How Do Syndicated Apartment Holds Fail?

[Jason Merchey]

I'm looking into investing a good amount of cash in my first syndicated apartment deal. Buy-fix-reposition-hold. I am imagining there are about 25-50 fairly sophisticated individuals involved on the equity side, maybe $5-10m in debt. My question is, what are the odds of a total meltdown in the process? In other words, do competent and experienced syndicators pretty much always do what they say they are going to or make it up to you in the coming year, or is some kind of significant permanent loss of my investment an actual concern? I am trying to conceptualize the risks of giving money over to a syndicator and property management outfit for 4-6 years.

[Sam Grooms]

@Jay Hinrichs alluded to management, but here are some ways to fail strictly related to underwriting:

1. Underestimating operating expenses
2. Underestimating expense growth
3. Overestimating repositioned rents
4. Overestimating rent growth (post stabilization)
5. Underestimating capital expenditures
6. Not enough reserves
7. Not enough contingencies
8. Not inflating exit cap rate enough
9. Not inflating interest rates enough (if not fixed)

As an investor, you need to be able to understand and "check" all of these out during your due diligence.