@Brandon S. @Sam Levin and @Becca Summers thank you for inquiring and sharing your thoughts about us. FIG has been a great niche in the market place in Utah, Idaho and Texas. Like Sam and Becca have said, I truly do believe we have been doing great things for our clients. But you are right Brandon. No company is Perfect and without flaws. I’ll tell you some of the mis steps we have had in our growth which has led to over $350M in sales in 5 years.
1. Scale. Growing companies is incredibly challenging. Doing something once is nothing like doing it 10 times. Or 100 times. Compounding that we are replicating in other states with different trade bases, municipal guidelines, lending practices, etc. This throws massive wrenches into the system. This also creates a bumpier ride for us and for our clients. But they have all come out the other side better than they started financially and FIG has always honored their commitments financially when their is a delay to compensate our clients.
2. Communication. Because of the tremendous growth at times the communication is more “mass” communication verse a personalized hand held approach. We miss the one on one with every client and have been adapting new systems and hiring new people to improve but this is still an area of focus. A client can always call, text or email for personalized updates anytime though and get service on their terms.
3. With scale also comes inefficiencies. Today’s building climate is one of the most competitive in history. Our last recession wiped out a massive amount of our labor market as have recent regulations. We have an imbalanced society with fewer and fewer willing participants to swing the hammer on a job site and be in the elements 8-12 hour days vs in a fast food place or office setting. This labor shortage leads to increased costs for labor as well as delays as there are only so many laborers and a massive amount of building going on. For example. Just 10-15 years ago and all prior it was the sub contractors marketing to the general contractors to earn the chance to give a bid on their project. They would impress with swag, trips, etc. Now, many general contractor companies need marketing’s crews specifically to recruit and retain loyal subs that will be reasonably affordable and show up and then stay on the job till completion. I call this the tail wagging the dog in the building market.
4. Patience: The FIG business model is one of the “long play”. A client looking to “get rich quick” should call an infomercial salesmen and see what they have. Oft times when investing with FIG you will commit to something that is as much as two years out. Our team is relentless about analysis of areas for jobs, housing, unemployment, growth, and job depth (kinds of jobs as we like STEM growth in the areas we invest in). These factors help edge against the risk of time and have yielded superior results for clients.
Another aspect of the patience needed is that stabilization of a 200-300 unit project feels different than a partnership or syndication. Reason is your investment is fee simple so if you buy a fourplex all you really financially care about is your units being filled yet our PM group is fair and fills across the board fairly which means there is also a stabilization game of patience clients need to be prepared for.
So there you have it. I hope some of these “skeletons” in the closet shed more light on details you may or may not have heard of yet. With any other questions don’t hesitate to book a consult on our site. Our team is full of educators. Our culture is that real estate does NOT need to be sold. The good stuff sells itself. However, every deal deserves and should have the right education to help clients see how that deal translates into what their objectives and needs are.
Happy investing!
