48 Units, 20 Months, Purchased and Sold - Multifamily Syndication

After being a real estate broker (residential and commercial), I decided to dive in and syndicate a multifamily property. After months looking at markets, countless offers, thousands of direct mailers, I found my deal. I bought it off-market from an absentee owner, just about to list with a local commercial broker.To prove to him I was a serious buyer, I told him to give me 24 hours. I literally jumped in my car and started a 10-hour trip from Long Island, NY to Columbus, OH. I got to the property and knew I had a great property, turned around and drove home. Spent 20 hours driving total, but once I saw the property I called the owner and said, “send me a contract!!” We had contracts signed quickly and it was time to start executing what I have been learning and make this happen.

This property needed work, renovation which I budgeted about 180K. I assumed after we fixed up the problems, changed the tenant base, and increased rents we would have a value in the $1,600,000 range. We had to fix outstanding violations, get 6 down units online, another 10-12 units need medium to hard turns, and we had to clean the exterior and landscaping up.

We got a great loan from a bank, we were first time borrows so they did require a guarantee on the loan. We were ok with this because we knew the value of the property. We found our manager, who we ended up firing quickly, the next manager came in and helped us take the property to the finish line. Note: anyone looking for a great manager in Columbus, OH let me know!!

The property had an all cash offer with a 31 day close. We sold the property for $1,775,633 which was well above our project sale price and did it in 20 months, which also was way before we anticipated. We purchased the property for $1,085,000.

Columbus, OH is a great market and really hard to find good deals, but if I can buy one of these are year with a couple calls and mailers, fire a property manager, while being an out-of-state owner and still make money? Anybody can do it.

Now since this deal we have closed on over 1,300 units and have about 100 Million in properties under management.