"Syndicators" with no operational experience

[Chihiro Kurokawa]

There are people purporting to be experienced "syndicators" who have marketed themselves very well, but they lack operational experience. Many "syndicators" have been unable or unwilling to find their own deals and so they sign up with others to raise capital to get a piece of the promote. I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with this so long as they are transparent about it. 

However I take exception to people who build significant reputations on the basis of having done X number of deals but their involvement in those deals is strictly as a capital raiser. They're promoting themselves on podcasts, in person and online as syndicators and implying that they're taking deals through the cycle when in fact they're raising capital and then building little or no asset management experience. When I listen to the podcasts I'm not even sure the interviewers know! I think this is straight-up unethical and deceptive. 

This is not a criticism of capital raising specialists who are transparent about what they do, such as @Alina Trigub, @David Thompson, GoodEgg etc. I'm bringing this up because I know the poser is eventually going to bring a deal to market and pick up investors based on false pretenses. It seriously concerns me that people will invest their money while being misled about the GP's inexperience with regard to multifamily operation. 

[Steve Vaughan]

Honesty,  I'd love to be more passive.  It's where we want to be after years of being hands-on. Definitely agree there needs to be more transparency about what the capital raisers have done specifically.  

I have colleagues I trust and that are extremely knowledgeable who take on vetting sponsors as pretty much their 'full-time' gig.  They have to. The market is completely saturated.

Everybody and their sibling seems to be a syndicator these days. Instead of underwriting 200 deals to find one, you have to research 200 syndicators.  Still a high bar on my nap or effort/reward index.

It's like drafting a professional athlete.   You will potentially get better returns betting on young talent, but it's risky.  The proven sponsors give up less, because they can.  A new sponsor's cost of capital might be 16%. A seasoned one, 12%. Risk/reward.   

If investors are doing it right, i.e. investing wealth built up themselves over time, they should probably go with the proven provider.  12% is plenty when you are at the capital preservation and legacy wealth stage.  Not so much if starting out and need to take on more risk.  Unfortunately this home run money is usually also a huge % of the new persons world. Careful out there.