I took the picture below after purchasing my first multifamily property and specifically for my Mom.
I was 26 at the time and working for a development company based in New Orleans.
I understood the nuances of underwriting, entitlement/renovation processes, and property management, but never executed these alone.
This purchase was a first rep in refining my process and ultimately got me started in the real estate investment space.
"Refining my process" just meant: validating projected rents based on signed leases, comparing holding/renovation costs to estimates, leveraging marketing channels to better attract our target tenants, and implementing management processes to automate applications/rent collection/maintenance requests.
As importantly, it laid the foundation for my local network.
We spliced through referrals for contractors, attorneys, and insurance brokers before choosing the team we'd go to battle with (this required countless phone calls, in-person meetings, previous client referrals, you name it).
Real estate is a game of details and we matched our needs with people who were meticulous, on-time, and did things the right way.
That same team is involved in the operations of our portfolio of 4 multifamily properties today and has allowed me to take on more extensive projects over time.
You can't have every answer to each problem but you can empower experts in each niche and leverage them to mitigate pain points and ensure you're moving in the right direction.
We ended up beating projections and the property has continued to perform strongly since the day that nervous me signed those loan docs.
A scary step at the time but one I'll always be grateful for.
