz
You got to move. You got five seconds or you won’t do it.

00:31:14:01 – 00:31:31:18
Mark Nagy
Such good advice. One last thing I want to end on here on a completely separate topic, because this is now the third week in a row where our guest has brought this up. And this is a clue of like something to look into senior housing in Florida. You mentioned you’re in Florida. Tell us about your plans to get into it.

00:31:31:18 – 00:31:40:24
Mark Nagy
Why do you want to if you have plans and why you want to get into this? Just like I said, you’re the third person who’s brought this up in a month of people that want to get into senior housing in Florida.

00:31:41:01 – 00:31:57:18
Nelson Diaz
Yeah, I mean, look, the senior tsunami is very real, and there are almost a thousand people a day moving to Florida. A lot of them are seniors. And at some point, let me be in their 50s now, and they’re not seniors yet, but they will be soon at some point. And and when I say seniors, I don’t mean, you know, 80 years old.

00:31:57:20 – 00:32:22:22
Nelson Diaz
There are people who are going to be in their 60s soon and want to live in a place where they can be, you know, peaceful and and happy. And there’s a lot of communities that are that are popping up to cater to them. And frankly, some of them look really nice. I might be interested in living in, you know, so, and so there’s a lot of people that are looking for that right now, and I think, you know, someone’s going to have to provide it because there’s a market for it.

00:32:22:22 – 00:32:51:09
Nelson Diaz
There’s a demand for it. The supply seems to not be there for it just yet. But it’s getting there. And so it’s probably a good time to start investing in that. Florida also has a workforce housing, problem, you know, an affordable housing problem. And a lot of states do. South Carolina. Yeah. In fact, in Florida, they’ve all but gotten rid of property taxes on on larger affordable housing projects and, and workforce housing projects.

00:32:51:09 – 00:32:55:15
Nelson Diaz
So that helps with the underwriting quite a bit.

00:32:55:17 – 00:33:10:14
Mark Nagy
Yeah. Well, I’ll say the same thing that I have been saying, which is, again, if you live in Florida and you’re concerned about regular real estate because it has been struggling there, like senior housing is a great thing to look into. Now, obviously the operations and everything is a little bit different, but the rest of the process is the same.

00:33:10:14 – 00:33:30:01
Mark Nagy
Yeah, the financing is the same, the team is the same. You’re just managing the asset a little bit differently depending on the level of care that you’re giving the seniors. Right. But no, that’s great advice. Nelson, for people that like your story, like what you talked about, maybe you want to reach out, chat about whatever, maybe just to connect with you.

00:33:30:01 – 00:33:32:04
Mark Nagy
Where where can they do that? What’s the best place to do that?

00:33:32:04 – 00:33:43:09
Nelson Diaz
Stir. Well, I you’re on Facebook. You can just find me. Nelson Diaz. Diaz. Or you can see, you know, me. Nelson at L and l property group.com.

00:33:43:11 – 00:33:52:20
Mark Nagy
Beautiful. Thank you for adding so much value. Is good to have you. And, hey, hopefully, maybe we’ll do, our next deal here soon and we can chat about the next one on the next podcast.

00:33:52:22 – 00:33:54:22
Nelson Diaz
Yeah. Looking forward to it. Ready to go.

00:33:54:24 – 00:33:56:21
Mark Nagy
Awesome, man. Well, good seeing you again.

00:33:56:22 – 00:33:57:20
Nelson Diaz
Thanks, Mark. See you.

00:33:57:21 – 00:33:58:18
Mark Nagy
All right. Thanks, guys. Bye.