Episode 109: Giving back to your tenants with Kenny Wolfe - The Apartments Operators Podcast

Welcome to the Apartment Operators Podcast, where you can learn from experienced operators what it really means to be an apartment operator. No fluff, no sugarcoating, just the raw, unfiltered truth of the ups and downs of operating multi-family communities. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Operators C Podcast, and today we have a little bit of a different format.

We have Kenny Wolf here. Hi Kenny. Hey Jessica. How are you today? Awesome. Thank you for being on the ship. Thank you very much. Absolutely. So Kenny’s gonna give us a couple of minutes, just a little bit about who you are, what’s the portfolio looking like these days? How does the organization look like?

Sure. Okay. Good. So we Wolf Investments we’re up to, we’ll be up to about 4,000 units by the end of the year. We’re in four different states Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Ohio. And we’re in multiple markets in Ohio. So that’s what the size looks like. Our organization, we’ve got about four and a half in the office here.

Now the half is a real full person, but she works halftime part-time. And then and then we also have a ownership and a management company here in Dell’s Fort Worth allied Property Management. That’s offsite. They, their headquarters is in Mansfield. They’ve got about 180 employees now that we’ll definitely touch on that one.

All right, good. And then we’re actually about, we’re in the midst of signing the contract for by another management company up in Ohio. So we’re trying to bring that in house and then start vertically integrating even more than what we’re doing now. That’s phenomenal. So have you been doing that for 30 years?

No. No. So we’ve been, so we’ve been we got into multi-family, almost nine. Awesome. So in nine years you got to 4,000 units. I know you sold a few along the way. Let’s go back a little bit to the beginning. Did you obviously didn’t start with owning a property management company, so did you use third party? We did, yeah. We used third party for a while there. I got frustrated and then, so my option was to either build one or to buy one and buy one was a much way better way. So what was the trigger for you? Because we talked a lot about operators and some of them are still using third parties.

Some of them swear by third parties, and some of them are, like you said, frustrated and ready for the next step, but they’re on the vert. So what took you over that threshold? So I finally got it fed up cuz I would’ve to correct their accounting every month. And they wouldn’t listen to me.

And so I said, okay, if they don’t listen to me, go buy one. And then they will they have to. So that’s what what triggered the big jump to do it. I think we get a better product by doing that. Management companies are, there’s a lot of mediocre management c companies out there.

It’s a very fragmented business. So it’s also a way for us to put a touch our, our touch on a management company, make it that much better than. Us. Yeah. And for the audience, it’s goes back to a theme we hear a lot with control and brand control and quality control and getting things standardized across all the portfolios.

So we’re hearing the same things from you. When was the, when did you do that switch? When did you buy the property management? So we, so I bought now one 49%, so I don’t have the whole thing. I met a high minority interest the so we did that a year and a half ago. That’s when we made the, made this made the jump.

So tell us a little bit about the changes that you’ve seen happening in your property since you did. So part of the, Tina with Allied to to grow that management business, and by doing this, by teaming up, we were able to hire better talent. And like our CFO at Allied is was the CFO for the Crow Family Trust for 20 years.

So that’s an accounting level we have now. No one can touch our accounting. Yeah. Now we’ve got the best. And then we just hired a executive VP of operations from Lincoln. Or so we’re starting to we’re all the profit we make at Allied Redhouse come back into hiring better people. So that, that’s one thing is I can direct, we can direct, not we, I’m not, I, but we can direct hiring’s best people and you’re doing the best practices.

, our, I think our reports look good because I, I said I had it from an investor point of view. Okay, this is what I want to see this is how it should look. These kind of things. So I can make my my suggestions as an, as a as an investor on the investor side too.

So how does it look like in the field, right? Is it better occupancy? Is a higher rent? Is it better customer satisfaction surveys? What does. Properties feel by you owning in a property management company? So well so my accounting is, my background is in accounting. So that’s a number one.

If you’re an investor or an operator, asset manager, and you can’t trust your accounting, you’re flying blind. So to me that was a big deal. And now I, now I. A hundred percent trust our financials. Cuz now we’ve got the best guy in there. And then also too, now we’re seeing, by hiring that Lincoln Property Group guy, now we’re seeing like, okay, this is how the big boys do it.

This is how the institutional guys run their stuff. So we’re getting better practices than what I’ve seen in some of the other third party operators that are, I mean our probably twice our size, so I think we’re, by hiring those outside guys. Of more institutional level experience.

We’re getting that institutional level quality in the reporting and on the regionals in the management side property management side as an institutional, but we’re still, but folks are still able to call up the CEO and get her on the phone. Yeah. So it’s that balancing act that we’re trying to do.

Okay. Yeah, no, cuz that’s something we hear a lot from other operators is Theng, Goldilocks kind of thing. We want not too small, but not too big. So it sounds like with your company, your investors basically are getting a big company, systems, processes, but a small company. Attention feel, right?

Yeah. And it’s also by buying that this next management company, it’s gonna, that’ll put us about 10,000 units under management across four states. And we like, that, that’s gonna really help our, the the folks that use us as the management company, because our insurance rates just got a.

Yeah, because now our master policy is 10,000 units instead of 4,500 what it is now. And it’s multiple regions. So it reduces the risk. Risk, and so that, that’s gonna be massive. So there’s ways because we’re growing on the management side and getting bigger and more geographically diverse, not just on insurance, but there’s a whole slew of other options that we’re gonna be able to roll out, which is exciting cause So we are building a better mouse track, we really are

That’s great. Let’s talk about the asset management, right? You guys. Buy properties, you raise money from investors. So asset management is still part, even though you own the property management, asset management, somebody needs to hold them accountable. Sure. For sure. Yeah. So how does that look like today in your organization?

Who does that? And how did you used to do it? I’m guessing you used to do it yourself, right? Yeah. And how did you transition? Because we talked to a lot of operators that are still in the phase where they are the asset managers. And you’ve done the transition, so let.

From when you used to do it to what it is right now? Sure. Yeah. I, it used to be like a one man band, like everybody starts out. But we started hiring people. So here at the office we I first started hire, hired a marketing slash assistant additional marketing. Cause I have not, I’m not a good at digital marketing.

So that was a big deal for me to be able to add that touch for social media and all that kind of stuff. And then the third hire was an asset. So I could start training him up on how to or how I asset manage or how to and pass that off on, on him somewhat. I’m still pretty involved with that.

I’m gonna make platinum setups on America this year, about flying around, but but he does a lot of it which is great. He’s in Middle Rock today, checking out some stuff for us so it’s good to have we can cover more ground that way. , sometimes we travel together to a property, especially if it’s new.

, it’s get on the same page. And then once we have the rehab set and all the kind of the big high level items we want fixed from the get-go, then then sometimes I’ll back off and let him go. Especially to Columbus in January and I’ll pass that in July. So yeah, , so you get to pick and choose what do you want to go, like when you want to go around.

That’s Phenomen. So how does that look like, right? So is it a weekly call with the onsite team or is it a monthly call with the regional? Give us a little bit more of a feel of how involved you guys are. And again, before and after only a new own property management. So we still, so we, so so the management company that you bought into, they run it they’re.

Entity. So we treat it like that. So she runs it, Nicole runs the, that management company. She does all that. So our job here at Wolf Investments is is to manage those assets. So it’s just it’s, it would be just like we were using a third party or now basically, on our side.

So we’ve got a weekly call with regionals. Most of the time the, those onsite manager are on that call. So we’ve got a weekly call with regionals onset manager. We also have a weekly call with our rehab crew. So if we have whatever properties we have, show ’em that kind of big rehab construction phase we’ve got a weekly call with them to make sure everybody’s on the same page.

And then on that call I try to make sure all the regionals that are, that are in those properties that have the construction around that call as well to make sure everybody’s communicating properly. Yeah, so communication is key. Communication is. Yeah. So how does that call with the onsite manager and the regional looks like?

What do you cover, what do you ask? What do you expect to hear? So I’m, I’m a numbers guy. So we start off with the numbers what’s our occupancy, what we preleased. And some, one of our properties was like constantly, we’d be at like 93% occupied, but 87%.

And it was the strangest thing. And it’s been that way for, it was that way for five months. And then finally I’m like, look, we gotta flip that. We need to be 95% on pre-lease. And then it was and it’s a, it’s an a class deal, so it’s a little different to manage anyways, but but we would always be at that 92 3% occupancy, which is fine.

But, so anyways, most of the time it’s higher than that, but but the weekly calls the numbers are first. And then let me go down to if the, if any, if there’s any major changes. Obvious it’s gonna be on the numbers side and then we look at the revenue collected that, so far that, that month.

Any kind of challenges, with the, that the manager brings up or the regional we try to really promote that. There’s no right answer, there’s no wrong answer. We just need to know the exact information and then just deal with it. Any issues with, operations to onsite stuff?

Intent in our car, in our building with our car this week or not, I don’t know. Stuff like that. You hear the operational stories as well. Yeah. We have had those two . So no it’s a really good point, and I think you said it as a, as an offer mark, but it’s really important, right?

Those conversations. . When you have the onsite manager online, sometimes they feel intimidated, right? The asset manager or the ownership is on the line and they might not be open, and they need to know that no matter what they say. We’re not there on the call to scold anyone or to punish anyone.

We’re there to try to figure out how we can do better. So even if the property is not performing the best, right? It’s all about what can we do better? What’s the feedback you’re hearing from the applicants, right? Where do you do your marketing? What’s the traffic? How can we increase traffic?

And so on. So it’s always with. Solution mindset right. Versus a blaming kind of mindset. Cuz that’s gonna go nowhere, right? Yeah. You had tried more bees with honey, right? That’s what they said. Yeah. In Texas here the yeah, you wanna, and also too, when you go, that’s why it’s also important for owners.

And asset managers to go onsite. Cause you’ve gotta build that rapport. You gotta, take ’em off to lunch. It’s 20, 30, 40 bucks, whatever it is, how big your property here is, but do that small stuff , and build a rapport with them. And get to know ’em as a person.

And then usually that’s gonna be, that’s gonna pay off dividends because they’re gonna put in the extra work. They don’t want to disappoint. They like you if you’re a nice guy or a girl. But but that kind of stuff builds out rapport so that way you’ve got that when you do have those weekly.

And Oh yeah, we dropped 5% on occupancy this week. It’s it’s that they’re more comfortable saying that and said, okay, but, and then they follow up okay, this is how I’m gonna fix it. Yeah. So that’s what you gotta build that rapport with the onsite team.

Yeah. It’s trust thing, they gotta trust that if they say something bad, it’s not gonna immediately cause ’em to lose their job. Exactly. Okay, that’s great. Now you guys do a lot of value, right? Tell us, a few things that you like to do in the value add that that really helps push either occupancy or income up.

I, everybody knows that, you do value add, you get mixed, right? But what other values do you provide, or how do you interact with the resident that help you with that? So obviously tell you like, like the backsplash and the appliances and all that kind of stuff. Stuff that we like to do give that extra little touch is like that one of our higher end properties up in Columbus on a renewal.

We let ’em say, Hey, if you renew no cost to you, we do a, we’ll do a USB outlet wherever you. In the unit. So most of the time it’s in their bedroom or in the kitchen. We had a whole, I was in my boat, was just put in the kitchen when we first had this call. And the but then as well, I think I would want it in my bedroom.

We’re like, okay, then let them choose. It’s a, that’s even better. They’ll really like that. Make it their own. So it costs us I don’t know, those USB outlets are pretty cheap. 10, 12 bucks. Yep. Our guy in house installs it. But it’s that little touch you can give ’em where you’re bringing big value to their life by that small little outlet.

Yeah. But it’s a big deal. And when they get a choose where it’s at, game over. So that’s that kind of stuff. And then something else we do our little Disney magic trick that we do on on most of our properties. We will not tell a new resident when they’re moving in.

We’ll have a it’ll magically appear when they move in as there’s a two liter of soda, and then there’s also a free coupon for pizza a local pizza to place. . Cuz no one likes to cook when you first move into your unit. And if we don’t promote it like beforehand. Like when they sign release, we don’t let ’em know.

Yeah. It’s just, it just is there, right? Yep. So it’s that. I don’t know if you’re gonna to Disney where or anything like that. You go into the thing and there’s so many small little things that they do that they that, they don’t even promote, yes. But you’re gonna go off and tell your friends somebody like, oh my gosh, you know what the, you know what they did for me?

All these little things, so we try to recreate. Theses are two separate things that you mentioned that I wanna touch on. So the USB thing I love that idea mostly because there’s, the aspect of making it their own, letting them choose is huge. Cuz then they get that feeling of home, but in your own home you can decide what color you want, the walls and where to put what socket and so on. So that’s one thing. But the other thing is, It’s the gift that keeps on giving. So every night they’re gonna plug that charger into that socket in their bedroom and they’re gonna think about how awesome it is to live in that part.

Yeah. So that’s why I love that one. We do something very similar in our community, and that is we offer them when we have a renewal special, we offer them either a certain discount or we offer them a pair of movie tickets every. For a year. Oh, nice. As long as they’re pay on time.

So we of course lead them to pay on time. And then it is, again, every month it’s a pair of movie tickets. If they talk to friends or if they tag themselves on you on Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is, it just keeps on giving. So it is, it doesn’t cost a lot. It is what, less than 20 bucks for a pair of tickets.

It, it’s. Keeps on giving. Sure. So I love that you do the US beef thing and the thing with the soda and the pizza is, a lot of people don’t realize, but moving is psychologically more painful than a divorce. Or losing your job. And I think I read an article about it also.

It was ranked higher than going to the dentist . Yes. So it’s such a stressful thing. So just having. Is huge, right? A couple of bottles of water, right? It’s 60 cents and it makes them happy. On a property, we had a property that had laundry machines that were operated by tokens, Uhhuh,

So we had a little baggie with tokens sitting on the desk for them when they came in, because, , I need to do laundry and the office is closed. Where can I get tokens? And how come quarters don’t go together? It just saves the frustration. We’ve seen other operators that mentioned that they leave like a plunger with a toilet paper and a few little toiletries.

Because when you move in, what are the boxes? What am I doing I love that because, It makes the move experience much better, right? Yeah. And reduces some of the stress. And if they walk in with a positive attitude to their apartment, they’re gonna keep a positive attitude going forward.

Yeah. And then it’s also the resident referrals too. They’re gonna tell their friends about, about that. Yeah. Awesome. Give us a few things that you like to do to save on expenses, right? Because I’ve walked into properties and as brokers, right? We see a lot of P mills and it’s kinda like you spend that much on this, right?

A few things that you guys like to tackle immediately as you buy a property. Every property’s different. We just bought an A class in 2018. It was built in 2018, so bought it under December of last year. And then but we walked in. It’s oh my gosh, they were running it so poorly.

The payroll was twice what it should be. On, you just go down, you tackle the biggest line items first. So the biggest three, especially if you’re in Texas, are property taxes, insurance, and payroll. So optimize those if you can. Sometimes they’re low. Sometimes they don’t have enough.

On that. And then it’s also admin, utilities. Utilities. You can, really drive that down. I’m on the fence on, on the water conservation. To be honest with you, it depends on the state we’re in. Because if it’s a flat fee for water, then absolutely I’ll do the toilets. But if it’s a rub system, rebuild that back.

We’re a percent of a. So it’s so I, and I’ve heard it both ways. Some folks will say that, oh if they’re not paying as much water, then they can pay you more rent. That’s maybe, I don’t know if that’s true or not. Maybe they can send them their car or something, I don’t know.

But it is a factor, right? Because we see applicants ask What’s the water bill normally? But I think that, The rules and the regulations around that are so complicated that it’s really hard to predict which way is better. It used to be a lot easier with Fannie Freddy green Reward Program to do these things, but they just made the program so hard to maintain.

That I don’t see a value in that. And this year they cut the. Two months ago they just cut the I cut the rate discount. So that was like, it was like 0.02 that it wouldn’t say to you. Yeah. So that’s, so they changed it. One thing to know about the green reward program, I don’t know if you had a chance to experience that, but there is zero flexibility in this thing, right?

Yeah. Nail it. The, we had to, we had a green reward program property and the original engineer decided that we need to replace all the toilets, Uhhuh, , and we brought a water conservation company to do the project and they did the math and didn’t looked at what we had in, in the field and said, don’t do that.

It’s a waste of money because you’re not gonna get that gain that you’re looking. and Fannie would not hear any of it. Wow. So they forced us to replace, there’s 125, there’s $20,000 expense just for the sake of checking the box. And they had zero openness to even discuss that. So that’s the kind of thing that you are buying into when you have a green award. And I don’t think a lot of people are aware of that going into it, right? No, you, yeah. You. So yeah, so thank you for that. What about cost costing, cost cutting initiatives, right? Things that you can drive either by engaging your customers or your residents or talking to the maintenance guys.

How do you drive costs down? So so yeah, so having you also want to get to know your mainten. On onsite, not just the folks in the office. So get to know them because they’re gonna find the stuff where the, so this tool is running, they’re gonna, so you’re gonna make sure your maintenance guy is on it and knows okay, these are key importance.

If you hear a running toilet, we need that fixed asac, the lights on it in a vacant unit. or your any of your vacants you wanna set to ac, especially in Texas in the summertime, higher than you would if you would live, you were living in there. So it is those small little things where.

We had a property in Shreveport. We just we took over in April. He his electricity was just astronomical. Based on, part of it was cuz he had pretty high vacancy. But we knew a part of it was that, cause we walked in, when we did the due, the due diligence those vacants weren’t like 68 degrees and this is 400 units.

And he said he’s supposedly is 60%. When I say supposedly, cause it’s a whole nother Yeah. Conversation, but but so 40% of the units were vacant and he had ’em on 68, 70 degrees. And so we go in, so we went through the first month and we walked every, how say we walked every unit, but then all the vacants we adjusted the ac up obviously.

And we saw the $9,000 decrease and the electric bill by, just, by doing that stuff. Yeah. We had very similar situations and it’s. We tell our managers that they have to walk the vacant units every week because of those running toilets and the acs. And it’s and I still walk in every once in a while and the ACS blowing at 60 and it’s what?

I was there last week. Oh yeah. The guys went in there to do something, so the guys forgot to turn it back out. I was like, okay. That’s why you walk in. It’s every week, I’ve walked into vacant units where there’s an active leak going on, right? Destroying something. And that’s really where it doesn’t have to be the manager walking in every unit every unit every week.

But you can split it between the manager and the assistant or the leasing agent. Or maintenance the maintenance team. And. And don’t just open the door, check the box. Just actually walk in, look at the showers. It makes a ton of difference. Like you said, $9,000 in electricity is huge.

People underestimate toilets. The running toilets. Oh yeah. But a running toilets can bleed thousands of gallons a month. Just by continuous recycling. That’s a lot of money. Especially if you are not. Certain areas if you’re in the outskirts in the secondary markets. Oh yeah.

Water can get really expensive. It can. Yeah. We like to keep track of these things as well, right? Yeah. We’ve got property in El Paso, so Yeah, water is pretty high out there yeah. What would. Be a good advice to a guy that just get, or a girl that just get into this business, right? That they found a good property, they’re raising their money.

They’re about to get into that. I, one of the big themes we have with this podcast is everybody talks about the sprint to get to the closing table, but nobody talks about the marathon that comes after , and that’s what this podcast is all about. So what would be a good advice for someone that is just about to enter the marathon?

So if you’re just, if you, oh, so if you just bought your property so for me, we just bought one on Friday in Columbus. I usually fly up about a week after close. I am not there on the day of close and a lot, some folks think that’s strange, but I don’t want to get in the way if I’m there, they’re the day close.

It’s crazy cuz they’re trying to within, cuz wires usually don’t hit till two o’clock, so that means they got three hours to get, to get a handle on this property. , I noticed enough to lock it up. So that they’re going through the, all the files, putting those into the computer system and it’s crazy that first week and sometimes you walk in into the office, it’s empty.

There’s no furniture. There’s no computer, right? Yeah. So them handle all that. So I don’t show up till a week after I show up. We go through and we’ve already before we buy it, actually, we’ve already gone through and I’ve walked with the regional manager for the most part before we buy it.

And we talk about all the things we want them to do over the construction. So they already know those bids. And so then the week after I show up a lot of those time. A lot of that time we already have the bids for everything and I can, we can just start doing our final approvals on there, which is, it’s helpful cuz that gets you going that much faster.

We always rebrand every time we buy a deal. It’s our kind of personal touch. But choose that quickly upon takeover so that way you need your logo going, the new signage, all that kind of stuff. It just sets the. For the new manager. So who makes that decision? Because that’s a conversation I had with a few operators and everybody’s a little bit different, so who decides what’s the new name and what’s the new logo look like and so on.

So I prime myself as the apartment whisperer. So I like just go to the property and it just typically a name, just Prime just comes to me. Sometimes we like it in El Paso, we’re trying to use the word aga, of our, in all of our properties. , we kinda have a low.

Or a brand, a fan out there? Yeah. Like in Columbus, all of our, the other, the two prior ones we had bought were pv, so Pond, Rosa Village, and Parkview Apartments. So this next one will headed you at pv. So with Park Vista regional manager, Barbara. Shout out to Barbara. Barbara came up with that one.

So Barbara, Barbara did a good job on that one. She picked that one. It’s on Vista, a Vista view. So that, that’s pretty easy on that one. Okay. For the people that raise money with investors, I found that it’s really cool for the investors if you get them involved in the process. So on one property we chose the name.

So we let them choose the logo. We give ’em like two, three options and they guys do vote on the logo on another one, we let them vote on names. Okay. So it’s kinda it helps engage in a little bit with the, I. But you also have the full control of what the options you provide. So it’s not gonna be really crazy names or crazy logos.

I have to ran some that in. Yeah. But it gets a little bit more engaging, so that’s cool. So I want to try to get a little bit more from where you are right now. What are the things that people that haven’t gotten to where you are? Don’t know that. They don’t know. Where it comes to scaling, where it comes to, what did you bring in-house, for example? So property management is one of the things you brought in-house. Were there any other functions that you brought in-house? Wait. So we we own part of a tower company now. Okay, so that’s nice.

Obviously when we close on stuff we gotta spend that money anyway. So might, what else? Might as well own it so that we’re working with that insurance on that piece. That’s gonna be massive for the management company side. Because one, we can offer a lower. Breaks to all of our folks.

But two, we figure out a way to keep the deductibles to 25,000, which is tough. Now, this year that really popped up to 1500. Some of ’em are even 200 now, depending on what you got and where you’re at. That’s cool. So for us to be able to offer, to figure out a way to keep that to 25 as opposed to 5,000, whatever it is now that’s gonna be massive.

That’s a long conversation, but we’re trying to vertically integrate with what we’re trying to do on that side. On the investment side, we’re going, we’re in of those 4, 5, 4 different states. Bought a lot of El Paso recently. I’m trying to buy a ball of Cleveland to Ohio before everybody else figures out.

So there’s, don’t tell anybody . We’re trying to build those markets now cause I think they’re about to turn. We’re doing our first we’re cracking. We’re first ground up development deal here in Dallas Fort. . And then we’re about to kick off another one here in town too. And we’re doing that because we’re selling a property and I don’t wanna say where, cause it is in Texas.

, we’re selling a property and it’s it is 1968. They’re paying more north of 90 K odor on the deal. But they for this new development we’re working on, it’s gonna be 88 units, brand new a class, and we’re gonna be all in at 1 0 5 a unit. That’s phenomenal.

So I’d rather have an A class for 1 0 5 than, not, than that. So DFW right now we’re focused on seeing if there’s any spot, strategic spots we can build. We’re not, we don’t want build at 1 21 the tall way. That’s obviously way too, that’s too well, that’s too busy. That’s too busy. So there’s definitely some of these old spots.

Spots in dfw, but this is in the growth path of dfw. . So that’s why we get the lanes switch sheet. So that we’re doing that. And then another out of the box kind of deal we’re doing in the multi-family side is we’re about to go to contract on a property in downtown Cleveland.

It’s a historic office building. So we’re gonna convert that to multi-family. So it’s a redevelopment product. Oh wow. We, it’s got lot of those. Yeah. It’s got a lot of different parts. Cause we’re gonna get destroyed tax credits from the state and federal. . And then also it’s, it is, it’s in an opportunity zone.

So it’s got all those kind of, yeah, there’s a lot of moving parts on the financial side and tax wise these are also high rises, right? Stories. Yeah. So this is it is 11 stores, 11 stories, right? Yeah. We looked at one of those project, and then that is really one of those things that you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

It’s I had a conversation with a friend that is doing this thing. It’s. Yeah, when you need Sheetrock for the eight floor, you gotta coordinate a crane and pop a window up and stop traffic so you can bring 2:00 AM a crane to load up all the sheet rock. The eight floor is okay, . Yeah, because I don’t know that, I don’t know.

You dunno. Yeah. So it’s definitely, I’d love to hear more about that project and some other opportunities. Is definitely gonna be an interesting one. But again, these things are located at phenomenal locations downtown. Where there’s not a lot of residential opportunities. And people always want to live downtown there’s usually a very successful if they’re done. Yeah. We’re teaming up with the local construction company up there in Cleveland. They’ve done nine of these. Now they’re working on Danny Gilbert’s right now. He’s the owner of.

Yeah. So I gotta tour his deal, his redevelopment deal in downtown. It’s amazing. Awesome. So Dan bought a million square feet. I not say damn like I know him, but Dan bought a million square feet and it was redeveloping it to multi-family. We bought 56,000. So a little bit different, but we’ll catch up to Dan.

We’ll catch up. It’s always good to have a goal, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s good. Awesome. So I really do appreciate your time. It’s phenomenal. And your experience is amazing. We can talk for hours. I know, right? , if you could have gone back in time, I asked that to all of my guests, right? And tell younger Kenny no, you can’t tell ’em.

2009 is the bottom right. . So other than that, what would you tell yourself? So I started mul investing in multi-family when I was 28. I wish I would’ve done it obviously earlier. Everybody probably says that. So that’s the gimme. I’m very glad I started with 76 units and nothing lower.

So I went from zero to 76. I was a, as a syndicator. We invested passively twice before that, so I think that was a good move as well to learn the ropes. But buying that seven, buying that bigger property where it could afford full-time property management was key to to scale it as fast as we did.

Because if you buy the smaller unit you can’t afford the full third party property management, so that means you’re gonna be stuck in the day to day at some level. Yeah. Maybe you’re doing the accounting, maybe, there’s different levels, but that, that’s been key to be able to scale it so fast.

Yeah. And I found that a lot of people are attracted to the 2030. Unit range, and to me, 30 is a very challenging size. Oh, it is? Yeah. It’s too big to handle as a single operator. And it’s too small to afford a staff. So I think that’s one of the most challenging sizes, that 20 to 40 unit. Oh, yeah.

But it’s very attractive to a lot of people that don’t want to raise money, don’t want investors. It’s still manageable for some people to pick up something like this with a relatively lower investment. So that’s yeah, just closing costs challenging. Yeah. And I’ve always enjoyed having investors, to be honest with you.

So I don’t I never got, I never understood that. But I know some guys that did that. They went from, . I think he went from 11th to 16 to 32, all with his money and they grew it that way. And so he’s got maybe 1500 units that are all his. Yeah. Which, is good, but how big it takes a lot longer.

And how bigger could he have gone? What kind of projects could he have taken on had he teamed up and, and bought a building and bought a much. Bigger building and bigger assets and all that. I think it’s better to syndicate, bring a group investors together so you can buy a bigger, better asset.

But I’m biased, yeah, of course. . Okay. Thank you so much, Kenny. Where can our audience find you if they have any questions? If they wanna reach out, if they want to invest with Wolf investment? Sure, how can I find you? So we are wolf-investments.com, so W L F E right there, dash investments.com. That’s the best way to get let in. There’s a subscribe button, so if you hit that, put your name in email, it’ll get you on our on the email list. And then it’ll prompt you for a phone call or meeting with me as well too. So to get you on the full investor list, access to the investor portal.

We’re on Facebook. We got a YouTube channel, LinkedIn, all the social media stuff, we try to stay pretty active. . And then we also host three times of year conferences, the M F I N conference. Next one is February 8th in Houston. What about 400 people there? Speakers from all over the country fly in.

We’ve got vendors who do an education series. And the best part, there’s no like $30,000 thing to buy at the end. Okay. There’s just, there’s nothing. There’s just education and networking. This no table at the end of the, there’s no like bright light on you to buy something. This is just education network.

This year, this past year, we did it in Houston, LA, and Boston. , we just got back from Boston in early October. So we’re gonna do it again in Houston and hit West Coast and East Coast again. So stay tuned for that. But that’s mf investor network.com. Awesome. We’ll put all the links in the show notes for everybody.

Yeah, that’s a great way to get to know folks and meet folks that are in the. We’re working on a few big names to come to the Houston event. I can’t say yet, but but it’s looking pretty promising, okay. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kenny. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Joseph. I appreciate it.

Awesome. And for you, the audience, if you like this show, if you want to listen to more, just go to iTunes, stitchers, wherever you consume your podcast and subscribe. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to our show. If you wanna enjoy more episodes, please subscribe on iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, or SoundCloud.

For questions or feedback, please visit our site@www.apt.com.