How to Build Wealth with Multifamily Investing with Michella Tang-Otter

Welcome to Investor Evolution: Elevate! In this episode, Kimberly Hoyt sits down with Michella Tang-Otter, a multifamily real estate investor and syndicator with a strong background in marketing analytics and business operations.

Michella shares her journey from corporate marketing—working with Fortune 500 brands like Johnson & Johnson, Mars, and Samsung—to building wealth through multifamily real estate investing. She breaks down the strategies behind scalable investing, the key skills that helped her transition, and the mindset shifts necessary for success.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ Why multifamily real estate is a powerful investment strategy
✅ How corporate skills translate into real estate success
✅ The importance of communication, partnerships, and vetting operators
✅ The “double dipping” strategy in real estate investing
✅ Actionable advice for new investors looking to get started

📌 Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome to the Investor Evolution: Elevate Podcast
00:36 – Michella Tang-Otter’s Background & Transition to Real Estate
02:37 – Why Multifamily Real Estate?
04:31 – Key Skills from Marketing to Real Estate
07:12 – Advice for New Real Estate Investors
13:45 – The Importance of Communication in Real Estate
18:25 – Vetting Partners & Operators
21:49 – The “Double Dipping” Strategy in Real Estate
25:54 – Mindset Shifts for Success
29:32 – Future Plans & Final Advice
33:59 – Connect with Michella Tang

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🔗 Connect with Michella Tang-Otter:
https://steadyworkcapital.com
steadyworkcapital.com/subscribe

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Disclaimer: I am not a CPA, attorney, insurance/real estate agent, contractor, lender, or financial advisor. The content in these videos shall not be construed as tax, legal, financial advice, or other and may be outdated or inaccurate; it is your responsibility to verify all information yourself. This is a podcast for entertainment purposes ONLY.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to investor evolution, elevate the podcast, designed to help busy professional women like you, rise higher in every area of life. Whether you're looking to create financial freedom, reclaim your time, or find harmony while you're thriving in your career, this show is for you. Join me each week. As we uncover strategies to grow your wealth, nurture your personal development, and elevate your life to new heights. So you can live with purpose, joy, and confidence. All right, everyone. Welcome to the Investor Evolution Elevate podcast. Today I'm joined by Michelle Tang. She is an expert in multifamily real estate investing and syndications. She has a background in marketing, analytics, and business operations. Michelle brings a strategic approach to building wealth through real estate. So I'm super excited for her to be here. Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Kimberly. Thanks for having me. I look forward to our conversation. Yes. Let's talk about your background because you have a background in marketing and Tell us a little bit about that and then tell us how you are transitioning now into the world of real estate investing. Right. So thanks for this question. I consider myself somebody who like it is a little bit, how should I say, impatient maybe or like who loves to jump around. Doing different things. So I have a, I've had a career, a marketing career for 10 years by now. I am now working for a marketing agency that serves fortune 500 brands, clients, by brand clients, I mean, uh, who I personally work with includes like Johnson and Johnson, Campbell's Mars, and also Samsung and Crayola most recently. So this is actually like seeing how these. Fortune 500 brands being so successful and how my work supports their e commerce and marketing efforts has taught me a lot of things about business operations, project management, and also data analytics. I am now like, um, transplanting these skills into the world of real estate because, um, mainly, uh, there are so many ways of. making money in real estate, you have to pick your lane and really hone in your skills. And I decided that like, multifamily apartment investing is something that is a fit for me. So I and I decided that I would love to apply my business skills into it. So I think that's so true. I think when you get into this world of real estate investing, And it can be overwhelming because there are so many different things that you can do. You can be active. You can be passive. You can be a lender. You can be a buyer. There are so many different ways to be in this realm. What was it about multifamily that really made you excited or feel like. This is the lane I want to be in. It's mainly scalability, because like in this modern world, there are a lot of things you can do, but you will eventually reach a point that you're limited by your own hands, your own skills, or even, and most importantly, your own time. So the way to scale a business is actually about spending equivalent amount of time, but doing more things. So you will need a theory. Carefully designed set off business solutions around that and multifamily turns out to be a scalable solution, which also can put these kind of business thinking into good use. Mathematically speaking, it makes sense because you can Enjoy units or more families, more renters, like paying rent to you, but like proportionally speaking, the expenses is a little bit lower. And of course the keyword here is proportionally like the absolute, uh, expenses of operating in a multifamily apartment. It's definitely larger than a single family, but proportionally speaking, it is. Always lower people who has a business background to think further. What are some like operational excellence we can bring into this world? Uh, and I am also fascinated by a lot of our counterparts or like colleagues right now. Trying to use technology to build a world that is more scalable than before. We have all kinds of property management software right now that are, a lot of them are cutting edge. We have a lot of underwriting software. They are providing really good solutions. So yeah, I am excited to see this ever evolving world having more scale and being even more efficient than what it is now. Now, when you think back to your. So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions about your career and those skills. What specifically do you feel has been those, you know, those, those magic bullets, the secret sauce for what you're taking from your previous career and building into the real estate investing world? Well, I would say it is the mentality of, uh, not wanting to be bored. Okay. Okay. Let me explain. Let me explain that a little bit. What I discover is that different working professionals have different, really different personalities. Actually, I am the person who goes really deep into one discipline of knowledge. feeling bored about it, like after seven to eight years figuring most of the things out of it. And then I would like to move on to another field of knowledge. And I keep learning, but like, at the same time, I totally respect and like, there's nothing wrong with this at all, which is that like, there are another group of working professionals who will always be in the mentality of. winning over battles using my advantage or my absolute or my relative advantage over others, and meaning that they are always thinking about what are my strategies, what are my strengths over other people, and I only go about those fields. Well, um, I don't necessarily think the latter is better than the former or is worse than the former. It's just a different ways of thinking things, and I happen to be a A person who belongs to the first camp. I get, I get bored with something. I move forward to another new thing and I've built a career out of it. So I am extremely happy that this year celebrates my 10th year mark of having a marketing career. I used to have an academic research career before that. And like, um, this is, um, I would say like, this is like my celebrative or milestone moment of starting a realistic career. One of the things that. My business partners and I, we've talked about is how we have these transitions in our life where it's almost like. Starting over and you know, it's our next lifetime. So I, I hear that of your 10 years and now you're transitioning into this real estate world. And right now I think you're straddling both. Um, but you can see the growth coming and I love it because it's like. It's your next life. It's the next, the next thing. And it's so exciting when you're starting something new and learning because there's so much to learn. So a lot of the people listening to my podcast are going to be new real estate investors. Or, um, people in the medical field who maybe are new to the idea of real estate investing. Uh, when, when someone's coming into this and they are feeling like, Oh my gosh, there's so much to learn. Cause there's so many ways that, that you can make money or be involved, where should they start? What is the place that you feel like is a good place for people to come in and get their feet wet? I think education is really important in this field. Because we will have to be honest here, like guys, everyone, real estate is a industry that has a lot of money to make. It is an industry that involves a lot of money passing through hands. So there are a lot of scammers, unfortunately. So I'm just being real honest here, I guess. So going back to your question, Kimberly, and I think this is for all the listeners here with us here. I think like the best way to start is not to think about how to make money first. The, I think the very first thing is actually to pro, to learn about protecting yourself, to learn about what people are doing out there, who can be scamming your money, and like what are things you should not do, rather than what you should do. in this industry. So after, after that, then we, after you learn like all the like tricks of those like bad apples, uh, in a, uh, industry, then we can talk about what are things you are more interested in doing than the others. What kind of skills you can bring to the table that would give you the less steep learning curve that would bring, uh, cash into your pocket quicker. So that, that would be things you should be going after. Amazing. Yeah. I, I think understanding what you're coming into and educating yourself on, as you said, what could go wrong or where to be careful about is just as important as understanding what is multifamily investing or what is now being a private money lender. All, all of that will come. And I think as we've seen in our communities. That we're, we tend to jump in and be like, Oh, I wish I would have. And so I, I think that's a very important point of getting your feet wet, getting some knowledge behind you, understanding what can go wrong and. Ways to protect yourself against that is, is key. Let's talk about, so you've worked with some big brands in your marketing career. Lego, Samsung, Mars, Johnson and Johnson. How has that experience working with those brands? And you mentioned it a little bit when we, in that first question, but how has that influenced how you're approaching real estate or what, what things are you bringing in with you from those experiences? This is a great question, Kimberly. Thank you for asking because let me talk about a little bit about myself first, and then I'll go back to answering your question. What I discovered is that in my marketing career, I am actually bringing in my researcher mind into work. And now I am in real estate. I found out that I am bringing my marketing mind into real estate. So everything feeds to each other. So I think one thing for everyone out there listening to this podcast is that don't feel that you're blocked by. real estate investing just because you don't have exposure to this industry yet. Like there are always transferable skills that you can bring in, and like sky is the limit. So yeah, but Kimberly, back to your question, what then what am I really bringing from the marketing world into real estate then by working with these big brands? What I discovered is that these big brands, um, a cross functional team Collaboration is actually very, very important, or maybe the most important thing that happens all the time in the business world. And this is super important in multifamily as well, because when taking care of a business, no one can do everything, but communicating with your colleagues on like, um, who is doing what at a time and eventually how people are going to pass information to each other to collaborate. Super important. And I think like sometimes this might be sometimes something's medical professionals can have a little bit harder time to understand, especially if you are a doctor. Well, we love you. We totally respect that you have very, very deep knowledge about your respective field. What we discover again and again in the, when we work with medical professionals to help them get passive income in real estate is that they tend to, they tend to first think about a business as a compartmentalized. structure, meaning that if you are an expert of something, then you go ahead and do something because that's how the medical work is structured. It can lead to situations, I should say, that medical professionals have too high of trust of someone they consider an expert in the team that will prevent them from doing their own due diligence to check on things as well. And like in this situation, just in case a medical professional grow to become a general partner, operating an asset and operating a team, um, that can also lead to situations where the communication is not the greatest. So I think one of my advice to people out there, no matter you are a medical professional who is looking to passively invest, or if you are a medical professional who looks who are like now looks into operating an asset and becoming a general partner. I would say understanding how cross functional team works and how different department heads or experts are still required to communicate to each other so they piggyback off each other's knowledge and experience to build something bigger is actually very important. Communication is key in all aspects of life, right? But it's super important when your money is involved. And especially if you're lending hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's very important to make sure that the people that you are investing with Our, you know, have good community, good communication skills. Cause that can be very important down the line, as we know with real estate, it never goes according to plan. There's always some hitch in the giddy up, so to speak. Uh, there's, there can be delays in the project. There can be unforeseen circumstances, hurricanes, natural disasters, and having those open line of communications and knowing what that should be. Beforehand is super important. One of the things, uh, I know some of the investors I've worked with are starting to do is especially in, you know, more of the PML type lending is putting communication clauses in their contract. Like this is the expectation. So it's set up at front. Uh, so thinking about that and that communication, let's talk about how you communicate with your investors. How are you in communication with your lenders? To make sure that they're apprised of the situation and aware of what's going on. First of all, even before we have a deal, I always, always share the full underwriting with an Excel spreadsheet format with all the formulas, correct formulas by the way, with all potential investors. I also share our operational team or our partners track record with all the investors. Uh, if you want, actually I have been asked that. We are able to, or we're willing to, share with you even the source of data, meaning the original T12 or the RAM role, and for you to verify our, uh, calculation to check on our numbers. Honestly, I know not a lot of people do that. And I have definitely heard from investors saying that they were asked to invest in, uh, for example, a business or like a software just just because of the big name or like just because they were asked to trust the process. To me, that is not something that can work. And I would go ahead and tell my investors that I am so transparent that I am confident with my numbers being correct. We check everything. And I'm so confident that I can share that with you for you to check on my numbers as well. And by the way, I, we have a lot of investors, uh, who are tech workers. They are obsessed with numbers. They always catch something. So I'm so confident that like, even if you are very data fluent, uh, we are confident that we can explain everything to you. So I think that's the first layer of communication. I think that's very important. And I love your transparency again, because you're asking people to trust you. With their money, with their, you know, their life saving stuff that they've worked for, for years. And I, I find that to be a red flag, yellow flag, whatever you want to call it. If you're asking someone who's asking you for money. To see the data, to explain things, and if they get defensive about that, or, you know, we, we know that it's going to work. So you should just trust us. They can't explain it to you and they're not willing to, why not? Why not? You know? So I appreciate that with you. And I, I find that having, again, it goes back to that open line of communication. If you, if you can say, here's what we got. I think you would probably be very appreciative if one of your tech friends was like, Hey, actually, this is what I found and you guys can work on it together. That strengthens the relationship, not hinders it. So I, I think that's, that's very important. Just additional comment that like, after we close a deal, we still maintain that open line of communication that like we have monthly emails and sometimes Zoom calls with our investors like to talk about updates on our projects. Outside of that, investors who subscribe to our newsletters also hear from me every two weeks about market updates. So that kind of goes back to your, your market research, your data analytics, like you're pulling all that data and keeping that front of mind, especially as you're looking for different projects to invest in. So that's great. Let's talk about how you. So how do you vet your partners or the operators that you're investing with? What are the things that you're looking for when you're looking at an operational partner? So first of all, like there are many kinds of operators out there. We are all looking for experience once, but I'm like, you actually have to think for yourself as well. Who do, what do you mean by experience? Yeah. There are people who are, who wants to only work with operators who have, um, gone through a full cycle for X number of times. And that is considered experience. Um, there are also investors who, uh, prefer working with experienced operators who has experience in the past touching on very different kind of assets. And also there are people who strongly prefer, um, operators having only one type of experience or one type of access by going very deep into it. So nothing wrong with it with either of those. Uh, I personally. like to work with operators who has at least done one full exit, one full cycle, and I prefer working with somebody who has touched a lot of things. Because like that, I would say like, it is something like biodiversity. It strengthens like what you can pick and choose and what you learn from different things and they cross pollinate, um, On the experience that would inform a newer things or a newer strategy that always make things better. So for example, I work with operators who has experience from multifamily to storage and to retail and business. And then I always verify that like they have, they are experienced in that actual on the ground execution. So, like, there is also one thing that I would like to highlight here, and, like, it is my own personal lesson on this journey. There was a time I was very data driven, that I was, um, I was, I just went ahead and keep looking for the best market out of the best in the United States, and would do a lot of analytical work, uh, behind, like, uh, macroeconomics, behind, like, job growth. population growth of that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, what I discover is that, uh, what makes you money is the day to day on ground execution. So that actually changes slightly, like the data driven side of me as well. And now I work, I, when I look for partners to work with, I always look for ones that has. Um, that has get their hands dirty. That is very, very deep into the know how into how to actually operate an asset. So let's, let's switch gears a little bit for those people, you know, these professionals, whether they're in the medical field or, you know, just high net worth individuals. Why is real estate a good asset to invest in? Why should this be part of their portfolio? I am going to give everyone a slightly different answer than what you will hear from other people. I think a lot of our colleagues will answer this question saying that like, it is a nice, you can earn a nice cash flow depreciation, appreciation. And you get like tax breaks from the depreciation you are getting from investing in multifamily. That means you have a paper loss. And those are all the good things for sure. And I'm totally not saying that our colleagues are wrong. But one of the most important things that you should understand. And if you have a chance to talk to investment bankers or private wealth managers, they will tell you something very different than us. Not a lot of our colleagues talk about the real unlock of multifamily is actually the double dipping nature of it. And here it means that the true high network professionals out there at a family offices actually have a mixed portfolio of stocks. Bonds, real estate, businesses, and cash in their investment portfolio. And the real unlock actually lies in having stocks. Non physical or paper assets, and they go ahead and get a security backed loan to double dip into real estate, so they make even more. Instead of only having stocks in their portfolio making money, they are basically recycling the money or leveraging what they already have to double dip into real estate. And that is a real unlock. So I don't think a lot of our colleagues understand this enough to present the data or the thinking that way. But actually this is a very important thinking when for high network professionals, institutional investors and family offices. Interesting. Okay. Okay. I'm not quite sure if you're saying that they're taking, um, Are they taking loans against the stocks that they're investing and then using that? Really? Yes. Mind blowing. Okay. And so you said that because they're investing in real estate because it's a security backed investment. Yeah. And that, and that way they will have both paper assets and non physical assets in their in their portfolio that it, that becomes a nice hatch or diversification. Nice. Okay. So much, so much to learn. See, look at the rabbit hole we're going. Yeah, we, yeah, this is a very deep rabbit hole. And I just, I actually learned about this only fairly recently by speaking with my old New York friends who works at Wall Street, who served at Goldman Sachs, like all the bravest families in the world. And is this different from how infinite banking works? Or is it that kind of the same principle? A little bit different, because this does not involve insurance. And of course, I am not at this, I'm not a CPA or financial professional financial advisor is like everyone should consult their own professional for your own little situation. But yes, like that this Involves like, um, stocks and like security back loan instead, which works a little bit different from insurance and like, and also likes, um, speak stock only portfolios. Interesting. Okay. So, yeah, I think the diversity is the big thing. Your investment advisor tells you to have diversity within your portfolio of stocks, but why not have diversity in the investments themselves? And I think kind of as a broad overview, I think that's good. And yes, we are not any tax professional, legal advice, none of that here. Yep. Um, let's, let's talk about mindset a little bit. What mindset shifts have been crucial for you and your journey from your marketing and into real estate investing? Well, uh, I would like to touch a little bit about shiny object symptom. A lot of people are afraid of it more. Of course, it. I would say the first thing is that you should not be afraid of it, embrace it, because this is natural, especially in a real estate world, because a lot of us have seen a lot of things. A lot of people are making money on their own terms in their own way, to a point that it would there, it really triggers a very, very deep of FOMO psychology. So very first thing I would say is that don't be afraid. It is very natural. Striking objects that Tom happens to. Every one of us. I recently actually personally experienced a rollback of shiny, shiny object symptom, meaning that I thought I came out of it last year and then I feel that I'm rolling back into this shiny object symptom again. And this is why. At the very beginning, when I switched from single family to doing multifamily, I thought I have already settled. In the thinking that I will be laser focused in a multifamily, but as you dig deeper into this world, there are still a lot of things that can happen in the multifamily world, and they all can lead to profits or revenues. So I feel that I am now going through a rollback, meaning that I am into this. shiny optic symptom again, now at the phase of picking out more narrowly what under the multifamily umbrella I would like to do. So, uh, I would say if we talk about mindset, I just want to remind everyone that this is very natural and don't be afraid of a rollback, because it totally So that's nothing about your not like you missing on an accomplishment or not having any successes. It's not that at all. It's just that naturally, as we all grow and become more knowledgeable, and we connect the dots, you will discover that there is always an opportunity for optimization. And here, if we're talking about mindset optimization of some kind. I would argue that it is about further narrowing down what you would like to do so you don't lose focus. And that would be the start of, uh, writing down a more longer term business plan for your own development as well. And actually like, this is also what I'm going through right now. Oh, awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that with us and for being kind of vulnerable about that because I, I have found in my life that I had to go broad in order to go narrow. I had to rule things out in order to know where I needed to be. And it felt like a lot of shiny objects when I was, was doing that. But it helped me say, okay, I don't like that. Or I like this piece of it, but not the rest. So I'm going to take that with me. And I think that's how, how we can kind of hone in on what we're good at, what we love to do, what we're best at and, and use that to cultivate, you know, a career path or, um, you know, revenue generating system of some sort down the, down the road. So I appreciate that quite a bit. As you are Diving into this world and thinking about those, those next steps. Where, where would you like to be in the next five years? What would that. Michelle look like where would you like to be? I appreciate this question. Um, we're actually now penciling down a three year business plan ahead of us for our real estate work. Down the road, we are really interested in doing affordable housing and so we're living because we would like to transform the real estate wealth into helping people and bringing communities together. We are now planning to take baby steps before we can fully realize these things. And we're being very realistic about these things. Because of this, now the short term focus will be to investing in small scale projects. Uh, coming in as partners or maybe as a lender, and then down the road, we will be rolling up to doing more fix and flips with scale and eventually going into affordable housing. I like that idea of creating an impact as well as an income and that coming together in a beautiful way. You know, we can help more people if we're making more money. And, you know, and in turn being able to help those around us. So I appreciate that. If you could give one piece of advice to someone looking to elevate, maybe it's their career, their finances, maybe it's their mindset. I know this is kind of broad question, but what would that be? What's one piece of advice that you wish maybe you had? Don't listen to other people. Well, I have the, I'm gonna explain a little bit about this. I think there are a lot of influencers, gurus, or teachers, mentors, however you want to call it, are trying to promote the idea that there are, there are certain ways of doing things that is more correct than the others. But like the more you think about it, or the more you learn about it, the reality is that everyone finds their own way of doing things and successes actually comes In a particular configuration that is undividable away from that person's personal background experience and also exposure to certain, to certain situations or even networks of people. So I, so I think that, for example, one example that I think about it again and again is that there will be a lot of gurus out there who will tell you that don't think too much, don't analyze too much, just take action and you will learn. I am actually still the complete opposite, which is that I love to research on things. I love to know ahead what are things that I should not do before I take action. And that is serving well for me. And I like to insist on that way. I don't, I totally do not like taking action immediately. But like, again, this is something if it works for you, it works for you. So I would say that it, Eventually, if I have to give one advice to people, I would say, do it your way. Do it the way that makes you most confident, and do it, start in a way that has the best use of your existing knowledge, experience, or resources, and come up with your own configuration. When you're taking other people's advice. It does not mean that you have to switch to their model completely, but rather add their valuable advice into your model that grows your offer or perfects your configuration. I appreciate that so much. There's no one right way to do it, and we're all going to do it a little bit differently. We're all going to have our own little flair to it. And that is something I wish I would have known when I was 20, for sure. So thank you very much for that. Thank you. This has been an incredible, incredible conversation. I've learned a lot. Now I have a lot more questions about some things, but where can our listeners connect with you and learn more about your work at StudyWorkCapital, which is the name of your company? Where can they find you? Yep. No worries at all. So you're welcome to scan this QR code. It will lead you to my digital business card and you can download right there. My contact information. Otherwise you're more than welcome to DM me with any questions on Instagram at invest with Mitch. I'm now on threats as well. And I am using threats as my own real estate. Journey diary, which I will be freely writing about what I'm doing day to day, how I am thinking about certain things, just like, well, it's just a free space for me to express myself. And of course, you're more than welcome to check on my website, SteadyWorkCapital. com or go to SteadyWorkCapital slash subscribe to subscribe to our multifamily newsletter. Amazing. All right, everyone, please check her out. She's got incredible things going for her. And I'm going to check you out on threads. I'm just now learning about this, this whole new shebang and social media. So I'm excited to follow you there. All right, everyone. Thank you so much. And until next time, have a good one. Thank you.