How He Went From 0 to 4,500 Apartment Units in 8 Years (From $0 to $650M Portfolio)

I would look at an apartment building, 100+ unit, and just be like, I have no idea how to own that.

Zero doors to now 4,500. How does that happen?

We were working on a multifamily renovation for a syndicator. Our first deal was 36 units. Our next one was 216 units. The one after that was a 1,200-unit portfolio.

Is this a good time to be in multifamily or should people be running?

I think, um, What's up, guys?

So today we have Mr. George Abreu in the house. This guy has gone from 0 to 4,500 units in a matter of 8 years, 4,500 multifamily units and around $650 million in assets under management. Plus, he has a fully integrated company, property management company, insurance, all kind of different things, a part of his company. So we're excited to have him here. He's going to break down and we're going to have a conversation of exactly how he is finding deals that no one else has access to in today's market and how he's able to raise capital, how he's able to run these deals profitably and scale his team. So without further ado, let's welcome George Abreu.

Thank you. Thank you.

There was probably some really cool music that just happened while I said that. So just assume it was really dramatic.

All right.

Excited to be here, man.

Yeah. Glad you're here. Glad you're here. We got Larry over there. He is, he's going to make sure everything looks good. And so, yeah, we're excited. So let's just break it down. Take us from the beginning. What? Because I'm sure there's people like, man, you probably had the setup. You probably got the inheritance. You probably had everything going for you to go from zero to 4,500 in 8 years. What was it like in the beginning and where you at now?

Absolutely.

So Definitely didn't have any of that. I did come from the single-family space. So 20 years ago, I started investing in single-family. We did a ton of transactions from fix and flips to wholesaling to we started building from the ground up. So we did anything and everything you can think of in single-family, had a rental portfolio as well.

What year was this?

So 2006 is when I started getting investing in single family. I didn't get introduced to multifamily syndications until 8 years ago. So before that, I would look at an apartment building, 100+ unit, and just be like, I have no idea how to own that. How would I, you know, have the money or anything to own that? And then when I was explained the fact that you can syndicate it and bring these investors together, and buy it as a partnership, I was all in because I mean, all the years before that, so 11 years or so, I kept trying to scale single family and we did all right. We did some pretty decent numbers on a yearly basis.

But what was that?

You know, we were at the height, we were probably wholesaling maybe 100 deals while also doing maybe 30 or 40 fix and flips and then maybe some wholesaling.

100 deals in a year? Yeah, per year. Plus 30 or 40. So, okay, so you got into single family and you did pretty good. We did pretty good.

And when we were able to scale it, you know, that's how I started the construction company because, yeah, the first bottleneck I ran into were the contractors, finding good contractors. So, you know, we were able to scale that, but it was only— it was still to a certain extent you get worn down like I felt like I was just couldn't get out of that that grind of the single family. So when I realized, you know what, I can get 100 units in just one transaction, I was like, that's, that's what I got to do.

You went from active and having a full-time job, not really able to create a portfolio, something that will build true wealth.

Yes.

And then you realize, okay, I can actually keep these deals. I can actually, with other people's money, Yep. Yeah. Where was that lightbulb moment? How did that happen?

Turns out I mentioned the construction company. We were working on a multifamily renovation for a syndicator.

Okay.

And just started talking to him and he explained to me how he syndicated the deal and how he put it all together.

Yeah.

And that's— I think that was the lightbulb moment. I'm just like, wait, I can do that. You know, I can put those pieces together. So that's when I started getting more educated. And it took me about a year to really learn the multifamily, right? It's just because you've done single family doesn't mean you can go and buy an apartment. The underwriting alone, you know, that takes quite a bit to grasp. And then, you know, a year later, I think is when we did our first deal. And then from there, just kept growing and growing.

That's awesome. So now where are you at? Like, what's transpired over the 8 years? How did you grow from the beginning zero doors to now 4,500. How does that happen?

Yeah, in the beginning it started somewhat slow. You know, our first deal was 30, 36 units. We learned a lot in that one, right? We put a lot of systems in place and then our next one was 216 units. So, wow. So we made a big jump there and that's when we really started learning how to raise more capital and being able to take these bigger units on. And then the one after that was a 1,200-unit portfolio. So yeah, we're jumping pretty big on from transaction to transaction, raised quite a bit of equity on that one and then just kept taking it to the next level after that.

I'm sure having a construction company probably saved you a lot of costly mistakes and helped a lot. So for a new syndicator getting in, would you— yeah, recommend part— I would think partnering with somebody with a construction background would be a wise choice, maybe.

Absolutely. And, and I never suggest right off the bat starting your management company, or I've had people come up to me, should I start a construction company? And it's, you know, we started those things after years of doing it, but. To your point, yes, I would say partner with somebody that has that experience.

You probably had a few costly mistakes in the growth of the construction company, right? Just a few.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So, and there's probably people watching that, that would want to know at what point do, would it make sense for me to start construction company or, or property management company? What would you say to that?

I would say construction's a beast.

I don't know if anybody needs to start their own construction company, but, um, don't endorse. Yeah, partner with George.

Just partner with a good, good contractor. I'm here if you need me. But the management, I do think maybe at some point it's just easy to get distracted. And the reason we started our management company is we found a good partner, somebody that was going to run that day to day. To answer your question, I do think you need a certain amount of units for it to make sense. If not in a certain area, in a certain area, so you can have that economy of scale on the management. Side of things.

Yeah.

If not, you're going to find yourself funding that management company essentially if you don't have enough units.

Yeah, it's a big cost savings, but if you don't have enough units or your, your properties are spread out everywhere, it's not going to make a whole lot of sense.

Yeah. Because you got to pay that corporate level payroll, right? If you're going to have a regional. Yeah. Your accounting, all those things.

Yeah.

And you shared a lot of great information on operations and property management today at our mastermind. But, you know, the, the biggest thing is you do get feed to death with property management companies, right? But I always tell people, you have to— if you are going to hire a third-party management company, you have to manage them as hard as you— harder than you would have to manage the property yourself, right?

Yeah. So if someone was stuck at 2 units, right now, 1 or 2 units.

Got it.

They wanted to scale. Maybe they're stuck because it's like they're doing the single-family route. They're realizing what you realize. It's just not worth their time. You know, they have a full-time job or whatever it is. What would you say for that person if they really wanted to scale, get into bigger doors, their first deal be a 36-unit like yours? You know, what would you say?

I think one thing I love about multifamily, it's, it's a team game.

Right.

You don't necessarily have to do it all yourself. You can go and partner with others that complement each other.

Yeah.

And then, you know, let's say you've got a strong network and you feel that you can raise some capital and that's kind of what you can bring to the table, then you can partner with somebody that's good in the operations or that can find the deal and get yourself into some of these larger deals.

Yeah, that's good. All right. Break down what are the biggest challenges you've faced over the 8 years?

Okay.

And what were the biggest things that helped you scale?

I think biggest challenges is probably building out the team, you know, finding those right team members to really help us scale. I've learned a lot when it comes to recruiting and, you know, the hiring process and really making sure we're aligned. And that's really what's helped scale, you know, finding those right individuals to help us grow, to throughout the years?

Okay. Biggest challenge was finding the team. Yeah. And, and then the biggest help was getting the team. Yeah. Who would have thought? Finding the team. Yeah. So, so what?

So what you wish you would have known before you did that first deal was how to find a team? Yes.

Yeah. So what is the progression there, though? So somebody said 2 units, they want to get to 4,500 or they want to scale up. At what point or what stages are we bringing people on and what are the learning lessons there? Like, how do we find the right people?

The first thing is you got to get educated, right?

Yeah.

You know, whether that's a program like REI or whatever it's going to be, you got to get that education. Once you have that, you start— you have to start getting in the right rooms and networking and meeting those partners. They're not just going to come to you.

Yeah.

Right. And then just putting those pieces together. Like I said, you know, make sure you— whatever you're good at, that you're complementing your, your partners and then just start going after it.

Yeah. What do you think the biggest misconception is when getting into multifamily or just multifamily in general? What do you think the biggest misconception is in the state there as far as should I get into multifamily or being successful in multifamily? Like, what is that?

I think there's a few things come to mind when you say that. I think one is first you got to mentally wrap yourself around some of these numbers. Especially if you're coming from the single-family space where you're dealing with, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is on the single-family homes. And now you're jumping over to a couple million dollars.

Yeah.

Or more depending on how big of a property you're buying. And then the mindset where you're also now bringing investors to come into these deals with you and you're essentially asking people for money. So I see a lot of people struggle with those two things. The fact that you're dealing with really big numbers And now you're also asking people to invest with you and come into these deals with you. It takes a while too. Like I, I never suggest somebody to quit their day job right off the bat. It, it takes some time for you to meet the right people, to start putting the work that it takes, whether it's putting yourself out there on social media, networking, all that. It takes a while to all kind of come together.

Yeah.

Yeah. So don't think, don't think one, you know, next day you're going to buy a $10 million property and you've got a strong system around finding great deals.

You've been able to access deals that not many people have been able to access. And now we talk about how to do that at a, even if you're new, what do you think the keys are to really being able to get great deals? In today's market?

I think whether it's today's market or any market, one is it starts— it's multifamily is still very relationship-based. You can try to do as much as you want online and look at numbers and all that kind of stuff. But in multifamily, it still comes down to relationships, who you know, who you've built that rapport with. You've got to really be able to build relationships with brokers.

Yeah.

With other owners, and that's how you get the good deals. Lenders, you know, now in this, in this market, we're speaking about this market, you've got deals that are getting foreclosed, right? And the lenders are looking to sell those deals and they don't want to be blasting it out. So if they know you and they know you can close, they'll come to you. Same with the brokers as well.

Yeah, it's good relationships. Relationships, all about relationships. So when you're new, you start by building relationships. Those will be everything. Partner up, relationships.

Yeah.

Is that where you see the biggest opportunities, you think, in the next 12 months? Or some of these lender— I think so.

I definitely think so. I think they're going to start getting more and more desperate with their pricing and also taking the deals back. Like a lot of these deals have been kind of pushed back and pushed back. And I'm starting to see the lenders are not wanting to do that anymore.

Yeah.

And as owners have had to take on higher interest rates, a lot of them are just holding on, trying to hold on as long as they can. Right. And at some point they got to pull the trigger.

So, yep.

Yeah. Raising capital. I mean, you've done well at building brand. You're a strong networker. You're strong at that. But what do you feel like if somebody was brand new, they've never raised capital before, or even at your level, maybe they have raised capital, What is the foundation? What do you really need to be focused on?

I bet he's going to say relationships.

Relationships!

Who would have thought?

In the podcast right now. Just go build relationships, guys. No. I mean, what do you think is for building a capital raise ecosystem, really being able to attract capital and close capital? What is— what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, look, I didn't start with a strong network. Friends and family, not a lot of my friends and family had disposable funds like that to invest. So I started with social media. I just started putting out there what I was doing and then going to events. I mean, I was at events constantly building relationships.

That's where I met you, huh?

Yeah. So really just hitting the social media hard and also the events. And networking.

How do you convert that into actual capital?

Right, right. I mean, at some point you need to— so meanwhile you're educating them or showing them what you're doing and the kind of things and the benefits of it. At some point you do have to have a call to action, right? So you need to create that, whatever that funnel looks like, get them in, get them to a one-on-one call.

Okay.

Don't just hit them hard with a sale, you know, get—

Yeah.

Everybody's got individual goals, right? So figure out what that investor's goals are and then see how it aligns with your investment.

Yeah. So what are you actually doing? Like, what events are you attending? What are you posting on social media? Like, what, what does that actually look like?

It's a mixture of things, right? But on the post, a lot of it would be, let's say I'm walking a property today and I'm looking at things. I would literally do a video of me walking into the property, what I'm looking at, what I look for. Or if it's going to be more of, okay, I'm doing this post specifically for— I'll give you a checklist, right? If you're looking to invest passively, make sure these are the red flags when looking at an investment or something like that. So showing myself doing the stuff, whether it's walking a property, doing due diligence on a property, and then educating.

Yeah.

And then events. You asked about events.

Yeah.

In the beginning it was a lot of real estate-focused events, which I started noticing that it's kind of a lot of them have the same network, same individuals that come to them. So started expanding a little bit out from that and going to more professional, like dentists. We have a lot of dentists that are investors, dentists that are interested in real estate. So going to those type of events or same thing with doctors or lawyers or whatever it is, you know, kind of going after the avatar of your investor. Where are they?

Right.

And showing up there.

Yeah, that's good. And then lastly, what are the names and phone numbers of your investors? All of them.

Ready?

No, no, I'm just kidding. Well, that's, that's huge, man. So when you were smaller, how did you get people to take you seriously?

Hmm.

Great question.

Not like height. Yeah. Like when you were smaller in investing. Yeah.

So when I was starting out, how did I get them to take me seriously? I think it was just building that trust, right? And maybe I didn't have credibility in multifamily when I was starting out, but I had credibility in everything I had done before that, and I kind of just leveraged that. So even if you're not in multifamily but you're successful at something else, you can at least leverage that experience.

Yeah.

And you get credibility from the education. You know, you mentioned that earlier, the education. You cannot have the track record, but if you know what you're talking about, you've educated yourself and you come with confidence, I think is a huge—

I went on a podcast, like 2 podcasts every week for a while when I first started out, you know, because that builds that credibility. They see you on a podcast, just posting on social media with the education helps.

Yeah, it only takes one deal.

Yeah.

And then you've got 10x credibility, right?

Things start spiring after you start closing some deals.

So yeah, that's what's exciting to me. You know, we help a lot of people get into investing and they do that first deal. It's a grind. It's hard to get in that first deal, but then it starts snowballing because they've done all this work. They got people that said, the investors that are like, yeah, next deal, let me know. Or I got to move money around and they don't make that deal. But then you do another deal.

Just to answer your question again, closing your first deal, closing your first deal, and make sure it's not a bad deal. Yeah, true, true.

All right. Yeah. So and then joining masterminds or being a part of communities and all that kind of stuff, is that worth it? Like, what do you— what are your thoughts towards, you know, masterminds, communities, networks? You know, stuff like that.

I mean, I've joined a lot of them throughout the years. I've joined a lot of coaching programs, a lot of masterminds. I think they all have something to offer. I think you have to make the most of it. Like, if you just show up there thinking you're going to get something out of it, no, you got to— you got to build that relationship. Once again, I know we're talking about relationships a lot, but you got to get out there and you got to do it. You can't just show up. You got to do more than just show up.

So again, what you get out is a function of what you put in, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. Last thing. The current market today, is this a good time to be in multifamily or should people be running?

I see people running.

Yeah.

Which tells me both.

Everybody else should run.

Yeah, everybody else.

So it's a good time, right? Look, prices have dropped. The basis you can get into deals now is unheard of looking a few years back. Right. The fundamentals for multifamily have not changed. Everything is still strong there. You, you have people that just can't afford a house. They've got to go rent depending on the market you invest in. So, you know, we look very heavy into certain markets. If you've got the population growth, you got the job growth, it just makes sense, right? So I think it's a great time. I think you can get killer deals right now. Good prices. Are you going to turn around and flip it in 6 months? Probably not., but it's going to be cash flowing. You hold it on for several years as this cycle starts going back up. Yeah, you'll be in a good place.

I love that the fundamentals haven't changed. The pricing is adjusted, right? Interest rates have gone up. Yeah, some distress where people paid too much, but the fundamentals haven't changed and it's not going away. And people still— there's still a huge demand for people.

It's only getting bigger, I think, man.

Yeah. Well, what about the war that's happening?

War was interesting. You know, interest rates were, if you guys remember, they were starting to come down a little bit. Yeah, not a whole lot, but it was coming down a little bit.

Yeah.

And then the war really threw a wrench in that.

People are expecting gas prices to go up. Yeah, we expect, you know.

Yeah, they went up for a bit, came, came back down a little bit. It's those things we can't control, right?

So that's—

we can only control what we can control. So You know, if we look for the right deal, it cash flows. In the big picture, none of that matters.

Yeah.

Right? So that's where I think you need to be careful and just focus on the things you can control. So that's why we only invest in certain markets 'cause there are other markets that try to control more things than others.

You mean with regulations?

Correct.

Government regulations.

Correct. Regulating rents or making it harder to evict residents and that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good, man. Well, thanks so much for jumping on. If you want to connect with George, what's your website?

ElevateCIG.com.

ElevateCIG.com. If you want anything with property management, if you have a deal you're looking at and you want them to come check it out, they do inspections, they do property management, they'll do construction, they'll do all this kind of— and insurance.

Correct.

Did I leave anything else out?

I think that's about it.

Yeah. Yeah. And just overall good guy. If you guys want to get into multifamily and you're, you're at that place where you maybe have a few units, maybe even have 100 units and you're wanting to scale to the next level, we're actually at an event right now with some of our top guys, people that have up to thousands of doors and some people with just a few doors. But every single one of them are accredited and they have a lot of Assets under management. So if you're looking to be in a room with people that are at another level and you want to scale and skip the mistakes other people make getting into multifamily or into bigger deals, drop in the description. We will share a link to our website and a link to book a call with our team. Love to talk with you and get you in the room if it makes sense. So hope this podcast helped. And, uh, we appreciate you, George, for being a part.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks, guys, for tuning in. We'll see you soon.