All Forum Posts by: Brian Briscoe

@Raymond Hooks -- we can chat.  We like investments of $50k or higher for many of the same reasons as stated, but are willing to talk.  If we're a good match, we can bend... We have taken a handful of investors under the $50k mark before.  Oh, and I don't care how many posts you've made.  

@Jr Trotta

I like the Southeast in general.  We're closing very soon on an 80-unit property in Upstate SC.  

South Carolina has had a lot of growth over the past few years.  It also does not have a single city over 1M, so it doesn't hit most people's radars.  I've found that there's slightly less competition there...  Upstate SC and Charleston are the fastest growing areas and rival the growth seen in Charlotte NC.  

The area I like best is in the upstate -- right along I-85 between Charlotte and Atlanta.  The same factors that have fueled growth in those cities also exist along this corridor, and cities like Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson are growing fast and are projected to continue to grow rapidly...   That corridor has about 1M in population with Greenville being the largest.

We are syndicators.  One great thing about syndications is you'll be able to invest in properties much larger than what you'd normally be able to tackle. Another great thing is all you have to do is sit back and collect checks. We can discuss a few options with you based on your investment criteria.  I'll DM you. Let's chat soon. 

@Daniel A.

I've gone as far as telling my network what I do on Facebook and LinkedIn - I try to post several times per week.  Just this week, I had two people (friends I haven't seen in years) reach out to me on LinkedIn that have money and are interested in investing in real estate...  This is quite common too - when I'm actively posting and talking about what I do, I get lots of responses like that.

In fact, my first property came to me because I was actively looking for a single family investment home and told a few people... that led to someone in my family offering me a good deal on the home they were planning on selling.  Had I not been vocal about it, they wouldn't have known to talk with me.

@Taylor L. talks about the negative people to stay away from, and that's true.  I've had more surprises when I find out some of the people that I casually interact with (like a few at work) are actually very interested in real estate... They've just never said anything to me about it because they didn't know I was interested....

@Bryan Rogers  Good question and good approach.  

Not sure where in the world you live, but I imagine there are meetup groups in your area.  Some are focused to a specific asset class or strategy (multifamily or fix-and-flip) whereas others are just general real estate meetups.  If you're looking for wholesalers and flippers, this is hands-down the best place to meet them.

Best places to find local meetups:

Bigger Pockets has an events and meetups page: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521-events-and-happenings

Meetup app on your phone or meetup.com on your computer - probably the most common place for people to post meetups.

Eventbrite will often have local meetups.

Facebook may have local groups of investors... some may have in-person meetups, others may just be forums.  Either way, it's a good resource....

Go, network, let people know you're available.... Oh, and make sure you can add value from the beginning.  If you don't know how to analyze a deal, most of the "mentors" you're looking for won't spend the time to teach you so that you can help them... learn beforehand and impress them with your abilities....

Good luck!

@Account Closed Most long-time operators will consider me a newbie... We've syndicated 3 apartments and are super close to closing on #4... Compared to the @Brian Burkes and @Greg Dickerson of the world, I definitely am.  It's all relative. I do love your spirit and drive. Keep attacking and take the hill.

I'd say you should analyze every deal you can get your hands on in your target market. You're never wasting your time if you learn more about the asset class, market, neighborhoods, scenarios, etc. Each one you look at will have different features that you'll have to think about... Keep looking at deals, big and small, over and over again. That's how you become one of the operators that can run numbers in 10 seconds as @JD Martin says.

But, before going in to big deals, though, you need to have your ducks in a row. Honestly, our first deal was $4M and it may have been a bit too big for us, but we doubled down and did it. I know people who have gone much bigger on their first deal, but almost all of them have taken on more experienced GP members (sometimes at a heavy price in terms of GP percentage).

Food for thought -- in this business, you need to build a reputation as a closer -- and size does matter. The best place to build this reputation (in my opinion) is in the 20-50 unit range. 20 is just big enough to give you credibility and just outside of the range of most individual investors; 50 is small enough that the big operators don't want it so you'll have less "sophisticated" competition. If you're chasing a 100+ unit deal and have never closed on anything bigger than 20, you may lose the bid to an experienced operator with a similar (or even smaller) offer. Sellers and brokers care about price, but they also want to reduce uncertainty... a noob brings a whole lot of uncertainty with them when they make an offer.

Our three deals so far are 16-unit, 33-unit, and 39 unit. We'll close on an 80-unit as soon as our lender lets us... After this, we want to exclusively play in the 100+ league. We intentionally focused on the smaller complexes to build our resume and experience so that we can compete with the larger operators on larger deals... Now, when we talk with brokers about $8M or $12M deals, they take us seriously and are much more confident recommending our offers to the sellers... 

So, best advice for a newbie... attach yourself to more experience OR start small and gain your own.  Otherwise, you'll be like a boot 2LT with a bunch of recruits in the middle of a firefight.  

Love the Tombstone reference... and also love your willingness to help.

@Christen G. - I agree with @Justin Elliott - Michael Blank's SDA and network are awesome. You know, he was a Bigger Pockets guy before he was a podcaster...

BTW, I'll save you the trouble of googling things.

SDA: https://courses.themichaelblan...

Deal Maker Mastermind: https://courses.themichaelblan...

 I'll dig it up.  Resources included where to apply for unemployment and rental assistance programs, including United Way.  Send me your email address in a DM and I'll send it to you there...

Took me a month to get to this thread, but thanks for this post - lots of gold nuggets.  I really appreciate you for taking the time to write that down.  As someone who's newer in the game (first investment property was 2007), I've heard over and over again that cash is king.  It's extremely helpful to read a brief summary of your experience during the last downturn, how your strong cash position saved your skin, and now to hear your perspective on this one... Thanks again.

@Austin Mudd

Collections for April show it was the best month in the last 12 for both occupancy and collections... Crazy, I know.

Previous owner refinanced last year - complex appraised for $300k more than we're paying for it.  Long story, but we got a good deal.  We are assuming the loan, so are not largely affected by the volatility in the lending market (we were affected by their teleworking policy as it's taken a long time to get approved).

It's an 80-unit complex with 72 units that are leasable. Occupancy is currently ~95% (not including the down units). First order of business will be to bring those 8 units back online, which will average about $15k per unit. They're in varying states of disrepair... Just bringing those online will increase our NOI by roughly 12%.

We have money budgeted for an exterior facelift - painting, resealing asphalt, landscaping, etc.  We have another pot set aside for more interior improvements.  About half of the remaining units will get new laminate counters, floors, cabinet doors, and paint.  The other half will get less because they've been recently updated.  We'll keep a good portion of our overall cap-ex budget in the bank until the world has adapted to COVID though.  Of course we have a few months of reserves in the bank too.

Going in cap rate?  I don't know.  It's not a figure that I track very well.  We're using 7-cap as our exit.  Per unit - we're paying about $15k less per unit than one that went under contract a few blocks away.  That one has townhome style units that are bit larger, but our property looks nicer and has a lot more open green space. Amenities are about the same.

Overall, we'll have a ton of cash at closing and will cash flow just fine out the gate.