Cheap Debt Assumptions Cost Millions with Jens Nielsen

Most investors didn’t fail because of bad deals—they failed because of one assumption they never questioned.

The path from stable income to real estate freedom isn’t a straight line—and sometimes the biggest risks aren’t obvious until it’s too late.

In this conversation, we unpack the key decisions that took one investor from a W-2 career into scaling multifamily, only to face the reality of shifting markets, rising rates, and deals that didn’t go as planned. The lesson isn’t just about growth—it’s about what breaks when conditions change.

If you’re trying to scale, protect your downside, or figure out what actually holds up in today’s market, this is one to pay attention to.

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What You’ll Learn

•  Why staying “comfortable” can quietly delay real progress 
•  The hidden tradeoff between local investing and true scale 
•  When using other people’s money becomes necessary—and risky 
•  The assumption about debt that caught investors off guard 
•  What changes when the market no longer cooperates 
•  Why some investors pivot—and others stall out completely 
•  The tradeoffs behind moving beyond multifamily

About the Guest:

Jens Nielsen

Jens immigrated from Denmark in 1996 and built a successful career in IT before pursuing his passion for real estate and coaching. Today, he is a full-time real estate investor and Certified High Performance Coach, serving as a direct owner or General Partner in over 2,000 apartment units and more than 100,000 square feet of industrial space nationwide, with a combined portfolio value exceeding $250 million.

As a coach, Jens has helped over 150 clients elevate their business and personal performance through strategic guidance, accountability, and focused personal growth. 

Learn more about him at: https://jensnielsen.us/, or https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenswnielsen/

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 Setup And Purpose

Brian Briscoe 0:06

Welcome to the Diary of an 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 with Streamline Capital. Very excited for today's show. We have a repeat guest, Jens Nilsen, on the line. So, Jens, how's it going?

Jens Nielsen 0:58

Do hello, Brian. I'm excited to catch up. It's been a couple of years since our last recording, I think.

Brian Briscoe 1:02

It has, yeah. You know, it's been a while. I I think the multifamily conferencing thing kind of dried up a little bit. I used to see you several times a year at various conferences. And yeah, that just hasn't happened in a while. But anyway, yeah, great to catch up. So let's do the listeners a favor first and let's go into your background. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into real estate.

Jens Nielsen 1:23

Absolutely. You know, so as people may recognize, I I have a foreign name and a slight accent. Actually, this year is 30 years since I moved to the United States. So I'm still working on that accent, but it's uh largely disappeared. But yeah, you know, did the typical thing, right? Uh got an education, got an undergrad, my graduate degree, you know, in computer science and so on, right? And I thought, you know, work for the rest of your life and save in the 401k and, you know, be a happy camper. And it worked out great because, you know, it allowed me to live a decent lifestyle. IT is, you know, going through real estate, so I do selling and IT, and did that for many years. But then in my mid-40s, I was like, wait a minute, do I want to do this another 20, 20, 25 years? And I was like, the answer is kind of no. I I had to change, but I didn't know what the new path should be. And you know, I looked around, everything else looked like a job. I stumbled on real estate like 10 years ago. I actually bought my first property in 19, sorry, 20 uh 16. So 10 years ago, stumbled on that and really fell in love with, you know, real estate and road waves and all that stuff. So that's basically a little bit about myself. Moved around the country from the East Coast to the to the southwest. I've lived here in uh New Mexico and southern Colorado for the last 20 years, actually. So um like the sun out here.

First Fourplex And Remote Investing

Brian Briscoe 2:47

Yeah, you know, the the western U.S., beautiful area. I mean, I don't know why more people don't live out here. So yeah, and for people listening, I'm I'm in Utah, you know, New Mexico and Utah do share a little bit of a border, very little. But uh yeah, very, very similar scenery from southern Utah to to New Mexico, Arizona, southern Colorado. It's absolutely beautiful. It's what you see in a lot of Western movies, actually. But uh that aside, let's talk about that first deal a little bit. When you said you stumbled into real estate, let's talk about that first real estate purchase that you made or that investment that you made in in 2016.

Jens Nielsen 3:21

Yeah. So a lot of people, you know, they go the single family route because, oh, that seems comfortable and familiar because, you know, we live in a house. And I was living in southwestern Colorado in a small mountain town called Durango. And if I looked around, every house was, you know, three, four, five hundred thousand dollars. Like, that's never gonna cash flow, right? Yeah. So I had to get out of my town. So that was either going, you know, west or east or south. And I was like, well, I don't want to drive an hour, an hour and a half to a property that's a single family home to make 200 bucks a month, right? That just didn't compute. So I was like, okay, let me just expand. And I decided to go uh start investing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was roughly three and a half, four hours away. But it taught me, I I mean, I kind of stumbled into this. So it taught me to become an investor, not an owner operator, right? I think that's huge, right? Because a lot of people buy, you know, stuff locally and they just try to do all the work themselves and they can't scale and they just like five houses and it takes all my free time. Yeah. So I immediately went to or for my first purchase, I went to, I wanted to buy so I wanted to go to multifamily, fourplexes, you know, four units, which was still good on financing. You can do residential financing and so on. So first property was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was four units. I think we paid $115,000 or something like that. I remember 10 years ago. Low quality property in a low, what do you call it, you know, class C minus neighborhood, right? But it got me started and it got me to like really start seeing what real estate can do for you. Nice, nice, nice.

Early Scaling With Partners

Brian Briscoe 4:56

Something you mentioned really kind of hit me, you know, and I talk with a lot of people, you know, it forces you to look at it from an investor standpoint. And I think that's awesome. Because you're absolutely right. A lot of people will buy something local, and for one reason or another, they're just going to go straight to, you know, fix the DIY model. So, yeah, it's 2016. Let's fast forward, you know, how long did it take you to get into try to scale? How did everything progress from there is what I'm asking.

Jens Nielsen 5:23

In the first year, we bought actually two fourplexes and an 11 unit. So we got 19 units in the first year. And that was, you know, that was our rest of our money. So we, me and my wife, right? We had saved up some money. So we we put a lot of our capital into that. And I started realizing that, okay, I can't buy it on my own dime. Yeah, but it would take, you know, many, many years to scale in any meaningful way. So that early on, we decided that I had to move towards using other people's money. I don't like to use other people's money, but I had to bring on partners to accomplish a goal of scaling. And at that point, I also realized I wanted to build a business, not just investing for myself. I want to build a business that allowed me to leave my job because my main priority there was like, I got to get out of my W-2 job. I didn't hate it, but I also realized that I needed to do something else. I need to see what was possible. So, you know, I started doing, we did a joint venture and it took a little while, but that was in 2017, 2018. We did some joint ventures where we brought in some partners. And then, you know, you know, 2019, 2020, that's where really it all kind of started exploding, right? There's like cease indication in 2019, I think. Because at that point, I had built enough trust that I was able to raise a little bit of money initially, but then that grew, right? But that's where you go from being an investor in your own account to invest with other people so that we can scale quicker and bigger. I mean, yeah.

Brian Briscoe 6:50

Those first couple of deals that you did with other people, were those also Albuquerque or or where where were those? And you know, how'd you guys split up the the goods, so to speak?

Jens Nielsen 7:00

I think the most relevant one I was in 2018. We bought a 38-unit apartment building in Albuquerque with some joint venture partners, right? Uh, me and my broker, him and I um, you know, found his deal. It's like, yeah, this looks pretty good. You know, we needed, you know, $600,000 to take it down. And, you know, I brought some friends in and said, hey, you know, you can partner on this deal. You know, you guys, since it's a joint venture, you need to pay attention to the details, but we'll do most of the work. So that was really the that idea. Wow, people want to invest in real estate, but they may not have the time or the resources or the interest in doing all the work. So that's where you can add that value. So that was the first one, a joint venture. We still have it eight years later, and the thing is a cow's cow. And we're like, we don't want to sell that thing because it's printing money now.

Brian Briscoe 7:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And if you get a deal like that, I mean, some people will say, why sell? You know, it's different investment uh philosophies, you know, but yeah, cash cows, you know, the more cash cows you have, the better you're gonna be long term. So awesome. You know, kind of transitioning from smaller to larger deals or more deals, you know, what were some of the challenges you faced kind of building that portfolio?

Mentors Conferences And Follow Up

Jens Nielsen 8:08

You know, I didn't know how to go to that next level, right? I mean, I knew how to do a smaller deal with a few people, but I didn't know what it looked like to go out there and actually syndicate a deal, right? Or you bring on a lot of investors, you have a GPLP team. I didn't know what that looked like. So the first thing I decided was I need to get around people that are doing this, right? So I signed up for one of these mentorship programs. I think you know you probably did as well. Where we basically got around somebody who had put a program together. I think the biggest value there was I would study the course, but I would go to the events. Yeah. We used to, you know, meet run into each other at different events. We would meet people, we would really understand what's happening, we would start finding partners and all stuff. I mean, had I not gone to these events, I would still be sitting in my house in Colorado trying to figure this out, right?

Brian Briscoe 8:54

Yeah. That was huge for me too. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.

Jens Nielsen 8:59

You know, so early on, right? I mean, there was a lot of excitement around it there in the late uh 2019, 2018, 2019, 2020. So I would go to events, I was like, okay, who who do I feel like I have a connection with here? And then I would follow up, right? Because it's easy, you know, because I was in a small town, so I had to make the effort to follow up with people. So I would say, you know, hey, so-and-so, do you want to are you interested in in collaborating on something? Let's meet, you know, on a Zoom call every week or every month or whatever. So we could keep meeting each other and we could start like pushing each other towards buying that deal and all this stuff, right? So that's where it started. The synergy started happening. And in 2019, I I met my now partner that we've done a ton of deals with Visa in the Northwest, up in Pennsylvania. But, you know, there was a good connection there to start doing deals together. Yeah.

Brian Briscoe 9:48

That's how a lot of people, that's exactly how my story worked out. You know, started going to conferences, started, you know, following up. And that's pro tip for anybody. You know, you gotta you gotta follow up after those conferences, you know. And that's I think how most people end up, you know, getting places. They they they network with people, they find people, and you said people that you get along with, people that resonate, and then you you follow up, you get on weekly, monthly, whatever Zoom calls, you start collaborating. And it's akin to dating. I hate using that that analogy, but you know, you've got to get to know each other before starting a business together. So yeah, great, great tips on that one. Up front, it was mostly multifamily that you were purchasing. Is that is that accurate?

Rate Shock And Debt Lessons

Jens Nielsen 10:32

Yeah, anything from you know the the fourplexes that are bought myself all the way up to like 200 plus apartment complexes or portfolios. We invested like in a lot of different places from you know Atlanta to Phoenix to Oklahoma to Ohio to Pennsylvania to New York, right? We started investing in a lot of different markets there, since sold quite a bit of it as well. But and then we focused in on certain areas because we had the infrastructure there, but definitely expanded it. But all apartment buildings, right? And that worked, as you know, that worked great in up until like 22-ish, 23, maybe. Yeah. When interest rates started, interest rates started to really go through the roof, right? Insurance, all this stuff, right? Suddenly we started experiencing some headwinds that made it more challenging, right? And we, you know, since then we've made a few shifts. We still had we're still apartment investors, made a few shifts along the way just to you know continue to buy real estate, not just sit on our hands for the next many, you know, several years.

Brian Briscoe 11:32

You know, first question is yes, rates went up, all of that stuff happens. What do you do as an investor to I guess mitigate those risks? And then what's your recommendations for handling properties and affairs, you know, while we're going through stuff like that?

Jens Nielsen 11:49

Yeah, I mean, wow, I wish I had.

Brian Briscoe 11:52

Yeah, it's easier looking back, right? But yeah.

Jens Nielsen 11:56

You know, because we on, you know, we're sitting there in you know, three and four percent interest rate environments, like, oh yeah, maybe it'll go to five or six, right? We didn't expect seven, eight, nine percent, right? Yeah. I mean, the obvious answer is like conservative underwriting, but I really don't know, Brian, because that's a tough one, right? Who would have known that it's gonna go to this? So I think the lesson there is don't buy stuff on short-term floating rate or bridge debt, right? Because a lot of people can't refinance, right? We had to sell some properties at some losses just because we couldn't refinance, we couldn't sell them because the market is depressed. I mean, like, holy smokes. I mean, we could sell them, but not to the price we had hoped for. Yeah, that's a tough situation to be in, right? So going forward, the answer is you know, low leverage, long-term fixed debt, that would be the way to do it going forward, right? And at the same time, just be really managing the hell out of it, right? Because you know, passing your expenses, be a good, be a good landlord and maintain your tenants, right? And that has also been, you know, as you know, there's been the the other headwinds of costs going up and insurance and so on, right?

Pivot To Industrial Warehouses

Brian Briscoe 13:00

Yeah, so yeah, we did we did face a lot of headwinds in multifamily. And I mean, I think every apartment investor who's you know honest will say that they they were definitely affected. You know, we still have some properties that we're trying to pull through, but I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the properties that we had that were low leverage, that you know, longer term debt, yeah. I think your answer was textbook, and it's textbook because you know that that's what that's the kind of the proven strategy. But uh I was very fortunate, and I I mean it, you know, we were fortunate this wasn't uh us planning ahead, but we didn't have a single variable rate loan on the books, you know, coming into that interest rate hike. And I was fortunate that we had a local credit union that was matching the national bridge lenders on rates on rates and terms, except everything was fixed rate, you know. So that was kind of like my salvation right there was having low fixed rate debt and saved us a lot of time and you know, never know how much money you'd save, but I imagine it saves us a lot of money too. But all right, now next question. You mentioned you started bringing other asset classes, asset types. You know, so what other types of things are you looking for? And if you could kind of compare and contrast that with multifamily, I'd appreciate that too.

Jens Nielsen 14:13

Yeah, because you know, as I said, what do you do, right? I mean, I quit my job five years ago and I need to continue to find ways to make income, right? And and you know, we we sell we sell real estate and that's how we make money. If we can't sell real estate or in syndicated real estate, we we have a challenge, right? So while I still like apartments and I'll get active in it again when things start shifting, we're like, okay, what else can we do here? And we saw an opportunity, you know, and this is incredibly high for local, I think, but we saw an opportunity, opportunity in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to go in and buy like, I would say, you know, Class B, Class C warehousing, a flex space, but because there was a very low vacancy in that space, you know, a couple of years ago. They traded at a much higher cap rate so that you get more for your money, uh, versus an apartment building. So I had a partner uh who had done it for a while and he, you know, wanted to uh work with me on a couple of deals. We've done we've done three uh deals. So one was you know uh multi-tenant warehouse deal. We did a multi-tenant kind of flex space, you know, kind of garage doors with big space with 1,500 square feet behind, and then we did a one single tenant, almost 30,000 square feet apart uh uh warehouse deal as well. Um so so what's the what's the benefit? I know this is about apartment investing, but I think you know we're first and foremost investors, and I think we should look around a little bit. So so I think the benefits that you can say there's less competition, you can get them at higher cap rates, right? Those are some of the benefits of and you can do triple net, meaning that the the tenant will pay you know repairs and maintenance taxes, insurance, utilities, and so on, right?

Brian Briscoe 16:00

So somebody management's a lot easier.

Jens Nielsen 16:02

Yeah, oh my god, right. We don't have management companies on because I mean they're they have from eight to five, and if something breaks, they usually fix it themselves. If it's a major issue, they'll call us. But you know, there's not like, oh my god, my light bulb bulb is broken, come replace it.

Brian Briscoe 16:15

Yeah, right. So there's that. Now we have had that call before, you know, the light's not working, and we send a maintenance guy there and they change a light bulb.

Jens Nielsen 16:22

Of course, you know, nothing comes without risk. So I think the downside of the risk there, a couple things, right? It's always recourse debt because you're not gonna get a Fanny or Freddie non-recourse debt on something unless it was like massive. But you know, if you're a couple of two, three, four million, it's recourse debt. So you've got to be comfortable with that. And also the other thing is they're businesses, right? Businesses go out of businesses all the time. Yeah. So if you have a downturn in the economy, you may not have clients. Somebody always gonna need a place to live, but you don't always need to run a business, right? So there's that risk. Um, there's the risk of you know, having a large warehouse with one tenant in there. If that tenant leaves, well, you have a large warehouse with no tenants in there. Yeah. Uh on the flip side, people usually sign, you know, two, three, five-year-long leases so that it's not like every year you got to renew them, right? So, you know, it's worked out good for us. I mean, come talk to me about it when we have an economic downturn and we'll see how it works.

Jens Role Systems Underwriting Capital

Brian Briscoe 17:19

Yeah, yeah. I, you know, I think I think the same fundamentals apply. You know, there's differences. I mean, when things work well, you never have vacancies, you know. And we have we have in large apartment complexes, you know, we're always sitting with vacancies. So we're always marketing, we're always leasing, we're always performing those activities. And if you've got a couple of long-term tenants, you can sit back and just collect checks, you know. But you know, exactly what you mentioned, you know, if one person moves out out of out of a single tenant net lease, now you have zero. So there's pros and cons. Personally, I think the right answer is, you know, both, you know, if you're able to do it, you know. But awesome, awesome. Now, when you're doing those, these, these types of deals, what's your main role in these partnerships?

Jens Nielsen 18:03

Yeah, it's it's interesting, right? I am I'm more behind the scenes in a sense. I'm not usually out there networking with brokers and touring properties and stuff. I usually have my partners come to me with, oh, here's a deal we found. Are you interested in partnering? And at that point, I'll start you know putting on my analytical hat and my systems hat and stuff. You know, we talked a little bit about EOS. Yeah, you know, start putting the systems in place because that's where I'm I tend to excel, right? It's like, okay, you know, what does the underwriting look like? What does the capital raising look like? What is the attorneys? All the back end stuff I can do quite well. And that's that's usually my thing. And I can raise money too, right? Uh I'm not managing the property. I mean, I'll tour them and stuff like that. But once it comes to managing the different traits and stuff like that, then I start checking out, checking out. I don't care much for that, right?

What Next And Beginner Advice

Brian Briscoe 18:49

Yeah. And speaking more to the listeners now than to you, Jens, I mean, the the skill set he brings to the table is something that that applies equally well to multifamily and you know, industrial and pretty much any other real estate type. You know, that there's certain skills that uh, you know, are easy to move from one to another, one field to another. I do a lot of managing apartments, which, you know, it's a little bit harder for me to move from one to the other, but there once again, there's still pros and cons both directions. So for people who are listening, what Jens is doing, it's a lot easier to adapt and change from one asset type to another. What I'm doing, I'm kind of locked into multifamily. So there's pros and cons both directions. You just got to figure out what's right for you in the end. But all right, next question. What's next for you?

Jens Nielsen 19:36

I continue to, you know, invest in real estate. I'm still a real estate investor. We are doing a very interesting project here in Santa Fe that is going to be a warehouse conversion into like artist space and stuff. So that's exciting. That's an exciting project. You know, the next department deal may be a little ways down the road, right? We also have some like, you know, some deals we need to get quote unquote rid of because they're not performing and you know, they're not, we just got to get out from underneath them. So can continue to manage what we have, add some deals very strategically. Then personally, right, you know, I mean, we talked, we started talking about liberty, you know, I I I'm also doing earned income through some coaching and consulting and so because I enjoy it and I get it out around people and it pays the bills while at the same time, you know, the real estate kind of grows, right? So, you know, if we talk in a couple of years, you know, I may have more warehouses, I may have added a few apartment buildings there, but not nearly as aggressively as as a handful of years ago, right? Um because all of that build-up, you know, build up cash flow through some of the stuff we own and stuff. So there's there's a different urgency around it now than there used to be, right?

Brian Briscoe 20:39

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. All right. Next to last question. If you had to give advice to somebody who's just starting out, what would that advice be?

Jens Nielsen 20:47

You know, get around people that have done this before. I don't think you can sit behind a computer and learn everything, right? You got to get out there, right? And I'm a little bit of an introvert myself, but I did find people that were, you know, ahead of me. And I would, you know, give them some value by buying them a dinner or you know, stuff like that. And start asking questions and be, you know, to start learning. So, you know, just start learning people. And it's very difficult to do your first large deal if you don't have a partnership around you of experienced people, right? So, what is the value you can add to somebody you know like Brian and myself, right? That don't just call and say, hey, how can I help? No. Figure out about our business and say, oh, it seems like you could need some help in this area. And then, you know, if you're good at social media, God knows what it is, give us some help in that area, and we may consider you as a partner in the next deal.

How To Connect And Closing

Brian Briscoe 21:32

Yeah, yeah. And some something I think I didn't realize until much later is that there has to be kind of a somewhat equal exchange of value in partnerships. Whether it's a mentorship relationship, whether it's a partnership, there has to be an equal exchange of value. Otherwise, you know, one person is not going to feel like they're they're getting a lot out of the exchange. So that's more what you can do for them than they can do for you, is essentially what you're saying. Yeah. So all Right. Well last question, and that's how can listeners learn more about you?

Jens Nielsen 22:04

The best place to go is to my personal website is Jens Nielsen.us. Okay. J E N S N I E L S E N dot US. And you can learn about me, you can learn about my different services. There's a link to my real estate website too. And there's a you can schedule anybody who wants to jump on a call to talk about real estate or coaching or mentoring or anything, you know, industrial, you can schedule a free call with me. There's a 20-minute free call, and I've had hundreds of those calls. I'd love to talk to anybody that's out there.

Brian Briscoe 22:33

Awesome. And we're gonna put a link to that in the show notes for you, Jens. So for those listening today, if you if you want to reach out to Jens and talk more, he does do a lot of coaching and you know consultations like that. So reach out to him and if he's offering, all I gotta say is take him up on it. So that said, that'll be in the show notes for everybody. Jens, thanks very much for coming on the show today. I very much appreciate your time. Absolutely, Brian. A lot of fun. All right. 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 podcasts, 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.