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Kenny Wolfe of Wolfe Investments knows his stuff when it comes to investing in real estate. Wolfe Investments is more than just an investment company: They create passive income for their clients while investing alongside them for peace of mind and alignment.
We sat down to talk with Kenny about the sudden upswing of the multi-family market, how he is leveling the playing field for investors, and his take on the start of this football season in this week's episode of Real Estate Investing Unscripted.
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Brendan: Welcome back to another episode of real estate investing unscripted, where we get real with real estate investors and other experts throughout our industry. I'm your cohost, Brendan Bennett, and with me is your other cohost, David Dugan. And David, our guest today is Kenny Wolfe.
He is the founder and CEO of Wolfe Investments. He's an experienced multifamily syndicator, and, I'm always pretty excited when we get some big players like Kenny in the room.
David: Yeah, I'm excited as well, Kenny is a master of, several things, or at least has many talents, so in addition, he's a multi family real estate investor and, operating several different strategies there. He's also a published author. So he wrote a book called Investing in the Dream, How to Acquire Multi Family Real Estate and Attain Total Financial Freedom. So we cannot wait to, get into it and pick your brain on all things, related to what you do.
Kenny, welcome to the show.
Kenny: Awesome. Thank you guys for having me on. Appreciate it.
Brendan: Absolutely. Kenny, if you'd be so kind, can you just give the listeners a little background about I'm yourself, where are you from, how'd you get into the real estate space, and what kind of take it from there?
Kenny: Yeah, sure. so I started our company Wolf Investments almost 14 years ago. back in 20, late 2010. So, working on 14 years here in the business. but I started out in oil and gas accounting. so like any good Texan, worked in oil and gas first, and then, decided to move into something that was a lot less, cyclical.
Um, real estate definitely has cycles, but nothing has cycles like oil and gas. So it's either a feast or famine in that business. My dad was in it. My grandfather was in it. So. definitely have some family stories there. so anyway, so wanted to find something else out. Um, I was, I was CFO at a very young age, about 27 years old of a spinoff company in oil and gas and just saved all the money we were making, a major new partner in that deal.
Um, so it was making decent money, but just still decided to drive a Ford Taurus for way too long, save all the money and then just dump it all into our multi family business. So we, so I've never, owned a single parent rental, I just jumped right into. multifamily, and you can do that. I just have to have the right amount of capital kind of with you behind you and know how to raise money from other investors as well to kind of leapfrog that single family route.
David: the bulk of our borrowers, right, that, that side of the investors that we work with, they start in that step that you skipped, right? The single family residences, the one to four family space, and they start to grow from there. And then a lot of them, you know, quote unquote, graduate to the multifamily space. What gave you the confidence to just skip that step and go straight into multifamily and go guns blazing there?
Kenny: you know, so I did two passive investments first. So I passively invested in two multifamily syndications, I was very choosy as to which ones I wanted to get into. So one of those was a big fixer upper. you know, cars on blocks, worse, worse property in the bill, on the block for sure.
we bought it in foreclosure in 2010. Um, for like 12, 000 a door, um, it needed 10, 000 a door, so double, almost double what we bought it for, was that, that run down. although now, you know, 22, 000 a door all in sounds really great, here in Dallas, Fort Worth for sure. So, so anyways, by the time it was a big fixer upper, you know, so we, I wanted to learn that, you know, who is the right GC, who is the lender, who's the insurance broker.
it was a property management company that can handle that kind of a rough property transition from a D plus C minus to a C plus, asset here in Dallas, Fort Worth. Um, so we did that and the second one I picked was, almost opposite. It was a, it was a yield play. So it's meant to be a cashflow, cash flowing asset, just stay while you're buying it for, um, the quarterly cashflow payments.
but the big piece of that though was it was a Fannie Mae loan and I, I sought that out. The reason being because on my third deal, I put together, um, a syndication of, 13, investors and, we went out and bought a 76 unit, unit, property here in Dallas, Fort Worth, but I was able to get a Fannie Mae loan, my first syndication deal because I was a passive on a prior performing, that's a big, a big keyword, but performing Fannie Mae loan, um, as well.
So if it wasn't performing, I couldn't have, have gotten, have gotten my first syndication deal as a Fannie Mae loan. So. Um, but it's also too, the second way, so Fannie Mae was a big deal, but also, um, is it different, the GCs, is it different on the property management, the insurance, you know, that's, that's kind of, that, you know, trying to build out the team, according to two different kind of, polar opposite business plans.
Brendan: Yeah, that makes sense. And Kenny, how do you guys, from a geographical standpoint, how do you guys structure the different multifamilies that you go after? Are you, I know you're located in Texas, are you guys focusing on a lot of multifamily in Texas specifically? Are you guys kind of all around the U. S.?
Kenny: we're kind of all over. We, we do love Texas. We're based here. the flights are, we still have to fly cause it's a big, big state. but they're a little shorter. but we do buy all over. So in multifamily, we're very choosy as to where we end up, um, owning and operating multifamily.
We want a landlord friendly state. so right now we're in Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Georgia. we've been in Colorado, Louisiana. we sold those assets. So we're out of those two states for now. Um, but we like the four we're in, but Landlord Friendly is definitely a big thing to look out for. Um, we have in house property management, so we bought them about seven years ago, brought them in house.
Um, they manage all of our assets across the country in multifamily, so it makes it easier as well, to be able to pick up and travel.
David: Are there other data points other than, you know, the, the Landlord friendly states. Are there other data points that you look for when making an acquisition? Whether it's population growth, whether it's, you know, certain companies entering a market, um, and, and putting in a headquarter or HQ two, something like that.
Or, um, is it all just down to the, you know, quote unquote politics of the geography?
Kenny: that's a very good question, so we, definitely Landlord Friendly is, is A number one. we want to stack the chips in our favor. If you don't pay, you shouldn't stay, right? so we have to worry about that. So once we cleared that hurdle, then we go down to the cities, right? So is there population growth?
Like you said, is it diverse economically? So I mean, there's, there's, there's cities in Texas. I always pick on Midland Odessa, that I wouldn't buy in. I mean, Texas is a landlord friendly state, but I wouldn't buy Midland Odessa because the sole economic driver is oil and gas. So if you buy an apartment building, you better know what the price of oil is because they're going to be tied very much together.
so we want a diverse economy, you know, economic driver, like we love Columbus, Ohio. it's, the Ohio State University. it's got, the Capitol, right? it's got the, I think the second biggest Chase building outside of Manhattan. So there's a lot going on there, nationwide, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
So we're looking for diverse economic drivers as well. Um, population growth, rent growth as well. on those kind of the high level metrics that we look at.
Brendan: So, Kenny, before we get into the. Three main arms of the company that, you and I talked about before and some of the project specific stuff you guys are doing, if I remember correctly, you guys are 715 million assets under management currently, and the goal is to get to around a billion this time next year.
What's, what's really contributed to that exponential growth that you guys have experienced and even that, you 715 for a pretty established company up to 1 billion. still pretty substantial. So can you walk us through, what are some of the things that really propelled you guys from a growth standpoint?
Kenny: you know, starting out almost 14 years ago, it was really kind of focused here in Dallas, Fort Worth. And then, pretty soon from when we started, we, wanted, I wanted to look at different, locations around the country, maybe even in Texas.
not because I didn't like DFW, but it felt a little frothy to me. The pricing seemed a little high, so it was, it was a way for us to keep deal flow going, and to see more. And so we, you know, drove north to Oklahoma City, and then ended up actually buying our first out of state property in Colorado Springs.
Um, and that was a way really to get, deal flow. Cause not all, cities are on the same, global real estate economic booms and they're slower to catch on than others. Um, and so there's, it was a way to kind of, you know, secure deal flow for our growth, and then from there really kind of ramp up.
And so, I mean, some key, key, key dates that really moved us forward, kind of launched us was kind of taking advantage of, um, like in 2020 and COVID, we didn't really stop. Um, I came, I kept, I deemed myself essential and came to the office. I lasted like a day at the house cause we had two dogs and two kids and I just could not handle it.
So I love them to death, but it was very loud and distracting. So I came to the office, and then I really just kind of head down and we picked up some, um, a really nice institutional asset that, you know, honestly, at the time, we probably had no business getting even a call back on. so we picked up a really historic.
asset there in downtown Dallas. And like I said, it was on the market, um, in January of 2020, they pulled it in March and we called in May and said, Hey, is it still for sale? Um, they said, yes, everything's for sale. so I think they were just shocked we were calling. And so anyways, we've been picking up.
picking up for two million less than what the, those that owner had paid for it like three years ago. so we knew there was, and the rent had to keep, had kept growing downtown Dallas was booming. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is going to launch us. And that kind of put us on an institutional, map and then we just kept, growing.
We, started getting to the buying, you know, distressed office buildings. and that really, again, got the name out there and growth and attracted a lot of, of capital and, folks interested in doing what we're doing. In that space as well. So it's really kind of just taking advantage of these of these slow times and figuring out how to how to get deals done
Brendan: Yeah, and it sounds like based on the structure of your company, which I'll allude to a little bit right now. So you guys have, a debt fund where you guys deploy some capital outside of the company. To my understanding, you have a triple net fund and then you have your, your multifamily space. So, I won't butcher the explanation of those.
I'll allow, maybe you to kind of go through it a little bit, but I think to your point, you guys have chosen three different areas that you're really good at and, kind of picked your spots depending on what the market climate is.
Kenny: Exactly yeah, and that just kind of kind of rounded out our full You know risk reward ratio for our investors. We had some that really really wanted that kind of stable steady cash flow They weren't really, there wasn't a need for big, massive growth and so, so we, we introduced the triple net fund.
So we, our first fund, we went out and bought, I think it was only seven, seven family dollars in Dollar Trees, Dollar Generals, in a fund, um, really kind of to prove it up to them. those have just been great for monthly cash flow. all of our tenants in that we have 61 stores now across 17 states.
We're a lot less picky on those states. we don't care about landlord friendly really in that, in that, in that realm. But, but again, but growth though, for sure, population growth, demographics come into a big play there, but folks needed, you know, a monthly stable cashflow and those are great for that.
You're going to give up some appreciation. You know, it does have a fit for people's portfolios. And then the same with the debt fund. It was more kind of wealth preservation just to set, 8 percent return a year. Um, and so they, you know, so people are kind of depend on that. Um, and then we started in multifamily.
That's kind of a mix of, cashflow and appreciation. It is operations heavy. So we have to go collect rent, we have to fix toilets and things like that. So it's up and down, um, on cashflow, just depending on the operations on site. Um, and then we had folks that really wanted, um, a big, a much bigger appreciation piece didn't really care about cashflow.
So we went out and, went out, I went out and bought those, town home lots myself cause I didn't know a thing about, you know, ground up construction, built a team out around that, that asset. Um, and then from there just jumped into, building ground up and then office conversions in that same development realm.
David: So I have kind of a very loaded question for you here. So I'm going to add some context because I think you'll understand when I ask questions. So I mentioned a big portion of our client base is the single family investor, right? And many of them, especially here in Cleveland, in Columbus markets that you like, right?
They, they want to graduate into that multifamily space. And a lot of them ultimately do, right? I'm sure there are many similarities in the two, but I'm, I'm sure there's some very stark differences. Right. So I think about some of the challenges that the single family home investors face, which would be, there's a lower barrier to entry.
So there's a ton of competition there. Right. And, closings are quick, which means you have less of a due diligence period. And a lot of times you, you really don't understand, the level of work that needs to go into that asset. Right. So there, there are some challenges there. What advice would you give to people stepping into that multi-family space as far as like what challenges they should expect and, and how to mitigate some of those challenges?
Kenny: Sure. Yeah. So, you know, when we start, we're starting out, um, we actually looked at starting out with 10 single family homes. we went to one of those two day guru seminar events. I drank the Kool Aid, but, but, um, and, and those can be good. just know that the end, they're going to be a hard sell on Sunday night.
So as long as you know that going in, you'll be all right. but anyways, it worked out for us. So we, um, you know, that first night they were talking about single family. So my wife and I were excited. We're going to buy 10 single family homes. Um, in Dallas, we're pumped about it. And then the next day they talk about multifamily and that's when that one, that single family went right out the door.
And because, it's, it's tough to scale, right? So The good thing about single family is they're easier to sell. Um, you know, if you've got, you know, you know, 10 of them, you can sell one pretty easily, right? If you buy a 10 unit apartment deal, you can't just sell one, one apartment most of the time, unless you condo it out.
That's a big headache. So. Um, so there's pros and cons, but what I liked about multifamily is that it was very scalable, right? So we get non recourse loans on these on these loans. So it's almost easier to buy a 70 unit multifamily deal than it is a single family home or 10 single family homes because You get non recourse financing, which for those that don't know that's where If the property goes bad and you didn't do any of the bad boy clauses, that are put in there, there's usually five of them, but it's all lies, steal or cheat. But if, as long as you don't do that, um, you mail back the keys and they can't touch your other assets, right?
So, but because it's non recourse, um, you can keep hitting that non recourse borrow button to infinity. And so the, so the scalability of that is huge. Whereas in a single family, I hear ghost stories, right? I like the scalability of multifamily. I mean, but at the end of the day, you're collecting rents. You've got to do, you know, make sure you're schooling away for CAPEX. Um, hopefully you raise all the money up at front for your CapEx. So those are very similar. and then the cool thing about multifamily though is, um, hopefully you bought big enough where you can afford a full time property management company.
Um, and that's when you can really scale it. because if you're, if you're buying these 20 or, I tell folks all the time, do not buy a 20 or 30 unit apartment complex. because it's, it's like a, it's like a boat. There's two good days when you buy it and when you sell it, it's going to be a lot of maintenance in between.
so anyways, um, so it's good to rent those, but those boats, but for the smaller 20, 30 unit deals, you're going to be drug into the day to day operations of that asset. You can't afford a full time manager or maintenance. So you're going to do something in there, which takes away from your time as an investor to go scale your portfolio.
And that's where you as an investor make money. It's not changing out toilets or leasing or evicting. I, you know, that's, you're not making much money on those. So, so really, um, so I, I was fortunate that we started out, our first syndication deal was a 76 unit asset, here in Dallas, Fort Worth.
So we've owned over 9, 500 units. I still did not know how to evict anybody and I don't want to know. We, we pay some really good people, really good money to handle that. Same thing with like changing out a toilet or fixing the sink. You know, my, plumber grandfather would not, would be probably, you know, rolling in his grave right now, but you don't want me touching, touching any plumbing either.
You know, so, so, but you know, but really you as an investor, your time and your money that you're going to make, the biggest gains you're going to make is scaling your portfolio. So this is kind of a, the goal for me was always to scale as fast as possible. and to do that, you know, I didn't have the money to buy my first 76 unit deal myself.
So I had to learn how to syndicate and there's a right way and there's a very wrong way. so make sure you go to those two day courses as well. you know, talk to the right lawyers. but if you do it done correctly, you know, you can really scale it up and, and kind of done, you know, started out with 76 units and now again, you know, almost 14 years later, 9, 500 units plus that we've, we've done across the country.
Brendan: Kenny, what would you say is the most difficult part to achieving scale in the multifamily space? Is it the syndication process itself? Is it getting a really great property manager that you feel comfortable you can scale with? What do you think trips people up from going to 100 units to 500 units or 1, 000 units in this multifamily space?
Kenny: Well, I think it's mindset for one. It's scary as hell to go from like two units to 70, right? Or zero to 70 like we did. but that's okay. I mean, it's, you know, that's where the good stuff is, is where you're, you're, you're scared a little bit. Now you want to solve for that by hiring the right team that has done this way, way more than you have.
Right? So. you know, our first deal, um, our, we have 76 units so we could afford a full time property management company with folks on site. Um, I mean, that property management company had another 5, 000 units in Dallas Fort Worth. So I knew, you know, my learning curve was going to be, you know, much, much shorter because, um, she knew, she knew the right GCs, she knew the right plumbers, she knew the right landscaping company, so I'd have to burn through that.
um, it's mindset is the biggest deal and then solving for the team around you for fixing the holes that you have. and initially I had a lot of holes, I'd be the first one to admit it. but really it's, it's that mindset and then, when we were looking at new markets to, to buy in, take Columbus, it was our first time 2015 buying there in Ohio.
I was a crazy Texan buying in Ohio. Um, they, you know, my first question wasn't who are the brokers in town? Absolutely not. That was my third question. My first question was, who are the property management companies that, that do well at BNC class multifamily? Because at the end of the day, they're going to, they're going to be running my assets and I want to, you know, so I flew up, met with them, you know, they didn't know it, but the rest of the day after that I toured a lot of their assets just unannounced because I want to see, you know, test them like what, what looks like when the owner, shows up unannounced, what does it look like?
Um, so, you know, just kind of ask those two questions. And the next day I just started calling brokers and, you know, let them know, Hey, I'm in town looking to buy some multifamily. This is what I'm looking for. So, you know, Um, and the other thing too is that the management companies can keep the brokers honest.
I like brokers. They're my friends, but they all lie on their OMS, right? So you gotta have to be, I gotta be able to test that against the market, um, property management company that, that is in the weeds. They've got the thousands of units in that city and it's a good way to kind of, you know, test that out,
David: I want to jump to something that you've already alluded to, which is the transitioning office building to condos or apartments, right? And it's a question that we run into, I would say a lot out in market or just a topic of conversation because you have a meeting in a downtown area, whether it's here in Cleveland or Columbus.
And we say, what is everybody going to do with all of these high rise office buildings?
Kenny: right?
David: into the office anymore. There's a lot of this vacant stuff. And the first thing that comes to mind is like. Make, make living spaces, right? But I understand there's some challenges in that, and, and, you know, the office infrastructure is different than condo infrastructure, but you're doing it here in Cleveland.
Brennan and I are looking at the building that, that you are doing here in Cleveland, which is pretty cool. can you talk about some of the, the challenges that you run into there, but ultimately what attracts you to being able to do that and having the guts to take on those sorts of projects?
Kenny: sure. Yeah. I mean, so I think the biggest disruption in office the next 12 to 18 months, maybe it's two years I don't think it'll be maybe even that long It's gonna be this is you know, exactly what you said what to do with these office buildings. So right now Um, there's kind of a tale of two cities in the office, space.
If you're an A class with a, that's highly amenitized, um, you're actually seeing your occupancies increase and your rents increase. So the A class office doing well now, not in, you know, certain sections of the country, but you know, middle of fairway, Texas through Ohio, um, you know, you're, you're seeing folks that are coming back to the office.
Now, if you're, if you're not back to the office by now in those cities and major metros, you're probably not coming back. Right? Right. So. So right now everybody's figuring out, okay, these are the chips on the table. What do they look like? So the A class is doing fine on the office space, but it's the B class and below that is, is very not fine.
Um, it's, it's, it's so opposite. So right now, even if you're a stable, like a, if you're a 50 percent occupied B class, office building, your choices are, if you, if you have to refi, um, you're out here, the highest leverage you're going to get is 50 percent off the new valuation. Which your NOI drops, so your value drops, so you're coming to close, cash to close just to refi.
Um, and some of those are pretty sizable, um, on there. so you don't really have a good option there. A lot of folks are, are, are scared of converting into, multifamily. And so, we're seeing some, um, office owners reach out to us and want a JV. we can't always pay what they want to pay. So we have to have that conversation with them.
but sometimes they roll in some equity, um, and that way, you know, they're actually make a little bit of money for their investors. I'm not near as much as what they thought of, at least they don't lose the property, to foreclosure or anything like that. Um, so it's a big mess right now in office, but it's just starting.
We just got, um, our first direct, foreclosure from a, from an office, for an office lender. Um, sent directly to us from them, a beautiful deal. They're going to actually going to finance us 80 percent loan to cost. Um, because, cause that's as, that's as bad as I do not want this on their books anymore.
so, so anyway, so, so we're seeing a lot of opportunities there. We have to buy them cheap enough, obviously, cause it's a lot of work. so some of them are historic, some aren't. Um, the one you guys are looking at was built in 1981, the historic registry. and I was born in 81, so I took offense and I enjoyed the extra, state historic tax credits.
So we won, we actually won the state award for Ohio for tax credits, for that property a couple of years ago. So, so anyway, so we, you have to use, you know, if you can use, um, historic tax credits, um, TIFs, I mean, there's all kinds of incentives that we try to, um, use to make these, projects viable.
cause you can't pay 200 bucks a foot that these office owners paid. I mean, we're paying anywhere between I think 38 on the lowest cheapest up to 90 a foot. Um, and the difference really is how much can I reuse in the building? Um, you know, elevators, ACs, um, you know, fire suppression. there's a lot of stuff that goes into that per door or per foot price.
so you really can't, do kind of a rough, rough rule of thumb. You have to actually take your GC and architect with you, when we go tour these assets. Um, there, but it's the biggest deal is a lot of plumbing, right? There's a lot more toilets and showers that have to go in. you know, these assets that we're doing so far, all of them are still structure with cement decks in between.
so it's a lot of boring all the way to 17, 20 stories down, whatever it is, for plumbing. but it's, we like it. You've got the whole thing down to the cement deck. Um, you build back, we're using, um, so far we've always used light gauge steel for the framing inside. It's a little faster. um, on that.
And then it's all new electric, new AC, usually, plumbing. So you get this A class finished out, brand new operating systems in a, in a building where, so far we're hitting about 50 to 100, 100 K a door cheaper than a brand new build in that same location. So our basis is way lower than, than what you could do ground up right now.
Um, we've got some great locations. Um, walk scores are usually 90, 95 plus. when we buy it and we're introducing more multi family and usually retail restaurants in the bottom floor. So it should go up from there.
Brendan: Kenny, I'm curious. So in the single family space, what often happens is, one of our developers goes into a neighborhood and they, they flip the house in the street and then it catches the attention of all the neighbors and they're saying, Hey, maybe that investor wants to buy my house. Maybe, liquidity I can get out of this transaction.
Does that apply on the commercial space where you're operating? So for example, the property in Cleveland, are other C& B class office owners now approaching you guys because they're seeing your signs outside They're seeing the, you know, the in ground pool getting craned 12 floors up onto the, onto the rooftop Are people approaching you now just from you guys being in market and showing that you're kind of taking a stance on the Cleveland rental market
Kenny: We are in, in, in, in not just in Cleveland, really, nationwide. So they've, I've been on two panels already this year for office, office to, um, resi conversions and Rhode Island of all places was IMN and then one here in Dallas. And then I'm actually going to Columbus and Nashville. Um, and about a month hitting those up for, to speak on panels about office to resi conversions.
It's a hot, hot thing. Um, so we're actually, we're, we are having a lot of office hunters reach out to us. we just got, you know, we had a hedge fund reach out to us for a million square feet. they're in a really nice part of Atlanta. Um, and they have, you know, it's a hundred percent leased, but it's 0 percent physically occupied.
So they have a fortune 500 company there. and they call, Hey, let's, let's do a JV. I've got three months left on my lease. I'm like, we'll talk in four months, um, after your lease is up. Right. So it's like, the discount should be better at that point. Um, so anyway, so, we are seeing a lot of people reach out, to us on this office space.
like anybody, we're hemmed in as much as we can pay as the. You know, what's the location, what's the rents there in the market, and then how much is it going to take that, take per foot to get that office building converted to residential.
David: Well, before I came in here into our little in office studio, I was talking to my guy, Peter, shout out, Peter. He runs our asset management team. He's the best. And I told him we were meeting with you. And I said, it's really cool. He, he's one of the operators on that, that big, conversion over there, the office space.
And he goes, well, you tell Kenny, or he said, you ask Kenny, what color that building's going to be, because I got to look at it all the time. So I want to know what color it's going to be. So there's your question, Kenny, what color are you painting that thing?
Kenny: Oh, well, so it's all granite and glass, so we're not going to paint it, but we are, but we had to, we did, it's going to be, so. This is probably, I don't know too much in the weeds, but, but you asked. So, so back in 81, they were, they hadn't figured it out yet, but so they decided to put the, the film, the, you know, energy efficient film at the time on the outside of the windows.
Well, that those windows face Lake Erie, right? So, you know, 40 years of facing Lake Erie, um, they're pretty silver and all that kind of a little bit grimy. And so, what, what happened, we, we took a, we took one panel off and tested on a very small corner. You know, what does it look like for, to clean that with your kind of traditional window, high rise window cleaning, solution and, and it was scoring the, the scoring all the, all that, all the sheet there.
And so what we had to do was we actually had to send it off to a lab. And create our own, um, our own type of solution to clean the windows on this place. So if anybody out there needs a solution, I've got a deal for you, for her, for film on the outside of the building. So actually they're doing it now.
So if you go to the back of the alley and look up about a third of the building is this nice kind
of eighties gold book. so it's going to be a pretty shiny once it's done.
David: That's probably what I was getting sprayed on me
when I was walking underneath. I was like, I felt this wet stuff. I'm like, what the hell is that?
Kenny: it was rain.
David: Good.
Kenny: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so anyway, so yeah,
David: One more,
Brendan: kind of more real estate related question then I want to get into like a more fun segment before we get you out of here.
But, now that you're in this kind of transitionary space from office to, luxury residential, how much competition are you guys running into? Are you guys one of the first people in the space on a macro level? Um, do you guys see really large, like institutional capital come in doing this? Or is it a lot of, you know, privately owned firms like yourself that are getting into it?
I'm just curious what the landscape looks like for other developers similar to yourself.
Kenny: sure. I mean, I, so it's definitely not like absolutely new. Cleveland's been doing it for a while. Um, honestly, Cleveland, like if you speak to anybody that is, has been in, um, office to resi conversions for a very long time, they've always started somehow in Cleveland. just cause Cleveland had a lot of office that needed to be done.
And so, so Cleveland honestly in some ways led the way in all this. And so one of the, actually one of the architects we use nationwide is St. Vic. They're based there in downtown Cleveland. So, they're actually helping us at one of our, or two of our buildings here in downtown Fort Worth. Um, so they're, they're a leader there and that, um, as well that, that, that, the adaptive reuse space there.
but it's been done before. It's not, it's, although those guys kind of have passed on, there were some in like the mid nineties in Fort Worth, but nothing really since then. Um, so it's not a lot of institutional capital yet. I think, um, it's a little too early for them. Once we, you know, round trip our first one or two, then, then I think they're going to, it'll be proven up enough for them to kind of jump in.
but right now it's a lot of private folks. Um, and I wouldn't see even, even a lot of us. There's, it's kind of a small group right now, um, that are doing it. Um, and we all, we all try to talk to each other and learn from each other, right now.
David: You want to jump to the football stuff? Let's do it. Yeah. All right. We are, we are recording the day after the, NFL opener, the day after a football Sunday. we've got a few football related questions for you, Kenny. Brennan, you want to lead us off? right,
Brendan: Kenny, we'll give you a quick, quick question or statement, give us a first thing that comes to mind, quick answer and, we'll hit you with like three or four of them.
So, what's, what's one item you are bringing to the tailgate?
Kenny: Oh man. original cores, cores. There you go.
David: The
Kenny: The yellow bellies. That's right.
Brendan: I love that. all right, so if you were a, referee or official, what's one rule you would change in football?
Kenny: Oh man. I think the quarterbacks get too much protection these days. You know, I think they're out there. I think targeting, yes, there's some late hits. I agree with that stuff. But, you know, they're a little too, they're babied a little bit.
David: Agreed. What, if you were a coach, what would you do differently than you see most coaches do, right? Like, like what should coaches do more of that they don't already do now?
Kenny: Never draft a quarterback in the first round.
David: Whoa, hot take
Kenny: Always picking up used. That's what I would do. You know, I mean, they're just, they're so, they're so unproven and no one knows who's going to be great, who's going to be bad. I mean, even me, like, I mean, we, so Patrick Mahomes, he went to Texas Tech. I went to Baylor and so I saw Patrick Mahomes play a lot in the Big 12 and he just would make these crazy Brett Favre type attempts 50 percent of the time it worked, 50 percent of the time it didn't.
And I was like, there's no way the Chiefs are going to like do well with him, but obviously he's one of the best quarterbacks and you just don't know. I mean, and then some of these guys that are highly regarded, like they end up doing that. You know, you know, kind of fading out after two, three years. So that's that that position I would wait to find more of a seasoned seasoned vet.
So I like the Peyton Manning play, you know, the last three years of their, their, their career, pick them up and then try to write them out till get a super bowl or two out of them, you know?
David: makes sense. Broncos fan. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Here you go. What, what city? Should have a football team. That doesn't.
Kenny: Oh man, I wasn't ready for that one. Who, who doesn't have one? I mean, let's see.
I don't know. I know Alabama is not huge, but there's fans are crazy. So maybe, maybe they could support one down there. I don't know. Maybe in Gulf Shores or Mobile. So,
Brendan: Huge college football presence. You
Kenny: yeah, I think they might be able to.
David: football down there in Birmingham. I'm sure. Yeah.
Kenny: Yeah,
just put an elephant on the side of the helmet and they'd probably do well.
Brendan: There you go. Well, Kenny, we appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your real estate investing experience with our listeners.
Again, we focus a lot on the residential space. I think getting someone with your background. Who, um, had some interest in single family residential, maybe initially day two of the guru course, you're like, Hey, we're going to go multifamily and do this big. So we appreciate you coming and sharing some of this, this information and where else can people learn a little bit more about you or get in touch with you if they need to.
Kenny: Sure. So the best place is probably our website, wolf with an e dash investments. com. We're pretty active on social, so you'll find us on Facebook and Instagram. And then we have a YouTube channel. We put up educational content once, once a week. And so, um, that's a good kind of online presence. And then you'll, um, I speak a lot around the country.
So we have, events coming up. Like I said, I'm speaking at the left field investors event in Columbus. I'm kind of close to y'all. Nashville's coming up, the build conference. And then we actually host a. big conference three times a year, multifamily, called MF investor network. com go there. our next one is in Manhattan.
So we're taking it to the big apple. here, November 4th, that weekend. So that's always fun. we fly in national speakers, Bob Helms, Tom Billwright, those kind of folks speak in the morning and then educational breakout sessions. We're the anti guru. We do not sell anything, at the end. There's no like bright spotlight on you. Um, it's just education and networking. Um, and, it's a great place to, to learn if you want to do multifamily, um, and then meet people who have actually done it as well. So we're, we're all over the country. I'd love to meet everybody. give us a shout some way or the other.
Brendan: Awesome. Kenny, thanks again. Dave and I will go ahead and get us signed out here. So thanks for tuning in to this week's episode. Make sure to let us know what you think or write in with different suggestions or topics for the show at podcasts at upright. us.
David: Make sure to like and subscribe to Real Estate Investing Unscripted so you don't miss out on any episodes.
And if you like us, leave us a five star review. That's a wrap, Kenny.
Kenny: Awesome. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.
David: Nah, man. Thank you.
