Building a Great TEAM to Purchase Apartments

[Ezra Robinson]

Hey,

I was wondering how everyone built their syndication teams when they were first getting into buying apartments? Where did you find/meet them, how did you present the opportunity to them and were they people that you knew prior or people that you meet and built a relationship with after deciding to purchase apartments?

[Chris Seveney]

@Ezra Robinson

For our fund (not MF but in real estate), I had been doing it on my own for 5 years, then added a team member who wanted to learn the business so I took her under my wing. She was a rockstar who also just happened to be in sales. She is now my VP of investor relations and I consider her a business partner (note I am on east coast and she is on west coast and we worked together for a year before actually meeting).

She brought on 3 other staff members from her community who had specific expertise and I added 4 others who also had specific expertise.

Building a team does not happen over night and was a lengthy process because you need the right players for your team. You also have to have significant cash to cover payroll for your staff as well.

One other comment to add is to not go cheap when finding staff, for a large fund, and extra $25k on someone who is far superior skill set is a drop in the bucket.