1700 Units in 5 Years with James Kandasamy

What you’ll learn in just 17 minutes from today’s episode:

Find out what makes multi-family deals more scalable than single-family deals
Learn how to raise capital and continue growing by just word of mouth
Find out the essential considerations when transitioning from single-family to multi-family deals

Resources/Links:

Get your FREE book called Passive Investing in Commercial Real Estate by James Kandasamy. Click here:https://passiveinvestinginrealestate.com/get-the-free-passive-investing-book1

Summary:

James Kandasamy is the principal Director of Acquisition and Investor Relations at Achieve Investment Group. He has over five years of experience in real estate with more than three years in multifamily acquisitions and asset management. His expertise is in finding value in Multifamily opportunities. He has identified, underwrote, and oversaw the acquisition process of over $130m of quality multifamily investments (9 Assets). He also ran each business plan’s execution in the portfolio with an average IRR in a portfolio of more than 20%. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (Hons) from the Science University of Malaysia and an MBA from the University of South Adelaide (Australia).

In this episode, James talks about his transition from single-family homes to multi-family properties. As to him, single-family home is a good place to start, but multi-family has an advantage that you can’t find in single-family strategies – in terms of adding value to the property, more cash returns, refinancing terms, and increased ROI.

Topics Covered:

01:31 – His first investment strategy when he started
01:51 – What made him shift from single-family to multi-family
02:32 – Doing BRRRR with multi-family properties
03:01 – What his portfolio looks like
03:21 – Why focus on particular market areas
04:12 – A value proposition that differentiates you from the rest
05:25 – On building credibility and track record
07:24 – Important points to consider when transitioning from a single-family home to multi-family deals
09:32 – How many investor partners he had with his first multi-family venture
11:11 – How to stay compliant with SEC
11:56 – How did he get his 1700 units in five years
13:00 – Why talk to people who have already done big things beforehand
15:10 – How does he raise capital these days

Key Takeaways:

“The power in commercial real estate such as multifamily is, you just can’t find it in single-family, the power of where you can add value, you can increase the ROI and you can basically do cash-out refinance. And at the same time, my back-end upside is just so much just because you have built up that equity.” – James Kandasamy

“That’s what we do in multifamily space, BRRRR, which is a big space and big money, as well.” – James Kandasamy

“We focus on one market because we are a vertically integrated company, which means we have asset management, property management, and it’s important that property management companies focus on one submarket because there’s so much of sharing and market knowledge that can be utilized.”- James Kandasamy

“You need to find some kind of value proposition on why you are different from another buyer out there, otherwise you will just be another buyer? But if you know the local market and you are able to optimize your operation to squeeze all the juice out of an investment, you have a different value proposition. That’s important.” – James Kandasamy

“I think people judge you just by the knowledge that you bring to the table, and by your credibility and your track record, and you build that slowly. I mean, starting up was really, really difficult.” – James Kandasamy

“When we started, we buy off-market deals where we went direct to the sellers, and we bought direct from the sellers without brokers involved. So, once I have one deal, then I’m known by a lot of brokers in the market,” – James Kandasamy

“Set your mindset that I am going to go big. Once you go above five units, you go into the commercial space.” – James Kandasamy

“If you do multifamily, you have to be able to do syndication, where you raise money from others for the down payment. You have to convince a group of passive investors to give you money so that you can go and buy these bigger deals.” – James Kandasamy

“You have to make that leap, to convince people to invest with you, tell them that what you’ve done in single-family because there’s a lot of people out there who want to go big and asks why they should be giving money. All that counts in to give them that confidence.” – James Kandasamy

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