In this solo walkthrough, Christian Osgood of Multifamily Strategy showcases a 44‑unit, 55+ senior housing complex in Stephenville, Texas, explaining why the 55+ asset class is dramatically under‑utilized yet consistently high‑performing. He outlines the demographic surge of boomers entering their 70s‑80s, the chronic shortage of senior‑focused multifamily in many markets, and how these factors create near‑perfect occupancy and low delinquency rates. Osgood details how he acquired the property for $1.8 M through a pre‑market broker relationship, emphasizing the importance of relationship‑driven deal sourcing. He then walks through operational advantages—long‑term, reliable tenants, predictable rent payments, and minimal turnover—followed by a design and amenity playbook tailored to senior residents (wide floor plans, ADA‑compliant units, community spaces, bingo nights, coffee stations, and strategic laundry options). Renovation tips such as uniform appliance colors and avoiding in‑unit washers for entry‑level assets are shared. Financially, the property is presented as a cash‑flow “monster,” benefitting from LIHTC affordability limits that keep purchase price low while allowing strong cash flow and a valuation that has already doubled. Osgood concludes by urging investors to seek out the scarce 55+ niche in any market, noting successful replication in Washington State and another 80‑unit Texas project.
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We're back in Stephenville. I'm at my 44-unit building. I'm going to be sharing a strategy that is massively overlooked by real estate investors all over the country. This is my highest performing property, and on today's episode, I'm going to show you exactly why. Welcome to Multifamily Strategy. If you're new to the channel, I'm Christian Osgood, host of Multifamily Strategy. I have about hundreds of units all over Washington State, where I'm originally from, and Texas, where I live now. The building behind me is the office for the 44-unit complex. Now, I'm out here today without my usual camera crew, so welcome to the behind the scenes selfie mode of Multifamily Strategy. Super excited to share this with you. but the strategy that I'm going over today is 55+ and why 55+ communities are such an advantage. Now for context, 55+ does not mean assisted living, which this is not, but it does mean that you need to have the design, the ADA compliance, and the amenities to facilitate it. Why is this such a great asset? One, almost every market I've ever seen, especially in the state of Texas, there's not enough senior living. Two, the earliest boomers are just now turning 80, either this year or next year. What does that mean? That means that we have a huge influx of senior citizens that are moving into property just like this. Now it's 55+, but a majority of our tenants here are going to be in their 70s or early 80s. We stay at almost 100% occupancy at all times. We're actually turning one unit, so I'll walk you through the only unit that is vacant right here. We haven't cleaned it yet, so keep that in mind, but I'll still show you what the interiors look like. But this is really clean real estate, excellently landscaped, nice brick buildings, excellent location in an amazing booming market that that really needs senior housing. For that reason, no matter what happens, we stay fully occupied all year round. Best part, the price that we got this for. There's so few buyers who know about 55+ communities. A lot of people just overlook it. They're like, oh, it's a restriction, I don't know, I want something more conventional. You basically get the same building but with better tenants. Let me take you inside and I'll explain. All right, so why are the tenants actually better at a 55+ community? Well, first of all, they've been tenants a lot longer than a lot of your other tenants. They've gone through a lot of the hardships. They've learned how to work a laundry machine correctly. They pay their rent on time. They have a long rental history. But essentially, they've been around a little bit longer. You just get rid of a lot of the new renter mistakes. They know how to use appliances. They know how to do basic repairs. For the most part, you almost never have delinquencies or non-pays in a 55+ community. Also, generally speaking, senior citizens are going fall into two categories. Either they saved up through their career, they bought a house, they may have even paid off that house, but a lot of that generation owns a whole lot of real estate. They have their house, they raise their family, they're now retired, or they've been lifelong renters. If you are renting and you're in your 60s, 70s, 80s, most likely you're used to being a renter, you're okay with being a renter, and you're going to find a nice quiet place that you want to be at, which is the next way to succeed in senior housing. Right now we're inside the Central Clubhouse you have to have amenities. Now, when we started this project, a lot of the prior amenities have been shut down. The old owner did not run this the way that I would run these. So we reinstituted things like bingo nights, Bible studies, Thanksgiving dinner in the main room. It's the little things that go a long way. We provide basic amenities such as coffee machines. We do stock food in this fridge. There's a fridge over in the other kitchen over there. There's also a little Keurig bar. TV is nothing super fancy. And I don't want to advertise this as like the Ritz. It's not. It's entry-level housing, but this is when you do entry-level housing correctly. It looks something like this. Nice buildings, clean furniture, ultra-high ceilings, which is a huge bonus in my opinion. And you just— you put as many community features as you possibly can to make it comfortable. We also have in-unit hookups if they want to bring their own laundry machine, or they can use our central laundry room, which is on the other side of this building that we're in right now. But here's the real trick. There are less people overall trying to buy 55+. It's also in limited supply. To my knowledge, there's 3 other 55+ locations in this city. So you don't have many other options. We're the most affordable. We're also the nicest. We have the most amenities, the largest units, the cleanest floor plans, and frankly, the best landscaping. If you can create the best place at the lowest price, you basically never have to deal with vacancy, and we are massively profitable. Without having to push rents higher and higher from where they're at today. Now, the negotiation for this— so this is 44 units, 11 fourplexes with this entire central office building. You got paved parking, you have laundry facility, everything that we just walked through. $1.8 million. This was technically on market— it was pre-market. This was with a broker relationship that we had built on a different transaction. It was listed with their firm but not yet posted online, which is the sweet spot for brokers. If you can build some relationships you can buy on-market deals before they're fully on market and public. So this came up. Anyone with any relationship with this brokerage could have bought this building. A lot of people had already passed on it. I was not that broker's first call, but when it came up, $1.8 million, 44 units of this quality in Texas. This is Stephenville, Texas, a town with booming population growth, massive rent growth, and with the expansion of the college, a lot of your Stephenville locals are starting to get displaced by college students, which means real estate like this is at a premium. Does that mean that we're jacking up the prices that are unaffordable? No. In fact, this is designated affordable. This is a LIHTC property. We actually have limits on what we can charge on rents, which is why we're able to negotiate price so aggressively today. This is a cash flow monster. And as long as we keep occupancy up, which we do, this will be the best deal I have ever purchased in the state of Texas. Let's check out the interior of the only available unit in this complex. All right, this is our only available unit. It hasn't been deep cleaned yet, but still, I mean, this is, this is about as bad as they get here. We already pre-leased this, so we have a move-in coming in in about a week. Uh, so by the time you see this video, it's probably already has, uh, back to 100% occupancy. Uh, but this is what I like about entry-level housing, and for senior living, you're looking for one-story you're looking for wide floor plans, you want to be as ADA efficient as possible. Actually do have some actual ADA units here that is disability compliant. So room for wheelchairs, walkers. This is a standard unit. But even, even so, your ability to get around in here is pretty fantastic. Up and over here, one of the main rules— this is, this is what happens when you do it correctly. It's the little things. White appliance, white appliance, white appliance back here behind me. One of my least favorite things when I take over an apartment complex is when you have the stainless steel microwave, the black oven, and the white fridge. It looks completely junky. Just match them. When you're renovating, choose a color, stick with the color. Entry level, don't do stainless steel. It gets beat up and it stays beat up. White or black, super easy to clean and it costs less. Entry level, white or black, choose one. If you're B+ or higher, then go stainless steel. That's your rule of thumb. Another thing that I really like about this building— this is, this is the perfect setup. Washer and dryer hookups. If you provide them their own washers and dryers, they will break them. Ask any landlord ever. They use too much detergent, they gum up the system. It's a nightmare. If you give them the option to bring their washer and dryer, many people will actually bring their own. So you have your own hookup there. And then we have a laundry room so that you don't have to buy a laundry machine. You just have it as an amenity if you want it. Having the option is huge. Providing the laundry machine in-unit is a mistake. Again, until you get into Class B+ or A, you run less risk there. Moving on to the bedroom. So for senior living, avoid studios. They do not want studios. They need a little bit of space. They don't need to be huge, but you want wide open spaces and you want to have a large closet. These are the little things that I found for 55+ will keep you at 100% occupancy. A decent size walk-in closet, a decent size bedroom, a nice, clean, accessible bathroom with handrails. You do not want someone slipping and falling. Remember, they're not ancient, but you're trying to rent to people who are older. But that is 55+.
So in summary, why do we love this so much? Because we have increasing demand and limited supply. There's not a lot of these being built, and I've seen markets like this all over the country. There's usually 1, 2, or 3 55+ communities. There's not that many of them. And while you might think it's limiting you, there's so few of them, really you just have increasing supply with a limit to demand. Whenever you see this in a market, it's usually a signal that you should look into it deeper. This worked for me in Stephenville, Texas. We also did an 80-unit, almost identical. I couldn't even get interior photos because it's 100% occupied. The buildings work so well. It works amazingly in Texas. I've also seen it work in Washington State where I invest. So no matter where you are in the country, do not overlook this asset class. It is needed. And you do deals like this where you really do win on price, where you might not be able to have that much of a win or that ease of operation in your traditional multifamily. Again, we purchased this for about $1.8 million. It was one of the easiest capital raises I've ever done. It cash flows from day one and stabilized. This is worth more than twice what we bought it for. We bought it at 80% occupancy. It took us less than a year to get to and maintain 100% occupancy with a short waitlist. So when a unit becomes available, we usually lease it within the first week. I hope you learned a lot on this video.
I hope you don't overlook these opportunities in your market.
And if you want to learn more, there is a link below to a 10-minute video on how investors, not just like me, but like you in markets like yours all over the country, are buying deals exactly like this. So check that video out. It's 10 minutes. Below. I'll see you on the next episode.
