Time, Money, and the $21 Million Leap with Ashley Garner

Ashley Garner grew up swinging a hammer on student rentals near West Virginia University. Decades later, he jumped from a 35-unit portfolio to a $21 million, 196-unit acquisition in North Carolina. In this episode, he breaks down what that leap taught him about conservative underwriting, why his dad's "cash is king" advice saved his business more than once, and how he manages a growing portfolio with a core team of three.

What you'll learn:
- Why Ashley underwrites for what a property does right now, not what it could do
- How flat rent growth and rising expenses are squeezing multifamily operators and what to do about it
- The KPIs he tracks every Monday to keep 200+ units running
- Why he's evolving from B-/C value-add to larger markets with better financing
- The mindset shift that makes raising capital feel like offering an opportunity instead of asking for money
- Why "if you need to raise $10 million, go ahead and raise $11"

Ashley is currently raising capital for Bryn Mawr Village, a 196-unit property in Jacksonville, NC being refinanced to a HUD 223(f) loan. Learn more at abgmultifamily.com.

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Additional Resources:

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Social Media:

• LinkedIn -> Ed Mathews (President at Clark St and Elevista)

Transcript

Ashley Garner 0:00

That as long as you have plenty of time and plenty of money, you probably can fix just about anything. Any problem there is, When you get tight on either one of those, or heaven forbid, both of those at the same time, that's when you start losing sleep. and things can get ugly.

Speaker 0:18

If you're within three feet of me, we're probably talking about real estate, much to my family chagrin. But here's the thing, most people see 7% rates in freeze. I see opportunity. They're waiting for the perfect deal and well, I've analyzed thousands of them and perfect just doesn't exist. So I talk to operators across every asset class, flippers, multifamily, syndicators, note investors, and whatever else is working. No sales pitches allowed, just real lessons from people actually doing it. I'm Ed Mathews, and this is Real Estate Underground.

Ed Mathews 0:57

Greetings and salutations real estate under grounders. It is Ed Mathews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for making this a part of your day. Once again, thank you all for your follows and for your comments. It really helps us figure out, the types of asset classes you folks are paying attention to and also who to invite onto the show. And and obviously the follows help us grow, so keep it coming. It's interesting one of, a member of my team told me that a little bit less than 65% of the folks that listen to our show. Actually aren't subscriber, don't follow. And appreciate you listening, but if you could just hit that follow button or that subscribe button on whatever platform you're paying attention to us on I would greatly appreciate it.'cause it does help us grow and it does help us help us other people as well. With that I am pleased to announce that Ashley Garner from a BG Associates has. Graciously joined us. And Ashley you are based in Wilmington, North Carolina. That's right. Multifamily investor. And I'm sure we're gonna talk about other stuff as well. But welcome to the show and thank you for your time, sir.

Ashley Garner 2:01

Yeah, ed, I appreciate being here very much. Great show. I'm happy to be a part of it.

Ed Mathews 2:05

Thank you. Thank you. We're grateful. So for those folks who haven't discovered you yet, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and a BG.

Ashley Garner 2:14

Yeah. So I I grew up in this business in a s very small hands-on literal mom and pop way in, in high school junior high. Back then we called it in high school. My dad started buying old houses near the campus of West Virginia University. Okay. We would internally subdivide them and rent them out to students. I grew up with that hammer and, doing the plumbing and vinyl siding and all the stuff, and then it just grew from there into the operations and management and financing and all those things. And then in true early adulthood phase, I probably didn't appreciate what was in front of me decided I would go out and try to do my own thing and. Always stayed in the real estate industry, but then you, over the various decades I worked my way back to this rental business and since probably, I don't know, maybe the last 15 years or so, I've really focused on growing the multifamily residential rental portfolio. Yep. Mainly because I just I'm a, I'm a. Hooked forever and ever on that pursuit of financial freedom and I love what I do.

Ed Mathews 3:27

And yeah, if, financial freedom is we're gonna get into that a little later, but it's it takes on a lot of different meanings, right? Financial freedom is, Hey, if I, if junior wants to go to college, that's not a problem. If JP Morgan Chase comes knocking for their mortgage payment, not a problem. But I think there's also another piece of it too, and that's time freedom. It was, I was just talking about this with a, with another colleague of ours. And the fact that you can if one of your someone in your family says, Hey, I need you to be someplace you can be there.

Ashley Garner 3:59

Yeah.

Ed Mathews 3:59

And by and large, and that's a good thing.

Ashley Garner 4:01

Absolutely. I agree completely. I'm one of the few dads that gets to show up to all of the midday school things for my kids and and not, that's just one small indicator. But for me it means so much and I love it.

Ed Mathews 4:14

And to them it does as well. I guarantee it.

Ashley Garner 4:16

Yeah.

Ed Mathews 4:17

Yeah, to be able to, just to see the look on one of my kids. So I have two daughters who are now 22 and 18. Okay. And soon to be 23. And oof. And the, the idea of my oldest standing on a swim platform and turning around and seeing us and seeing that smile, even though I know she had, I knew she had no shot of winning that race, but, that's not what she was there for. That's right. And that was worth it every time.

Ashley Garner 4:43

Yeah. Amen. Amen. Yeah.

Ed Mathews 4:46

So let's talk about the business. So multifamily is the focus, right?

Ashley Garner 4:50

Yep.

Ed Mathews 4:51

And that's right. So let's talk about your buy box. Where do you like to buy and what do you like to buy?

Ashley Garner 4:57

I like to buy in the state of North Carolina. Okay. And. And I have, it doesn't mean we don't look, Virginia and South Carolina, but

Ed Mathews 5:06

Yeah,

Ashley Garner 5:06

my idea there is I know the state, from end to end. Yep. And the things that somebody would the criteria someone would use to decide whether a market was good for investing or not. There are so many markets in North Carolina that check all of those boxes.

Ed Mathews 5:23

Sure are.

Ashley Garner 5:24

And for that reason, there are more than enough opportunities for us to underwrite properties that are available that we really don't need to go to any other state. Plus when we raise money, not everybody that we raise money from lives in North Carolina, but they all know about North Carolina and are happy to invest their money here.

Ed Mathews 5:43

Yeah. They want access to the market for sure. And if you can be that conduit

Ashley Garner 5:46

Yeah. That's right.

Ed Mathews 5:48

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 5:48

Yeah.

Ed Mathews 5:49

So those

Ashley Garner 5:49

reasons that's our box. Yeah.

Ed Mathews 5:50

Yeah. Up until about 12 months ago, North Carolina was where I was hunting. And and the, the fact is that it's, there's the's five or six cities and metro area MSAs and sub-markets that are. Outstanding investments. But I am curious about North Carolina in particular had a massive wave of development, and so I'm curious how that has affected your market, from an absorption perspective, from a, overall supply.

Ashley Garner 6:19

Yeah. We don't own anything in the real big markets like Charlotte or Raleigh, so we're definitely tertiary or sometimes even smaller, but

Ed Mathews 6:28

yep.

Ashley Garner 6:29

But what happens is we have no, so to answer your question, what's happened is that rent growth has been flat and that we have had to put into place concessions to keep our occupancy where we want it.

Ed Mathews 6:42

Okay.

Ashley Garner 6:42

I think that's probably pretty general across a lot of different markets right now, I would say from what I read,

Ed Mathews 6:50

true statement.

Ashley Garner 6:50

And I hope that will change coming up soon. Tomorrow

Ed Mathews 6:56

would be great.

Ashley Garner 6:57

Yeah. Because, the expenses haven't, the rent growth has been flat, but expense growth has not been flat.

Ed Mathews 7:03

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 7:04

It's gone up. And so we're, you get squeezed. Now, I will say this is one of those times that I really appreciate. The fact that we have conservative underwriting criteria and before we buy something, we're not betting on we have to raise the rents and we have to get lower interest rates and blah, blah, blah. We're betting on what does it do right now and can we survive if it. Does that or even dips a little bit And the answer's yes, then we feel okay in times like this.

Ed Mathews 7:33

Right on. That's the only way to do it. Because I heard you mention bridge debt and when you're taking on bridge debt, you better be as conservative as you're talking about because there's. There's a whole lot of people out there that are handed keys back because they, yes, they thought that rents would continue to go up at 7% and expenses would only go up two and a half to 3% and nope.

Ashley Garner 7:57

Right.

Ed Mathews 7:57

That, no, that didn't happen.

Ashley Garner 8:01

Yeah. I know that cycle will come back.

Ed Mathews 8:03

Sure.

Ashley Garner 8:03

And it's okay. Real estate is like that. You just have to make sure that you've got room to weather the cycle, the down cycle.'cause you know it's coming. Yep. It's, it is. It's just a matter of when, it's coming.

Ed Mathews 8:14

Yep. It's, it, as you mentioned, cycle, it's a, it is the epitome of a cyclical marketplace, right? And a really inefficient one at that. So when you're looking at properties tell me a little bit more about the types of properties you're looking to acquire. Value add. Okay. BC how, when you're, what talk, when you're walking into a deal, what talks back to you?

Ashley Garner 8:39

Okay, so mainly and this I'll have to say that we are, I'm right in the middle of one of those evolutionary periods in my investing life where the answer to that question is changing as we speak.

Ed Mathews 8:51

That's good,

Ashley Garner 8:52

but up, up until now. The main criteria has been, did the spreadsheet work or not? So back to that previous comment, if I can, if I make the first step of the underwriting and it checks that box and I'm gonna go to the next step, and as long as it keeps working, I'll keep going on the property. But it has to be, again, it has to be something that works right now. And something that I think I can raise the money for if it's a larger one that we would syndicate. Okay. And the reason it's changing for me is up until now we've always been looking at probably like B minus C to B minus properties.

Ed Mathews 9:32

Okay.

Ashley Garner 9:33

Because those returns tend to be higher.

Ed Mathews 9:36

Yep.

Ashley Garner 9:36

And so I, I feel comfort in that and like, all right, I know that I can, investors will invest in this deal if we can offer them this return.

Ed Mathews 9:44

Sure.

Ashley Garner 9:44

But what I, the, when we went to the biggest deal, which was one we most recently purchased in February, I learned a lot of the nuances there that I didn't really know before. And that is like when you get into. And I know that's small potatoes to some people,$21 million to me is like Mount Everest. So when I get into borrowing 20 million bucks, I realize, okay, the lenders see things differently. Yes. They don't love small markets. They don't love 1973 vintage, right? They don't love Federal Pacific Electric panels. And then the investors, the family office, ultra high net worth. Folks, they don't like that stuff either. And so they, and so I'm realizing, okay, they're willing to accept lower returns for a safer, newer market.

Ed Mathews 10:34

Yeah.'cause all those things, you, all those things you just listed, scream risk to that type of investor,

Ashley Garner 10:40

and so that for me I'm saying wow, so I can'cause quite frankly, these c and b minus properties, there're a lot of man, it's a lot of management. Like work, like we work hard to manage these things even though we have third party managers for everything, but there's just always, a grind on something. Sure. And we absorb that. We make that's the value that we bring. So the investors can, they feel comfortable that, they know I'll never quit and never give up, and I'll figure it out. So they're paying us for that. But at the same time we're learning that, hey, maybe we can have a, there's a path of lesser resistance if we go to certain different asset classes.

Ed Mathews 11:21

Yep. Tell me about that. So where, when you go to, when you say go to different asset classes, what does that look like?

Ashley Garner 11:29

It would still be in the multifamily because I love that. However, I am feeling pulled into learning more about industrial, like small bay industrial, things like that. I'm learn I'm learning. And it's basically the same business, right? It is. It's it's just probably less things to break.

Ed Mathews 11:45

Correct. And fewer,

Ashley Garner 11:46

it should be easier to manage

Ed Mathews 11:47

Fewer human beings to, to deal with as well.

Ashley Garner 11:50

Yeah. So that's interesting. But what I mean is that we're looking at lar larger markets.

Ed Mathews 11:56

Yeah,

Ashley Garner 11:56

where the prices tend to be higher and where the returns tend to be lower, but again, the financing is cheaper. The investors, there seem to be more investors that are more willing to look at things like that. So again, you may have this go up and this go down and it like nets even. And we're just here to make money and make passive income and not create some monster that we've gotta work ourselves to death to feed.

Ed Mathews 12:23

Right on. Yeah. I mean it's take what the market gives, right? And in a lot of cases, multifamily doesn't pencil right now. And that's okay. Yeah. So I was smiling when you were talking about Flex Industrial'cause that is exactly where we've been looking as well. Okay. And, and yeah, and we're eyeballing a couple of different deals at literally as you and I are sitting here talking, one's

Ashley Garner 12:43

awesome.

Ed Mathews 12:44

My desk right here and Awesome. It's a unique opportunity and it feeds right into where the economy is right now and where it's going and from a manufacturing perspective, from a service perspective, it's a, yeah, it's an interesting asset class. So when you, so you mentioned managing and you use third party managers. So when I hear you managing the managers, I'm thinking asset management, right? Is there a vertical integration there? Do you hire your I know you hire your property managers. Do you also hire your construction teams or do they work for you? Like, how does that work in your operation?

Ashley Garner 13:18

Yeah. So we, right now we have, we don't have our operation as far as human beings go. In the inner circle is pretty small, like two or three.

Ed Mathews 13:29

Okay.

Ashley Garner 13:29

And so we, we saw we hire out everything third party.

Ed Mathews 13:33

Okay.

Ashley Garner 13:33

For me, that's come that pendulum swung from way over here doing every single thing

Ed Mathews 13:39

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 13:39

Ourselves to all the way over here, having zero employees and sourcing out everything. Yep. The property management was, when I got rid of my property management company wing, was one of the happier days of my life. That's just. That wasn't my cup of tea of a business.

Ed Mathews 13:56

I am a full two inches shorter because of our property management company. Yeah, it's tough and it's we no longer do that. So

Ashley Garner 14:02

good. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah. It's the people Now the people, the managers who are good are worth their weight. Gold

Ed Mathews 14:10

a hundred percent.

Ashley Garner 14:11

If I could figure out a way to pay them more and still make money for us, I would, I think they should be paid more than they get paid.'cause their job is totally thankless.

Ed Mathews 14:20

Yep.

Ashley Garner 14:22

The bad ones. I've had to fire several bad ones and it's terrible. It can go wrong real fast.

Ed Mathews 14:28

You gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince or princess. Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I was having this conversation over a cup of coffee with a local real estate investor and he was asking me for recommendations on property managers, and I said, the state of Connecticut, there are two, I would recommend two.

Ashley Garner 14:44

Wow. Yeah.

Ed Mathews 14:46

And they're both excellent, and there may be others I'm not aware of, but

Ashley Garner 14:50

yeah. Yeah,

Ed Mathews 14:50

I know a lot of them and a lot of them try hard, but, not so much.

Ashley Garner 14:54

Yeah. That's a tough business, but that's something that's so crucial. You have to get right.

Ed Mathews 15:01

Yeah, for sure. Okay.

Ashley Garner 15:03

Yeah, we manage the managers. We meet once a week on Mondays. I stand right here and I look at that big screen on the wall that I'm looking at now, and we go through our. Ever-growing spreadsheets of KPIs and things like that. So we can notice the trends, if there are trends keep up on all the important things and it, it seems to be so I do that all on Mondays. I have back to back to back meetings on Mondays. So Mondays are one of my favorite days because I, every week then I feel so on top of everything and it gives us the rest of the week to check off the to-do list or whatever we need to do.

Ed Mathews 15:39

Yeah. Okay. So when you mentioned KPIs what are the key, what are those, key performance indicators for those of us out there that aren't acronym based? What are the metrics that you're paying attention to that indicate that a particular project is going well or struggling?

Ashley Garner 15:54

Yeah. We look at, I think the first column is the occupancy column.

Ed Mathews 16:00

Yeah,

Ashley Garner 16:00

and I don't know that they're in any particular order of importance. They're all important, but that happens to be the first one. And so we know we have the, our goal occupancy that we want to hit, and so we keep an eye on that. And of course it changes all the time. Sure. Especially in the larger properties. There's so much in and out. But it's interesting to, on that one I've got one that's a 35 units and, one unit on a 35 unit makes a, it takes a big whack out of that occupancy number if you lose one. It makes a big difference now in the 200 unit places. Doesn't make that big of a difference. It's interesting. But yeah. So occupancy we look at collections. So do we have, how much rent have we collected this month? What kind of bad debt or, delinquencies do we have, right? Things like that. Move-ins, move outs, lease expirations, evictions. And then of course we talk about all of the turns of what do we have that's ready? What do we have, do we have any big CapEx projects or repairs of things like that to talk about? Sure.

Ed Mathews 17:06

Yeah. I, so obviously you're paying attention to, Hey, we've got somebody moving out on the 30th, and, ways to compress that time between that moment and the moment that, the new family or whoever moves in, right?

Ashley Garner 17:20

Yep.

Ed Mathews 17:20

It's an ever, it's an ever never ending battle of of time and resources.

Ashley Garner 17:26

Yeah it really is. But it's always the same basic playbook, right? It's always, you can expect these certain things to happen and they always will happen at different times. You take over a new property and you know, we're gonna have this dip and then we gotta build it back up and blah, blah, blah.

Ed Mathews 17:43

Right?

Ashley Garner 17:43

So it's kinda, a lot of it is rinse and repeat.

Ed Mathews 17:47

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 17:47

Some, every once in a while we get thrown a curve ball. We've just gotta figure out how to fix.

Ed Mathews 17:51

Yeah. And you've, so how do you prepare for that?

Ashley Garner 17:55

Again, I think that conservative underwriting is the key. You know this most like anything in life, this business is the same. That as long as you have plenty of time and plenty of money, you probably can fix just about anything. Any problem there is, When you get tight on either one of those, or heaven forbid, both of those at the same time, that's when you start losing sleep. Yep. And things can get ugly. So we try not to put ourselves in that situation as if we can help it.

Ed Mathews 18:26

Yeah. Right on. So how does I'm just curious, how do you use technology given that you're a small core operation? How does technology figure into the way you operate?

Ashley Garner 18:38

That's some, that's, again, that's another one of these evolution things that, I'm like 54, so I'm old compared. Okay. Yeah. So we're old compared, like the young guy I have working with me he just turned 30, just got married. He's actually on his honeymoon right now. His brain. From my perspective is just like a walking computer. Like they just know naturally. So many resources.

Ed Mathews 19:03

Yeah. That kid doesn't know what the world looks like without the internet.

Ashley Garner 19:06

That's right now. Now look, here's an example of my technology. I still have got my little book that I write in, and my whiteboard Yeah, there you go. You got your book. And this is not a smart board, this is not plugged into anything. This is an actual

Ed Mathews 19:21

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 19:21

Old school whiteboard. But we do, so today, for instance, I just re-upped our subscription to monday.com. Yeah. So we're trying to build these platforms, this is our standard, this is our template, and now we can replicate this for every property that we go into here. Our automations, our communications with managers and things. So we do embrace technology very much. We use like chat, GPT and things. Helps us a lot with create this spreadsheet template or

Ed Mathews 19:54

Sure.

Ashley Garner 19:55

Create, make me a marketing slide real quick, but make sure you indicate these points and put it on our template with our colors and logo.

Ed Mathews 20:02

Right.

Ashley Garner 20:02

So things like that kind of, their productivity aids they allow us to do things more quickly and then really a lot of where I use it is right here with this camera. Because I only own one property that's here in my town that I live in. Everything else is, couple, two, three hours drive away. Sure. So I'm on this all the time talking to people about those properties.

Ed Mathews 20:26

Yeah, absolutely. It's COVID, o one of the good things that came outta COVID is this, right? The ability, video conferencing has been around for years, but but the idea of, two human beings being able to connect, have a conversation, and actually get stuff done.

Ashley Garner 20:41

Yes.

Ed Mathews 20:42

This isn't just slideware and us, talking about theory. This is us getting stuff done, right? That's

Ashley Garner 20:49

right.

Ed Mathews 20:49

Yeah, our back office is in the Philippines, 8,000 miles away.

Ashley Garner 20:52

Oh yeah. There you go.

Ed Mathews 20:53

And same thing,

Ashley Garner 20:54

our marketing is in India. Yeah. Another technology piece we use is we happen to use cashflow portal. There are several of these that do it, but Right. The investment management platform. Wow. Yeah so we use that. I'm in that all the time and it allows our investors to, they a CH money back and forth. They sign documents electronically. They can log in and see their portfolio, what it's worth, everything. And it's, so that's huge. We use that a lot and that. Definitely technology.

Ed Mathews 21:27

Yeah. Without a doubt. I'm interested in, the artificial intelligence piece and how,'cause I, being a former techie, right? It's a force multiplier, right? It allows, teeny tiny operations like mine and yours to to operate at a very high level with. Not a lot of hands and feet running on that wheel and, pushing button. So I'm just interested how, how people operate. So with that, let's get into the final five and, okay. And we'll do the lightning round real quick, and then we will

Ashley Garner 21:58

okay.

Ed Mathews 21:58

We'll land this plane. All right. So I'm always curious about leaders like yourself who you know, have done very well and the bills are paid, the mortgage is handled. Car payments, if they even exist, are fine kids. College is good to go. But nevertheless, they get outta bed on Monday morning. And they go to work and they're fired up to do it. And so I view that as purpose. And so I'm curious what that means to you. What gets you outta bed on Mondays?

Ashley Garner 22:55

Probably three things. One is a selfish thing, and it's just my personality that as soon as I have figured something out, I don't wanna say that I don't wanna do it anymore, but as soon as I figured it out, I'm ready now. Okay. I gotta go, what's next? I gotta go figure out something else. And we took that leap from a 35 unit, was our largest at the time in February, and then bought 196 unit property. There you go. And i've figured a lot out in the last 12 months.

Ed Mathews 23:24

Yeah,

Ashley Garner 23:24

you'd have. And I can already tell as this one nears wrapping up that I'm already looking man, what are we gonna do next? So what's

Ed Mathews 23:31

two 50 look like? Yeah,

Ashley Garner 23:32

exactly. What's 2 5400? Who knows? But I, but that's part of it is that I just have that desire to always be figuring something out. The financial part of it. Like you said, if I've checked those boxes that you mentioned, then what's next? And I'm. I'm not the kind of guy that's like a take a selfie in front of a private jet and post it like that. That doesn't do it for me. Which is fine if it is, but it's just not me like, so I say, now I look not only okay to pay for the kids' college, but what about. Their kids. And their kids. I'm dead and gone and then, can this live on and change other people's lives?

Ed Mathews 24:10

Yeah,

Ashley Garner 24:11

that's a big part of it. And then I can already tell, just like you, once you gain that knowledge, you want to share it with other people so that they can change their life also. Right on.

Ed Mathews 24:20

Absolutely. Yeah. We've been, and we're gonna talk about that next. I personally have been blessed with mentors who wanted nothing from me other than to see me succeed. And the way that I pay them back, sometimes it was breakfast or a cup of coffee, but that's about as far as it got. And, the way I pay them back is by doing stuff like this. You help other people get where they want to go, and so That's right. I'm curious about the mentors you've had, and more specifically, what's the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you?

Ashley Garner 24:52

Oh, boy. You prepped me for this one and I still am not ready for it. It's okay, but I'd say that the one biggest, like I love mentors and I will put myself in position to be mentored anytime I've paid for it. I've joined ma masterminds and club, all the stuff. I was blessed that I could work with my dad, office down the hall for decades.

Ed Mathews 25:18

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 25:19

And and that was huge to me. And we didn't go many days without having a, a little a little battle, just strong, two strong-willed people. Sure. But we always came back and worked well together. And what was the advice, the best advice? Goodness. I don't know. I I have so many like you, no, sage quote to think of one. I know. I remember one of his was, but really, I'll tell you the one that he always harped on'cause he was a banker. And that cash is king and that, you can have a, you can have a business that you can make all the profit in the world, but if you don't have enough cash to pay the light bill or pay the payroll, you're outta business. Doesn't matter what your income statement looks like, if you don't have any cash,

Ed Mathews 26:02

right.

Ashley Garner 26:03

So

Ed Mathews 26:03

good advice. So along those, or the opposite end of that is I fundamentally believe that we learned a lot from our mistakes, right? And so professionally speaking, I'm curious about a decision that you look back on and go, man, I would love to have had that one back. And how'd you handle it?

Ashley Garner 26:25

Yeah, I think the main, I've already alluded to this, like when you run outta time and money or you run outta money or cash. And then my dad's advice about cash is king. The times that I have made the biggest mistakes that I've had to fix are when we were undercapitalized and we've had properties that on the income statement were fabulous. The, all the operations were great, but for whatever reason, whether it was the debt or whatever,

Ed Mathews 26:55

sure.

Ashley Garner 26:56

There was no cash, there wasn't enough cash available to do what needs to be done. So then you're just always behind the eight ball and you're, it's a stressful existence. It's no fun, and you're just right on the edge of disaster at all times.

Ed Mathews 27:10

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 27:10

But really the answer is. If you need to raise 10 million bucks, then you need, you probably should just go ahead and raise 11. Or whatever it is, raise more than you need. You can always give it back.

Ed Mathews 27:22

Right.

Ashley Garner 27:22

But don't go in, if you need 10 and only have nine, you're in trouble.

Ed Mathews 27:26

Yes. Dead in the water before you even get in there.

Ashley Garner 27:29

Yeah.

Ed Mathews 27:29

Yeah. I hear you. Okay, so I'm also interested in how leaders like yourself continue to learn. And so I'm interested in. The book, whether it's virtual or physical, on your nightstand. And what authors or creators or other influencers are you paying attention to?

Ashley Garner 27:49

I love to read and a lot of the books that I read are real estate specific or, business or personal development specific. Think and Grow Rich is one of my favorites. It just gets my head in the right spot.

Ed Mathews 28:02

Yep.

Ashley Garner 28:02

I'm, a lot of what I do is raising money, and so I'm constantly having to fight that inner battle of, oh, I don't want to call Ed and ask him for a hundred grand. And I, and I have to like. Go through that whole evolution of thought and alright, you're not asking Ed for a hundred grand. You're you owe it to Ed to offer him this opportunity because it's so good.

Ed Mathews 28:29

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 28:29

Yeah. So I go through that and books like that help me get my head right.

Ed Mathews 28:33

Yep. Yeah. And it's a, it's a. Simple, but a gigantic mind shift, right? Oh, yeah. When go from, Hey, Ashley, can I borrow a hundred grand? That's a hard conversation to, Hey, I've got a deal where I can if you're willing to invest, a hundred thousand dollars, I can, give me five years and I can return, 180 plus back to you.

Ashley Garner 28:58

Yeah.

Ed Mathews 28:58

Is that interesting to you? And.

Ashley Garner 29:01

That's better conversation.

Ed Mathews 29:02

It's a way easier conversation, for sure. Yep. So as you go through life, I think the definition of this word changes often. But you know where you are in your life. I'm curious how you define success.

Ashley Garner 29:21

I think it's pretty simple and I don't, it may be cliche, but if it is, it's for a good reason and. It's just that I can, without being, I don't want it to sound in a selfish way, but I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And that's and it's not, it's again, it's not like just so I can go like ski in the Swiss Alps by myself. It's can I be with my family? Can I provide my family these opportunities? Can I do these? Can I stay connected with my lifelong friends because I can afford to take this trip and or take the time off of work? My biggest fear is to say, I can't, and I'm sorry. I can't come see you because I have to work or because I don't have enough money. So that's a big one for me. But again, then once you check, theoretically, you check that box and you work hard to keep that box checked. Yep. Now, at the older, the gray hair creeps in and I'm starting to think about what's next after me. Yeah. And so I know that chapter's coming for me and I'm excited about it.

Ed Mathews 30:23

Awesome. Awesome. Ashley, I've enjoyed this conversation. You've built one hell of a business. Congratulations.

Ashley Garner 30:28

Thank you.

Ed Mathews 30:29

When you are not talking about real estate, what do you like to do for fun?

Ashley Garner 30:33

Ooh. I like to play golf. I like to fish. I like to exercise as much as possible. And that's and travel.

Ed Mathews 30:42

Okay. And there you go. If folks wanna learn more about you or a, b, g, and Associates what's the best way to do that?

Ashley Garner 30:49

I think the easiest way is just to go to our website, which is a bg multifamily.com, and from there you can get over, we're active on. LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, but you can find it all from the website, abg multifamily.com.

Ed Mathews 31:04

Yeah. And I if memory serves, you have a deal coming up. And I was curious, I, is that something that I can get information on?

Ashley Garner 31:11

Yeah,

Ed Mathews 31:11

from your website?

Ashley Garner 31:12

Absolutely. That's actually, it's called Bryn Mawr Village, and it's an apartment complex in Jacksonville, North Carolina. And yes, that is an active capital raise we have going on. We have a target goal of 6 million and we have a million and a half to go.

31:27

Okay.

Ashley Garner 31:27

It's an asset that we already own, but we're refinancing to a HUD 2 23 f multifamily loan.

Ed Mathews 31:35

Yeah.

Ashley Garner 31:35

And so

Ed Mathews 31:37

long-term debt is a good thing.

Ashley Garner 31:38

Yeah, we can have a whole nother episode about that, but once we get that, it's as close to cruise control as you can get. Excellent. So we're pretty excited. Yeah.

Ed Mathews 31:47

And all that information is on your website as well. I assume

Ashley Garner 31:50

You can get right in, in fact, there's even a link that you can click and go right to the investor portal and you can become an investor within minutes if you'd, if you so choose.

Ed Mathews 31:59

Good to know. Ashley, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and and all your wisdom. Thank you.

Ashley Garner 32:05

Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks, ed.