On today’s episode, Joseph Bramante-Co-founder of TriArc Real Estate Partners, joins us to share his story on how he started in multifamily real estate and how he found his niche in acquiring and managing deep value add projects.
Joseph acquired his first multifamily property in 2011, site unseen, while working in Papua New Guinea as an engineer. He compiled enough capital to begin his real estate investing and after reading about multifamily, he decided to purchase that first property at a significant discount. Unfortunately, after acquiring his first property, he faced multiple issues like massive vacancy loss, fraudulent insurance, and asbestos remediation. His renovation budget then escalated from $3,000/door to over $30,000/door. In addition to those major problems, he lost his job shortly after his acquisition.
Joseph turned to a local educational group to seek out expert advice and mentorship, and after being instructed to fire sale the property and take a loss, he decided to press forward and weather the storm. He fortunately found his business partners whom had their own property management company as well as a network of preferred vendors for him to utilize. He was able to successfully manage through the adversity and completely turn the property into a very profitable investment with a significant increase in occupancy and NOI.
If you’re going to manage value add properties, you really need to have experience or partner with others who have experience in managing value add construction projects, especially in today’s tight market.
Joseph speaks to the things you may want to account for when performing value add projects:
1. Appliances
2. Countertops-granite over resurfacing or replacing tubs and fixtures all together
3. Plumbing
4. Think about the long term
5. Don’t acquire these type of projects as your first deal(s)-gain experience first!
Joseph always plans for additional capital contingencies for the “just in-case” costs. You always want to be prepared to for the unexpected or change in strategy. You also have to be creative and be a problem solver.
Joseph has vertically integrated his company and has his own property management and construction management teams to manage his projects which has helped him become more efficient. Efficiency is key.
Want to connect and learn more about Joseph, find him on LinkedIn at @josephbramante or visit his website at www.triarcrep.com. You can also email him at [email protected].
