All Forum Posts by: Mark Mosch

Thanks - should have clarified.  We focus on C+ to B multifamily properties in secondary markets.  KC = Kansas city, which has some great fundamentals going on especially with that new $4 billion  Cerner development going in south KC.  We are just doing one property so far in Lawrence KS, which is right next to U of Kansas - and we feel that really stabilized the whole area.

I'm not so much worried about if my money dents the market - it won't!  I'm concerned in looking at my portfolio if I should be in more widely spread areas or go heavier into where I already am...

This is aimed at some of the bigger investors out there with multiple properties:  BP helped me get started about 2 years ago.  I was able to lever smaller properties I had and show a track record that enabled me to syndicate a $4 million fund, then another $15 million one.  I'm almost done deploying the second fund and am now about to start on the third.  We are approaching 1,000 units owned between Northwest AR, Kansas City, Little Rock, Montana, and St Louis.  My investors have been talking about wanting to make sure we are diversified enough so one regional downtown won't kill our whole return.  So I was wondering - do I keep looking to get into new places or double down on the areas we have experience with?  I know some bigger guys like Ken KcElroy go really heavy into maybe just 3-5 metros around the US.  So - I'm wondering if any of you can weigh in on the benefits of being in many different areas vs the benefits of being more concentrated in fewer ones.  Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

There all all levels of property managers. There's one set that manages smaller buildings  that don't necessarily require a live-in manager. . I have one area where I have four-plexes 8-plexus and a 24 plex and my smaller property manager who doesn't have an on site presence is fine.  However it's  true those aren't syndicates - maybe one or two partners.  For larger properties  over 60 units you can get the bigger more professional property management  and those actually can support an on-site presence with an office and everything. . So it's not necessarily true that you can't get a property manager to manage a 25 unit place.   I actually feel that you should start with something modest  in order to get a track record before you can successfully syndicate. I  started with a 24 unit one and showed that we did a good job on that with just a couple of partners and next went up into a 60 unit. The 60 unit  was part of a syndication we did. 600 units later with syndicates I can definitely say that you need to build that track record to show investors that you're worth putting their money with.  There's no way someone will put any kind of appreciable money with you unless you've shown them through experience that you actually know what you're doing. Good luck. 

Small world, eh?  It's the Black Oak property down there - south Springdale next to Fayetteville.  103 units.

Hey Geoff.  We have 2 in Bentonville, 1 in Springdale, and 1 in Rogers.  Great area!

Just bought 4 Buildings in NWA in the last 7 months - about 400 units.  The bloom is off the rose down there a bit, as everyone is now piling in and cap rates went down a lot.  The properties are doing great, and vacancies are really low, but people are starting to get greedy and have really increased their asking prices - if you can find any available deals.  Tulsa was like that in 2014 - nothing left in 2015 except some picked over deals and still not great stuff available - we've been looking for 12 months and sellers have gotten really greedy and are asking for cap rates in the high 6's...too pricey for now.  Fort Smith is coming back, but their fundamentals have been pretty bad the last couple of years, so I'd examine the specific deal very carefully before jumping in there.

Takes a while to learn the in's and out's of management - but got to start somewhere!  I see a lot of courses at local Universities - UCLA has an extension series of classes for instance and there's like 30 different real estate focused classes.  Of those there's always a property management track.  I'd take at least the intro to Property Management class, then you at least know what you're talking about when you start interviewing.  I don't think you need a degree, but having a good set of analytic skills along with a couple of classes under your belt should make you interesting to firms to hire.  Good Luck.

thanks Coleman!

its the math. GRM is purely the top line - sales price divided by rent. Cap is NOI divided by the sales price. NOI takes into account all of the expense details. One property might be at an attractive GRM, but have all these expenses that shrink the NOI, so the cap rate would look bad. So hard to compare GRM to GRM and get a fair assessment. Comparing Cap rates to cap rates at least give you more of a basis of comparison based on the actual performance of the property.

Hi All, 

My investment fund is looking to start operations in Ohio - looking to the Central and Southern areas - Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati.  When we go in, we always buy 3-4 properties and want to ally ourselves with a local professional property management firm to manage the assets we acquire, as well as help us find them originally.  We want to try to pick up 200-300 units in that area in the next 6-9 months.  I know there's a bunch of mom and pop shops out there, but I'm looking for someone who has 500-1,000 multi-family units under management now who's good.  If anyone can recommend any names, I'd be really grateful - thanks!