Stop Taking Advice from Amateurs with Jason Williams

The fastest way to stall your apartment investing career is listening to the wrong people.

There’s a difference between learning from operators and taking advice from peers who’ve never built what you’re trying to build. Most investors don’t fail because they lack intelligence. They fail because they follow the wrong models.

If you’re serious about building this the right way, join the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community: www.thetribeoftitans.com

In this conversation, we unpack what it really looks like to transition from a technical W-2 career into multifamily ownership — without chasing hype markets, without guessing, and without quitting prematurely. This is about deliberate moves, strategic leverage, and building systems that remove friction from scale.

Jason didn’t start in a high-growth market. He didn’t raise institutional capital on day one. He didn’t abandon his job recklessly. He built methodically — and engineered his business the same way he engineered products in his former career.

What You’ll Learn

• Why slow personal savings keeps most investors small
 • The real constraint behind scaling beyond single-family
 • How to operate in a flat-growth market without getting crushed
 • Why systems thinking beats hustle when underwriting deals
 • The decision filter that separates operators from dabblers

You’ll also hear how leveraging mentorship, partnership dynamics, and disciplined market selection allowed him to build a portfolio while still working — and transition out on his own terms.

This isn’t theory. It’s what happens when someone applies engineering discipline to multifamily investing — and refuses to take advice from people who haven’t built real scale.

Inside the Tribe of Titans, these are the types of conversations that continue — real operators, real deals, real execution. If you’re ready to move beyond consuming content and start building with accountability and support, that’s where the next step is.

About the Guest

 Jason Williams is the Chief Underwriter at Lorren Capital, LLC, where he helps real estate investors strengthen their underwriting processes to reduce risk and improve deal performance. With a background in engineering and a focus on financial modeling and deal analysis, he supports operators in making data-driven decisions and scaling their portfolios with greater clarity and discipline across multiple markets. 

Learn more about him at: https://ironcladunderwriting.com/ , or https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonwilliamsphd/

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

Welcome And Guest Intro

Brian Briscoe 0:06

Welcome to the Direven Apartment Investor Podcast, a 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, and I'm really excited for today's show. I say that every time, but this time it's somebody I've known for several years and finally convinced him to come on my podcast. So, you know, warm welcome to Jason Williams today. Jason, welcome.

Jason Williams 1:05

Thank you, Brian. How are you doing? Doing really well. Doing really well. How are you doing? I'm doing really well as well.

Brian Briscoe 1:12

Okay. Did you guys get affected by all that snow down in you know Texas and whatnot?

Jason Williams 1:18

My kids had almost a full week off of snow days. So yes, we did get affected by it.

Brian Briscoe 1:24

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. I used to make fun of people who you know took days off because of snow. And I realized it's all about what the communities have to get rid of it more than anything else. But anyway, yeah, so snow's here and we call it Tuesday. Yeah. But uh anyway, weather aside, let's talk about you and you know, tell us about yourself. Lead us into how you got into multifamily.

From R&D To First Rentals

Jason Williams 1:48

Yeah, I'm Jason Williams. I have a PhD in chemical engineering. I was a research and development engineer for 15 plus years. Graduated with my PhD in 06. Okay. I bought my first house because I always knew I was going to get into real estate in 03. So I got my first house while I was in grad school. I was living in it. The plan was to fix it up and rent it whenever I moved on. Okay. I actually fixed it up after I moved on. I still have that house today, still cash flowing. I've cashed out, refined it numerous times to buy other properties. So I mean it was a pretty good investment, and I bought it for like 65,000 in 2003. So okay.

Brian Briscoe 2:33

So 20 plus years, that's awesome.

Jason Williams 2:36

So as an RD engineer, I live in North Texas, so I'm not getting like big high California salaries, TFW salaries, Houston salaries. No, I'm getting like almost podunk town uh salaries. But I mean, I could live comfortably, um, but it took a long time to raise up enough capital to like buy another house, put it put 25% down for another one. I did it, and then like I said, I re I cashed out refinance a few times on that one. So I was able to get a handful of houses, but it was like so slow. I kept it took like a couple years to raise up enough and kept going. So then I was at a conference in DFW, and that's where I met Joe Fairless, and he introduced me to apartment syndication and using other people's money for buying large apartment complexes.

Brian Briscoe 3:29

Awesome. Let me ask you one question before we jump into that part. What was the overall reasoning? You said you always wanted to have you know real estate. Was it to supplement? Was it to build wealth? What was the master plan when you started?

Jason Williams 3:42

So growing up, my parents were getting into real estate, and so I saw what they were doing, and that's what I'm gonna do. It's something I can do on the side, I can generate wealth that way, get cash flow, and it's just something I wanted to do. And then in college, I was introduced to uh rich dad poor dad as an undergrad, and it's uh so it like definitely sealed wanting to go into uh real estate that way. So awesome.

Brian Briscoe 4:09

No, go back to you met Joe Fairless, and what about that multifamily pitch were you attracted to there?

Discovering Syndication And Mentorship

Jason Williams 4:18

So I mean it was I could buy properties with other people's money. I mean, I could still run them and do everything, but that just piqued my interest. And I didn't get into multifamily then, but at least I started researching it. And this was about 2017 or so. From there, I started researching getting into uh multifamily buying apartments, and then finally in like 2019, I actually signed up with Joe under his mentorship program, and and then really the rest is history from there.

Brian Briscoe 4:50

So looking back at it, when when I've kind of compared notes between who came out of which programs, I'm a Michael Blanc graduate, I've done pretty well. I think you know, if you kind of look at pedigrees and who's who in multifamily right now, I think Joe Fairless probably has the strongest pedigree of students. So wish I would have known that uh you know, six or eight years ago. But like I said, I did pretty well.

Jason Williams 5:11

We all get into like the programs that like one resonate with us and two like stand out first. I mean, I didn't even hear about Michael Blanc until like after I was in Joe's program. I haven't heard of Rod Khalif or Brad Sumrock or any of those until after I got into Joe's program. So and I know I'm actually fortunate, I think, that I got into Joe's and not one of the other ones.

Brian Briscoe 5:32

So that is true. When I got into coaching, I knew that Michael Blanc did coaching and I knew that Rod Kleef did coaching. I was aware of Joe Fairless's podcast and I listened to it quite frequently. I mean, he probably had like four or five hundred episodes in when I first you know latched onto it. But yeah, I didn't know he was even doing coaching until after I signed up with Michael Blanc.

Jason Williams 5:53

I didn't even know he was doing it. I just reached out to him. It's like I met him at that conference and I reached out to him on LinkedIn and he responded to me. And so we had a back and forth conversation. And I heard there's some programs out there. Do you recommend any of them? And he's like, Well, yes, I recommend mine. It's like, oh, it's like, oh, I didn't even know you had one. He's like, Yeah, and then sent me to a page. So it's something he doesn't advertise, but I mean, yeah, it's pretty good. So awesome.

Brian Briscoe 6:18

Let's talk about how you got into multi-family after that.

Jason Williams 6:21

Okay, so I left my RD engineer job in the summer of 22. Okay. So I got in with Joe in 19. So I was in buying I started my buying my first complex while I still had a W-2. And that was hard for me because like a lot of investors or the ones that we talked to are like, you need someone full-time on it because having a W-2 and running an apartment complex can be difficult. True. My wife Angel, she was doing it full-time, so that sort of was the segue into letting us get some more investors for the first apartment. I was the apartments we bought were the 15 minutes from where I am right now, so I can was able to go up to them during lunch at work or whatever. And if I had to go sign something or take a ladder up there for whatever reason, I I just like could do it during the day. And so I was doing that and I kept doing that, and I was like getting to the point where it's like I'm tired of being an engineer, so I was thinking about phasing out and doing real estate full-time. My company decided they were gonna move from North Texas to Houston, and they did not want to take me, they didn't ask me, they just they I guess they assumed that I wouldn't do it. And so when I was meeting with my manager and HR, they're like, All right, we're gonna lay you off. They gave me a day, and the day they gave me kept getting pushed out every six months or whatever. But they gave me a day and they're like, All right, we'll give you uh six month severance package because you've been here for so long, that's the max we can give you, and then we want to hire you as a consultant after you're laid off. And so I was doing everything I could not to like smile ear to ear. Because that's what I my that's what my plan was anyway, except now I get a severance package.

Leaving The W‑2 And Landing Severance

Brian Briscoe 8:16

Yeah, that would have been perfect. I chose to leave my W-2 and I ended up getting a pension, but that took 20 years. But yeah, severance package is you know a close second, you know, and it's it's a close second because you know there's nothing in between, really. Well, awesome. So you took you took the severance package. Uh, did you take them up on the consultant deal or not?

Jason Williams 8:36

I had a three-year contract with them and they canceled it like two years and 10 months in. So it was about to expire anyway, and they weren't using me. So I was like, if you're not gonna use me, there's really no need for you to keep paying me a retainer every month.

Brian Briscoe 8:50

So makes sense. So that got you full time, which is where you wanted to get anyway. Going back to something you said, your first acquisition or a couple of your acquisitions were you know really close to you. I know the answer to this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What's your guys' buy box? You know, where do you buy and why?

Jason Williams 9:09

So we bought in our backyard. Now, if if you go to anybody's like if you study a market, this market I'm in would never pass. Right. Except I'm living here. I know the market, I know the good areas, I know the bad areas. This area hasn't changed population in over 60 years, six zero. The 1960 census was almost the exact same as a 2020 census. Wow. I mean, it goes up like 101, 102, 104, 101. It just fluctuates right there at 100 and whatever. So that one, there's no growth here. And so it's like if this was any other market, I would never invest it here. But it is my backyard, and I do recommend to to my students and my clients, like, hey, and I do have a coaching program as well, but I'm like, hey, start in your backyard, you know that better than anybody. And if for some reason it's not a good backyard, then you need to start doing your market analysis. But yeah, so that's why we started in our backyard. We already had single families here. We pretty much know everybody now, so it I I still feel like it's a good market, it's a it can be a tough one. You don't get the rent growths and stuff you get in DFW or Houston or Austin, but it is more stable than those as well.

Brian Briscoe 10:33

So I love that philosophy. It took me many years to come back to it, you know. I I I wish I would have uh kind of adopted the philosophy a lot earlier, but I was in Washington, DC, and I started buying in South Carolina, which is where my wife was born and raised, but we didn't live there. And, you know, it did create a management problem. If you can't take off lunch and just drive to the property, you know, it does create a little bit of a management problem, you know. So we were uh, you know, I had to drive eight hours, so it wasn't anything that could be done the same day uh for anything. Yeah, it took me several years to finally settle on, you know what, born and raised in Utah, I live just outside the metro right now. And yeah, I love the philosophy. I'm I'm glad you guys are doing well with that.

Jason Williams 11:17

So so one of our business partners, he is adamant that there has to be boots on the ground within a 90-minute drive. And I've talked to people like, well, I can get on a plane and be there within an hour and a half. It's like, well, no, that's not the same as just driving there. So yeah.

Brian Briscoe 11:36

Once you start looking at everything that's involved, buy a ticket, drive to the airport, get through security and all of that, you're not there in 90 minutes, you know. Yep. Unless you have your private plane, you know, on standby in your backyard or your helicopter, but your your Cessna or something.

Jason Williams 11:52

Like we do have a little tiny airport where people have their own Cessna.

Brian Briscoe 11:56

So I'm sold on the invest first in your backyard. I mean, realistically, and you know this, no matter where you live, if you know, if it's your backyard, you're gonna have a competitive advantage over everybody else. You know, you mentioned there hasn't been a whole lot of growth, but it's something that you know and you can plan around and you can still manage, and there's still you know, 100,000 people there, so people need to live somewhere. Anyway, all for it. Now, how about this? What challenges do you have in a small market like that?

Why Buy In Your Backyard

Jason Williams 12:24

Finding investors is difficult because investors do those market analysis. Well, you haven't had growth in 60 years. Why would I want to invest in that? When you get people who invest or do the market analysis for their investments, that's a hard spot. But most of our investors now bet on the jockey and not the horse. So we did overcome that. Also, being so close sometimes is an issue because sometimes management expects you to be there on site, and maybe I'm not there, maybe I can't be there a day or whatever, and now I have to drop what I'm doing and then head over there versus my partner in Rhode Island who never gets a call to go up there because he only comes in once or twice a year, you know.

Brian Briscoe 13:11

So yeah, it makes sense. How about vendors? You know, is there a big enough pool of vendors that you can get all your work done that you need to get done, or is that an issue?

Jason Williams 13:20

Um, it hasn't been an issue yet, and we're close enough to DFW that we can get people there relatively cheaply. And and yeah, we might have to pay because we're two hours from Dallas, hour and a half from Fort Worth. People can come up here pretty regularly and maybe charge us like 150 bucks for traveling or something like that, not too bad.

Brian Briscoe 13:42

So definitely manageable. I think what you said that the biggest thing up front is you know, if you're in a small town, and I'm I'm talking more to the people listening than to you, Jason. But if you're in a small town like that, it's gonna be hard to attract outside money. Let me ask you a follow-on question on that one. You know, are a lot of your investors from your area, or do you have people from all over? How did you overcome that challenge?

Jason Williams 14:07

So, my wife Angel, you know her, she talks to everybody. She's got yeah, she got most of the investors. We do have a few local investors from like our relationships outside of like real estate, but I think we only have probably less than five for all our properties versus the ones that Angel got. And a lot of them are in like the DFW areas because we do go to meetups, or my wife Angel goes to meetups in DFW a lot, and so she meets a lot of people that way. Um, Zoom calls, she meets a lot of people on Zoom. Most of our investors are like the people involved in the space, so either in and other markets.

Brian Briscoe 14:48

So yeah, I see Angel on a lot of networking calls at a lot of events, you know. So for people listening, it is a great way to to find people who can invest with you, you know, it just network, network, network, network. And that that's something that Angel does well. She's been a mainstay. I know she has her own networking group, but she's been you know one of the most consistent people coming to my networking group over the last you know six or seven years, too. So lesson learned, you know, network, network, network.

Jason Williams 15:17

So she she she's the network person. I'm more of the introvert. I'd rather deal with numbers than people, and so it kind of works out because she'd rather work with people than numbers.

Brian Briscoe 15:28

So yeah, that seems to be a pretty good partnership dynamic there, you know, somebody who's outgoing and somebody who can who can handle all the number stuff.

Jason Williams 15:37

So when we raise capital, she'll initiate the conversation, get it going, and then when it comes to numbers, she passes them off to me, and then I seal the deal.

Brian Briscoe 15:46

Nice, nice, nice. Well, cool. So uh, what's your portfolio look like right now?

Small Market Challenges And Investor Trust

Jason Williams 15:53

Oh gosh, I don't even know. Um, we have 160 units in town from multifamily. We have 30-ish units of residential, um, some residential multi-some single families. Um, and those are scattered in town in the Waco area and then Lovick. Lubbock one is the one we bought while I was in school because I went to Texas Tech. So you you still have you know a single family portfolio, some small multifamilies, and then we got some like 20 units in Tyler, but then we ended up selling those last year. So what we're concentrating on right now is we have a mobile home community development that we're doing in Waco. We have 18 acres. We just got approval from the city, so now we're going through bids to uh get everything built. So that's what we're that's taking up all my time and in capital right now.

Brian Briscoe 16:58

So, yeah, that sounds like a fun project. Mobile home parks, you know. I I've I've talked to a lot of people who do mobile home parks. Uh, it sounds like there's a handful of things that are a lot simpler than multifamily and a handful of things that are a little bit more complicated.

Jason Williams 17:12

So yeah, so so for one thing, I I call it a mobile home community, but I've actually been told I need to start calling it a manufactured home community. That's a way the connotation is there's um it's that's not a trailer park, and so mobile home park, I think, is like a step up from trailer park. Yeah, mobile home community is a step up from that, but now we're I need to think about like a manufactured home community.

Brian Briscoe 17:38

So well, Jason, sounds like that's uh going well for you and wish you the best of luck with that project. So, about time for our final couple of questions. And first of those is what's next for you?

Jason Williams 17:49

So, what's next for me is I'm gonna preface this. As an RD engineer, I create systems for our lab tech to be able to test. We we made plate heat exchangers. So he would test the plate heat exchanger, I would gather up all the data, I'd go through the data, sort through it, and then somehow that had to be converted to what the salesman could sell. So I ended up creating a system actually using Excel and VBA macros so that the lab tech could do everything so that it wasn't taking up my time. And so he could like push a button, run the macros, spit out, and then the salesman can use whatever they needed to. I took that same mentality from RD2 multifamily. So now I have a system or my Excel sheet was like you can upload a rent roll in T12, push a button, and it'll do everything for you. I took that even a step further because even though I'm good at Excel, I hate it, it keeps breaking on me. So I am developing a web app that should be live in beta version when this airs. And so it does everything that my model would do in Excel, except it's all online so that you don't have to worry about sharing it with people in like a Google Drive or someone doesn't have Excel. And so I'm doing that. And one, if you want to be a beta tester, I need people to test this thing, put it through the range, yeah, so that I know it's working well. I'm I can only do what I'm doing, but I need more hands. So if you want to sign up to be a beta tester, you can go up to my um my website, ironcladunderwriting.com forward slash beta tester, and you can sign up there, get on the email list, and I'll update you. I'll show you how to sign and create an account, and then you can start using it.

Brian Briscoe 19:34

So yeah, and uh for for everybody out there, you know, Angel brags about Jason's underwriting abilities and you know the stuff that he outputs, you know, all the time. So, you know, you know, it's good that you have a wife, you know, plug in for you.

Jason Williams 19:48

But uh it's all about the system. It's like yeah, I I'm not gonna be in there going through a rent roll with 400 units and sorting through everything manually. I'm not gonna be copying, paste, and putting it into Excel. So I'm gonna create a system to do all that for me, get the manual labor part out of it so that whenever you're ready to go, you can just do some fine tweaks and stuff, and then you can see what it looks like from there. So that's my thought process on why I'm doing this.

Portfolio Snapshot And New Developments

Brian Briscoe 20:15

So you know, I have a couple degrees in math, and so I understand the numbers, and you'd think that that would make me really good at underwriting, and it does. The reason I don't like underwriting is because most of it is data entry. You know, I mean, the traditional way of underwriting, there's a whole lot of exactly what you said. You know, it's hopefully it's in a you know, a rent roll for 400 units, hopefully it's in Excel so we can manipulate it. But you know, most of that underwriting process is not the type of stuff I like to spend my time on. So if you're automating all of that, you know, that sounds like a great, great deal for people. So yeah, plug for Jason here, you know, be on that beta tester group and you know, see if you can uh you know learn a thing or two and help everybody out with that one. So you got that coming out. Anything else uh on the horizon for you guys?

Jason Williams 21:05

Again, just manufactured home community is what I'm concentrating on, both of those things right now while maintaining my existing portfolio.

Brian Briscoe 21:15

So awesome, awesome. All right. How about this question? If you had to give advice to somebody who's just starting out, what would that advice be?

Jason Williams 21:24

My advice would be, and I actually give this advice to everybody, it's like don't take advice from somebody who's not where you want to be or someone who's not doing what you want to be doing. As a real estate investor with a W2, everybody told me I should be selling my houses and blah blah blah. I I should be getting rid of my management company and should be doing it on my own. But none of those people were where I wanted to be. So I didn't listen to them. That's why I went out, started working with Joe. Joe, guess what? He's got 2.7 billion dollars in assets under management. I would love to be there. So I'm listening to him. I'm taking his advice. So if it's anything, if you want to be a better basketball player, listen to people who are good basketball players. They're going to tell you what the struggles are and how to overcome them, what you need to do to get there. So again, don't take advice from somebody who's not where you want to be or doing what you want to do.

Brian Briscoe 22:19

I love it. I love it. I think that's priceless advice. My dad has left me with many little pearls of wisdom, but you know, I remember him telling me that early on, in different words. He uh he told me once, he's like, Brian, I'm not a wealthy person. I've never figured out, you know, money in this life. He's like, if you ever want to become rich, I think is what he said. You know, don't come to me for advice. I I think that was a lesson my dad told me when I was 18, you know, and it was just kind of like out of the blue. But I took it with me for the rest of my life, and I 100% agree. You know, find somebody who's where you want to be and get advice from them. But uh all right. Last question for you, and that's how can listeners learn more about you?

Beta Tester Invitation Details

Jason Williams 23:02

I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram, I think I'm on Facebook. I don't know. Um, most of it's on in I have help doing my social media, but I know I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn. Also have a podcast, the Ironclad Underwriting Podcast. So if you want to learn more about underwriting, you can go there. Um that's on Spotify, Apple, all the main uh podcast platforms. And there we break down like it's not really like this where it's an interview type show, even though I do sometimes have interviews. It's more we break down the ideas into bite-sized pieces and then let you consume it. We give you tips and tricks on maybe how to do a value add or something like that, or we walk through an LOI or what we do during during due diligence type thing. So that podcast is pretty good. You can go again to my website, ironcladunderwriting.com. I have a lot of free resources there if you're interested. I have the sample LOIs, I have a due diligence checklist, I have an underwriting checklist. So every step you need to do for underwriting, it goes, it's there so that you can go and cross stuff off. That's all on my website as well. So awesome.

From Excel Models To A Web App

Brian Briscoe 24:13

So if you're listening to this and you want to reach out to Jason or connect with him offline, you know, head to the website, follow him on social media, reach out to him, and that's it. So all right, Jason, thanks for coming on the show today. Very much appreciate you know what you've added to the podcast.

Jason Williams 24:28

Thanks for having me, Brian.

Closing And Community CTA

Brian Briscoe 24:31

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.