ATE-Acquiring Loans with Mark Davenport and Kalib Williams

Getting loans when you don't have the multifamily track record with Mark Davenport and Kalib Williams.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
For more educational content, visit our website at www.diaryofanapartmentinvestor.com
Interested in investing with Four Oaks Capital?  First step is to schedule a call with us. 

This episode originally aired on September 27th 2021

----
Mark Davenport
Mark and his partner Phoebe are real estate developers with a passion for renovating historic buildings and improving property management. Their story is one of epic growth, epiphanies that produce real life change and going from owning a duplex to 145 doors… in 5 years!

----
Kalib Williams
My name is Kalib Williams I am a chef and investor in Greenville, SC. I was born and raised here. I am a young investor who’s current focus is on multifamily and some fix and flip. My favorite color is orange and my favorite book is The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. 

----
Your host, Brian Briscoe, is a co-founder and principal in the real estate investing firm Four Oaks Capital.  He and his team currently have 629 units worth $36 million in assets under management and are continuing to grow.  He will retire as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps in 2021. Learn more about him and the Four Oaks team at www.fouroakscapital.com  or contact him at brianbriscoe@fouroakscapital.com - be sure to let him know where you found him.

Connect with him on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Transcript

Brian Briscoe: 0:00

Well that said, kid, we got mark on the line. What do you want to ask him?

Kalib Williams: 0:03

Have you found it difficult to get loans for multifamily?

Mark Davenport: 0:06

Yeah, but there's always somebody will lend like we went to bank American, all these big banks and they're like, Nope can help you. We found a local bank, one bank of everyone who would do it. That was enough. All we needed was one bank. And every time we got in a new space, so the institutional bank is looking at that and thinking, well, you don't have the experience. And they're not well, they don't we don't have the technical experience with that property. We do have the experience managing new things and learning skill sets and deploying and having success, Mike Well, maybe my most significant thought about that is find the right bank, get creative. Don't take no for an answer. Just keep on pounding them.

Brian Briscoe: 0:49

Welcome to the diary of an apartment investor podcast with your host Brian Briscoe. In this podcast will bring some of the top professionals in the apartment investment field to discuss various aspects of the apartment investing journey with the sole purpose of educating listeners to make wise investment decisions. The Diary of an apartment investor podcast is sponsored by four oaks capital bringing you high yield returns through apartment complex investing. Welcome to diary apartment investor podcast. I'm your host Brian Briscoe with aurochs capital. I'm very excited for today's show it's another SP expert episodes we got two great people on the line with us to hear their stories today. We got Mark Davenport and Caleb Williams and Mark Europe first so welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Yeah, appreciate it. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of weave a tale and tell us how you you went from where you came from to investing in apartments.

Mark Davenport: 1:44

My partner Phoebe and I we have our own kind of real estate development company but we started about five years ago my partner was working as an occupational therapist. I was working as a professional musician in a single family house in New Hampshire and we kind of had this you know life season situation that's you know sometimes happens where you realize what you're doing isn't a good fit or like there's there's more out there or you know, it's time for a big change didn't really feel like that much of a big change at the time we didn't realize that it would it would kind of lead us down the path that we're on now but we ended up finishing finishing renovating the single family house we were in and selling it and buying a foreclosed duplex in the neighboring town and we you know we renovated that house we did it mostly ourselves we subbed out the the plumbing and electrical but the rest of that we you know we did it ourselves loved it found there's just so much demand for affordable housing. love being a landlord love not having a mortgage payment, you know, the setup of that. And that was part of the play the play was Do we really have to have w two jobs? Like what are we doing here? are we spending the next 2030 years paying down a mortgage and then you know, somehow we've managed to squeeze out a million dollars in retirement savings so that we can just kind of eke out an existence it just felt like I don't know, man. Like there's got to be more than this.

Brian Briscoe: 3:11

Yeah, yeah. I mean that I looked at that plan that everybody talks about, you know, this this is the way you should do it. You know, the conventional wisdom always makes me scratch my head. It's like yeah, putting 5% of my paycheck away in a 401k is never gonna get me a million dollars you know, so yeah, that I think led me to the same same pathway same decisions. Yeah, we

Mark Davenport: 3:33

did the it kind of started started actually, I guess a little bit earlier. were often like, we'll see situations and we'll be like, yeah, we'd like that. Let's take that or let's change that and other things were like, let's leave that alone. We did the Dave Ramsey thing for a while. I'm not sure if you know who Dave Ramsey is kind of a guru type and paid off a bunch of debt. And the next thing in his program was start saving for retirement and paying down your mortgage and at that point, we were like Wow, really, like we were super focused on paying off our debt and now we're just going to squirrel away two 300 $400 a month and hunker down for the day it just felt like there's just so much more out there and it started it started small with a with a duplex didn't feel small at the time that duplex fell about as big as as the 12 storey tower we bought last year so like so it's all relative we were going from a single family house and it was super we felt super risky super out there super exciting nerve racking. You know all of it.

Brian Briscoe: 4:30

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm very familiar with Dave Ramsey and I think you know, a lot of people feel the same thing or I've heard a lot of people in the apartment industry say the same type of thing where they they get through there and it's, it's it's better than most people have but I think it's still tailored to the masses. You know, it's the mass plan. The one size fits all for everybody thing and the more I think about it, the more I realized that, you know, people should do exactly what you got. You didn't forge your own path and just say, hey, look, you know, that's not Quite maybe one size fits all but doesn't fit me so you know here I go so you got you got the single family home flip the duplex where do you go from there put a

Mark Davenport: 5:10

HELOC against the duplex is worth a lot more after we've done the work and place the tenant upstairs so did a four unit New Hampshire we moved down to Brooklyn New York so both those new hampshire properties rolled them into a couple of six units three unit and a two unit develop those just like we developed the other ones one of those was a bigger development in terms of converting to commercial spaces into residential apartments which was an interesting process so basically tied up that that portfolio and again we're like yeah, you know, there's more out there there's more going to do a lot more community. That's when we moved Well, we moved a couple of years ago from Brooklyn, New York to Kansas City. One of the drivers for that move was seeing the commercial real estate market here and if you get for your money, which just blew my mind I mean you buy you can buy 100,000 square feet of performing real estate for the same price as a single family in Brooklyn and yeah, we at that point when we were Brooklyn we knew that we this this business and become something that was we would move to capitalize on in terms of going to the next step so moved to Kansas City sold the New Hampshire portfolio off one property at a time but and invested in central Kansas that's where I kind of kind of at now developing a couple of three kind of larger commercial properties.

Brian Briscoe: 6:38

Yeah, yeah. I think what you what you talked about is is kind of nailing one of the demographics we're seeing in the US you know a lot of people you know wake up one day in New York City or Boston or something and realize man if I moved there I can get twice as much you know real estate for my money twice as much house for my money and in a lot of people are leaving the the high cost of living high density urban spaces for you know the Kansas cities of the world and for the you know, Charlotte North Carolina is or you know, the Greenville South Carolina is where Caleb's at that's one of the trends Thank you keyed in on early and was able to take advantage of so so Kansas City now and I heard a lot of really good things about that market. One of the one of the better Midwest markets right now so so let's, let's take a little detour from your story for just a second. And I want to ask a question, you know, what's, what's your motivation? Or what is your big burning buy for all this?

Mark Davenport: 7:33

Maybe quality of life? I'm not sure I have one thing. I mean, these days, I, you know, the road kind of takes some twists and turns and some motivations become stronger, and some become weaker. And sometimes other motivations kind of pop up and like, oh, you're now there is this significant motivator. Funny, for me now, kind of a bigger motivator is a desire to kind of have an impact on situations, we typically go for, you know, smaller cities have maybe have over population may be under 100,000. Those are the properties we'll look at and release properties in those cities. And you've got this downtown, often in towns of that size, which is historic, and not doing that great. You know, the suburban sprawl has happened, people have moved out, you've got your chilies, you've got your McDonald's on the outskirts. And then on the inside, you've got all these beautiful, large historic buildings that are slowly being converted, but often vacant. And so we've we found a lot of opportunity there. And that kind of has become, for me something of a major motivator to think, you know, you can get hold of one of these properties, and you can do some development. And the impact in the town is is outstanding, because you've you've done something that maybe no one else was able to do, and you've you've you've added a ton of value, and it works for everyone. It's a win win situation we do very well. Everyone does well, and yeah,

Brian Briscoe: 8:55

yeah. So I mean, a lot of people look at these, you know, sub $100,000 towns and they, they, they say there's a lot of risk because of the lack of population. How do you choose where you do the developments.

Mark Davenport: 9:08

So based on the property, we purchased three, the properties we're working on at the moment, all in a city called Hutchinson which is in central Kansas, about 45 minutes outside of Wichita, and it's a popular city population 40,000 hasn't really changed much population wise in the last 10 or 15 years but yeah, I get that i get i get i get the concern because you're like well this is tenuous the population is stagnant the economy in it from an out in the town from an outside perspective it's nothing to write home right How about Yeah, right you know, is in a population in a town of population 40,000 people most of those a significant amount of them are go getters you know, it's kind of interesting because you kind of lump then your lump the whole town into a certain category of like, oh is economic stagnation mean we find often when we go for these properties, There are lots of people already doing lots of things to make the town better. And you know, there's opportunity before we were in Hutchinson, we were in a town of about 12, or 13,000, in New Hampshire called somersworth. And we did two or three of our properties there, they were smaller, six units, three units, two units, and it was the same, it's the same situation, but then the price point matches that. But the upside is terrific. I mean, our company has grown explosively over the past five years. And I attribute a lot of that to investing in these types of markets.

Brian Briscoe: 10:32

Yeah, you know, and it's, it's one of those things where if you can mitigate the risks, and incidentally, I live in a town, you know, the whole metro area is probably 100,000. I think, last census, Idaho Falls came in at like, 70,000, right? So where I live, it's, it's your, your model as far as population size, and it's got a downtown, that's, you know, I think, five years ago, the first time that I started spending time here, you know, the downtown was kind of like, Oh, you know, and in the last five years, you know, there there's new restaurants, there's, there's a lot of things have been renovated, there's, you know, buildings that are now under construction and being being redeveloped and whatnot. And, you know, I think you're, you're definitely on to something. You know, obviously there's there's a little more risk with the smaller towns, but you know, you're looking at the upside and, and making that risk decision, you know, hey, here's my potential upside. If I do this, even though it's a small town, you got it covered. So yeah, just just ask the question, because a lot of people will shy away from the smaller cities without good reason. But you know, I think I think, I think there's a lot of opportunity in the smaller cities, you just have to be able to pick and choose and understand the local dynamics to to do well. It sounds like you guys are.

Mark Davenport: 11:47

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it's been it's been fun so far. Yeah,

Brian Briscoe: 11:51

absolutely. So quick question. So let's, let's talk a little bit more in detail about you know what one of these projects, maybe pick one of the most recent ones you've done or your favorite one and talk. Tell us a little more details on you know what you guys did to redevelop it and reposition it.

Mark Davenport: 12:10

We're working on it at the moment. We purchased it about six months ago. It's a four storey long, thin historic building. It was built in 1919. I believe. It's like 25 feet wide, and 162 feet long. That's called the Hoke building. And we're redeveloping it and turning into a boutique hotel. Okay, so we've just started our construction period for it. And it's our first hotel. So it's kind of an adventure.

Brian Briscoe: 12:36

Yeah. Nice. Nice. So. So yeah, it's long and skinny building. What what challenges, so what challenges you guys have so far on that?

Mark Davenport: 12:47

We're going first state and federal historic tax credits, which is to do a lot of historic preservation. So it's so interesting thinking about how, how to fit, you know, what you want for a hotel, the suites and everything into what's already there and use as much as as much of what's already there as we can. And that that part is, is really a lot of fun, because you're going into these rooms that you know, that have horsehair plaster, and paint, and then the beautiful original trimwork, you know, the wide the transoms beautiful doors. So the idea that you can keep so much of that and then make these kind of selective upgrades like, you know, skim coating the walls, new paint, refinishing original hardwood floors, hardwood floors and stunning. Yeah, so it's, it's like threading the needle between preserving and taking what we can that's already there. That's awesome. But then in other things, it's like, well, it's other parts is beat to hell. So you just need to do new things like new electrical, new plumbing. And new windows. I mean, the windows are boarded up and cracked. I mean, it's the whole, it's the whole thing. And it's, but then I was talking earlier about community impact, like in the city of Hutchinson, there's no Hotel in downtown, and there's no upscale Hotel in that in the whole city. So the fact that someone that that we're taking this, this downtown property and putting a boutique hotel in there is fulfilling this significant need that they have as a city. And so it's an impact, kind of an impact move.

Brian Briscoe: 14:20

Yeah, yeah, no, there's a lot of things. We have a building that was built in the 20s. You know, it's a 40 unit apartment. And there's a lot of things about the construction back then. And I know you mentioned the hardwood floors and whatnot. But there's a lot of really nice things about that historic type of construction that you definitely want to keep. I love what you're doing. I think that's that's amazing. trying trying to preserve the historical aspect, but updated as well. I know electrical is probably going to be one of your bigger, bigger headaches unless somebody else has updated it recently. You know, there there have been a lot of you know, electrical revolutions in the last I don't know 100 Two years. So you hopefully hopefully somebody else that has gone through a lot of pain and effort upgrading electrical for you guys already but if not, you know, it's just another line item on the expense sheet. But yeah,

Mark Davenport: 15:15

I saw that I was looking at your portfolio, I noticed that like a 16 unit property and brick building is that as well

Brian Briscoe: 15:23

that was built in the 30s that that that one is in Spartanburg, South Carolina, there's one about a mile and a half away from it. That's a 40 unit that was built before the 16 units and we actually picked both those up at the same time from the same owner. But yeah, one of them was built late 20s and one of them was built, you know, I think 36 if the public records are accurate, but yeah, both both of them are, you know, beautiful brick exteriors. And you get inside and you know, still has like, I don't know if it's original or not, but you know that the hallways are, you know, 10 feet wide and super tall and just a beautiful building inside now, but yeah, we we try to preserve as much as we can with it, you know, so leave the floors alone, just refinish them, and I can't say they're original, but I can say they've been there for a long time. You know, so well eautiful buildings. So but yeah, that's those are those have been fun projects, but beautiful buildings. And yeah, we haven't same same issues on the outside, we wrapped all the windows and did a lot of exterior work on that. On the 40 unit building the 16 unit buildings in a little better condition. We bought it but you know, still had to do some exterior. Cleaning up, so to speak. But yeah. Anyway, one more question for you. And then we'll we'll turn it to Caleb for a second. So what's next for you?

Mark Davenport: 16:55

I'm still working on that one that will be probably the hotel will be a year year and a half renovation, then we'll put it in service and we'll kind of enjoy what happens next. We're always looking for new projects. It's kind of the long and short of it. So kind of scouring the landscape across the Midwest. Probably not too much interested in the coasts because of the how the prices prices go crazy. But yeah, I mean, we kind of we've, we've we're pretty interested in the expansion and continuing kind of to scale what we do.

Brian Briscoe: 17:29

Nice, nice. Well, good luck on that one. I think there there's a lot of Midwestern markets that most people overlook because they're, you know, looking at the coasts, they're looking at some larger cities, but definitely a lot of opportunities there. Yeah. That said, we got Caleb Williams here. Well, Caleb, welcome.

Kalib Williams: 17:49

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Brian Briscoe: 17:51

Yeah, good to have you on So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Kalib Williams: 17:55

Well born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, went to private Catholic school my whole life. And I've always loved to cook so on a daily basis, I'm a chef I work downtown Greenville. And I got into investing about three years ago started with stocks bonds equities and the more research and books I read the easier it seemed to make real estate better choice

Brian Briscoe: 18:20

yeah Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I think a lot of people had the same thing they start looking at Real Estate you know, I made some small investments into rental properties and some small investments in the stock market and you know, the returns were a lot higher on the real estate and exactly started to go all in on that one so so you're you're Greenville South Carolina you're working during the day as a chef you know what's your what's your what type of stuff Are you looking for right now?

Kalib Williams: 18:48

currently right now in this market I have about two flips. So in the beginning I wasn't really interested in flips and I had a long conversation with my agent and she kinda not convinced me but made me like realize that I can multiply my equity a lot faster and it was allowed me to play bigger in wanting to develop multifamily so currently right now we're doing a couple flips but I would like to build new construction multifamily is next upcoming year two.

Brian Briscoe: 19:16

Okay, nice all in the Greenville area are you looking looking elsewhere?

Kalib Williams: 19:20

I like Greenville but I also like a lot of the sub markets so Spartanburg easily Anderson and Lauren's and fountain in kind of staying in that upstate circle. But yes, sir Yeah,

Brian Briscoe: 19:33

yeah, yeah, I do like the Greenville Spartanburg Anderson MSA area and we've got that I got count in my head six properties you know, right along in that area, you know, some some right next to, you know, Clemson University, you know, a couple more Spartanburg as I mentioned in Greenville. Yeah, really, really great area. So in a way you're fortunate to live there, you know, we got to commute to get there. But that's okay. Yeah, it's a great area. Great area though.

Kalib Williams: 20:03

A lot of people are moving here to a lot of people. Yeah,

Brian Briscoe: 20:07

my internal amount my wife was born and raised in Colombia, which is why why we we like South Carolina is okay. part that we knew as well. But so what's what's your big burning? Why? What's your motivation to do this?

Kalib Williams: 20:19

My big burning, why it kind of evolves as I get older. When I was younger, I was more not necessarily selfish, but I thought of myself a lot. Because I always wanted to travel the world and cook in these nice restaurants. But as I get older, it's becoming more about helping other people and taking care of my family. Because you know, when you have a couple million dollars, even a billion dollars, that's a lot you can feed a lot of people you can you can house a lot of things, you can create infrastructure and towels and eat it. And absolutely taking care of people. I

Brian Briscoe: 20:51

like to take care. Yeah, you know, I don't know why I brought this came up. I just saw a recent video with Mike Tyson. I'm sure a lot of people remember him, you know, heavyweight champion of the world. He looked at his belt, he's with a reporter, he looked at like all of his belts. And he said these don't mean anything. You know, these don't mean anything. I focus so much in my life, I'm getting these things. But now 20 years later, they don't mean anything. And he said, You know what, what matters to me? Are my kids, you know, are my kids happy? Is my family happy? You know, are Are we happy? but i think i think you know, you hit the nail on the head, you know. And Mark mentioned the same thing he said his wife has evolved over time to and you definitely mine has as well. But yeah, I think impact is is something that a lot of people look for, you know, especially as we get older is more, you know, less me and more. How can I make an impact? But yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, of course next time I'm in Greenville, I'll have to you know, find whatever restaurant you're working at that up this aisle,

Kalib Williams: 21:53

you should definitely come by. It's a nice restaurant downtown. We cook the food right in front of you.

Brian Briscoe: 21:58

What's the great restaurant?

Kalib Williams: 22:00

It's called Camp it's a new restaurant concept under a restaurant group table 301 it's right slap in the middle of downtown offer Broad Street.

Brian Briscoe: 22:09

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So downtown Greenville is beautiful and I actually used to have my grocery background used to be the Greenville just a Reedy river from one of the bridges that crosses over Yeah, I noticed that all the time. So yeah, it's beautiful, beautiful downtown area and a really good example of a downtown that's been renovated recently you know so you know if you were there 2030 years ago I'm sure you were you know when you look at it now it's it's night and day different

Kalib Williams: 22:38

it's night and day wow it's beautiful to so it's changing every week every month there's something being built something named

Brian Briscoe: 22:47

So anyway, well that said kid we got mark on the line What do you want to ask him?

Kalib Williams: 22:52

I would ask what made you come from London to the United States and currently right now Where do you see yourself long term in the next 10 to 15 years? What are your goals for building your company?

Mark Davenport: 23:04

I moved to the US because my partner Phoebe like we got married you know we just wanted to be together for some reason it was never an option that we'd be in the UK I guess I just I just wanted to be in I much prefer to be in the states is much more entrepreneurial here I think generally opportunity to establish establish yourself and build something of significance it's not that it doesn't happen in the UK but I think there's more opportunity here like next 10 or 15 years probably mostly keep on doing what we're doing it's interesting how the different phases change you know from from early on, I was swinging a hammer myself you know renovating myself framing during sheetrock laying floors finished work trimwork really anything I could kind of I could technically do I would do is that was how we got our value I didn't have to pay someone else

Kalib Williams: 23:59

to do make sense. How did you learn well, and

Mark Davenport: 24:03

I still do that now I'm not doing it with the screw gun. But I'm just learning by buying a six storey tower and being like well I've never done this before. As a good price looks like a great deal. Let's go and then yeah, same mechanics it's not a screw gun and nails and cutting trim board anymore. But it's still the same process of Oh, this is new. I think I like the idea of doing this I think this would be a good thing. Let's just do it. It makes sense Go for it.

Brian Briscoe: 24:30

You know what what I love about that is that that's the way I learned to I can read about it 1000 times I think the longest delay me getting started was trying to take that first step but once I did I started realizing that I've learned by doing you know, I learned by by doing by, buddy. Yeah, exactly. You said mark is hey, I think this is going to be a great project. The numbers work. Let's figure it out. And I think a lot of people will will stop short of that and, you know, try to have all the answers before moving But realistically, you're never gonna have all the answers. So love it.

Mark Davenport: 25:06

Tell it what's the what's your involvement in your flips?

Kalib Williams: 25:10

In the flips currently, right now I'm just kind of, it's just me and I have a lender, and I have a GC and he has a friend that helps him. So I kind of put the deal together. And I'm per se managing the GC, talking with him the process and permitting process and what kind of lights doors, all of that foundation edits, roof, not perceived doing anything myself, since during the day at work, I work in a restaurant, which is what I love to do. But almost being the overseer having I was blessed to have a lender who would fund the whole thing 100% purchase and renovation. So I'm kind of just managing the project along and learning because it's my first

Mark Davenport: 25:56

it's a huge deal. I mean, I know it's not physically doing the work, but what you're talking about is a huge component of the work is Yeah, managing it and staying on top of that. So yeah, how do you find that is that is that a process you're enjoying?

Kalib Williams: 26:11

I do enjoy it, because it took me a long time to get here, I enjoy it. I learned something every day from my lender, and from a general contractor. And my lenders are really good guy. I've known him for maybe about 10 years, and I went to school with his kids. So we have a nice genuine relationship, mutual trust, which is really good, you know, in any business.

Brian Briscoe: 26:35

Yeah, I got I gotta say, even even if you break even in the deal, what you learn from taking on the project is going to, you know, catapult you, you know, years ahead of where you'd be otherwise, you know, so exactly, definitely keep on pushing and sound sounds like you took took a private money loan from, you know, friends, friends, dad, which is, you know, creative. And I love how you got that, you know, work that out and got it all taken care of. So good. Anya. Thank you. So what are your questions? You got? Caleb,

Kalib Williams: 27:05

I do have one question. I heard him mentioned tax credits the process for the historic tax credit, what all? Do they allow you to change? And are? Do you have any involvement with the low income tax credit, which is something I do a lot of research on? I would like to utilize in the future.

Mark Davenport: 27:24

They'll allow you to change it if it's kind of code related. Or, you know, you obviously need to because the windows are no longer there, the generally you have to have, you have to have a really good reason. So it that kind of a good thing to kind of think about as you're thinking about kind of doing it. I mean, this is our first time we've done the historic tax credit. So I can I can talk to you a little bit about it. But we also haven't finished the project we're like, you know, in the in the throes of it here. Yeah, I got you. But so I mean, it's intense, there's a lot, a lot of detail a lot of determining things before you even do anything, a lot of planning a lot of legwork. And then at the end of the day, you know, hopefully we'll see how it works out, you know, so with low income. I've never done that before. I know a guy who did it in a building, we invest, we invest in the town, but I actually haven't done low income housing tax credits before, so I can't really speak to that. Okay,

Brian Briscoe: 28:20

I got a follow on question, what's the approval process like to get the changes approved? You know, so if you go in, you see something you have to change your update? You know, is that, you know, bureaucratic nightmare? Or is it pretty easy?

Mark Davenport: 28:33

What a great question. I think it depends on how much you've prepared. Because it's like, I think we work with a consultant who kind of leads us through the process. And I think my understanding of it is, as long as you are thorough in your scope, and just say what you're gonna do and do it and tell them, then it's it, they'll approve it, it'll be cool. But the minute you start to go, you know, do this amendment and do this amendment and everything starts to change and things like that, it gets a little bit more tricky. But did I answer your question?

Brian Briscoe: 29:08

Yeah. Yeah, we're good. We're good. All right. Do you got anything else?

Kalib Williams: 29:16

I do have one question for you. on a day to day What do you enjoy most about the investing in doing a lot of things different than traditional investors? And how do you find is the best way that you can educate people and you know, bring them towards in your company and say, Hey, this is what we're doing. We're trying to do well by people's money. You know, what do you enjoy?

Brian Briscoe: 29:42

What do I enjoy this a lot, you know, so I enjoy talking with a lot of people, you know, it's, it's funny, I'm somewhat introverted, but you get people on zoom. And you know, the, the introvert and me doesn't, doesn't really have any problems, but I also enjoy the hunt. You know, I enjoy You know, talking with owners, you know, I enjoy, you know, looking at properties. And you know, before this before, before we started recording, that there's actually a 60 unit just down the street from where I live that I'm looking at. And I was talking with the owner yesterday, and I was just going over this is what this is what I would do. So you're walking the property looking around, you know, and then thinking, Okay, there's a lot of problems here. And a lot of these problems are easy fixes, you know, so I really much enjoy the problem solving aspect, you know, you and that's really what makes this apartment investing thing work is you you find a property that has a problem, you solve the problem, and everybody wins, you know, you create a win win scenario by solving a problem, right? So that's something that I really enjoy. And then as far as your other question about, you know, taking on other people's money and making sure it works, we just daughter, I, you know, dot our I's, cross our T's you know, sharpen our pencil a lot and make sure that make sure we've doubled and triple check the numbers and make sure we've left adequate room in there for things to happen. You know,

Kalib Williams: 31:11

would you say you're cautious underwriter?

Brian Briscoe: 31:14

We try to be yes, I think if you cautious, you never get a deal. You know, but we make sure that we have enough enough wiggle room that we can adjust as things go. You know, I think we are we're more cautious with the things we can't control. And we try to be as precise as possible on the things we can.

Kalib Williams: 31:35

Okay. Have you found it difficult to get loans for multifamily? Rather, I mean, either new construction or existing construction?

Brian Briscoe: 31:45

We haven't. Mark, have you had any issues with with with getting the loans?

Mark Davenport: 31:50

Yeah, but there's always somebody will lend.

Brian Briscoe: 31:53

Good point. There's always somebody will keep looking?

Mark Davenport: 31:56

Yeah, for us. Every time we go for a loan, it's it's into new space. It's not something that we have a track record with. Like when we got a loan for duplex, we've never done a duplex before. Like we went to bank American, all these big banks, and they're like, Nope, can't help you. We found a local bank, one bank of everyone who would do it. That was enough. All we needed was one bank. And every time we go, it's in a new space. So the institutional bank is looking at that and thinking well, you don't have the experience. And they're not wrong. They don't we don't have the technical experience with that property. We do have the experience managing new things and learning skill sets and deploying and having success. So I mean, I guess moaning Mike Well, maybe my most significant thought about that is find the right bank. It's good point, just keep on going just keep on looking. Find a local bank that shares local vision or get creative don't take no for an answer. Just keep on hand. And

Brian Briscoe: 32:49

we've actually used two local banks out of Greenville. And they are what what you find with local banks is local banks are very interested in the local area in improving the local area. So they'll they'll take they'll take a little more chance on you know, someone like you or me or Mark who's going to improve the local area than one of the big box lenders will you know, so I think this The smaller the market, the more important the local banks become. Makes sense. So, but yeah, we we've had, we've got nine properties, we have four loans from local banks. And all four of those big banks are great based out of Greenville, and we have five loans from some of the national lenders.

Kalib Williams: 33:39

So that's what banks in Greenville, the

Brian Briscoe: 33:43

Greenville County credit union and one that used to be called crestcom. They just got bought out by a larger bank, but crestcom headquarters was just right downtown in Greenville, too. Yep. Yeah. So I don't remember that.

Mark Davenport: 33:59

Now, Caleb knows who to ask. Yeah.

Kalib Williams: 34:03

I go knock on their door,

Brian Briscoe: 34:04

down to Greenville and say Brian sent me Hey, Brian. He's got a couple loans with you guys. But hopefully I could go back. Yeah, probably not because it's kickbacks,

Mark Davenport: 34:16

but that's legal. But it sounds like fun.

Brian Briscoe: 34:19

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think the local banks are, you know, a good place to start, you know, especially, like, like Mark said, if you don't have a whole lot of experience, but you got a good idea and a lot of hustle. Some of the local banks will take a little more more interest in you. And that's what I'm doing. I'm in here in Idaho Falls where I'm also in a small town, like I said, right around 100,000, which include the outlying areas, and one of the national banks gave me a quote on the 60 units at like 50% LTV was their max and the local bank said Well, some will go up to 80. You know, and so, you know, you're looking at the difference and you know, looking at the local banks, you know, term sheet versus the national banks term sheet. You know, it's it's a no brainer.

Kalib Williams: 35:04

For some deals would you suggest a local bank rather than like, say big agency debt FHA, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae,

Brian Briscoe: 35:12

I say shop around, shop around. And also say make sure your debt term matches your business plan. So don't get into a long term debt with a high prepayment penalty if you're going to flip an apartment, you know, if you're going to hold for two or three years, get debt that matches your business plan. Yeah, that makes sense. That's really the key. So that's great. Cool. Anything else for us? Caleb, any any big burning questions you've got left to answer.

Kalib Williams: 35:48

That's about it. For me. I'm still kind of surreal being on the show. I listen to the podcast all the time.

Brian Briscoe: 35:54

Thanks, appreciate it, man. So well hope hope we were able to help you and definitely reach out if you got any issues. You know, like I said, Greenville is one of the areas that we keep our fingers on the pulse area we know pretty well. So yeah. Anyway, that said, thanks. Thanks to both of you for coming on the show today. Really appreciate your time. And thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the diary of an apartment investor podcast today brought to you by four oaks capital. If you'd like to know more about how to invest in apartment buildings or want to be a guest on our show, visit our website at four oaks capital comm slash podcasts or email us directly. If you're still listening, you obviously like the show. So pull out your phone, tap, subscribe, and leave us a five star rating on your favorite podcast app. And we'll see you again next week.