Crystal D’Agostino, a veteran real estate broker with 16 years in the industry and owner of Start Realty in Rhode Island, partners with her husband, Chris D’Agostino, whose 25 years in the automotive business and love for classic cars bring a unique drive to their ventures. Their real estate journey began in 2009 with a single family flip, quickly evolving into 20 self-managed multifamily units between 2011 and 2018. Since joining the Warrior Program, they have accelerated their portfolio to 122 doors, with 66 as limited partners and 36 as general partners, while staying rooted in their passions for travel, family, and building community.
Here’s some of the topics we covered:
- From Selling Used Cars to Flipping Houses to Owning Multifamily Empires
- Insider Scoop on the Hottest Moves in the Texas Multifamily Market
- How the Warrior Group Led Them to the Perfect Partner
- What the Local Job Market Says About Your Asset’s Future
- Behind the Scenes of the Value-Add Strategy on Our First Deal
- The Harsh Truth About Investing in Small Towns
- Why a Rockstar Property Manager Can Make or Break Your Investment
- Pro Secrets for Running Out-of-State Properties Like a Pro
If you’d like to apply to the warrior program and do deals with other rockstars in this business: Text crush to 72345 and we’ll be speaking soon.
Full Transcript Below
00:00:28:24 – 00:00:50:19
Rod
Welcome back to multifamily Rock star. So as you guys know, this is where we dive deep on our guest deals and, you know, give you actionable and really practical advice on how to how to do your first deal, really. And, you know, it’s it’s typically all warriors that we interview in our, in our warrior program. And as usual, I’ve got my co-host Mark Nagy here.
00:00:50:21 – 00:01:01:05
Mark
Come on, rod. And I know we mentioned this last week, but good to see, a couple here that I just met only five months ago, and they’re already getting into some deals, and so I’m glad to dive with them. Yeah.
00:01:01:06 – 00:01:15:14
Rod
Fantastic. Fantastic. So we’ve got Crystal and Chris D’Agostino on the show today and, they’re from northeast, which you’ll recognize in the accent here in a moment. And, and, we’re gonna have some fun today. Welcome, guys.
00:01:15:16 – 00:01:19:00
Chris
Thank you. Ryan, it’s an honor to be here.
00:01:19:02 – 00:01:30:14
Rod
That it’s it’s an honor to have you on the show. So why don’t you give us a little background on who you are? You know, where you came from. Why? Real estate and, we’ll start there. That’s a great place to start. Tell your story.
00:01:30:16 – 00:01:51:16
Crystal
I’ll thank you so much, rod. It’s, you know, been quite the journey we started, you know, many, many years ago when we were just actually dating, I was in corporate America and got laid off twice. And at that point, I realized I needed to do something to have control of my destiny. I was in college at that point as well, dating Chris.
00:01:51:16 – 00:02:18:09
Crystal
As I said, Chris’s in the automotive field, selling and flipping cars at that point running his own business. So he was making good money, but I wasn’t. So I wanted to look into the real estate and the things we got into it. We flipped a house which gave us the funds to then buy our first investment, which was a three family that needed a lot of work before we were even done getting that one up and off the ground running.
00:02:18:11 – 00:02:34:14
Crystal
We ended up buying our first six unit, which everyone thought at that point we were crazy getting into a commercial property at that point that needed so much more. And as far as regulations go, with our fire code systems and things like that here in our own backyard.
00:02:34:17 – 00:02:38:24
Chris
We’re in the heavily regulated northeast. So. And what state.
00:02:39:00 – 00:02:43:21
Rod
What state is it? We’re in Rhode Island. Right on. Okay.
00:02:43:23 – 00:03:11:09
Chris
So up here, we’ve got really strict laws that tend to favor the tenant. And not give much thought to the property owner. But, between 2011 and 2018, we acquired a total of 20 doors up here that we own and operate. And the reason we joined the warrior program was we were growing incrementally, and we wanted to take our business to the next level.
00:03:11:11 – 00:03:20:09
Chris
We wanted to get into commercial real estate, real commercial, not small commercial. And, we didn’t know where to start.
00:03:20:11 – 00:03:40:23
Crystal
Yeah. And Chris is background being in the automotives dealing with sales and customer. And he’s very good mechanically. He was really boots on the ground for us with our investment properties. So we ended up really working well as a team with me dealing with more of the property management at that point, him handling, you know, actually being.
00:03:40:24 – 00:03:43:11
Chris
A maintenance piece.
00:03:43:13 – 00:03:54:17
Crystal
You know, really dealing with a lot of the work that some of these properties needed because we did buy them where they needed quite a bit because it’s what we could afford. We couldn’t buy the pretty properties.
00:03:54:19 – 00:04:01:16
Chris
But this was well, in the last economic downturn, we we got our start in a in a buyer’s market.
00:04:01:18 – 00:04:02:07
Crystal
And then a.
00:04:02:07 – 00:04:13:15
Mark
Real quick that 20 doors, was that what caused you to hit that plateau? Because I know a lot of people don’t know this. Just having 20 mortgages is that way, where you reach kind of the stopping point.
00:04:13:17 – 00:04:37:15
Chris
Well, it’s the 20 doors are in, for different properties. So it’s not like 20 single family. But yeah, it we were on we’re on a small scale and I was personally managing and maintaining these properties. And it got to the point where if we expanded any more in this area, I would have been overwhelmed with work.
00:04:37:17 – 00:04:56:20
Crystal
So yeah, it was a changing. The mindset of not being as hands on is really what made us flat out was we weren’t in the mindset of not being hands on. We were in the mindset of doing it all, and we were doing it all and doing it well. But we were at the max of what we could handle by our so.
00:04:57:01 – 00:05:15:16
Rod
That’s how everybody starts, guys. I mean, that’s literally how I started. That’s how everybody starts. You know, they’ll manage them themselves. But it’s fantastic framework for for, you know, getting into larger deals. So let’s talk about your first larger deal. You join the warrior program. Let’s talk about your first deal as a warrior. You know, where was it?
00:05:15:16 – 00:05:19:19
Rod
How big was it? Yeah. Give us some detail on that deal.
00:05:19:21 – 00:05:47:17
Crystal
There are six unit in Texas, and it is all because of the warrior program. I have to say, your networking within the program is so key because how do we not network? The deal would not have come together. And we have a fabulous team. Every you know, everybody has that talent. Everybody’s really great on a personal level. So working with everybody on this deal has really made it smooth.
00:05:47:17 – 00:05:56:16
Crystal
And I knock on some wood hands. I can say that because it really has been such a blessing. It’s 36 units, like we said, it’s in a little bit.
00:05:56:18 – 00:06:20:17
Chris
It’s a tertiary market in Texas. We kind of we’re in a niche market where there isn’t much competition. Where occupancy is currently at 94.4%. We are doing some value out on the property. And, much of that work has actually been completed. We were able to increase rents tremendously and still retain the vast majority.
00:06:20:19 – 00:06:25:14
Rod
What did you pay? What you. Yeah. What did you pay for it? And, how did you finance it?
00:06:25:16 – 00:06:40:06
Chris
So it was just shy of $2 million. We got agency debt for, for the majority of our financing. We raised equity for the down payment and the CapEx. It was a very traditional structure.
00:06:40:08 – 00:06:46:20
Rod
Okay. So by the way, guys, agency debt is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Which one was it in this case?
00:06:46:22 – 00:06:49:18
Crystal
This one here it was Fannie I believe.
00:06:49:20 – 00:07:08:07
Rod
Fannie. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, agency debt means it’s non-recourse. Meaning if they foreclose, they just come after the property instead of you as long as you do everything right. But, it you got, it looks like just a little over 6% interest, which isn’t bad. And you got some interest only as well. Correct?
00:07:08:09 – 00:07:16:22
Chris
Yes. We got a 24 month interest only period, which. Yeah, helps helps the bottom line for us, especially initially I.
00:07:16:22 – 00:07:33:04
Mark
Want to talk about this market a little bit. Franklin, Texas because I love small market deals. Others when we’re talking small this is small. I just did a population Google search and I see about 2000 people in this town. Those can be some of the best deals. I want to talk about the pros and cons of that.
00:07:33:04 – 00:07:43:14
Mark
First of all, how did you guys even I know you said some of the Warriors, but give us a little bit more detail on how you find a deal like this in such a small town of only 2000 people.
00:07:43:16 – 00:08:01:21
Crystal
So our team had actually been working on another deal long before we came into the picture, but didn’t go through. And the property manager that was working with them on the other deal. She’s a realtor as well as a property manager. She was trying to help them negotiate on the other deal that they, after due diligence, walked away.
00:08:02:01 – 00:08:19:03
Crystal
She knew of this deal and she brought it to them and they had worked on it. They actually had the deal go through due diligence and everything before we came into the picture, because they had another investor that was involved, but it didn’t work out for them to move forward, but they couldn’t close.
00:08:19:03 – 00:08:26:20
Chris
So the investor pulled out for reasons unrelated to the deal itself, personal reasons.
00:08:26:22 – 00:08:40:13
Crystal
And us having our, property management experience and asset management experience on our end, it really fit well with the team and what they needed to move forward. So we came into the deal.
00:08:40:13 – 00:09:00:13
Chris
We met one of our team members right in a warrior breakout session. And one of the warrior, events on zoom. And, it turned out that we we hit it off, and then we scheduled a call and. Yeah, to go over the the what they need and what we could bring. And it turned out to be a perfect fit.
00:09:00:14 – 00:09:22:23
Crystal
And then the same warrior actually spoke with a different warrior who was another coach in the program, another Road Islander here ranked Palo Alto. And he actually had said, you know, it really struck to Chris and Crystal. That’s kind of what they’re looking for. So all through networking on two different ends, it came full circle that we all came together and made the deal work and got it to close.
00:09:23:00 – 00:09:28:04
Mark
So, so funny how that works. It’s just I know somebody who knows somebody, right? Yeah.
00:09:28:06 – 00:09:38:17
Rod
I have a couple of questions. I have a couple of I have a couple of questions around that market. So how close is it to Waco and College Station? You say it’s between the two, correct?
00:09:38:19 – 00:09:39:11
Crystal
Yes. Yeah.
00:09:39:11 – 00:09:49:03
Chris
So about 45 minutes, northwest of College Station along the way to Waco, a little further from Waco. It’s okay.
00:09:49:05 – 00:09:50:22
Crystal
Okay. Under an hour.
00:09:50:24 – 00:09:59:15
Rod
So what what is the, the jobs in that small town that support this 36 unit? Just out of curiosity.
00:09:59:17 – 00:10:03:07
Crystal
Never a lot of drilling petroleum.
00:10:03:09 – 00:10:19:03
Chris
Petroleum, based sector. We’ve got some corporate units that leased out to companies, and they have, traveling workers that, they use those units when they’re in the area maintaining the oil wells and, the petroleum equipment.
00:10:19:07 – 00:10:34:23
Crystal
There’s really a shortage on the need that they have, because a lot of the folks have to commute over an hour to get, the more heavy populated areas with a lot more apartment complexes, you know, that are affordable.
00:10:35:04 – 00:10:55:03
Rod
So gotcha. Okay, so that’s the need for servicing. Fantastic. Okay. That was my question because, you know, jobs or everything as it relates to multifamily. And when you talk about a town that small I get a little nervous. But now, you know 45 minutes isn’t bad. I mean, ideally 30 would be better from a big metro, like, like like a Waco or a college station.
00:10:55:03 – 00:11:07:04
Rod
But but, that still works. And and I can, I can hear where the need is. So talk about the value add on this deal. What what were the going in rents and what, what’s the value at play on this thing?
00:11:07:06 – 00:11:25:05
Chris
We we had a favorable situation going in. The previous owner, had planned to sell the complex and let all the leases lapsed a month to month. So we weren’t locked in with, long term leases with any of these tenants. So the.
00:11:25:05 – 00:11:53:13
Crystal
Seller, you know, she she and her husband actually ran it. He had unfortunately passed a few years ago. She wanted to retire from running it solo on her own. And she kept everybody’s rents original, when she was managing it. So they were really below, you know, the market and already on the ones we’ve turned over. We’re already getting year four projections for rent.
00:11:53:15 – 00:11:54:03
Rod
Fantastic.
00:11:54:03 – 00:11:55:16
Chris
Wow.
00:11:55:18 – 00:11:58:00
Rod
Yeah that’s fantastic. It makes me that’s.
00:11:58:00 – 00:12:20:16
Mark
Why I’ve loved some of those small market deals that I’ve done is you can bump the rents a lot of the times a lot quicker than what you even might underwrite. Now I want to talk about the potential downsides. I know something is that in small towns you don’t necessarily have the workers that you sometimes need for these, whether it can be contractors or people to renovate the units, whatever it might be.
00:12:20:20 – 00:12:38:11
Mark
And I know that’s something I’ve run into, is when you have a small amount of contractors in a small town, they have to work with everybody in the entire town. Is that something you guys have run into, or have you had any cons yet, or downsides or learning lessons of investing in a small town? Quiet.
00:12:38:13 – 00:13:00:07
Crystal
Yeah, yes we have. And our property manager really is key to it because she is a property manager for several of the complexes. She has a lot of contacts that she works with, and she’s been able to get people because she gives them so much business. Some of the other properties to get them to venture out a little further.
00:13:00:12 – 00:13:23:12
Crystal
So she has been really key. Her and her team have been key with getting us, you know, good, great deals and stuff because of the bulk of work that she sends, because it is a little bit of a challenge of getting, you know, different plumbers and stuff. And we’ve, you know, found, a handyman who is close, who lives nearby to do things for us part time, too.
00:13:23:12 – 00:13:24:01
Crystal
So.
00:13:24:03 – 00:13:25:00
Rod
Oh, fantastic.
00:13:25:05 – 00:13:56:22
Chris
Fantastic for us. The challenges. The larger firms won’t come from Houston. Well, they’ll try just a surcharge simply because of the distance. Naturally, they’ve got to pay their their employees for that travel time. But, we’ve got a great team. We’ve been able to get all the work done to date. We’re talking about some carpentry, landscape work, repairs to the the structure of the property.
00:13:56:24 – 00:14:05:12
Chris
We’ve been able to get that done, in a cost effective way. And the PM company has been helpful with, much of that.
00:14:05:14 – 00:14:07:15
Rod
Yeah, yeah, they always are.
00:14:07:17 – 00:14:21:23
Mark
Could you tell us a little bit about the logistics of all that? I know that’s a question I get very often is if you’re going to invest out of state, how do you manage these properties remotely? Again, especially in a small town, is it a zoom call you have with your property manager and you go through these things weekly?
00:14:21:23 – 00:14:28:08
Mark
Tell us a little bit for the listeners of how you guys go about managing that from the asset management side of things.
00:14:28:10 – 00:14:42:22
Chris
We we do we’re very engaged with both our team and the PM company. We have a weekly zoom meeting with our team. We have a weekly meeting immediately after that with the PM company. They send us.
00:14:42:24 – 00:15:01:07
Crystal
Dates, they send us a report, each week prior to our meeting for us to review, to make sure, you know, tasks that we’ve discussed, where they, you know, are they getting done, have they been assigned, you know, are we moving forward? What’s needed on our end, you know, before they can proceed on anything, they need our approval.
00:15:01:09 – 00:15:05:04
Crystal
So it’s to keep things moving. We have to be in contact.
00:15:05:04 – 00:15:23:02
Chris
And we’ve even got a WhatsApp chat going in case something comes up in between. We need to share a picture of of something that we can instantly, communicate. And this way here we can help keep costs down and and have things done in a timely manner.
00:15:23:04 – 00:15:53:13
Crystal
And it’s not big CapEx projects are completed if we won’t need to meet with them as frequent. But definitely will be a consistent. I find that the consistency of knowing that we have to meet keeps everybody on looking at things and making sure nothing falls between the cracks, because one of my big things and Chris, Chris and I really pride ourselves on any of the properties we have owned and that we’ve managed, if we could not live there ourselves, is a problem.
00:15:53:16 – 00:16:22:17
Crystal
So everything is brought up to our standards. You know, it’s got to be comfortable, safe and, you know, fresh and clean, like, those are things that, I had done, property management, you know, even when I was just out of high school. And I watched how things fall through the cracks is just, leasing consultant. And that was just like a job I had earlier on in life than I think would ever come to, you know, come to have any importance in my life now.
00:16:22:17 – 00:16:45:16
Crystal
But now, you know it does, because that was one of the big things. One of the complexes I worked at was a lot of older people who lived in the facilities and if maintenance calls did not get addressed, they got very upset. So that’s one of our big things with managing the property manager is making sure everything is being, you know, done in a timely manner.
00:16:45:18 – 00:16:47:03
Crystal
You know, obviously we won’t.
00:16:47:03 – 00:17:17:18
Chris
Lease out an apartment that we wouldn’t live in ourselves. Yeah. If it’s not clean enough, if there are things not working right, we won’t lease that out until it’s corrected. And we found in the company that we selected as a team, they share that same, set of values. They they’re very meticulous about making sure everything is working properly and that the, the facility is clean and everything’s kept in a safe and sanitary, manner.
00:17:17:20 – 00:17:27:22
Chris
So that’s, that’s one of the key things. Just because we’re several thousand miles away, it doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention.
00:17:27:24 – 00:17:47:11
Rod
Yeah. No. Got it now. And and you know, one of the questions I like to ask is what’s your superpower? But it ties into what you’re talking about right here. And and elaborate on that because, you know, I, I tell, tell my listeners what your superpower is as it relates to, the multifamily space.
00:17:47:13 – 00:17:55:06
Chris
It’s asset management. We’re able to, control costs and keep quality consistent.
00:17:55:08 – 00:18:16:21
Crystal
And Chris is being modest when he says that Chris having, you know, swung the hammer. Hammer himself and done some wiring himself, you know, it’s like a contractor can come with a projection of, estimate of what jobs. And he’ll say, you know, this is this is, you know, outrageous. This isn’t what it costs. You know, he keeps everybody honest and on their toes.
00:18:16:23 – 00:18:32:23
Crystal
And he’s very good at that. He’s very good at saying, oh, no, I was just at Home Depot last week. We can get of the Raiders. You know, four of them gets us a 10%, 20% discount. So he’s he’s on the ball with that stuff. So that’s definitely where he.
00:18:33:00 – 00:18:50:00
Chris
I have a a keen attention for detail. So when I walk into a unit, if I see things misaligned or, or, you know, doors are rubbing, they’re not opening and closing. Right. That’s a problem. And it needs to be addressed. Those are the type of things that I would address hands on. And our own units up here.
00:18:50:00 – 00:19:09:07
Crystal
Yeah. Even with walkthroughs, I always say Chris, Chris can point out, you know, something structural is not going on right here. Here. You know, his red flags will go up where I’m more of the one who’s like, okay, this isn’t pretty enough. This isn’t this isn’t up to up to today’s style house. You know, I go more for the esthetics.
00:19:09:07 – 00:19:11:22
Crystal
He goes more for the the founder.
00:19:11:22 – 00:19:15:10
Chris
Yeah. She’s appearance. I’m technical.
00:19:15:12 – 00:19:33:09
Rod
That’s the that’s the way it normally is, to sell in a in a male female relationship. But no, you guys are a great team. I will tell you, I can I can just hear, you know, the the efficiency and the execution, with crystal and then, you know, the detail with you, Chris. It’s it’s it’s a it’s a great matchup.
00:19:33:11 – 00:19:54:01
Mark
Yeah. So as, as we’re talking about asset management, you guys wrote one thing on your bio that doesn’t get talked about enough. A lot of people talks about, you know, hey, renovating, maximizing rents, maximizing value. But you guys talked about leasing just below market, which can be a really, really great strategy. Tell us again for the listeners why you do this.
00:19:54:01 – 00:20:01:19
Mark
What what effect, what sort of effect does this have on the property and why you guys are taking that approach. Because it’s not talked about a lot in this industry.
00:20:01:21 – 00:20:04:21
Chris
We’ve had success with this person was.
00:20:04:21 – 00:20:28:10
Crystal
Here, we’ve been here and our backyard doing it. We always look to see what the market is doing, because when you send out a rent increase to a tenant, the first thing they’re doing is pulling up Zillow and looking to see what else is out there. You know, they want to know that they’re not getting screwed either. So with that mentality of that’s what I would do if I got a letter saying I was get an increase.
00:20:28:12 – 00:20:31:03
Crystal
You know what? What else can I get? And then.
00:20:31:05 – 00:20:31:22
Chris
You know, we.
00:20:32:01 – 00:20:35:13
Crystal
Have it where they look at it and they’re like, yeah, no, we’re staying.
00:20:35:15 – 00:21:10:09
Chris
We have we got an eyesore in our buildings that we don’t want to lose, but we also have to maximize our returns. So it’s a ball striking a balance that’s fair for our tenants and fair for us. And by leasing just below market, they have no incentive to leave their incentive is to stay because they’re saving money. And for us, if we lost them, if we have even a month of vacancy, typically the difference in that monthly rent is going to be offset by a month of vacancy and not in favor.
00:21:10:11 – 00:21:12:03
Chris
Sure. So it’s a strategy.
00:21:12:03 – 00:21:27:10
Rod
That it’s a no brainer. It’s yeah, it’s a no brainer, guys. Honestly it’s a no brainer. It’s a very smart strategy. So let me ask you this. What you know of our listeners, what type of our listeners do you think would be able to relate to you guys?
00:21:27:12 – 00:21:54:17
Chris
I would think, folks from blue Collar background, multicultural background, Crystal’s, Crystal’s father came here from Portugal. She grew up with English as a second language. So, and she’s worked hard her whole life to get to where she is today. I started working full time at 16 years old, working with folks double, triple my age.
00:21:54:19 – 00:22:05:16
Chris
So, we’ve we’re workers. We’ve been we’ve we’ve been working, pretty consistently to get to where we are, and nothing was handed to us.
00:22:05:17 – 00:22:27:00
Crystal
Yeah. And I always say we get a lot of people who ask us in general, like, they’ll be like, oh, you know, why aren’t you afraid? Aren’t you scared? You know, you’re doing this. You have to deal with all these headaches and and you worried about the, you know, 2 a.m. phone call that, a toilet is overflowing, and I always stop them and say, you know.
00:22:27:03 – 00:22:27:10
Chris
That’s.
00:22:27:13 – 00:22:51:24
Crystal
As it happens. There’s no denying that it happens. However, for every negative story you hear as a landlord from a landlord, there is a thousand of, oh, yeah, I just got paid on time. Nothing happened. You know, that’s not a fun story to share. That’s not a story that people go around telling. Oh yeah, I got 20 units.
00:22:51:24 – 00:23:10:17
Crystal
Everybody paid me on time. Like, that’s not something. Nobody’s talking about that at a bar. But if I said, hey, I had this one tenant in this apartment and I ended up getting called at the end of a cousin’s wedding on a maintenance call by the DM or the Swat team at my property. You want to know more?
00:23:10:19 – 00:23:12:19
Crystal
If that’s an interesting story.
00:23:12:21 – 00:23:14:24
Rod
Negative news sells. That’s it.
00:23:14:24 – 00:23:30:00
Crystal
Exactly. So, you know, people, I always tell everybody you can’t go by what you hear. And at any job there’s stresses that you can’t control. Nobody goes to work and says, I love absolutely every single solitary moment.
00:23:30:02 – 00:23:48:15
Rod
Well, there’s a reason that there’s a reason that you don’t read the paper and it says, everything is beautiful right now. The sun is shining. I hope you have a wonderful life. You read about crap that’s going on because that’s what people are interested in. Unfortunately, we connect through negativity. It’s it’s a sad human condition. But listen, you guys, so you guys join the warrior program.
00:23:48:18 – 00:23:51:19
Rod
Like, just like five months ago. Six months ago. Is that right?
00:23:51:21 – 00:23:52:23
Crystal
Yes. We do that right.
00:23:53:01 – 00:24:00:01
Rod
Why why why did you join? I mean, what was the prompting? It was just a scale you want. You knew you wanted to get bigger, go bigger, faster.
00:24:00:03 – 00:24:07:14
Crystal
So I followed you for quite some time. I actually took one of your boot camps during Covid.
00:24:07:16 – 00:24:08:14
Chris
Oh. Wow.
00:24:08:16 – 00:24:24:21
Crystal
I knew I wanted to scale and I didn’t join at that point. Chris was knees deep in renovating my brokerage because he we had a space that needed to be completely renovated to be my office. So he was doing I was too.
00:24:24:21 – 00:24:27:23
Chris
Busy to focus on any scaling at the At that he.
00:24:27:23 – 00:24:45:21
Crystal
Wasn’t quite ready. We had too much going on. So at that point I had been following you. I knew that we weren’t it. We needed a team. We needed a team to be able to really scale. But I still wasn’t 100% certain on how to do that. We tried to do a deal in North Carolina on our own.
00:24:45:23 – 00:25:14:12
Crystal
We actually put an offer in. It was accepted. The financing pulled out. It was again, it was another rural area. It was only 15 minutes away from a metro area, but the lender had backed out. They didn’t want to fund it. So by the time we could put another financing in place, the seller accepted another offer from someone else at 200,000 less than what we were at, which totally killed me.
00:25:14:12 – 00:25:15:07
Crystal
Which.
00:25:15:09 – 00:25:15:18
Rod
Which.
00:25:15:19 – 00:25:31:05
Chris
Was a good deal. We were going to we could make the numbers work even at 50% occupancy with this deal. Yeah, it was a killer deal. It wasn’t found in the usual source. Usual places. It was a residential broker that really wasn’t familiar with it.
00:25:31:07 – 00:25:33:20
Crystal
It was listed, actually, on the lowest.
00:25:33:22 – 00:25:47:15
Rod
Well, that’s. See, and that’s actually a ninja trick, by the way, what you just said, very often a residential broker will get a commercial listing, and they even got a freaking clue what to do with it, but they’re not going to turn it down. And you get phenomenal deals that way. And I can tell you numerous examples.
00:25:47:15 – 00:26:05:02
Rod
So this is an example of that. Well, listen, I just want to ask that because, you know, you guys are killing it. And you know, if if you’re listening and you have an interest in applying to our warrior program, text the word crush to seven, two, three, four, or five so we can help you crush it. Like, the D’Agostino is here.
00:26:05:04 – 00:26:27:09
Rod
Our crushing it and and and that’s the process. You know, you check us out, we check you out. We don’t take everybody. But, I mean, right now, our warriors own somewhere between 265 and 280,000 units that we know of. And it’s not just multifamily. Hell, we’re we’ve got senior housing going, self-storage going, we’ve got mobile home parks going, industrial flex space.
00:26:27:09 – 00:26:41:22
Rod
We just interviewed of warrior. There’s industrial flex space yesterday. You know, so all of the asset classes are represented and of course our big thing is multifamily. But anyway it text the word crush to seven, two, three, 4 or 5. That’s how you get the conversation started with us.
00:26:41:22 – 00:27:03:13
Mark
So I know last question for you guys, right. We continually continuously talk about all the opportunity coming because prices have been coming down. People are losing deals. Interest rates are not coming down, which is making it harder on operators. What do you guys think are the best ways to find deals moving forward over the next six, 12, 18 months?
00:27:03:13 – 00:27:08:02
Mark
Because things are changing all the time in this industry.
00:27:08:04 – 00:27:25:06
Chris
I think one of the best things to do is to look for off market opportunities. And this is, you can get these from multiple sources if you establish relationships with commercial brokers. Also, residential brokers, they get that one off commercial listing.
00:27:25:08 – 00:27:59:18
Crystal
And I’ve been telling everybody, don’t shy away from reaching out to property managers, the property managers who are handling multiple, multiple doors are the first to hear when the landlord is stressed out and frustrated and needs out there. One of the first sources to know. And sometimes it’s not that they’re being told that if they’re going to sell, they’re just told that they’re frustrated with it and they can see that the struggles are happening, they’re aware of it, and sometimes it’s just probe approaching those people and saying, hey, you know, you’re looking to sell at this point, can we make a deal?
00:27:59:18 – 00:28:06:02
Crystal
And sometimes the answer is no, but that just means not right now. The first ones they end up calling.
00:28:06:04 – 00:28:23:21
Rod
Yeah, yeah. Good answer. Great advice. Yeah I you know we talk about that in the bootcamp to build relationships. The property management companies. They are a great source of deals. So let me ask you this. Are you guys okay with listeners reaching out to you if they’ve got questions for you or questions about our program or anything like that?
00:28:23:23 – 00:28:27:07
Chris
Of course we’re always looking to meet new folks in that work.
00:28:27:09 – 00:28:28:17
Rod
Okay, fantastic.
00:28:28:19 – 00:28:31:09
Crystal
How would they do that for media?
00:28:31:11 – 00:28:33:13
Rod
Okay. What’s the website?
00:28:33:15 – 00:28:39:12
Chris
Our website is Start Realty commercial.com okay. And we just.
00:28:39:12 – 00:28:40:04
Rod
Like at sales.
00:28:40:04 – 00:28:56:16
Chris
Page. Yeah. We have a page that that explains what we do. You know, if you want to start in commercial realty, start a commercial, and, there’s a contact form. If somebody wants to get in touch with us, it’s just the two of us.
00:28:56:16 – 00:29:24:03
Crystal
Yes. And as well as email, start realty commercial at gmail.com. They can reach us at any time through email as well. But I have to add a little plug into this because we cannot say enough about the warrior program. Everyone we have talked with, you know, I had said that deal that had fell apart in North Carolina was going to be the last deal that we would miss out on because we weren’t fully equipped and ready to go.
00:29:24:06 – 00:29:50:08
Crystal
Had we already been in the warrior program, we would have had financing within seconds. I would have been able to reach out to everybody to say, hey, this is the deal. You know, we need help. And everyone would have reached out. The community behind the warrior program is huge. It’s like minded people, but everybody is willing to help everyone and that is a game changer.
00:29:50:08 – 00:30:28:15
Crystal
I belong to a lot of different associations in the real estate community here locally and I have not ever belonged to a group of people who are so willing to help everyone succeed, whether they’re part of it or not. It’s amazing the group of people that we have here. So if anybody is ever looking to get into any level of commercial real estate, multifamily, and even the community that is here is worth your time and investing or investing in yourself and I think we all we say we got our money, our money’s worth out of the program within the first two weeks.
00:30:28:17 – 00:30:31:20
Crystal
And we we haven’t even done a deal yet. That alone was.
00:30:31:20 – 00:30:34:17
Rod
Well, that’s really kind of you to say.
00:30:34:19 – 00:30:37:04
Mark
And we didn’t pay you to say that, did we know? Yeah.
00:30:37:06 – 00:30:58:23
Rod
I know, I know. Okay, well, listen, guys, you’ve added a lot of value today, your beautiful couple, and really appreciate you coming on for a few minutes and sharing, you know, some of your journey and I can’t wait to have you back on in a couple years because it’ll be thousands of dollars, I’m sure. And, and, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re basically kicking ass and taking names and, and I appreciate and it’s great to see you.
00:30:58:23 – 00:31:06:16
Rod
And I’m sure we’ll see you at the warrior event coming up here, in short order in October. But, thanks. Thanks again. Guys.
00:31:06:18 – 00:31:07:20
Chris
Absolutely. Thank you.
00:31:07:20 – 00:31:08:07
Crystal
So much.
