The Cost of Doing Real Estate Alone with Josh Green

In this conversation, Brian sits down with an investor who spent years evaluating other people’s deals before deciding to build his own. The transition wasn’t clean or obvious—and it didn’t happen because he lacked skill. It happened because knowing the numbers eventually stopped being enough.

They unpack what actually changes when you leave an institutional role, why going independent is harder than most investors admit, and how betting on overlooked markets can work—if you understand the tradeoffs.

This episode is for investors who feel stuck between “ready” and “exposed,” and are trying to figure out what the next real step looks like.

If you’re serious about building a real multifamily investing business, the conversation doesn’t end here.
Join the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community where investors work through real deals, capital raises, and decisions together—live and in real time.
👉 Learn more at thetribeoftitans.com

What You’ll Learn 

• Why deep underwriting experience still doesn’t prepare you for ownership
• The mistake that quietly kills most first-time development attempts
• How small markets create opportunity—and where they can break you
• What disappears when you leave a company, and why most people underestimate it
• Why passive learning eventually becomes a liability, not an advantage

About the Guest

Josh Green is a real estate developer, consultant, and educator with 11 years of experience in multifamily appraisal and market consulting across Utah and surrounding western states. He is a graduate of the University of Utah’s Master of Real Estate Development (MRED) program, where he also serves as an Adjunct Instructor.

Josh previously worked at a Utah-based residential development firm, helping underwrite and finance more than 1,200 units across single-family homes, townhomes, and apartments. Today, he focuses on developing townhome rental communities and consulting, and is the founder of the Impact Development Collaborative and co-founder of the monthly Taco’Bout Real Estate event.

Learn more about at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshgreen/

About the Host:

Brian Briscoe is an apartment operator and founder of Streamline Capital, focused on acquiring and operating multifamily properties in the greater Salt Lake City metro. He hosts the Diary of an Apartment Investor podcast, where he shares real-world operator insights and decision frameworks for aspiring multifamily investors.

If this conversation resonated, there’s more happening inside the Tribe of Titans. It’s where serious investors move beyond surface-level content and into real discussions that drive action. Visit https://www.thetribeoftitans.com/ to learn more.

Transcript

Show Welcome And Purpose

Brian Briscoe 0:06

Welcome to the Dire Even Apartment Investor Podcast, the show where we cut through the noise and talk about what it actually takes to build a real multifamily investing business. I'm Brian Briscoe, apartment investor, operator, and founder of Streamline Capital. And this podcast is built for the aspiring apartment investor who wants more than just theory. We talk about raising capital, closing deals, managing assets, and making the decisions that separate dabbling from building something that lasts. Now, if you're serious about taking the next step, this conversation continues inside of the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community where investors work through real deals together with live discussions and direct support. So let's get into today's episode. Welcome to the Diary of an Apartment Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Briscoe excited for today's show. We've got Josh Green on the line with us today. So, Josh, welcome.

Josh Green 0:59

Thank you. Yeah, happy to be here.

Brian Briscoe 1:01

Yeah, good to have you on. So it's been a while. Hope you're well. And do us a favor and tell us a little bit about yourself.

Josh Green 1:08

Yeah, I'll try to give you the quick version. Right now I'm doing small-scale development, consulting, and education. My background is in multifamily appraisal and consulting that I did all over Utah and surrounding states for like 11 years. Got super burned out on the appraisal. I love the consulting side, working with developers. So I decided I wanted to kind of make that shift into building something. I did the MRED program here at the University of Utah.

Guest Intro And Background

Brian Briscoe 1:33

MRED Master of Real Estate Development. Masters of Real Estate Development. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know you and I know what that is, but uh yeah. So and University of Utah, man, they're uh they're doing well in football this year. But anyway, let's I know I lost using our coach, so I know, I know. But I mean, I guess we knew that was gonna happen, just didn't know when, you know. But yeah, 20-something years with the same team, that's almost unheard of in college football. So anyway, let's hit the appraisal first, then we'll go M Red. Did you get into the appraisal business because you liked real estate, or what was kind of like the reasoning behind that?

Josh Green 2:06

Pure like dumb luck. I had no idea what an appraiser was. My grandparents owned the house next door to us growing up and they rented it out. I was the kid that mowed the lawn. Like I couldn't wrap my eight-year-old head around like someone was paying them money to live there. Yeah, and so that just always stuck in my head. And I I thought, you know, I want to do something in real estate. I did property management for a short time just because that's the only job I knew you could get at the time in real estate. And uh just purely, you know, dumb luck or right place, right time, stumbled into appraisal and ended up being there for like 11 years.

Appraisal Career And Burnout

Brian Briscoe 2:41

So yeah. I mean, fun fact about me, you know, when I was in the military, I was looking at a get out and I didn't know how to get into commercial real estate. And I took a course on commercial real estate appraisal, thinking, okay, that'll get me in the door at least. And I anyway, I was toying with the idea of doing the same thing, becoming an appraiser because I didn't know how else to get into commercial real estate. But yeah, I got uh got a stack of books from the appraisal course right there in the corner, too. So anyway, so you hit appraising, said you got burnout of that, and then take us from there. Was it was that when you went to the back to the University of Utah and got the master's?

Discovering Development And MRED

Josh Green 3:17

Yeah, I mean, appraisal was a really good background for me for what I do now, especially multifamily. You know, I've looked at every type of residential rental property you can think of all across Utah and surrounding states, and you know, done the analysis, the valuation, the underwriting. So that was a really good background for what I do now. Half of the business was appraisal, and uh, you know, that's just kind of a grind of a career. And someone's always mad at you, no matter what you do. The value is never where people want it to be. And but half of our business was consulting and working with developers and cities, helping them to figure out what to do with the property. And I really like that side. I I love numbers, like I'm an Excel nerd, but I also like really like the creative side. I I love that they were actually going and like building things. And so, you know, we would do the market study, tell them what type of property to build, how many units, what sizes, what mix, what amenities, do all the underwriting for them, all backed by the market analysis, you know, showing supply and demand, everything. Pretty in-depth reports, and and I really loved that. I thought, you know, like maybe I should pivot to the development side, like see if I can do that. And I didn't know how to go about it, but I did know that the University of Utah had the Masters of Real Estate Development, the Mred program. And so I kind of thought about it for a couple of years and I finally just decided, you know, now or never, I'm gonna do it. And it ended up being an awesome experience. And I teach two classes up there in the program now, and uh yeah, it was great.

Brian Briscoe 4:45

Yeah, awesome, awesome, awesome. So from there, you started working for a development company, correct?

Joining A Startup Developer

Josh Green 4:51

I did, yeah. One of my classmates kind of recruited me to come over to at the time, it was a little bit of a startup. It was a small group, and um, they were really focused on kind of in field development in Salt Lake City. And uh that was an exciting time. I got to, you know, do a lot of things and learn a lot of things that I probably wouldn't have anywhere else. Yeah. You know, over the four and a half or so years that I was there, I did all the underwriting, all the market analysis, debt equity. And the team, when I was there, I think we built, I added it up a while back. I think it was like 1200 units between single-family homes, townhomes, apartments, condos all over Utah. So, yeah, that was a great experience. That was kind of the the missing piece in a lot of ways. I didn't really know how to put a deal together with you know the capital stack and LP returns and and all those things. And so both the Mred and working for this developer kind of helped me to understand that side of it.

Brian Briscoe 5:46

Now, what years were these?

Josh Green 5:48

Uh, I graduated the program in uh at the end of 2017. Okay. And so I started working for this developer, I think, in 2018.

unknown 5:59

Okay.

Brian Briscoe 5:59

So it wasn't too long ago. When you said, oh man, I'm like, oh no, I'm gonna embarrass him. He's gonna say like 1982. I'm kidding. I know I'm not that old.

Josh Green 6:08

No, I mean it's almost 10 years since I graduated from the EMBRA. That's what it was making me uh feel old.

Brian Briscoe 6:14

Yeah, yeah, time does fly, that's for sure. And did did they only do Utah developments, or was it regional, national? How what was where was the footprint?

Josh Green 6:25

Only Utah. Yeah, they had a division that was kind of northern Utah, Wasatch Front, and then they have a division that's in southern Utah in in St. George. Awesome, awesome.

Brian Briscoe 6:36

So you you left them to strike it out, not exactly on your own. I know you you have a partnership, but uh let's talk about the reasons that you did that. You know, what kind of motivated you to do that? And once you made the switch, let's talk about some of the challenges you had, you know, going alone. Because that's probably where a lot of people listening to this are kind of sitting right now.

Lessons In Capital Stacks And Scale

Josh Green 6:55

Yeah, we could be here all day talking about challenges, right? Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think I've always wanted to do my own thing. My grandpa was an entrepreneur, my dad has tried a handful of things as an entrepreneur. That's what I've always wanted to do. My undergrad was in business entrepreneurship, and I think with this development company, I'd gone kind of as far as I could within the organization. You know, I didn't feel like I had anything really left to offer them. I didn't feel like they really had anything left to offer me either. Kind of all those things together, it just ended up being a good time for me to give it a shot. Yeah, I mean, we can talk about the challenges. There's been a lot of day, yeah. It's it's so much harder than you think.

Brian Briscoe 7:33

It's interesting. You know, I I reflect on that a lot. I was military, which there were some very challenging things I did, but I always had other people around me and I always had systems and support, you know. I mean, if things got really, really bad, I pick up the phone and there there's somebody, you know, or sometimes it's a radio, but there's somebody on the other end who's ready to help. I think one of the biggest challenges I've seen is, you know, the fact that you don't have that support system to rely on. That's been the biggest thing for me, you know, going solopreneur versus, you know, in a big job. And anyway, go ahead and talk about your experience a little bit.

Leaving To Build An Independent Path

The Loneliness Of Going Solo

Josh Green 8:11

Yeah, no, similar, you know, and I and I've tried, you know, over the 20, whatever years I've been in real estate to do some things on my own. And they never went anywhere because, you know, young, dumb or me, like I I thought I could do everything by myself. I thought I could learn construction, I could learn design, I could, you know, learn all these things. And I just can't, you know, like especially in development, it's really hard to be an expert in everything, right? Like the reason that it's been different this time around is because, you know, like you said, I've found some great partners, uh, a great support group to kind of help and you know, part that I can partner with, can fill in the gaps where where I don't know a lot about construction or about like architecture, like I've got people I can pull in on projects to help with those things. And I just kind of focus on what I'm good at and kind of overseeing the project. But yeah, it can be lonely. And and the more people that I've talked to in the same situation, I kept hearing the same thing. So one of the things I'm doing here in Utah is we've started this, it's called the Impact Development Collaborative. And it was kind of meant to be, you know, sort of a support group or a therapy group for for developers. So it's a small group. There's you know, contractors, architects, lenders, you know, all the whole spectrum, all trying to do similar things, right? And so we we get together a couple of times a month and just try to help each other out, try to, you know, teach each other, support each other. And that's been huge.

Brian Briscoe 9:35

That's interesting. Is that separate from the lunch group?

Josh Green 9:38

Yep. So yeah, we do uh my business partner, uh Patrick Svadeen and I, we do a monthly event called Talk About Real Estate. Started as a joke, you know, we were just sitting around talking about how much we love tacos, and we just said, Hey, what if we ordered a bunch of tacos and had someone talk about real estate and invited a bunch of people? And we thought if we could get like 20 people to show up the first time, we'd be feeling pretty good. And I think we had like 40 or something the first time.

Brian Briscoe 10:02

And nice.

Josh Green 10:03

Yeah, that's been awesome. It's been a really good way. I'm an introvert, you know, and so it's been a good way for me to meet people by organizing this event and bringing people to me instead of me going out individually trying to meet all these different people. So it's been a really great experience.

Brian Briscoe 10:17

Yeah, I see it advertised a lot, and I'm I'm on your list, but I haven't made it out for that yet. You're a little too far to drive for just lunch. So uh for people listening, I'm I'm about two hours away from where Josh is at. But yeah, so let's go back to that impact development collective. Is that what you called it? Collaborative, yeah. Collaborative, collaborative. Let's talk about that a little bit, what that is and uh what benefit it provides and what benefit people get from it. Well, that's the same thing. What benefit you get from it?

Creating A Developer Support Network

Josh Green 10:45

Yeah. Well, for me, mostly it's just, you know, like you said, to not feel like I'm doing this on my own, you know, to have people that have similar goals, similar mindset. It's kind of like loose membership, but we try to invite people that have the same type of mindset of like wanting to help people out and yeah, you know, not uh not looking for you know every last penny for themselves, you know. So we start with a really good group of people with different backgrounds. And yeah, we just try to help each other out and support each other and the projects that we're doing and and where we want to go. And it's a great group of people, it's been super fun.

Brian Briscoe 11:18

Awesome, awesome. Well, cool. Let's talk about some of the types of deals you're doing, and you know, I'll leave it to you to you know, if you want to be general or if you want to talk specific. But uh, you guys have some developments and you got some multifamily deals that are always rolling. But yeah, let's talk about what you do for now.

Community Events And Networking Tactics

Josh Green 11:33

Yeah, I'll give you kind of the brief overview of some of the things we've done and we can dive into anything you want to. We've bought, you know, a couple older apartment buildings in Ogden, Utah, about 45 minutes north of where I am in Salt Lake. We did an adaptive reuse. We bought an old building in Leighton that you are familiar with and converted it into kind of a co-working space or I guess more like executive office space. We've done some land deals. We just finished building 20 townhomes three hours south from me in Cedar City near St. George that are all for rent. We have a couple more of those lined up, more in Cedar City and and one in in Ogden.

Brian Briscoe 12:11

When I look at cities to do stuff in, you know, I want some sort of critical mass there. Cedar City is kind of a small city. What's your experience there? What do you like about it? And how's things been going so far?

Deal Types And Recent Projects

Josh Green 12:24

Yeah, I mean, this goes back to my kind of market analysis consulting days. I've seen developers that, you know, they went into small towns like Cedar and they built the nicest uh apartment community in the area, you know, different parts of Wyoming, you know, where no one would think, no institutional group would think of going. And they built, you know, these really great quality product and uh they just did really well because there was no competition, essentially. And that kind of always stuck in my mind. And so my experience with Cedar until recently has been, you know, stop for gas and something to eat on the way to St. George or back home. And uh, you know, I'd been to the Shakespearean festival once or twice. And which is awesome. Yeah. That was really all I knew about it. But the more I started digging into it, it has all the fundamentals that we want to see. It's got great employment growth. There's SUU Southern Utah University, is there growing. It's been one of the fastest growing universities in the state by enrollment. There's an inland port project area out to the west that's bringing a lot of manufacturing companies and jobs.

Brian Briscoe 13:26

Yeah.

Josh Green 13:27

Just in general, good population growth. So those are all kind of the fundamentals of the demand side of the equation, just a lot of growth. And when you look at the supply side, nothing had really been built there that was, you know, purpose built for market rate for rent. At the time, we started poking around for like probably 20 years. And uh there just weren't a lot of options. There'd been a lot of, you know, new student housing built for the university. There'd been a lot of low-income housing tax credits uh development for those lower income renters, but nothing really professionally managed, purpose built for rent. And so that's where we saw the opportunities like, hey, there's all this growth. No one's going in to do something because it's kind of unproven in a lot of ways. And we thought, you know, we can take a risk on building 20 units down there. And it's gone well so far. Yeah, we we just finished construction on that. We're we're 80% occupied. Most of our tenants actually are have relocated to Cedar City from out of state, so from outside of Utah for work. So yeah, it's been going well.

Why Cedar City Works

Brian Briscoe 14:26

There is a lot of growth. I mean, Utah wide, but southern Utah, like Cedar and St. George, are getting a lot of growth. My in-laws live on the other side of the mountains from Cedar. They're they're in a little town called Hatch. And I know when they go to town, you know, when they say they're going to town, it it's uh it's Cedar City, right? So the other thing it has going for is there's a lot of really small towns in southern Utah, and that's where they go to their Walmarts, you know. I mean, they have a small grocery store close, but anything that's you know, outside of that small grocery store, they're going to Cedar City. I think Cedar City has two Walmarts now, is what uh what I've been told.

Josh Green 15:04

Is that uh there's one right now. They just announced a Winco. They're building two new Smiths grocery stores, one on either end of town.

Brian Briscoe 15:12

Sounds when you go to town. So that's the extra benefit. We see the same thing in Idaho Falls is you know, all these little communities congregate here, and so for the amenities places like Cedar City and Idaho Falls have, it they punch above their weight compared to what the population size is, you know.

Josh Green 15:31

So for yeah, so I mean there's recreation around there too, right? Like uh there's ski resorts, there's uh hiking, mountain biking, like you've got all of that super close to national parks.

Brian Briscoe 15:43

I mean, you Cedar City is just hop, skip, and a jump from Zions, and then uh Bryce Canyon's really close, and then uh Coral Sand dunes. Oh, those are that's a really park too.

Josh Green 15:55

Cedar Brakes is right there, it's beautiful.

Demand Drivers And Limited Supply

Brian Briscoe 15:58

Beautiful, beautiful area. So lots of good reasons for cedar. So you you got some stuff going down in Cedar. You you answered my my hard questions on that one, you know, why why a little town? And a lot of good stuff going down there. And then you you said you have projects in in Ogden as well. Yeah. So as far as your your growth philosophy, you know, are are you gonna continue staying close to home, like Utah and Cedar City areas? I guess Cedar City is in Utah, so yeah.

Josh Green 16:23

Yeah, I just you know, I born and raised Utah, spent my whole career here. I've worked in every kind of every corner of Utah over my career. And I think there's just there's plenty of opportunities here, especially I work on the smaller end, and so there's plenty of opportunity here. I do like parts of Idaho as well. Like I like Idaho Falls. I've worked there, Twin Falls. Yeah, I mean, if I were to go out of state anywhere, it'd probably be Idaho, is probably where I know the next place that I know well. But yeah, there's plenty of opportunity in in Utah.

Brian Briscoe 16:54

So awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, let's uh let's kind of wrap things up here real quick and uh a couple questions to finish it up. Question number one, what's next for you?

Lease-Up Results And Tenant Profiles

Josh Green 17:08

Oh man, that's a good question. We have some projects in the pipeline. Uh, we want to get those, you know, break ground on those this coming year. Not really actively looking for new projects right now. Um, it's just hard to make anything work. I mean, we bought the land for these projects um years ago, and uh we just want to get those going right. So that that hopefully happens next year. We get those. This one in Ogden is, you know, pretty close, should start early early 2026. You know, I still do consulting. I want to do more of that. I've teamed up with a couple people here to kind of build that out. And then I felt just you know, like in the last six months or so, just like uh a real pull towards the education side. I I love teaching, like I said, I teach two classes at the University of Utah. I'm gonna be teaching in the spring at Utah State. And then uh, you know, I I do my own courses too. So I'm for someone that's you know has kind of gone as far as they can on you know, bigger pockets or watching YouTube videos, but doesn't want to go all the way to like getting a master's degree or or something, you know, how can I kind of fill that gap with kind of practical, hands-on type education? So I've I've been teaching a couple courses on underwriting, you know, finding deals through you know, direct mail. I've got a few others in the works, but that's kind of where my focus is right now. We'll get these projects going. And but I'm trying to build out this kind of education side. The big plan over, I mean, I would love to build something similar to like a tech or a venture incubator, but for small-scale real estate developers, that's kind of the direction this is heading.

Regional Strengths And Amenities

Brian Briscoe 18:42

So there's a lot of tech incubators in Utah, you know, and that's that's kind of like you know, another one pops up every week, you know, it seems, but there really isn't that for multifamily. So now are you looking at this more from a development side?

Josh Green 18:56

It sounds like yeah, more from the development side. And again, like more on the small scale, right? You know, someone that's you know, uh I work with a lot of contractors, a lot of architects that are, you know, experts at what they do. Yeah, they want to do development, you know, they want to own something, but they don't know how to go like the next step, right? They they they know their piece of the process. And so the idea is, you know, build some education, build a support group around uh helping, you know, someone through this whole process and whatever it is, their first deal, if it's building a fourplex or doing uh subdividing some lands, you know, whatever it is, uh just to be a resource for an education network of people to help them make it happen.

Brian Briscoe 19:40

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, that's interesting. That's something I I do the same thing with multifamily syndicators, you know. So we try to do the same thing. I've got a couple, you know, one of them that's uh buying a small place in Salt Lake right now, which uh 18 units, but uh existing. So yeah, right along right along the same line there. But uh we'll we'll share notes offline. But uh so Josh, if you had to give advice to somebody who's just starting out, what would that advice be?

Josh Green 20:08

Yeah, I get this question a lot from my students at the University of Utah and just people that I talk to. And I give them the same two pieces of advice. The first one is you just need to take a job, even whatever it is, where you get a lot of exposure to deals. For me, it was appraisal, and I was analyzing deals every day, like understanding valuation, what makes a property valuable, looking at rent roles, operating expenses. So any type of experience like that that you can get, whether it's with a lender, a broker, an analyst, like there's a lot of type of those positions, but there's only so much you can learn without kind of like getting your hands dirty, right? Like actually doing it and doing the analysis, figuring out what deals make sense and why and what ones don't. The second thing is networking is huge and just who you know uh really matters. And I'm kind of late to the game on that. You know, I worked in the shadows of my bosses, you know, and was comfortable there, but I had a career counselor at the University of Utah that said, no, you gotta like make an effort to meet people. And so I've tried to do that through LinkedIn, through just connecting to people, going to events, like creating my own events, but really you just need to know people and let people know what you're doing, how you can help them. I try to lead with how can I help you before I ask for anything from you? And just getting to know people and making those connections, finding people that you feel like you can work well with.

Brian Briscoe 21:28

Yeah. And I'd say if if you're looking to get into development, you know, pick up the phone and call Josh because he's got a little program coming up for you. So yeah, awesome, awesome. All right. Well, last question, and uh this goes into the pick up the phone part. How can listeners learn more about you?

What’s Next: Pipeline And Timing

Josh Green 21:44

Yeah, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. Um, I spend a lot of time there. It's it's been really good for me to meet and get to know people there. And so that's probably the first place I would go. You can find my contact info there. I just started a newsletter um earlier this year. You're uh kind of on the development side, you know, kind of how to step by step, like how to do different things. Uh so you can subscribe there through LinkedIn. But yeah, happy to chat and uh send me an email, call, text, tweet, DM, whatever.

Brian Briscoe 22:15

Awesome. Awesome. Well, awesome. Hey, thanks, Josh, for coming on the show. Very much appreciate your time. Yeah, thank you for having me. This has been fun. Hey, I hope you got a lot from today's conversation. Uh, if you did, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. We're on all major podcast platforms and YouTube as well. Now, if you're ready to move from listening to actually doing, check out the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community. That's where investors go deeper with live discussions, real time QA, and practical support around capital raising, finding deals, asset management, all of it. All right, you'll find everything you need at thetribe of titans.com. That link's in the show notes. Tap it, and we'll see you there.