Adam Riddle from Nexus Commercial Realty in Denver discusses the beginning of his career in real estate and how he eventually founded his firm. Adam talks extensively about the secrets of finding investors and finding properties. According to Adam agents should educate themselves on income producing real estate so they can begin to have those conversations with clients. Last, Adam talks about the problems faced in inherited multifamily properties and the challenges of property management.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Adam Riddle can be reached at 303.257.7627 and ariddle@nexus-cr.com
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And guys, we are almost finished with 2020. And we know 2020 is a particularly difficult year for everyone, of course, and so our hearts go out to anyone who has been affected by the challenges that we’ve all been facing. But we also are going to keep doing this podcast to help give you tips and ideas of how to keep your real estate business moving forward. And we have big plans for 2021. And we’ll be sharing those with you shortly. But as always, please, the best way you can help support our show is by telling a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing these interviews with top producers like the one we’re about to share with you, Adam riddle who’s amazing. And we’re going to keep sharing those with you throughout the upcoming years until we just can’t do it anymore, which hopefully will never come. But we’re doing it now. So guys, thanks again, tell a friend and also find us on Facebook, please follow us we’re at facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And we post lots of great articles that we find that are worth reading to help you grow your business. And of course all the episodes we do there. So again, tell a friend, follow us on Facebook and check out our website. If you haven’t yet. It’s keeping it real pod.com If you’re you know somebody who just wants to check out some of our episodes and not download them, you can do that right on our website. And you can check out everything we’ve ever done there and stay in touch to please let us know what guests you want to see in 2021. We want to know if you have a top producer, even if you don’t know them personally, but you’re like that’s the man or the woman in my community that’s just crushing it and I’d like to know how they did it. Let us know we’ll reach out to them. We’ll convince them. So guys keep keep supporting our show. Keep listening and I hope everyone has a safe, happy and healthy holiday season. I was a lot of ages. So thanks again. We love you and we’ll be back in 2021 Thanks.
Alright, today on the show, we have Adam riddle who is the co founder and principal of Nexus commercial Realty in Denver, Colorado. Let me tell you a little bit about Adam. Adam is a skilled negotiator and has been part of over 500 real estate transactions worth in excess of $550 million in the multifamily sector. He has dealt in HUD and then seller carry as well as many low and no money down deals. He no matter the type of deal or what whether it’s renovations investment type or strategic timing, Adam knows what it takes to maximize return on investment for his investors. He is also a proud volunteer for the Denver active 2030 Children’s Foundation, and he is also on the board of the hope committees. Adam is an active runner and loves playing softball, snowboarding, backpacking and hiking, which is apropos for living in Denver. Find Adam at his website, which is Nexus, hyphen, and C r.com. Once again, Nexus ne X U S hyphen C r.com. Adam, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
Adam Riddle 4:10
Thanks for having me. Looking forward to
D.J. Paris 4:13
you actually came recommended from I think several of our listeners and I was telling for everyone listening, I was telling you add them ahead of time we get lots of requests from commercial commercial agents, investors, you know, wanting to promote a product or service. And really, a lot of times we’re just not sure what to do with that. And so we decided at this time, we’re like, No, this, this guy is really, really exciting and fun. No pressure, of course, for you to perform for us. But I’m really excited because you were like, your favorite of our listeners. And so we’re like, well, if our listeners tell us to do something, we always do it. But I’m really excited because like even at the company I’m at which is really a traditional residential firm. We have about 700 Realtors The question that we get asked, as much as as really any question is, how do I break into the commercial world or the multifamily world? How do I handle investors? And I know we’re going to talk about some of that today. So I’m really excited that you’re here. But I would love to know about, you know, you’re in Denver. How did you get started? You’ve done 500 Plus multifamily deals, but how did you how did you get into real estate?
Adam Riddle 5:25
That’s a funny story, I was living in the mountains, kind of being a ski bum, if you will. That’s how I made it to Colorado, so to speak, for one ski season and ended up being it for four, which is also a very common communities gets pretty easy to get to that lifestyle. So when it came time to get a real job, fell in love with Colorado, this was where I was going to stay kind of came down to the city and I wanted some I wanted a career that had a high trajectory, and I could really work work, you know, work really hard at and be paid off for that. And, but also, it was flexible. So I could go skiing and snowboarding and take some time off when I wanted to. So real estate was a natural draw commercially, it wasn’t necessarily commercial real estate, residential real estate. I looked at development to doing all sorts of different things. And I actually answered an ad off Craigslist back when that was a place where you went and look for jobs for a successful commercial real estate team that focused on the multifamily industry, and responded to that ad and got a job interview. And for whatever reason they liked me and I got to join. Luckily, got to join a pretty good group of people that were pretty successful and got to kind of be under them for a long time and learn learn the ropes that way.
D.J. Paris 6:45
Well, and then when did you make the jump to to falling found Nexus and start your own thing.
Adam Riddle 6:51
So that came three and a half, three and a half years ago or so. So after 10 years at a local shop, it was a great 10 years. We just decided my business partner and I also been there for about 10 years, decided it was time for a change for us and kind of looked at a lot of different avenues and came back to starting our own shop. And we’re at 22 people in office here in Colorado Springs. And this year, we will do probably about 85 to 95 apartment transactions this year.
D.J. Paris 7:25
Wow. That’s amazing. Good for you guys. Yeah, so. So tell us a little bit about the sort of the multifamily market right now I know here in Chicago. I know about it simply because I’m I’m here with a lot of brokers who are participating in it. But our do our most of the deals that that your team put together. Are they in the Denver area? Are they in Colorado? Are they in other states? Like where do you guys look?
Adam Riddle 7:51
Yeah, so we’re we’re a small local boutique shops. So we’re a little different than maybe some of your national commercial brokerages and a sense of we do things, our transaction sizes are anywhere from a duplex to we sold like an 1100 unit Portfolio A couple of years ago. So we will do kind of the whole gamut where a lot of institutional bigger shops will only kind of focus on higher the more units. So we we cover the whole front range and doing that you can go for four columns and really down to kind of Pueblo, which is I would say 95% of the transactions in our state are going to be in that kind of corridor. And again, we’ll do a four unit all the way up to No, I think the biggest till we close this year was 128 or 130 unit. So we kind of like actually starting out people in the smaller number of units, it’s a little easier transaction, it’s a little less cutthroat. It’s a lot of beginning investors. So that’s where we start a lot of our new people out is in some of the smaller transactions and you kind of learn the business that way.
D.J. Paris 8:56
Yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense. I know probably a lot of our listeners and viewers are probably thinking, Okay, I’m a resident traditional residential agent, I would love to find those kinds of opportunities, or I have clients that I might want to even just introduce the idea of of multifamily investing. But a lot of times I think agents oftentimes maybe think the question they’ll ask about how to get started is probably not really the right question, which is how do I find these investors? And it’s been my experience, and I want to get your opinion on this, that finding the deal is the hard part finding the investors is actually kind of the easier of those two steps do you agree with that?
Adam Riddle 9:37
100% I can tell you we get we get calls quite often. From agents, commercial land and residential and it’s like, Hey, I’ve got a buyer send me all have your off market stuff. And that’s, that’s the hard part of this business. And we have a database that we’ve built out of all the ownership and emails and cell phone members over a long period of Time that that’s our biggest asset in the people that we have coming out of it. So in usually, you will know somebody that wants either investing or wants to invest, especially if you’re selling like single family homes, at some point, you will run into somebody that probably already invest or we’d like to get into investing. So finding somebody that has the financial capability or the the wherewithal to want to invest is typically not the hard part. It’s getting them that the properties and or the inventory is the challenge.
D.J. Paris 10:35
Yeah, I 100% agree. I always tell our agents, you know, and they ask, and we have, we have some programming here at our firm, to teach agents a little bit more about investments, but, but I always say, you know, bigger pockets.com is a pretty good place, if you’re, if you’re brand new to the idea of of multifamily investing, or any sort of real estate investing early, but they they’ve got a great resource, you know, to get started, and, you know, I don’t know what the what the multifamily sort of market looks like, you know, there locally for you do you have a lot of of residents that are doing here in Chicago, it’s very popular, what they call house hacking, for our listeners who are not familiar with that is that’s where you typically buy, you know, three flat or four flat and you live in one, and then you rent out the others. And it sort of pays for itself is that is that popular in the Denver area?
Adam Riddle 11:30
Well, it’s it’s popular, it was more popular, probably seven or eight years ago, I tried to convince my wife to do the same thing. And she she vetoed a few different places, but back in the day, but it’s becoming harder and harder as investments have become more and more popular that especially back when there was kind of bank loans and short sales that had to go to an owner occupant first. And some of those instances, so it gave an opportunity for somebody to come in and buy that that three bucks at four Plex and live in one. Now if something’s decently priced, it’s going to go come and go so quickly. And it’s going to be somebody putting 30 40% down or in some instances paying cash for it. So somebody that’s trying to do a owner occupied first time homebuyer loan to get into a four Plex, it’s just so hard for them to compete with the amount of investment money that’s that’s flowing in the Denver market right now. So it’s popular, I think what we’re seeing more of is people trying to find these neighborhoods that allowed the accessory dwelling units, you can build kind of a, you know, a garage with an apartment over it back, they just rezone an entire neighborhood in Denver to allow for those. And part of that is trying to solve affordability. In a lot of our major cities. And I’m sure Chicago is dealing with the same thing. We’re dealing with it at a rapid pace. And so I see more people kind of looking for that opportunity. And maybe I can buy the single family and add on this garage and in one bedroom apartment, above it as a as a way to get some extra income long term.
D.J. Paris 13:07
Yeah, that makes sense. You know, I want to go back to this idea of we were both agreeing that finding the the the transaction, finding the deal is the more challenging versus finding the investor. So probably I should have gone to the next logical question is okay, you know, how do you find the deal? And here’s my real first question as what percentage of the transactions that you’re involved in or what so, you know, what would you estimate the percentages of homes or multifamily homes that go on the MLS versus finding off market?
Adam Riddle 13:42
That’s a good question. That’s probably the biggest. I don’t know secret, if you will, but about the commercial business in general that a lot of it never hits any website. And you know, the MLS is of the world are the LoopNet, which kind of the commercial MLS and costar and a lot of it doesn’t hit that it’s a little harder when you get into the smaller the smaller number of units just because that’s such a broad buyers spectrum. And honestly, it’s, it’s better to put that out there to the open market because, you know, in advertising that it’s best for the sellers, because it may be, you know, a REMAX agent as the best buyer willing to pay the most money than somebody that we have. But in our world, and this may be different for some other brokerages, but our stuff is done in house and are off market probably 60 to 65% of the time.
D.J. Paris 14:31
Wow. Now without giving away your secret sauce, and I’m certainly not going to ask you to tell us exactly how you find these off market properties. But do you have any suggestions for listeners that are like okay, so let’s assume a lot of the stuff if I only have MLS access by you know, probably our listeners, most of them don’t have costar loop net access, you know, and a lot of that stuff doesn’t hit there anyway. But how might they be going out to what suggestions would you have first to go out Look for these deals, obviously, they’re going to look on the MLS outside of that, do you have any suggestions for agents that are want to find, you know, people who might be looking to sell these kinds of investments?
Adam Riddle 15:11
I mean, I think it’s basic stuff, it’s, you know, we pick up the phone a lot. That’s just like old school, we just dial for dollars, if you will, sir. And that’s, that’s what we do a lot of, you know, we do some, some mail marketing in general. But for the most part, it’s, it’s dialing for dollars, and people come back to us repeatedly, because we, I can’t see a deal on MLS and I can’t see a deal, you know, on loop net, and understand that, hey, this, this makes sense. So I think we, we add value for people that continue to try to come back to us. So I would suggest for any residential agent looking to kind of dabble, if you will. Just try to educate yourself as much as you can on income producing real estate. So you can add value to that person. So you so they will say okay, like this is a good person to work with, and be able to ask the right questions and be able to point to, hey, you can raise rents over here, because this is what the neighborhood’s charging, and, you know, it’s a little bit more in depth than that selling residential and other residential doesn’t have, it’s things that I have no idea how to do, I’ve never sold a house. But it’s got it’s a lot more of a math problem. So we, you know, trying to understand that math problem, and what is the downpayment for a four unit? What are what are interest rates, and just try to grasp as much as you can, that knowledge going into it. And then if you make that call to somebody like myself, I have an interested client, you just sound more educated. And that usually means that your client is hopefully ready to go and, you know, to be able to answer questions. So we’ve, we’ve kind of all been taught over my career, like, these five or six questions, and it’s, what’s the last deal your client bought? Is the money ready to go? Are they in a 1031? Exchange? What are they looking for? And if you can’t typically answer those five or six kind of basic questions, it sounds like you need to go back and do a little bit more homework on this potential client. Because if they’re that legit, we should have kind of really good knowledge of what they’re exactly looking for, like somebody who’s just like, go buy anything. And that’s typically not the case. Didn’t just mean Chicago and Denver. I mean, we they’re, they’re big cities, and they have tons of different neighborhoods and pockets, and, you know, ones with higher crime and lower crime and different returns expectations, and all of those and, and, you know, don’t be scared to dive in, if you’re a residential agent that’s really got somebody that wants to buy a property and ask a bunch of questions, because the more information you can have, on the front end, the higher success rate that you can.
D.J. Paris 17:52
Yeah, we even get calls here at our firm from investors just randomly, who call us or for whatever reason find us even though that’s not really our main specialty as a brokerage. But we get this people who call in I’m sure you get these calls, too, which is like, I’m looking for a foreclosure. What do you have? You know, lots of things like that. And it’s like, oh, wow, well, if it was, I wish it was that easy. I don’t know. Maybe it maybe it’s different in Denver, but I suspect it’s not.
Adam Riddle 18:18
You know, yeah. Well, in May, it was like, everybody just assumed everything was gonna go right back to the bank during the beginning of COVID. Like, doesn’t work like that. Yeah, maybe stuff will. But it’s going to take a while to cycle through before we get to that point. And, and honestly, we’ve actually were discussing last week, I mean, we had drop, sales dropped a little bit percentage wise, sales prices, maybe two 3%, for 90 days, and I think they’re, they’re actually above where they were pre COVID. At this point. We’re already above that. So it’s just it’s a hyper competitive market. And yeah, it’s an interesting and dynamic thing to be in on a daily basis. Well,
D.J. Paris 19:01
there there you are, Adam, sorry about that. I don’t know what happened. I think our whole our whole office Internet just went down for a quick second. I have no idea what happened. Sorry about that. Yeah, no problem. I think you finished right. What do you write when it froze? You would just finish the sentence. So I apologize if if you kept going there
Adam Riddle 19:18
was my answer that bad that we just ate there. I was like,
D.J. Paris 19:21
got the interview. No, no, it was I just yelled over to the rest of the team. And everyone’s like, yeah, the internet went down for a second. Very strange. Sorry about that. No, no, you’re doing great. But yeah, you know, it’s funny. Speaking of, you know, finding we’re talking about finding investors and then finding properties and finding properties. My boss is a multifamily buy and hold investor he himself has somewhere between 30 and 40 properties. And he you know, he’s done everything from going door to door, you know, he sees a for rent sign, you know, calls the phone number or maybe knocks on the building. Usually the owner probably doesn’t live there, but I’ll ask what Who owns it and, you know, it’s a lot of your right it’s a lot of those those old, seemingly outdated techniques that that work because you might have these, you know, longtime older owners who might still just be throwing the for rent sign in the, in the window, when they need to run out a unit, it might not be going up on even on Craigslist, right or Zillow or apartments.com, or any of that. So you do have to be a little bit more creative, I think to to somehow sometimes find these, these opportunities, and then being able to then find the owner is also can be can be challenging, even if you you know, even if you know the location, it’s not always easiest thing to to get in touch with the owner. But, but yeah, we always tell our agents that if you if you find the transaction, you find somebody really willing to sell, you know, the investors will come calling if you can find a good opportunity.
Adam Riddle 20:50
Yeah, exactly. And then, like I said, In the beginning, it’s, you’d be shocked. You know, I think as a residential agent, you’re definitely you know, if you’re training good and your high producing agent, you’re asking for referrals from people, you’re you’re selling and helping buy homes, but you probably rarely ask if they own income producing real estate real estate, because that’s just not your lane. So just starting to ask that a little bit more to could lead to, oh, yeah, I’ve got this four Plex, I was thinking about selling this for this duplex. And, you know, so I think just retraining your brain a little bit to ask certain questions when you have the opportunity
D.J. Paris 21:27
to do it. Well, you said something very important that I want to touch on it really are this episode, part of what I was bringing Adam on for was as I thought, Oh, this will be great, because we have so many agents that want to break into the investment space and learn how to service those clients. There is something really to be said for, you know, Adam said something earlier that that probably might have even gone unnoticed. I picked up on it because well, if you were listening, you heard it, but we didn’t really talk about it, which is he goes, I’ve really never sold a home. Same sort of thing that if you’re a residential real estate agent, a traditional broker, and you you know, you want to put in several years to really understand the multifamily market, which you absolutely can do. And you can build that skill set over time. But if it was me, and I was a traditional broker, I would just want to hand it to you and say, you know, this is what you this is your lane, it’s use your words, and this is what you guys do better than I’m going to be able to do it. And then you know, maybe you work out some sort of referral agreement, and then hopefully, if a transaction comes your way that you don’t want that’s more on the traditional home purchase, single family side. That may be I’m sure you refer those out to agents as well.
Adam Riddle 22:32
Yeah, and that’s, that’s always a path to go. I mean, look, if you’re, if you’re running and gun into the residential side, and you run across somebody that has that, that, you know, investment need, you know, sometimes it is best to refer it out. And I’ve written, done some videos and written articles about it. I mean, to me, it’s all about adding value. So a friend of mine came and said, Hey, I want to sell my home. I don’t add any value to that. I’ve never done an open house. I’ve I don’t know how to talk that talks. I don’t know how any value to my friend. So I would say here’s a couple of people that I know good in the space, but it’s not me. Yes, at least Colorado, it’s the same license, we have the same exact license here in Colorado, but I don’t add any value to that. So I think just understanding if there’s if you add value to that, and if not finding somebody that hopefully can help you add value. I mean, we get a lot more crossover and multifamily, especially just because we do have the duplexes and for plexes and six plexes and there’s a lot of crossover. But when you get into office leases and retail, the I mean those things are very complicated. And one paragraph can can really screw somebody so I would just be careful if you are a residential agent getting into into some of the commercial stuff that you’re maybe not maybe doing more harm than your are good for for your clients and just understanding if it’s if it’s something that you can really help and and you know, there’s nothing wrong with trying to learn a new a new facet, I know our shops, happy to pay referral fees and happy to keep people involved it at whatever length they want to keep involved. And that’s a good way to learn. But that’s always always an option as well. And yeah, I’ve bought and personally sold three homes and I’ve never never done it myself do it yourself now. I don’t I don’t want to deal with that.
D.J. Paris 24:30
Well, there’s there’s an old saying to it, it’s not totally applicable, but it’s, oh, no, you know what I was gonna it’s really not up like I was gonna say it’s an old expression. It’s like an attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client. That’s not exactly apropos to what we’re talking about our app rather. But but it speaks to this point of working within you know, your skill set and and then being willing to I mean, you just said it. You said if my best friend needed help selling a home, I have people to refer to and that’s probably like He said, Are you adding value just by taking the listing? Well, maybe, but probably not, right? Because that’s not what your specialty is. And so I’m, I’m a big fan, just like you said, of making, you know, sending it to somebody who can do a better job than me, earning a referral commission wiping my hands sort of clean at that point. And going back to focus what I do best. But that being said, this is a skill that that people can develop to. But it does take time. And you know, I think the more you can hang out with other brokers who do investments, or other just investors in general, you know, there’s, there’s so many meetups, there’s so many online while now everything’s Of course, virtual. But there’s so many online communities like bigger pockets and Facebook groups and meetups and where a lot of this can you can really start to learn, you know, the lingo, the talk, how to calculate some of some of the metrics that are used. And that’s I imagine where, where firms like you guys really come in handy. That’s your your secret sauce is the ability to see opportunity, and then to present that to your, your network of investors.
Adam Riddle 26:10
Yeah, for sure. I mean, and I started doing all those things. When I started I attended, there’s, there’s a local guy that does kind of like learn how to invest and I would go to his lunch ends, and I would go to different breakfasts, and just trying to be around people that that were either in the business or trying to get in the business and just learning the lingo and how they talked. And, you know, I think, to your point, it’s it takes it takes a while to get everything down. It’s not something you can do kind of one dealer, one transaction and kind of understand the business. But if it’s something that somebody wants to develop that skill set, you got to put the time and the effort into it. But it’s not. It’s not rocket science. But it does take some time.
D.J. Paris 26:53
Well, it’s interesting, I wanted to ask you about multifamily. You had written this, we always do a pre interview ahead of time. And Adam had written something that I thought was kind of interesting, which was and I something I just again, I’m not a multifamily investor myself, so I really just wouldn’t have thought of this. But he had mentioned that. And I’m curious how often this happens, where a multifamily property has been passed from generation to generation. And then all of a sudden, you know, whoever owns it at the moment might might be saying, hey, this isn’t really what I want to be doing. I don’t know that I want to manage and deal with with these renters or maybe I don’t even live in the area, but I’m I inherited this from my father or mother or whoever is Does that happen quite a bit is that is that common, where you see people who are inheriting these properties, and then sort of not sure what they want to do with it?
Adam Riddle 27:43
Yeah, it’s in most tax way reasons. And I’m not a CPA, obviously. But you get a stepped up basis, upon getting the property passed to you. So a lot of people, that’s the way that’s the way they avoid taxes, they just wait till they pass away, and then it goes to the next generation. Oftentimes, if it’s not done properly, and not set up, great, it turns into more of a fiasco than it does, because one sibling wants to do this, and one wants to hold on to it, and one thinks the rent should be $1,000, when they’re at $600. And it just turns into more infighting than anything. And so it’s a bit of a challenge, it’s a bit of a challenge to try to deal with all the different personalities that you’re dealing with. And a lot of times, it does end up being a sale, just because that’s the easiest way to make everybody whole and everybody go do what they want with their money. So we definitely do see it, it’s, it’s more, it’s usually more, more intricate, because there’s usually multiple attorneys involved. And again, they’re usually at that point, because they can agree on what to do with the asset or assets that they’ve been inherited. So there’s usually some some hard feelings and some different things going on that, that just add layers of complexities to it, and you just got to be patient and try to make everybody as happy as you can throughout the process. But yeah, it’s, it’s an interesting, interesting thing that you know, I wouldn’t say is rampid. But is, you know, we see it a few times a year. It’s always, always a fun transaction.
D.J. Paris 29:27
Well, it’s funny because a lot of agents I think, when they transition if they transition from residential to well, it really is about traditional single family to multifamily. They’re like I’m tired of dealing with the drama of the single family. It’s too emotional, it’s too difficult. I just want to deal with level headed investors. And and of course, that’s probably a lot of times what happens but you know, the person selling the property might have all sorts of emotional challenges around it, whether it’s you know, family and fighting, because you’re right a probably a lot of these properties are handed down for two for tax purposes. And, yeah, and so just if you don’t mind, tell us a little bit about on the multifamily side. You know, a lot of agents listening also, oftentimes want to get into multifamily, because they also want to get into property management, right. They say, you know, that’s another way I can build a recurring stream of income. You know, I don’t know if your firm is does a lot of property management, or if you guys outsource that, but can you talk a little bit about property management in that opportunity?
Adam Riddle 30:32
Sure. So let me hit on something you said like the non emotions, you need to get a step above what we do is more institutional to get non emotional cars are still are still emotional, they’re still, they’re still, you know, I would like to say it’s a little less emotional than residential real estate, but it definitely still has heightened emotions, because you are dealing with individuals, and it’s a lot of times in their own money. It’s a big chunk of money. And yeah, it’s a big, it’s
D.J. Paris 31:02
a big purchase. Yeah.
Adam Riddle 31:04
So it is, when you get up to the next the next level, you know, those that’s playing with other people’s money, and it’s very much a math problem. And it’s, it’s a little less emotional, but so property management, we do not to personally do property management, in house, just a business decision we made when we started our company. I think it’s a good way to learn the business, when I was starting out some of the first few deals that I personally invested in with some partners I ended up I ended up managing, so I understand what it’s like to get a call in the middle of the night for a week in cleaning the boiler rooms and the heat going up inevitably, on a holiday because that’s when it always goes out. So it helps me learn the business that much better. By managing some, you know, I got a four unit, a couple four units and a seven unit at one point. And I was the leasing agents, you know, I didn’t do the repairs, but I got the calls to get to make the repairs. And so I think it’s a good way to learn the business, especially if it’s somebody that’s trying to continue to understand it. And I think it’s a good way to continue to broaden, broaden the spectrum. And it’s a it’s a value add, if you have somebody that’s kind of a first time investor, hey, I’ll go help you find this property and I can help you manage it. I know Colorado has been cracking down very much on management. And you know, you got to have your ducks in a row and make sure your paperwork is very in line if you’re going to do third party because they’ve had some some instances of some fraud in the last couple years in the property management world here, at least in Colorado. So they’re cracking down pretty hard and make sure if you’re doing third party, third party property management, you’re not commingling funds and doing things of that nature. So
D.J. Paris 32:55
yeah, it’s it’s an interesting choice. It’s interesting choice when somebody a realtor is working with with a buyer to determine like, okay, they’re purchasing this multifamily property. You know, do I want do I want those 2am phone calls? Or, you know, saying the boilers out? Or am I, you know, am I happier passing that off to another management company, and still earning some sort of referral commission, if that’s even possible, where somebody practices and then the other the other optional revenue stream is in rentals, right. So so if you know, the agent, there’s a lot of revenue opportunities, it’s really a matter of, of, you know, what, what do you want to spend your time doing, and I think that’s a really cool thing about investments is, is you’re gonna have renters that come and go, those are opportunities for the agent, if they decide they want to help, you know, secure the tenant, obviously, property management opportunities there, or just I just, you know, I want to pass that off to other people and just look for look for the deals and and Connect buyers to to sellers.
Adam Riddle 33:58
Yeah, I mean, the, those are all great points. I mean, you, we have definitely seen people that manage smaller properties in good neighborhoods, the natural progression of a lot of those tenants is to house their first time homebuyers. And, you know, hopefully, if you’ve treated them well and been a good manager for them, and you’ve asked the right questions, and let them know, if you ever, you know, ever get to that point, I’d love to have the opportunity to talk to you, you might be able to buy managing some smaller apartment assets, you might be able to pull out a few clients out of that as well. So there’s, there’s a lot of different ways you can skin the cat to your point, it’s where do you want to put the most time and effort because it all, you know, if I was to do residential, I’d have to redo a business plan. But I’m going to go all in and I’m going to figure out how I how I can be successful in that. So kind of got to pick, pick what you want to do and where you want to put your time and effort and, you know, I think you can be successful In real estate, it’s an amazing income and wealth generating business to be
D.J. Paris 35:04
in. It really is, and there’s just so many opportunities and you get to choose what you’d like to do. And your firm is obviously hyper focused and so many firms try to do everything as you know. And it’s that old expression and it doesn’t mean that other firms can’t be successful doing lots of different things. But that whole jack of all trades, master of none is I’ve certainly found that to be true in my own life, and, and even here at our business is, you know, we don’t we don’t step outside of, of our sort of narrow focus of what we can support for our agents. Because if an agent says, Oh, by the way, I’ve got a $75 million commercial development deal. We’re like, please take that somewhere else because we have no idea how to do that. But if it’s you know, anything on the residential side we’re good even if it’s multifamily, but but that’s a really important I think is is to you know, explore and learn. For our listeners and viewers. You know, this is a great opportunity. You know, join bigger pockets go to some of these these meetups virtually and learn about investments in multifamily. You know, multifamily is so closely connected to single family, it really is about a half step difference, it’s a lot more complicated for sure. And there’s a lot to learn, but boy, the people behind those single families are or rather the people buying the multifamily is also have single families probably, as well. So these are, you know, this is an opportunity that you can if you take a couple of years to really sort of learn you can then bring this to your your everyone you’ve sold a home to like hey, have you ever thought about House hacking? Oh, you’re not familiar with that. Let me talk to you about that. Here are some opportunities that I’ve that I’ve found if you’re interested, you know, kind of thing. Or even better, you know, just hand it off to someone like Adam, who already has the database of investors, who already has you know, properties, and this is all he lives, eats and breathes. And in fact, we should mention this because we have listeners from all over the country. We have you know, about 20,000 people every episode listen to our show, from places like Denver, of course and everywhere else. But if there is anyone out there who’s an agent who might want to refer business to you, or who’s an investor or a property owner who might be looking for a firm to help them with these multifamily investments, we’d love to you know, make sure that that your information is out there but how should somebody if they want to reach out to Nexus and you how should they reach out
Adam Riddle 37:27
I mean, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn love to connect on LinkedIn chat on there my email, a riddle ri DD L E. At Nexus ne X, U S dash er.com Is my email or my all my contact information is on our website. I love to talk I love to talk business, it doesn’t even have to be about multifamily. So happy to chat happy to give you my my two cents on certain things I meet with a lot of people trying to get in the business and trying to find their way. In the in this vast world of commercial real estate. It’s kind of it seems like it’s very, very hard and non attainable sometimes to break into it from the outside but it’s more about networking and getting to know a few people and that goes a long way.
D.J. Paris 38:23
Yeah, boy I couldn’t agree more what a great place to wrap up so so everyone who’s who’s listening, who is interested in in getting more information about this, you know, start to start that educational process and and you know called call someone up who is in your local area who does what Adam does. And if you’re in the Colorado area, and you think you know, you might have some opportunities for Adam, or you just want to you know, get some advice. You know, let’s let’s reach out. But Adam, it is it is Thanksgiving week. So I am going to let you enjoy your Thanksgiving week with your with your your loved ones. And of course, for everyone listening we hope you know, hopefully you’re able to to spend some time with with people you love, whether it’s virtually or, or in person if you’re lucky enough to be able to do that this year. And hope everyone of course is staying safe. But on behalf of our listeners and our viewers, we want to thank Adam riddle from nexus for being on our show. This was awesome, and really, really helpful to our listeners. So on behalf of them, we say thank you to Adam and Adam on behalf of on behalf of Adam and myself. We want to thank all of our listeners and viewers as well for continuing to support our show we just ask everyone to do two quick things before before thee before they get on to our next episode, which is telephone I think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this this interview with Adam and pass the link over to our website which is keeping it real pod.com Or if they’re a podcast listener just have them pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real will pop right up. And the second thing is to follow us on Facebook. So Adam is big on LinkedIn. We are much bigger on Facebook. We are also on LinkedIn as well. So if you go to our website, you’ll see the links there. But on Facebook, the address is facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And the main reason to go there Well, there’s two main reasons. One, we we post these interviews as we’re recording them live, right there on our Facebook groups, you can actually watch them, you don’t have to wait for us to produce them. And also, every day we find an article that was written specifically to help agents grow their business, and we post a link to it. That’s all we post there. And we post like one joke a day. And that’s literally all we do. So if you’re looking for good information about how to grow your business, and you want to see our interviews in real time, that’s the place to do it. Adam, thank you so much for being on the show. You came highly recommended did not disappoint. And we really appreciate it. So thank you so much, and we’ll see everyone next time. Thanks, Adam.
Adam Riddle 40:46
Thank you
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