Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
Dave Dubeau [00:00:09] Well, hey everyone. Dave Dubeau Another episode of the Property Profits Real Estate podcast. And I tell you what, can you imagine going from zero units in your portfolio to 595 units in your portfolio in about 18 months? I mean, talk about scaling a business and a portfolio super quickly. That’s exactly what our special guest, Ted Samer, has done. Tait is a multifamily syndicator based in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah, which if you’re watching this on the YouTube channel, you’ll see Tate’s background absolutely gorgeous. And he’s done this very, very, very quickly. Scale his portfolio to levels that most people only dream of over decades. He’s done it in a year and a half. So tape. Welcome to the show.
Tate Seimer [00:01:02] Dave. It’s great to be here. You know, we know each other. You’ve been on my podcast before and really got some great value and I think very highly of you. So it’s an honor to be on your show and I’m looking forward to sharing what I can that will be helpful to other people.
Dave Dubeau [00:01:20] That’s right. And I forgot to mention that in addition to being a sharp, very sharp real estate entrepreneur, a darn good looking guy, he’s a past host of, I think. Did you change the name of the show, The Apartment yet? Yeah.
Tate Seimer [00:01:35] Yeah. So we were we were the apartment, guys. And then one of my partners, Chelsea Garber, has joined us for some of the episodes. So we couldn’t be the apartment guys anymore. She’s way too pretty for that. And so we changed the name to the apartment gurus.
Dave Dubeau [00:01:49] I thought, it’s because you get so darn good at this whole apartment thing that you went from just being a guy to be able to be at a guru.
Tate Seimer [00:01:54] And know I was about to say, I don’t I honestly don’t think of myself as a guru yet. You know, it’s worth two years into this business as far as ownership goes and about four or five years in as far as setting the foundation and building what we needed to build to grow. So.
Dave Dubeau [00:02:11] Well, let’s unwrap that, if you don’t mind. So, you know, we talk about you going from zero to, you know, what are 595 units in a year and a half. Yeah, that’s that is massive growth very, very quickly. But you just said something that really stuck with me. You know, all of these overnight successes typically require a hell of a lot of work on the front end. What’s right is to get set up for that success. So can you kind of walk us through how did that foundational part of things look for you guys getting set up for this phenomenal growth?
Tate Seimer [00:02:46] Yeah, so the genesis of our multifamily journey was literally, I mean, we had a 12 unit apartment community here in Salt Lake kind of fall on our lap. We had a wholesaler brought it to us and said, This is a great deal. Here are the numbers and this is how I would finance it and mean he kind of laid out the red carpet for us to do the deal and we had never considered seriously that we could do this business side of the business.
Dave Dubeau [00:03:13] So what were you doing prior to this?
Tate Seimer [00:03:14] Well, single family flipping.
Dave Dubeau [00:03:16] Okay. So how long had you been flipping for?
Tate Seimer [00:03:19] We had been in the serious flipping mode for about seven years. Okay. Maybe six, seven years at that point. And, you know, we had definitely gotten to a point where we knew it wasn’t very scalable. Flipping single family houses is hard, hard work. And in addition, it’s also not that I’m afraid of hard work, but it’s also speculative work in the sense of, you know, you buy a property, you estimate what it’s going to cost to improve it. You estimate what it will sell for. And, you know, you hope for a buyer at the end that’ll pay that price and.
Dave Dubeau [00:03:49] That’s a reasonable time frame. That’s right on the damn thing.
Tate Seimer [00:03:52] Yeah. You’ve got holding costs and everything else and you know that was one of the things we when we underwrote that first deal, it was like, wow, we’ve got income now. Like never had that before.
Dave Dubeau [00:04:02] This cash flow thing, right. Never heard of that. Yeah.
Tate Seimer [00:04:04] Yeah. You’re with single family. You’re just, you know, it’s just draining the account because you don’t have any income. But yeah. So that 12 unit was it was a very successful project. It was the most we had made on a project to date. We did improve it and then sell it. I wish we had kept it, but at the time we needed the capital.
Dave Dubeau [00:04:25] And plus, you were in the flipping mode. That’s what you mean. Yeah. For seven years that’s. That’s what your context was. Now you also had the team and the skill set to go in and do these major renovations and turn properties around. That’s, that’s huge. So that’s a big part of that. All those years of flipping.
Tate Seimer [00:04:42] Yeah. Yeah. You know there’s that analogy that when you plant a bamboo tree, you know, the way bamboo grows is you plant the tree underground, basically, and you water it and nurture it for five years. But you don’t see any sprouts or anything happening above ground. And then, you know, year five, all the sudden you get, you know, 20, 30, 40 foot shoots. And that’s kind of. The analogy here. It’s you know, when you say we grew that much in 18, 20 months, we obviously we have to talk about the foundational work that went in in the previous two or three years of really getting ready for that. And, you know, one of the things that you’ve got to do is you got to decide, you got to make the choice that you’re going to really go after multifamily. And we quickly got to a point where we knew that we wanted to go big, like large scale multifamily. And so what we did was, you know, I enrolled in a coaching mastermind with a gentleman named Cory Peterson, who many listeners have probably heard of. The big kahuna out of Phenix is pretty famous syndicator and learned the business from him. It was a pretty intense personal level mastermind where we one of the elements of it was I got to spend a one on one day, like the entire day with him, and he sat down 9 to 5 in his office and really just laid out how he does the business and opened his playbook. So he was also willing to be in our company profile, meaning we put him in as a team member and he and his wife and that enabled us to use his portfolio as part of our presentation. So we leveraged his experience and his portfolio and net worth as part of our team. And you know, that was an honest thing. Like he was willing to partner with us and do that side of the business. We never did a deal with him at the end of the day, but that gave us a confidence level to go out and start talking to brokers and going after properties. And so in that year or so, previous to the growth that we went through, we were writing lies, we were touring properties, we were touring markets and, you know, really going after things. And so in addition to the coaching mastermind, I went to a number of national conferences and I highly, highly recommend those to listeners because people talk about getting in the right rooms. And, and you also have this concept of your network is your net worth right? And so building your network right out of the gate is super important because you’re going to need partners to get these deals done. And so getting in a national conference where there’s 400 or 800 people that are they’re all doing the same thing, really elevate your game almost by osmosis because you’ve got all these people around you that are not only doing what you want to do but doing it at a level that you never imagined possible. And so you meet these people and it’s like, wow, they’re doing it. They’re killing it, right? And you know, with all due respect to them, they’re not necessarily more talented than me. They’re certainly not as good looking as me.
Dave Dubeau [00:08:00] No, no. I would find that hard to believe.
Tate Seimer [00:08:03] But I cared. But, you know, you get that they’re just human beings that have done different things than you and put themselves in a position to do this business at a high level. And to me, that’s there’s nothing that takes the place of that. And in addition, the speakers at these conferences are usually really high level and great. And, you know, Chelsea, my one of my two partners and I met at one of these conferences, the Michael Blanc conference called Dealmaker Live and 2019. And we’ve met other partners at these conferences. And so they’re kind of magical if you show up in a space of, you know, not only am I going to learn here, but I’m going to really attack these conversations and networking from a value add standpoint. Like I’m going to be looking at this like, how can I help other people? And so when you come in.
Dave Dubeau [00:08:53] All givers gain idea.
Tate Seimer [00:08:54] Yeah, yeah. The go giver, right. Like this is a value add currency in this in this space, in my opinion. And if you enter any situation or conversation or meeting with somebody from a space of like, how can I help this person? Number one, you’re acknowledging your own value because you’re like, If I can help somebody, that means I’ve got something.
Dave Dubeau [00:09:15] Oh, okay. So here’s a question. Like, if you’re if you haven’t done a multifamily deal yet, you’re still in the learning mode. You’re still in that.
Tate Seimer [00:09:23] Yeah.
Dave Dubeau [00:09:24] Getting ready to get started kind of thing. What value are you bringing to these kind of conversations, especially to folks that already do have some experience? How as a newbie, are you able to provide some value there? That’s a fascinating idea. Hold that thought for a second. Hi there. This is Dave Dubeau. And real estate investors hire me to raise capital the right way y because most of them are stuck with too small of a portfolio and they don’t know how to attract investors and raise money for their deals. So I help them to connect, capture and close their ideal money partners. Bottom line, when you’ve got a deal, you’re going to have the capital to do it. So go ahead and book a no cost capital clarity session with me at Book A chat with Dave dot COM. Again, that’s book I. Chat with Dave dot COM.
Tate Seimer [00:10:10] Yeah, it’s a great question. And sometimes it’s a matter of just being creative, like, you know, you’re in a market, right? You’re in our case, we’re in Salt Lake City. So right away you could be a boots on the ground partner for somebody doing deals. And in your local market, you can you know, if you’ve got some networking skills, some like phone skills, cold calling skills, you can talk about working with either direct to seller type situations or even broker relations, you know, going out and meeting brokers and so like the team concept is so huge here. It’s this is very much a team sport and everybody’s got value even if you haven’t done a deal yet. Of course, you want to make yourself more and more valuable quickly by, you know, exposing yourself to as much knowledge and experience as you can. And you mentioned that first deal, Dave. It’s like so, so key to get that first deal done. It’s like the biggest deal you’ll ever do in the sense of it puts you on the map and kind of kicks the business off because, you know, brokers now know who you are. You do have a track record of you could close deals so lenders come to you, even investors come to you, brokers come to you, and things get easier after that first deal. I won’t say they get easy because this is really hard work, but yeah.
Dave Dubeau [00:11:29] It makes it’s like anything, right? That first one is always the most difficult. So. All right. So how long did it sounds like it took? Actually, a couple of years between that that first 12 year that they kind of fell in your lap and you said, okay, hey, this is what I want to focus on. You invested in yourself. You got some high level coaching. Yeah. You didn’t scrimp. You went out to the, you know, these conferences and stuff. They are cheap. You’re probably forking out a few grand for doing tickets and hotels and airfare and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it makes an England. You’re networking. How long did it take before you got into that second deal, now that you’re really focused on it?
Tate Seimer [00:12:08] Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, you can kind of say that 12 year and it was our first deal. But, you know, I was pretty small scale, obviously, and we didn’t syndicate it. We got it. We got a hard money loan actually to do it. And then we actually you’re.
Dave Dubeau [00:12:22] In you’re in the flipping business. That’s how you knew.
Tate Seimer [00:12:24] That’s right. Yeah. We had hard money lenders and that we already had a track record with. So that was easy. That was an easy part of it. And we actually got an investor to do the down payment. So it was no money out of pocket for us to do that deal. However, it wasn’t really like what I look at as our first deal in the commercial space, even though technically it was to answer your question, it was a it was a good two years before we you know, we got into what I consider a larger scale first deal, the real first deal.
Dave Dubeau [00:12:55] We actually got that whole bamboo analogy comes in, right? Because, yeah, you know, nothing has happened at above the surface for two solid years your but you’re busting your butt learning, networking, looking at properties, making offers, doing your best. That must have been. I shouldn’t assume, but I’m guessing that must have been a little bit nerve wracking and perhaps frustrating at times because, you know, especially coming from your flipping business, you’re used to doing quite a quite a volume of deals. Yeah. Where are you still doing that business to keep the lights on in the meantime while you’re while you’re scaling things up?
Tate Seimer [00:13:34] You know, interestingly enough, we were actually building ground up during that time with some high end townhomes here in Salt Lake. And however, those projects really didn’t go well on a on a numbers level, though, the only projects we were lost money on. So we were doing deals and we were working on deals. In the meantime, we actually had a few land entitlement deals that we did to keep the lights on. But, you know, not only did we start from nothing in August and August of 2020, we had no properties except for the townhomes at the time, and those were underwater.
Dave Dubeau [00:14:11] So we started in the middle of a pandemic. Yeah.
Tate Seimer [00:14:15] Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. And then, you know, so we, we actually started from less than zero actually, and that made it pretty challenging on a mindset level. But you know, again, we had already decided that this is what we were going to do and we already had things in the works. You know, when you when you join a mastermind or a coaching program, which I highly, highly recommend, especially coaching, you have set into motion what you’re going to do next. And, you know, so you’re in the mindset of this is what I’m working towards and you’re studying very specifically how to do it and you’re taking action, you’re analyzing markets, going to markets, doing properties, meeting brokers. So it’s really, you know, I talk a lot when I do presentations and do my podcasts. We talk a lot about the mindset piece and it’s so. Foundational to really believe that you can do the business. And you know whether the Henry Ford quote I think I think it was him he says Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right.
Dave Dubeau [00:15:19] Right.
Tate Seimer [00:15:19] And that’s so true. If you believe if you don’t believe you can do this business, it’s going to be really hard to get that first deal done. You know, it’s because you’re swimming upstream in your own head. So and.
Dave Dubeau [00:15:31] So take. I completely agree. The mindset is huge. Yeah. Kept that strong throughout those two years. You’re keeping the lights on, doing other stuff. Yeah. Then you got that, that first big deal and you started kind of snowballing from there. We don’t have enough time, but we’ll have to come back and revisit some of the stuff. But just big, broad strokes. Yeah. How did you get those first couple of big deals done? You know, especially with syndications, with raising capital, with all that kind of stuff. It just hit the ground running. Raising capital. Is that how it.
Tate Seimer [00:16:05] Yeah. Yeah. And you know, look, in retrospect, I probably would have started our capital raising game differently and sooner. But I’ve been a deal first guy all along in my career. And, you know, a lot of people disagree with that approach, but I’ve always approached this from let’s go get something under contract and figure out the rest after that, like kind of the ready fire aim approach. And, you know, you put yourself in a situation where, you know, entrepreneurs solve problems, right? Like the bigger problem you can solve the more value you create and the more money you make. And so we put ourselves in a place of having problems, which was were deals that we needed to find and closed. And so, you know, it’s like everybody else, pretty much you start with your family and friends. You know, you start with your immediate sphere of influence and you let everybody know what you’re doing. You, you know, you put some branding together. You put in our case of credibility, which is a five or six page brochure about our company and our strategy and our team. And you just go out and do the things. And so, you know, it was in retrospect, I’ll just share this. There’s some great services that you can hire that will build your capital, raising infrastructure, your landing page or click magnet, your CRM integrations, your automated email. And I just kind of piece that together for us myself when we needed it, right? So it was kind of on the fly. And in retrospect, I would go back and hire somebody like I have no affiliation with them, but good ag investment state, they’ll build the whole thing for you and train you how to use it. I would do that because it’s a fast track to capital raising and you’re not going to miss key things because a pro is doing it for you and helping you do it.
Dave Dubeau [00:17:51] So finally we offer a similar service ourselves to go.
Tate Seimer [00:17:55] That’s great. Yeah. Or whatever.
Dave Dubeau [00:17:58] Department of Real Estate investor. Yep, yeah, yeah.
Tate Seimer [00:18:00] It’s great. And you know, so yeah. Called Dave reach out to Dave and you know, look at doing this because you know, the more that you can leverage people that are pros that do this all day, every day, whether it’s capital raising or anything else, you know, you’re basically accelerating your curve. And a lot of times, you know, people think it’s going to take a year or two years, three years for me to really get my first deal. And I would encourage you to think, you know, 3 to 6 months. Right. That may or may not happen. But if you take the steps towards that, you’re going to be way further ahead of the game. So, you know, you mentioned before conferences and the cost of those, like you got to be willing to invest in yourself, your company, and you got to be willing to do that before you really are producing revenue from the business for not in acquisition fees and other stuff. And you know, if you’re not well, first of all, if you’re not willing to do it, you shouldn’t be in this space. But if you’re not able to do it, you should really consider like how resourceful you are. Because if you can’t figure out how to finance a conference or even a $20,000 coaching program, like how are you going to finance a, you know, a $2 million capital raise to get that first deal done? It’s like you got to be resourceful and you got to believe in yourself to go out and get what you need. That’s a piece I’ve always had, just inherently just, you know, I believe if other people can do it and figure it out, I can do it and figure it out. And so, you know, yeah, we did leverage a lot of other people’s experience and knowledge, but I would double down on that and make that a huge part of the plan from the very beginning, especially with capital raising.
Dave Dubeau [00:19:48] Yeah, well said, Kate. This has been great. If people want to find out more about you, your company, your podcast, where should they go? What should they do?
Tate Seimer [00:19:55] Yeah, the best place to go is to our Web site, which is to invest with Greenlight dot com. That’s the name of our company, Greenlight Equity Group. So invest with Greenlight dot com. There’s a link. To. There’s lots of podcast info and you can dial up episodes right from the website. Most importantly, there’s a link to my Counly where you can actually book a 15 minute consult with me where we can just kind of, you know, talk about whatever. It’s no strings attached, no agenda. I’m not selling you anything. It’s a true value add on my part. And I love doing it. I love helping on, you know, newbies and novices scale up. And so, you know, that’s really the best way to add a high level interact with me. You can always email me and we can approach things that way as well. So I love hearing from listeners and I mean that’s a take me up on this.
Dave Dubeau [00:20:52] Is a very good tape. There’s been a lot of fun. And again, congratulations on that. Well, you know, when we look at it, that’s phenomenal growth. But what I really appreciate and respect is the amount of time and effort you put into things to get to that stage to for the bamboo shoot to sprout out of the ground. Most people, a lot of people would give up. Yeah. Before that that two year hiatus where nothing’s happening or it appears like nothing’s happening, that would, you know, cause a lot of people to drop off your persevered. You kept going and that’s a huge part of your success. So hats off to you for that, my friend.
Tate Seimer [00:21:30] Thank you. Just a quick note on the idea of faith, right? Like and I’m not talking about religious faith here. I’m talking about just the idea that if you plant that bamboo tree, even though you don’t see it, it’s still there. It still needs your attention and watering. And, you know, that is really the case in business, I think, where you set an intention and a vision for what you’re doing and then you take the action steps. But your mindset, you have to have an element of this is going to work out and I don’t maybe know how exactly, but it’s going to work out. And that’s faith, right?
Dave Dubeau [00:22:02] Like, right.
Tate Seimer [00:22:04] That was a huge development piece for me. So, Dave, it’s a really it’s an honor to spend this time with you and your listeners. And, you know, I love being a contribution wherever I can. So thank you.
Dave Dubeau [00:22:16] Thank you very much. All right, away. Take care. We’ll see you on the next episode. Well, hey there. Thanks for tuning in to the Property Prophets podcast. If you like this episode, that’s great. Please go ahead and subscribe on iTunes. Give us a good review. That’d be awesome. I appreciate that. And if you’re looking to attract investors and raise capital for your deals, that we invite you to get a complimentary copy of my newest book right back. There it is the money partner formula. You got a PDF version and investor attraction book dot com again investor attraction book. Dot com. Take care.