Multifamily Asset Management Lessons from Jennifer Barner
Multifamily asset management is often what separates average investments from exceptional ones. In this episode, Jennifer Barner shares how she transitioned from single-family investing into multifamily real estate, eventually growing her portfolio involvement to nearly 1,200 units across multiple states. Her journey demonstrates that persistence, market selection, operational discipline, and strong partnerships can create extraordinary results even when success takes longer than expected.
How Jennifer Barner Broke Into Multifamily Investing
Jennifer Barner began her real estate journey after discovering that retirement funds could be invested in real estate through self-directed accounts. Motivated by a desire to build wealth and provide for her four children’s college education, she initially focused on single-family properties and house flipping.
After spending more than a year underwriting hundreds of multifamily deals without securing an acquisition, Jennifer continued building experience through single-family investments rather than quitting. That decision became a critical foundation for her future success. The construction knowledge, property management experience, and investor credibility she developed during that period later became valuable assets when she entered larger multifamily projects.
Finding Opportunity in Northwest Arkansas
Jennifer’s breakthrough came during the uncertainty of 2020 when many investors were slowing down. Instead of remaining focused solely on her local market, she identified strong growth indicators in Northwest Arkansas.
Several factors made the market attractive:
- Major employers including Walmart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt
- Significant infrastructure investment and highway expansion
- Strong population and job growth trends
- High occupancy levels across competing apartment communities
By focusing on market fundamentals instead of short-term fear, Jennifer and her team acquired a property in Springdale, Arkansas that would become a highly successful investment.
Multifamily Asset Management That Increased Property Value
One of the most valuable lessons from the conversation centers on multifamily asset management and operational improvements.
When Jennifer evaluated the property, she noticed several indicators of underperformance. The expense ratio appeared unusually high, vacancy was elevated compared to competing properties, and rents were significantly below market despite the asset being located in a desirable area.
The original business plan included modest upgrades such as:
- Updating paint colors
- Replacing outdated fixtures
- Improving hardware and faucets
- Modernizing unit appearance with minimal capital expenditures
However, effective multifamily asset management requires adapting to market realities. After testing renovations, Jennifer discovered that lightly renovated units were achieving nearly the same rents as renovated units. Rather than continuing to spend money unnecessarily, the team adjusted the strategy and focused primarily on cosmetic improvements.
That disciplined approach helped drive rents from approximately $450-$625 at acquisition to around $850 while maintaining exceptionally strong occupancy.
Why Relationships Accelerated Growth
Another key theme from Jennifer Barner’s story is the power of partnerships.
After successfully executing her first multifamily acquisition, opportunities began to multiply. Her performance on that initial deal led to additional partnerships, loan guarantor opportunities, and larger roles within future acquisitions.
Jennifer emphasizes that working with people who share similar values, underwriting standards, and business philosophies creates a stronger foundation for long-term success. Building trust through execution ultimately opened doors that would have been difficult to access alone.
Raising Capital Through Credibility
Many investors struggle with raising capital, but Jennifer’s experience demonstrates that credibility is built long before asking investors for money.
Before entering multifamily investing, she documented her progress through dozens of house flips and real estate projects. By consistently sharing her experience and results, she created confidence among potential investors. When multifamily opportunities emerged, many investors already trusted her ability to execute.
This highlights an important lesson for aspiring syndicators: capital raising often begins years before a deal is presented. Education, visibility, consistency, and demonstrated competence all contribute to investor confidence.
Markets Jennifer Barner Likes Going Forward
Looking ahead, Jennifer remains focused on markets with strong growth fundamentals and favorable long-term demographics. While rising insurance costs have created challenges in some southeastern markets, she continues to see opportunity in areas where population growth, employment expansion, and infrastructure investment support future demand for housing.
Among the regions discussed were:
- Northwest Arkansas
- Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs
- Select Midwest markets
- Growth-oriented secondary and tertiary cities
Her investment philosophy remains centered on identifying markets where economic expansion supports long-term rent growth and occupancy stability.
Guest Bio: Jennifer Barner
Jennifer Barner is the Founder of Lighthouse Ventures and an experienced multifamily real estate investor involved in nearly 1,200 apartment units across multiple states. She began her real estate career through single-family investing and house flipping before transitioning into multifamily syndications. Today, she focuses on asset management, capital raising, and helping investors build wealth through strategic real estate investments while continuing to educate and mentor others in the industry.
If you want to hear the full conversation and detailed insights, watch the podcast video or read the complete transcript below.
Multifamily Asset Management FAQ
What Is Multifamily Asset Management?
Multifamily asset management is the strategic oversight of an apartment property after acquisition to maximize income, increase property value, control expenses, and achieve investment goals. Asset managers work closely with property management teams to improve operations, occupancy, resident satisfaction, and overall financial performance.
Why Is Multifamily Asset Management Important?
Multifamily asset management is important because it directly impacts a property’s profitability and long term success. Effective asset management helps owners increase net operating income, optimize rents, reduce unnecessary expenses, and create value that can significantly increase a property’s market value.
What Does a Multifamily Asset Manager Do?
A multifamily asset manager oversees the property’s business plan, financial performance, capital improvements, property management company, and investor reporting. Their goal is to ensure the property performs according to projections while identifying opportunities to improve returns and mitigate risks.
How Does Multifamily Asset Management Increase Property Value?
Multifamily asset management increases property value by growing net operating income through rent increases, occupancy improvements, operational efficiencies, and strategic renovations. Because multifamily properties are often valued based on income, increasing profitability can lead to substantial appreciation.
What Is the Difference Between Asset Management and Property Management?
Property management focuses on the day to day operations of a property, including leasing, maintenance, rent collection, and resident relations. Asset management operates at a higher strategic level by overseeing financial performance, business plans, capital expenditures, and long term investment objectives.
What Are the Key Metrics in Multifamily Asset Management?
Key metrics in multifamily asset management include occupancy rate, economic occupancy, net operating income, operating expense ratio, rent growth, delinquency rates, renewal rates, and cash flow. These metrics help investors evaluate performance and identify areas for improvement.
How Often Should Multifamily Asset Managers Review Performance?
Multifamily asset managers typically review performance weekly, monthly, and quarterly. Regular reviews help identify trends, monitor expenses, track leasing activity, and ensure the property remains aligned with its investment objectives.
What Is a Value Add Multifamily Asset Management Strategy?
A value add multifamily asset management strategy focuses on increasing property income and value through operational improvements, renovations, amenity upgrades, expense reductions, and rent optimization. The goal is to create additional equity while improving the resident experience.
How Does Market Selection Impact Multifamily Asset Management?
Market selection plays a critical role in multifamily asset management because job growth, population growth, infrastructure development, and housing demand influence occupancy levels and rental growth. Strong markets often provide more opportunities for successful execution of a property’s business plan.
Can Multifamily Asset Management Help Reduce Investment Risk?
Yes, multifamily asset management helps reduce investment risk by proactively monitoring financial performance, addressing operational issues, maintaining occupancy, managing expenses, and adapting business strategies to changing market conditions. Strong asset management can help protect investor capital during economic uncertainty.
What Skills Are Needed for Successful Multifamily Asset Management?
Successful multifamily asset management requires financial analysis, budgeting, leadership, communication, market research, negotiation, project management, and problem solving skills. Experience with property operations and real estate investing can also provide a significant advantage.
How Do Investors Benefit from Strong Multifamily Asset Management?
Investors benefit from strong multifamily asset management through increased cash flow, higher property values, improved operational efficiency, reduced risk, and stronger long term returns. Effective asset management is often one of the most important factors in the success of a multifamily investment.
00:00:29:05 – 00:00:47:06
Speaker 1
Welcome to Multifamily Rockstars. So as you guys know, these are the episodes where we deep dive into our guest deals and, you know, give you some actionable items so you can get started, some practical items so you can get started and you know, so you can do your first deal, especially if you’re brand new to multifamily. And I’ve got my co-host Marc Nagy with me here as usual.
00:00:47:07 – 00:00:50:10
Speaker 2
Good on rod. Good to be back in, 2025. New year.
00:00:50:11 – 00:01:10:08
Speaker 1
Happy new year. Happy new year, brother. Good to be here. Well, we have got a real treat today. She’s what you would call an original if you watched that vampire series. You know, in my warrior program. And, her name is Jennifer Barner, and she’s a founder of Lighthouse Ventures. And, just a beautiful, beautiful soul, beautiful human being.
00:01:10:08 – 00:01:30:12
Speaker 1
And, and she actually, we did do an interview with her way back when. I mean, we’re at I don’t know how many how many interviews we had now, 809 hundred. A lot, yeah. Anyway, so a long time ago. So a lot a lot of water under the bridge since that interview. So it’s just a treat to actually have you in the Rockstar series here.
00:01:30:17 – 00:01:34:06
Speaker 1
It’s long overdue. Welcome. Welcome back. Jennifer.
00:01:34:08 – 00:01:45:10
Speaker 3
Oh, it’s a pleasure to be here, rod. I just love the warrior group. So much. They’ve added so much to my life, both personally and financially. So thank you for having me on.
00:01:45:12 – 00:02:09:18
Speaker 1
No question. I know you’re now in, almost 1200 doors in five states. And you’ve achieved your goal of putting your four children through college debt free. You’ve you’ve the six six plex to your net worth. You know, you’ve done coaching for us. Is this just, incredible journey, from where you started. But why don’t you tell us how you started?
00:02:09:18 – 00:02:16:08
Speaker 1
Okay. And take us back and tell that little story about your transition from single to multi as well. I love that story.
00:02:16:08 – 00:02:42:04
Speaker 3
And, well, I didn’t know anything about real estate. I have a finance degree, and I had always been asking our financial advisor, how do I invest in real estate? And they kept saying, well, you can’t. And then I was invited to a real estate conference. It was the Rich dad conference. And she stood up there. The gal that was presenting and said, you know, I started out using my IRA in real estate and I’m like, wait, what?
00:02:42:05 – 00:03:09:09
Speaker 3
How could you do this? And she said, if they’re telling you, you can’t, it’s me means they can’t. They’re not a qualified custodian. And that was a game changer for our life. We have four children and they were fast approaching college. We had 4 in 6 years. And so I knew after to that 2008 when the market collapsed, that we lost half of everything we had, save for.
00:03:09:09 – 00:03:32:07
Speaker 3
And so I was looking for something. So real estate came into our lives at a really important time. And after one year of being in single family, I just started praying, Lord, show me another way and all of a sudden monopoly kind of came into my mind and I was thinking, I need to pivot to big buildings. So I started listening to as many podcasts as I could.
00:03:32:07 – 00:03:49:08
Speaker 3
I kept coming back to you, rod, over and over and over, and I think you’d only been doing the podcast probably six months. And then you said, you know, I’m thinking about doing some coaching and if you’re interested, reach out to me so I, you know, I.
00:03:49:13 – 00:03:51:06
Speaker 1
Could actually sign you up personally.
00:03:51:09 – 00:03:52:15
Speaker 3
Yes. You did.
00:03:52:17 – 00:03:56:02
Speaker 1
Holy cow. Wow. You really are an original. Holy cow.
00:03:56:03 – 00:03:57:12
Speaker 2
2017.
00:03:57:14 – 00:04:06:02
Speaker 3
It was 2017. Your first. I was there on the front row. In 2018. It was January 2018. I was on the front row.
00:04:06:03 – 00:04:07:12
Speaker 1
That was Tampa.
00:04:07:14 – 00:04:31:09
Speaker 3
Yes, that was Tampa and 350 people in that room. It was a great boot camp. And I’ll tell you, your boot camps are the same and they’re so good even. I mean, they’re it was so good back then and it’s still so good. That’s what I thank you for the program. Yeah, it’s.
00:04:31:13 – 00:04:41:08
Speaker 1
Thank you. Well, now we’re up to a thousand people. So we’ve we’ve we’ve we’ve we’ve improved our population a little bit and, and we’re now at I don’t know what 2000 warriors Mark I.
00:04:41:08 – 00:04:42:07
Speaker 2
Don’t know somewhere around there.
00:04:42:07 – 00:05:00:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah somewhere around there. 2000 warriors I think there are 250,000 plus units that they own that we can’t keep track anymore. We’ve got a coaching call today, actually, right after this interview. And I’ve got, you know, every now in these coaching calls, I go through all this, they, they close this deal, they close this deal, they close this deal just to inspire everybody.
00:05:00:17 – 00:05:16:02
Speaker 1
And I think I saw like 8 to 10 that I’m going to bring up this on this call just in the last three weeks. So. Or month rather. Yeah. It’s crazy. It’s crazy what’s going on. So anyway, so you came to the boot camp and it’s been all downhill since then. Right?
00:05:16:04 – 00:05:38:19
Speaker 3
No, you know, I, I jumped in with both feet and I was like, this is it. This is my path to getting into something, you know, going faster. I needed to go as fast as I could because I had four kids that I got to put through college. And although my husband has a great job and we’d been saving so diligently, we still didn’t have enough because of escalating costs of tuition.
00:05:38:21 – 00:06:00:06
Speaker 3
So, you know, about a year and a half into your program, though, I called you and I said, rod, I have been looking high and low, turning over every rock. I’ve underwritten 250 deals, and I still don’t have a deal done. And you said, well, in the meantime, go back to doing what you were doing. And so I went back to flipping homes.
00:06:00:12 – 00:06:26:01
Speaker 3
And then, as life would have it, Covid hit. And when everybody else started putting on the brakes, that’s when I saw my opportunity and I said, now’s the time. And so I left my backyard of Kansas City, and I went to another market where I saw huge signs of growth, which was the Northwest Arkansas area where Walmart is headquartered.
00:06:26:01 – 00:06:50:06
Speaker 3
J.B. hunt, Tyson Foods, and they’re building new highways down in that area, and it’s just exploding. So I got together with a broker, and I just mentioned my frustration of being in multifamily, and no brokers will ever call me back. And I was whining, lots of whining. And he took compassion on me and said, you know what? I think I got a property for you.
00:06:50:06 – 00:07:05:21
Speaker 3
I haven’t listed it. But you know, why don’t you take a look at the financials? I’m telling you what, I underwrote it and I was like, wait, I got to do this again. Something must be off of my spreadsheet because it turned green. Meaning it’s go time.
00:07:05:23 – 00:07:06:18
Speaker 1
Right?
00:07:06:20 – 00:07:12:06
Speaker 3
And we got that deal under contract and it’s been the best. So when.
00:07:12:06 – 00:07:14:12
Speaker 1
Was that? That was 20 2021.
00:07:14:14 – 00:07:18:06
Speaker 3
That was 2020. We closed 2020. Yeah we it took us.
00:07:18:09 – 00:07:21:12
Speaker 1
Where in Arkansas was it. Bentonville where they are.
00:07:21:12 – 00:07:26:12
Speaker 3
We’re at Springdale. Springdale which is sandwiched between Bentonville and Fayetteville.
00:07:26:14 – 00:07:27:14
Speaker 1
Gotcha. That’s so funny.
00:07:27:14 – 00:07:32:08
Speaker 2
We just bought a deal two weeks ago, and, Northwest Arkansas and Fort Smith right up there.
00:07:32:10 – 00:07:33:10
Speaker 3
There you go.
00:07:33:15 – 00:07:48:11
Speaker 2
Yes. And I bet I probably rode the Covid boom up from there, if I had to guess. Yeah. Tell us about this deal. I know you said all the lights turned green, right? What, what about this deal? Looked good. What were you guys going to do to this deal? Bring us. Bring us into this?
00:07:48:13 – 00:08:02:01
Speaker 3
Yeah. So, you know, and one of the things that you always love to see is a high expense ratio. When you’re looking at a new property, because it’s a sign that it’s probably being mis or mismanaged.
00:08:02:01 – 00:08:02:24
Speaker 1
Mismanaged.
00:08:03:01 – 00:08:33:07
Speaker 3
Yeah. So that was a clue. And then the property management company, they didn’t seem like they were overly concerned that they were sitting at a 7% vacancy in a market that was most other properties in the area were all 100% occupied, and their ranks were sitting at $450 to 625. And it wasn’t a property where hubcaps are missing off the cars and cars are up on blocks.
00:08:33:07 – 00:09:01:14
Speaker 3
I mean, it’s a nice property. So those and it was sitting right next door to the Central water, government office that was brand new. So I’m looking at that property going, this is a home run. I just don’t know how we don’t succeed on this property. And financing was still really low at 3.51. Nice. We were able to get fixed debt.
00:09:01:16 – 00:09:16:02
Speaker 3
Now we missed out on getting interest only because it was a smaller market. But yeah, we we were very, very conservative conservative. I partnered with Ed Mizell. That was the first deal.
00:09:16:04 – 00:09:18:17
Speaker 1
And he’s another way. He’s another warrior, by the way. Right.
00:09:18:23 – 00:09:20:16
Speaker 2
Just had him on a couple weeks ago. Yeah.
00:09:20:16 – 00:09:21:17
Speaker 1
Yes we did. That’s right.
00:09:21:17 – 00:09:48:13
Speaker 3
Okay. Yeah. The beautiful thing about that is and you’re going to love this. We underwrote it. We submitted our letter of intent to buy, and they came back and they kind of laughed at our, our offer because it was $500,000 under what they were asking. And then Ed said, you know, we need to go back and let’s let’s look at our underwriting and see if we can come up at all.
00:09:48:15 – 00:10:12:03
Speaker 3
So as we’re underwriting it, we noticed the square footage that they were representing was larger than it actually was. So we tweaked our our offer and we came down even further on our offer. And it’s like he said, go ahead and submit that. And I said, Ed, they already declined our first offer. He goes, I know, but you never know.
00:10:12:03 – 00:10:33:07
Speaker 3
These things could turn and they may decide that they want to get out. And so we better go with the number we would really want to buy it at. I’m like, all right, fair I’ll submitted. So I submitted the new one and three weeks later they reached out and they said, hey, we accepted your offer. And I’m like, I said, which one?
00:10:33:09 – 00:10:39:10
Speaker 3
I. And they accepted the lower offer.
00:10:39:12 – 00:10:43:07
Speaker 1
Wow. Did they tell you why? I’m just curious.
00:10:43:09 – 00:10:45:07
Speaker 3
They were just ready to move on.
00:10:45:09 – 00:11:02:15
Speaker 1
They were done. They were done. Yeah. And guys, that’s that’s the way it works. Now, let me interject something real quick before you move on. You know, very often, and I tell my warriors this all the time, you know, if they say no, circle back because, you know, they may get other offers, they may even accept another offer that falls through.
00:11:02:15 – 00:11:15:22
Speaker 1
I can’t tell you how often you get it. If you circle back and stay at top of mind with the broker, and, well that’s fantastic. So how many units was it? And, and and how did you finance it? What was the debt?
00:11:15:24 – 00:11:19:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we got, Freddie Mae.
00:11:19:23 – 00:11:22:00
Speaker 1
I was Freddie Mac, Freddie Mac debt. Okay, good.
00:11:22:06 – 00:11:33:15
Speaker 3
Excuse me, Freddie Mac. We got a seven year term. Okay? And it was a step down. Prepayment penalty.
00:11:33:17 – 00:11:34:02
Speaker 1
Right.
00:11:34:06 – 00:11:45:17
Speaker 3
And we started getting offers just a year later on this property, wanting to buy it, but we didn’t sell because of that prepayment. Yeah. That we were going to have.
00:11:45:19 – 00:12:03:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Let me explain real quick. You know that’s that’s called conforming debt guys. Meaning it’s non-recourse. Meaning if they foreclose they’re not going to come after you personally, which of course you don’t want them to foreclose regardless, but they’re only going to take the property back, which is it’s conforming non-recourse debt. But with that they have very steep prepayment penalties.
00:12:03:09 – 00:12:25:07
Speaker 1
And what she means by step down is like the year one, it may be 5%, year two, 5%, year 34321 down to zero ultimately in year 7 or 6. And so and that’s significant when you’re talking about millions of dollars, that’s a big money that you’d lose. And so, you know, the best way to sell an asset like that for you today would be an assumption.
00:12:25:07 – 00:12:29:11
Speaker 1
But you’re probably pushing up against, you know, year 5 or 6 at this point, aren’t you?
00:12:29:13 – 00:12:32:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. We’re heading into our fifth year.
00:12:32:05 – 00:12:50:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. Fifth year. So my assumption may may or may not be feasible this this late in the game. But but that’s you know, that’s a very appealing interest rate because that’s a fraction of what they are right now. So but but anyway please continue. So step down interest rate and and the rents were 450 to 600. Is that what I heard you say?
00:12:50:09 – 00:12:53:22
Speaker 1
Yes. Good lord. So where are they at today? Just out of curiosity.
00:12:53:22 – 00:13:27:06
Speaker 3
So today we’re sitting at 850. Okay. 5% occupied again. Wow. And so you had asked about what was our plan going into it. So we thought we’ll go in here. We had budgeted $1,800 to do light fixtures, change the classic gold colored walls to gray and then replace, not appliances, but the, lavatory sink faucets. You know, the tub faucet, you know, those kind of things.
00:13:27:06 – 00:13:47:14
Speaker 3
Also, the kitchen sink faucet. Just upgrade them a little bit and also get rid of that old plastic gold on the door handle and the, the hinges and bring them up a little bit. Do the silver that was you know, the polished chrome was popular was ago. Yeah. So that’s what we were budgeting and we started to implement that.
00:13:47:16 – 00:14:01:16
Speaker 3
But as fast as we were doing that, the classic units were approaching. They were within $25 of our renovated units or lightly renovated units. So after three months, we stopped all the.
00:14:01:16 – 00:14:22:21
Speaker 1
Stops, all renovations. And by the way, guys, just just so you understand what she means by classic is that’s the way they are today. Okay? That’s that’s a term that’s used for the condition of the units today. And then so you call them classics and, and and that’s very common where you start doing renovations. You’re not getting the multiple that you need to make sense I tell you, let me give you a rule of thumb on this, guys.
00:14:23:01 – 00:14:41:13
Speaker 1
If you, you should be able to recapture the amount of money you do in your renovation, ideally within three years. Okay, so if you’re going to spend. What is it? 3600? I can’t do the math in my head, but. But whatever you spend to on your renovation, you want to recapture it in three years.
00:14:41:14 – 00:14:46:07
Speaker 2
Okay, so if you spend 3600, you want to get at least $100 rent from that. The math. That’s right.
00:14:46:10 – 00:14:55:20
Speaker 1
That’s it. There you go, there you go. But but so. So you just realized that the bump wasn’t there, so it’s like, why spend the money? Okay. Got it. Okay. Fantastic.
00:14:56:01 – 00:15:00:12
Speaker 2
So what happened after that, then? Did you just start renting out all the classics? What what what happened then?
00:15:00:14 – 00:15:26:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. So now what we’re doing is we just decided, all right, we’re going to scale back that plan. Not not touch anything other than the paint color. So you started changing the classic gold walls to gray, and that’s all we needed. And we’re still doing that to this day. And we’re still 100% full. And we got to we got to push them again.
00:15:26:16 – 00:15:35:18
Speaker 3
So about every three months we have the conversation, is it time to push another $25. So we just keep pushing $25 every three months.
00:15:35:19 – 00:15:56:16
Speaker 1
Those rents those rents, you know, if you look at it on a national scale, it’s still very low. 850 and 950 is very low. If you look nationally. So I think you still have a long way to go. So you’re a now a, almost 1200 units in five states. And you said, I think you told us before we started recording there, all with other warriors that you’ve partnered with.
00:15:56:16 – 00:16:15:12
Speaker 1
Other words. Is that accurate? Yeah. By the way, guys, if you are interested in applying to our warrior program, text the word crush to 72345. And, I mean, it’s what would you say about the program if you had a few seconds to talk about the program? Jennifer.
00:16:15:14 – 00:16:40:18
Speaker 3
Well, I as a coach now, I tell people, you don’t you want to do people you want to do business with, people that are being trained in the same manner that you are, that are learning the same underwriting skills that you are, that have the same characters and integrity that you do. And so what I love about your program, rod, is you attract that same kind of person.
00:16:40:20 – 00:17:00:23
Speaker 3
And so, you know, it’s it just makes it way easier to do business that have been trained under the same philosophies and skills that you’re trying to train everybody. I have so much more confidence and doing deals with people that have been have went through your program, because I know that they’ve gotten a good education.
00:17:01:00 – 00:17:14:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh, thank you, thank you. So again guys, if you’re interested text the word crush to 723, 4 or 5. And and we can help you crush it in this exciting exciting business. Go ahead. Mark.
00:17:14:10 – 00:17:32:22
Speaker 2
What one thing I, you kind of, glossed over there a minute ago, as you said, it took you, you know, a year and a half right in this without getting any deals done and a lot of people listening and be like, oh, my God, that’s so long. Like, they would quit before that, probably. But now you’re at 1200 doors and you’ve done once you did that first deal.
00:17:32:22 – 00:17:46:21
Speaker 2
As you know, very often we see that domino effect, right? The second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. What happened after that? And how did you what was that key moment or catalyst that kind of got you to scale up to where you’re at today? After that first one?
00:17:46:23 – 00:18:10:24
Speaker 3
Yeah. So after that first one, six months later, I was invited to be a loan guarantor with Ed on another deal in North Carolina. So I think I proved myself worthy of being a good business partner. And so he invited me to come be, his partner on that deal. And then he invited me to be a partner on the next deal and then the next deal.
00:18:10:24 – 00:18:32:08
Speaker 3
And so it just worked out that we worked well together. I think our skill set probably complemented each other. So, and then the latest deals I’ve been doing, I’ve been raising capital for other people’s deals because I haven’t had time to look for my own deals. And, you know, just kind of our head down on asset management at this point also.
00:18:32:10 – 00:18:33:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:18:33:13 – 00:18:51:01
Speaker 2
So what were those initial roles then? You know, going back to that first deal, you know, you said you and Ed kind of played complementary roles. What what sort of roles did you take on. What did he take on? I don’t know if there were other team members involved as well. What did that look like for the listeners listening who may need to figure out what they want to do?
00:18:51:03 – 00:19:17:22
Speaker 3
Yeah. So, and really quickly put together a spreadsheet of all the things we needed to do to have success at the property. You know, you know, starting with, you know, week one, these are the things we need to do. Thankfully, I was coming from a single family background where I already had a single family portfolio of about 30 doors and I had been managing those myself.
00:19:17:24 – 00:19:40:00
Speaker 3
And so I already had management experience. And so I was able to manage our expenses or watch those expenses as we were, you know, initially we were renovating, so I was really keeping a good eye on idea on that. And then we would meet every single morning and make sure we went through our checklist and who’s doing what.
00:19:40:00 – 00:19:51:16
Speaker 3
And we would just assign roles and tasks to each other to make sure we were handling everything that needed to be done so that we would come out of the gates really strong.
00:19:51:18 – 00:20:15:19
Speaker 1
Oh, that’s a very, very good, good. Yeah, yeah, I want to interject something. You know, you had those 30 houses. You didn’t just have management experience. You had construction experience as well. So you were used to dealing with vendors and and repairs. Minor major whatever with 30 houses. And you’ve encountered major repairs as well. And so and probably some major renovations also, which is fantastic experience on the asset management side.
00:20:15:21 – 00:20:34:09
Speaker 1
Now, I know that Ed is fantastic at raising money. He’ll talk to anybody. He’s he’s a networker extraordinaire. Would you say you brought in more, of the analytical piece or because you’re raising money now as well? Or were you both. I know he’s a little analytical as well, but he’s he’s great at it. Networking.
00:20:34:11 – 00:20:56:14
Speaker 3
Yeah. So that was one of the hurdles because I wasn’t going to be investing in my own state. And it was one of the hurdles that I had to overcome is how do I get all these people that I had been talking up multifamily with in my own community? How do I get them to now pivot and go to Arkansas?
00:20:56:16 – 00:21:24:00
Speaker 3
And so what I started finding is the more I started talking about Arkansas and the different markets, and I was just I created a meetup locally, and I invited all my friends and people I knew that were in real estate from single family to come over here to multifamily and let’s talk multifamily. Let’s, let’s work together. Let’s try to build a community of investors that one, invest in these.
00:21:24:00 – 00:21:47:04
Speaker 3
And so what ended up happening is, as I was striking out on local opportunities, I started sharing with them about the other markets that surrounded the Kansas City area. And, you know, they started to listen to me and started realizing, hey, you know, we need to take this seriously. Jennifer doesn’t think she’s going to be able to find anything in Kansas City.
00:21:47:10 – 00:22:17:08
Speaker 3
So we need to be preparing ourselves that we’re going elsewhere to invest. And so what I now do, I mean, just like you all do, you look at the growth factors and the different cities and who’s booming, who’s not. And so it’s very easy now for me to look at a city and say, okay, here’s the reason I’m going over here, and I invite you to join me because here’s what I’m seeing.
00:22:17:10 – 00:22:43:22
Speaker 3
And as soon as you can share with your investors the growth indicators of a market, they’re going to go with you. But when you’re talking about complimentary skills and I share a lot of the same skills, I’ve become a good capital raiser, but I think I became a good capital raiser because I was posting about all the different flips I’ve done over the last five years.
00:22:43:24 – 00:23:07:18
Speaker 3
I’ve done 45 flips. So when you’re talking about construction experience, I have that now. And people just when I was reaching out to them to say, do you want to be part of this deal? I kept hearing over and over that we have confidence in you after watching you over the last 3 to 5 years in this space that you know what you’re doing, and we feel comfortable investing with you.
00:23:07:20 – 00:23:26:07
Speaker 1
Isn’t that interesting? So. So I’m sorry. Sorry to interrupt, but but. Yeah. So so you going back in to single family? Yeah. Showing what you’re doing has spring boarded the multifamily capital raising piece. Isn’t that interesting? Wow. It’s funny how it all builds on itself. Wow.
00:23:26:07 – 00:23:51:18
Speaker 3
Well, you know, Ron, I look back and when you told me to go back and do you know, I always think that it wasn’t a set back. It was a set up for further success. And it really did give me the the courage to go back into multifamily and say, you know what? I know what I’m doing. You know, I can spot when somebody has taken advantage of us in a heartbeat.
00:23:51:18 – 00:24:15:10
Speaker 3
Now, when I get calls and like, what the heck is this? Come on, people, you know. So I think when people come into multifamily, you have to partner with somebody that has already got a portfolio of single family homes or some kind of portfolio experience, or building or construction just so you’re not taken advantage of. Yeah.
00:24:15:12 – 00:24:39:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, it’s super, super helpful. You know, if you’ve done some single fam and that’s the natural progression anyways to go from single family to multifamily. So again, if you’re considering getting some guidance, you know, so you can experience the life you’re looking for this year rather than, you know, seven, eight years from now. Text crush to 72345 just to see if the warrior program might be able to help you, you know, overcome any challenges that you have.
00:24:39:15 – 00:25:02:03
Speaker 1
So you can accomplish what you want. And, you know, and I don’t remember where my mindset was when I suggested for you to get back into it. I think you you were floundering and I was like, okay, you love single family. Just do that. Keep playing with this. Stay, you know, keep kids, keep consuming information. I think that’s probably the way the conversation went and, and, and, and don’t give up on this and, and and you didn’t and so.
00:25:02:05 – 00:25:20:21
Speaker 2
So I know you talked about the different markets that you’ve been looking at doing all the research. I am very bullish on the Midwest myself. Right now as well, because it hasn’t had the inventory spike, you know, from the Covid, building and everything. What do you like moving forward? Can you share any secret markets that you like or.
00:25:20:23 – 00:25:27:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. Where are you invested now? Where do you like where are you. Yeah. Where are you invested now as well at all of that?
00:25:27:03 – 00:25:56:21
Speaker 3
Yeah, I love that. So during Covid, we pivoted down to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. And we have seen insurance just escalate to the point where it’s not affordable in Florida anymore. So we went up 340% in that market alone. So I doubt I’ll be looking in the near future in that market till we can they can get all that figured out.
00:25:56:23 – 00:26:18:24
Speaker 3
I like the Midwest. I still like the Northwest Arkansas area. I like Dallas a lot. I like you know, Fort Worth. I don’t know if people are aware, but there was a tycoon that used to own a lot of the land. Just to the I want to say throw. You know what? I don’t know who it was.
00:26:19:01 – 00:26:25:20
Speaker 1
Well, Perot owned all the land where they built the airport. That was that was. He was a billionaire. What? No. Not him. Okay, that’s not it.
00:26:25:20 – 00:26:49:11
Speaker 3
No. So they were landlocked, which is why Dallas had all the growth. Fort worth really never continued to grow. And it’s because a tycoon owned a ton of the land, and he wasn’t willing to sell it off. Well, in the last two years, he started selling off the land. So Amazon’s taken a big chunk. I want to say Microsoft has taken a big chunk of it.
00:26:49:13 – 00:27:22:19
Speaker 3
So you’re starting to see that land explode. And so I really like these bedroom communities in Fort Worth. A lot of them were built in the 80s. And you know as well as I do Ron and Mark that cap rates have decompressed and we’re starting to see fire sales on a lot of buildings. I’ve already started to see a lot of properties come to auctions, but anything in Texas that’s surrounding the Dallas Fort Worth area is just it’s crawling.
00:27:22:19 – 00:27:33:10
Speaker 3
It’s that urban crawl. And I’m starting to see a lot of similarities between it and Northwest Arkansas. So Mark, we should partner up.
00:27:33:12 – 00:27:36:14
Speaker 2
We should. I was going to mention that after the podcast hearing.
00:27:36:16 – 00:27:54:18
Speaker 1
About, well, that’s that’s the benefit of being in a group like this guys is, is is it’s all about I just had lunch with a warrior an hour ago and we’re looking at doing something together as well. And, but, well, listen, Jennifer, I really appreciate you taking a few minutes and coming on the show.
00:27:54:18 – 00:28:17:04
Speaker 1
I know you’re going to be at the boot camp. Here in a couple weeks and doing a presentation. And, you know, we do case studies on deals. You’ll be doing a case study on on. I think that the deal we just talked about maybe showing what you did with the more detail and, and so, yeah, if you’re not guys, if you’re not signed up for the boot camps coming up January 25th and 26th, what were you thinking?
00:28:17:04 – 00:28:30:03
Speaker 1
Because it, is going to be awesome. I don’t sell anything there. It’s just training for two days, so. But, Jennifer, thanks for coming on, sweetie. It’s so great to see you. And I just love it every time I’m around your energy.
00:28:30:05 – 00:28:37:02
Speaker 3
Well, likewise. Thank you so much again. It’s been a pleasure. And I’m so grateful for this group and for you. Rod. Thank you, thank you.
