All Forum Posts by: Colton Hahn

I was an active investor and completely transitioned into passive real estate syndication investing. I live in Columbus, Ohio - and have a great accountant who taught me what he calls the "Lazy 1031" strategy. Basically, I sold all of my active real estate - single family and multifamily and invested much of the capital into syndications. The syndications did cost segregation and used bonus depreciation to deliver me large paper losses that offset the gains from the properties I sold. I did not pay tax on my gains and I didn't have to do anything complicated like a 1031 Exchange or a DST. The only thing I had to do was make sure I had enough paper loss to offset all of the gains and had to make sure it was done in the same calendar year.

I continue to use the strategy - when deals go full cycle, I invest in a new syndication.  It's called the Golden Hamster Wheel - instead of 1031 until you die, you just continue reinvesting and defer the tax.  I have been doing this for several years and I don't pay tax on my real estate gains.

You mentioned the challenge of finding a clear voice through the noise - it is difficult to find quality operators in the syndication space.  Many of the best have plenty of capital so they don't advertise.  Many operators are great podcasts and are very well known, but how do you know if they are quality operators or quality marketers?  These are incredibly illiquid, long-term investments that are completely out of your control.  Once you make the investment, there is nothing you can do but watch and wait.  This makes it even more critical that you find quality operators to do that.  When I first started, I mainly found operators through listening to podcasts.  I was exposed to some great operators - and plenty who are not so great.  This is a hard way to find business partners. Now, I leverage my Community - I don't invest in a new operator unless they are recommended to me by someone I know, like and trust and that person is part of my Community and has invested with the operator.  I still do the same due diligence on the operator, but I am starting from a much better position - a position of trust.  It has made a huge difference in the success of my investments.  I strongly believe you need a Community - just like you came to BP for help with active investing, it makes sense to find a specific Community (or several!) that focuses on real estate syndication investing.  

We are both in Columbus - so let me know if you would like to connect!

The debate about a market crash has become almost as emotional as some other favorite American controversies. You don't see seasoned investors selling off their portfolios. Especially on social media no matter if it's the BP Facebook groups or other platforms. The debate has become quite emotional and a lot of it is fueled by influencers who make a living predicting the imminent crash. Entire YouTube channels are dedicated to the crash, and new investors just fall for these opinions! 

You see posts that foreclosures are up 25% and they don't understand that we only have 69,000 so you can see a 21% swing but that's still nothing compared to 2,900,000 at the peak. Or my new favorite a news article that shows a graphic titled "price reductions" showing a US map and most major cities show in red numbers -21% or -29% making it look like prices are dropping and "it has begun.." comments, when in reality these are the % of listings that had a price reduction before they sold.

If you are a new investor and you are in the market crash camp, why do you think none of the seasoned investors are selling?

Enough fuel for the fire - I'll just leave this here for debate!

For those who have been in the syndication game for awhile, how would you say sponsors typically perform in terms of expectations? 

XX% lose money 

XX% underperform expectations 

XX% match expectations

XX% outperform expectations

I understand that this is very general and will vary by the person and how many deals they have done. I am just trying to understand how this passive component of investing compares to passively investing in the stock market via index funds. Obviously right now the stock market, and by default index funds, are down. But if real estate syndications rarely lose money then it seems they would provide much more consistent or predictable returns over time. 

I’m selling a couple of commercial properties and want to look into syndications. Here’s what is happening: I’ve gone to sponsor websites to see available projects. They aren’t readily available, so I have to provide a bunch of information. Ive done this three times and all of them said they do not currently have projects available. Then, I get bombarded by emails that are useless. Then, I have to block them so, even if they do come up with a project, I’m not going to hear about it. It’s much easier to become an equity partner in a small development project that it is to gain access to basic information from syndications that are supposed to be hassle-free. Comments?

I looking to scale up. I would like to move to Multi-Family investing. I'm just not sure how to get into it. Looking for suggestion on meet-ups. I have read books on it. But you can't has a book questions. I'm kind of stuck. Any suggestion or recommendations would really help.