Property Profits Real Estate Podcast

TJ Burns found a wallet on the street, gave it back, and gained his first real estate partner. Today he runs a private lending fund that grows by serving loan brokers.
 
TJ spent 7 years as an engineer at Amazon. He was doing well by every measure, but he felt stuck. He calls it stagnation.
 
He moved into real estate, did over $20 million in deals with that first partner, then became a fund manager and finally an operator. He chose private lending because it scales across markets in a way multifamily does not.
 
TJ breaks down the three kinds of fix and flip lenders, and why his fund sits in the middle. He shares how loan brokers became the lifeblood of his deal flow, how he finds new investors on InvestClearly, and the order he builds a lending business in.
 
Key topics:
Leaving Amazon and the golden handcuffs
Why private lending scales
The local lender, the big institutions and the missing middle
White labeling a fund for loan brokers
Finding new investors through InvestClearly
Ops first, deal flow second, capital third
 
About the guest:
TJ Burns is a former Amazon engineer from Long Island, New York. He runs a private lending fund that lends to real estate operators, mostly in the Northeast, and is a GP in multifamily in New Hampshire.
 
Connect with TJ Burns: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thburns42/
Prefer to watch on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/@propertyprofitsrealestate
Want to be a guest on the show? https://www.daveinterviewsyou.com

What if you could buy land without lowballing the seller, and the seller paid no tax on it?
 
Jeff Niemeier builds build to rent townhomes in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His fund is building about 226 units across four parcels.
 
Jeff explains the 721 exchange. A landowner trades title to the land for partnership shares in the fund. Jeff pays part up front, the rest once the property is stable, and the owner keeps about a 5% share. It is not a sale, so the gain is tax deferred.
 
He also shares the $20 million deal he lost in 2014 because he could not raise his part in time, and why he now raises capital 365 days a year.
 
Key topics:
Why renters want townhomes, not apartments
Building new to hit the 1% rule
How a 721 exchange works for landowners
Losing a $20M deal and what changed
Raising money where the money is
 
About the guest:
Jeff Niemeier is the founder of JB Capital, a real estate private equity and construction company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He has been in and around real estate for about 25 years, starting in student housing. Today he focuses on build to rent townhomes and land development.
 
Connect with Jeff:  https://www.jbcapitalfund.com
Prefer to watch on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/@propertyprofitsrealestate
Want to be a guest on the show? https://www.daveinterviewsyou.com

In 2017, Sergio Altomare could not make a single multifamily deal work. So he looked back at the Great Recession and found the one real estate asset class that still made money.
 
Sergio spent years at the Federal Reserve in bank supervision, watching boom and bust cycles up close. When the market felt overheated, he and his wife pitched a new plan to their investors, slowly sold their multifamily, and moved into self-storage.
 
They learned the business living in an RV parked outside their first property. Today they have 26 properties in 10 states, managed by CubeSmart and Extra Space, with a big focus on building from the ground up.
 
Sergio shares the 8 square foot rule he uses to find markets that need more storage, why new storage sits close to Costco and big box stores, and why he says commercial real estate has been in a quiet recession for years.
 
Key topics:
Why self-storage held up in the Great Recession
Buying, expanding and building storage from the ground up
The 8 square foot per person rule
The four D's that drive storage demand
How the slow housing market hit storage, and the 4 to 5 year exit plan
 
About Sergio Altomare:
Sergio is the co-founder of Hearthfire Holdings, a self-storage company based in Philadelphia. Before real estate, he worked at the Federal Reserve in bank supervision and regulation. Today his team buys, expands and builds self-storage across 10 states.
 
Connect with Sergio: https://hfirecapital.com/
Prefer to watch on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/@propertyprofitsrealestate
Want to be a guest on the show? https://www.daveinterviewsyou.com

"There's a lot of pride in ownership, and there's not much pride when you don't own something."
 
Luke Kramer and his dad run Freed by Real Estate, a family owned company in Omaha, Nebraska. They started with direct mail and house flips. Today they have around 800 units, with a focus on multifamily buildings from 20 to 150 units.
 
Luke explains why they only buy where they have first party management, meaning the manager owns part of the deal. He shares why direct mail stopped working for multifamily, how pocket listings and broker relationships now bring most of their deals, and why he sends handwritten letters with a $5 coffee card.
 
He also talks about raising capital, why every investment has a job, and how today's interest rates change the way they buy and sell.
 
Key topics:
First party management and why partners need ownership
Why Omaha and the Midwest work for value add multifamily
From direct mail to pocket listings and referrals
Handwritten letters, AI data scraping and a $5 coffee card
Every investment has a job: understanding your investors
Buying and selling with higher interest rates
 
About Luke Kramer:
Luke Kramer is a real estate entrepreneur with Freed by Real Estate, a family owned and operated, vertically integrated company based in Omaha. The company buys value add Class C and B multifamily in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota and manages its own assets.
 
Connect with Luke Kramer: https://freedbyrealestate.com
Prefer to watch on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/@propertyprofitsrealestate
Want to be a guest on the show? https://www.daveinterviewsyou.com
 

Your inbox is flooded with broker deals. What if AI read them for you and only showed you the ones worth your time?
 
David Fields has spent his whole career on the investing side. He did M&A at Disney, ran acquisitions at Regent Properties in LA and spent almost 8 years leading investments for Michael Eisner's family office.
 
Now he is co-founder and CEO of AcquiOS, the platform he wished he had when he ran acquisitions. David explains how AI screens deals against your buy box, underwrites into your own model, and finds the "smoking gun" in a data room before you spend big on lawyers and consultants.
 
Key topics:
Why lean teams can now do more with less
Screening hundreds of deals without hiring an analyst
Finding deal killing risks early in due diligence
Using your past deals as a data advantage
How one Phoenix group is checking out 15 to 20 new markets
Onboarding time and cost
 
About David Fields:
David is co-founder and CEO of AcquiOS, an AI underwriting and due diligence platform for real estate. He is based in Los Angeles and works with groups across multifamily, net lease, self storage, industrial and commercial.
 
Connect with David Fields: https://acquios.ai
Prefer to watch on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/@propertyprofitsrealestate

Two weeks into his investment banking job, every analyst around him had a "dentist appointment." That's when Alex Blackwood decided to build something of his own.
 
Alex is the founder of Mogul, a platform where people buy shares of individual single family rentals. One house at a time.
 
Mogul now owns about 165 homes across roughly 18 markets. Some are long term rentals. Some are short term rentals. Some are Pad Split homes. In Broken Bow, Oklahoma, it's all short term rentals.
 
Alex shares why "when you buy off Zillow, you're already 3 days too late," and how local partners bring deals to them instead. He also takes on the big question from the apartment crowd: aren't 165 separate houses riskier than one building?
 
Plus, how AI cut their time per deal from 18 hours down to 2.
 
Key topics
Leaving investment banking for real estate
Why Alex prefers single family rentals
Finding deals through inventory partners, not Zillow
Houses vs apartment buildings on risk and debt
Managing homes in many markets with local partners
Using AI to cut deal time from 18 hours to 2
How fractional ownership on Mogul works
 
About Alex Blackwood
Alex Blackwood is the founder of Mogul. He came from investment banking and is a licensed realtor. Mogul lets investors buy shares in individual single family rentals across the US.
 
Links
Connect with Alex: https://www.mogul.com
Prefer to watch on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/@propertyprofitsrealestate
Want to be a guest on the show? https://www.daveinterviewsyou.com