Alexander Felice: I was able to buy this 52 unit $3.2 million
building, not all by myself, but with a lot of people and a lot of help from Matt, thankfully.
Matt Faircloth: Alex and I got to know each other through
networking in this market and now as a part of Day in the Life, he's going to take us through a 50
unit that he's got here in town. Alexander Felice:
You introduced me to the broker that sold me ...
Matt Faircloth: I did. Yeah, I take all the
credit for that. Yeah, right. Alexander Felice:
All the credit. As long as you get none of the paycheck, we're cool.
Matt Faircloth: Yeah, no, no. I don't want it.
I just want to see people win. Matt Faircloth:
As you guys go into markets and build local relationships, you will start to make
really great friends and really great business colleagues. As you know.
Alexander Felice: And until then, Matt will do.
Matt Faircloth: Right.
Alexander Felice: I can't help myself.
Matt Faircloth: Can somebody light this caught on
fire please? This is all on his own that he took it down, but a benefit to focusing on a market
and drilling in is building great relationships so you can potentially do deals with people
and also just make friends that can look out for you when you're in a market.
Alexander Felice: When you come in town.
Matt Faircloth: Yep.
Alexander Felice: It's like, "Hey, look,
we get to hang out a little bit." Matt Faircloth:
Yeah. Alexander Felice:
And to say that I did it all on my own is actually not that true because we spend a
lot of time here. Matt Faircloth:
I had your back. Alexander Felice:
We spent a lot of time at Winston-Salem. I did ask you to look over real quick and help me.
I've talked to Irvay and Justin a million times. I love this because a day in the life is like,
"What do you do all day?" Sometimes you sit there and grind underwriting,
or you grind deals. Sometimes you just come out and check things.
Matt Faircloth: And you never know what comes up when you
come to hang out. Alex came up to hang out with us at a complex we bought in Winston-Salem and
the broker that sold us that complex. "Hey, I've got this 50 unit in Fayetteville," and I was like,
"Hey, talk to him." And he just happened to be standing there and that's what happens when you
create networks with people, just never know what's going to come up in conversation.
Alexander Felice: One of the things that I did really right on this
deal, which I did not do right on my 24 unit was I had a very narrow criteria. So I knew I wanted
a C Class six, seven cap, 50 unit place that was going to be between 3 and 4 million that
I could raise a million because I thought that was going to be within my wheelhouse.
Matt Faircloth: Yep.
Alexander Felice: When I met you in Winston-Salem
and we talked to the broker, he's like, "I got a 52 units, C Class in Fayetteville." I was like,
"Well, the universe is telling me that I'm doing something right." So I found the deal. I took it
to my team and I said, "Hey, it looks like a deal to me. Is it a deal?" They had a 56% expense ratio
and I have another 24 units here in Fayetteville that's in much worse part of town and that runs
it up 43% expense ratio, so I knew we had room when they was being mismanaged. I knew it.
Alexander Felice: I also knew that the rents were $650 on the
two bedrooms and $725 on the three bedrooms and they had renovated some of their three bedrooms
and raise them to $900, so I knew the proof was in the pudding. I said, "I can raise rents.
I can lower expenses." I knew the area and the location is perfect. I said, "Okay, this deal,
I have to get this deal." I had tagged in a whole bunch of people that I thought could help. They
all give me good advice. I went to internet and I said, "Hey, internet, who wants to buy this
with me?" I raised a ton of money. $1.4 million in cash. It was tremendously difficult for me,
but I got it done. Matt Faircloth:
I orange shutters over here, I got blue shutters there, I got green shutters there,
I got purple shelters here. Alexander Felice:
Somebody's child did the color scheme apparently. I don't know why they did this. I could understand
if you color coded them and said, "Oh, the purple building or the peach building,"
except there's two peach buildings and there's two green buildings. They're not even one each.
So what we're going to do is we're going to paint those shutters all across, there's little numbers
on the buildings are ugly. We're going to take all those off. Potholes in the place just got fixed
this week, so we're cruising along rehab. Matt Faircloth:
Day in the life. Do a quick tour. Let's do a quick walk through.
Alexander Felice: Let's go. Alex Felice here. We're at my 52 unit,
we just closed on it. We were in the process of doing a bunch of CapEx. We fixed the parking lot.
We're going to go through unit by unit and we're going to repair them and we're going to bump those
rents. They're a little bit below market rents anyways, but we know that if we put a little bit
of love into them, tidy them up, we're going to put them on the internet, they're going to look
great, people are going to come rushing because we know market demand right now is really high.
Alexander Felice: My lifeline, Rodrick Jackson, my hero, a guy who
I've been with now for five or six years. Manages 84 units for me, I could do nothing with him.
He was here anyways right now checking the place out, taking care of it. What are we going to do
over the next few weeks? Roderick Jackson:
We're going to turn a few units. When I say turn a few units I'm talking about upgrading appliances,
painting walls, changing fixtures, ceiling fans, all that good stuff. Going to add a few
washer and dryer hookups in units. We got a couple of different color scheme. Everybody
loves the gray. Gray is what's in, so we're doing that with the LVP floors. We're trying to make it
as modern as we can. Alexander Felice:
Two or three grand, a unit. Roderick Jackson:
Yes. Alexander Felice:
Somewhere in there, depending on what they need. My hope is the place was actually in better shape.
When we did the due diligence, we went through every single unit, the place was in a little
bit better shape than I had thought, so my hope is we can keep some of that rehab costs down,
the rents could still go up, keep everybody happy, get them nice modern units,
and then once we do the outside- Roderick Jackson:
The inside- Alexander Felice:
And the outside will match and we'll have a fantastic community
and bump that NOI up. [inaudible 00:04:58] Alexander Felice:
We're in a recently, mostly renovating unit. New paint, these are the same floors,
we got to keep thankfully. We paint all the trim white. All new fixtures and lights,
nice little unit. We've got to put new appliances in their still so you can't see them, but here.
We painted the cabinets. We're going to put new handles on it. We put new floors in the kitchen
in here because they were (beep). And we're going to put new fixtures and this place was renting
at $625 and now it's going to rent at $750, maybe even a little more. New carpets. They're not done
yet, but they're going to be done soon. We only put fans in the bedrooms and even then sometimes
not because people, for some reason, find it very compelling to jump on them. This is it. This is a
renovated unit. At a small investment it makes the community better, it makes people happy to live
here, everybody wins, bro. Too easy. Alexander Felice:
Three tips for closing big deals like this. One, find great partners. I could not have done this by
myself. I have an underwriting partner, I have an apartment management partner, I had capital
raise partners. Two, social media, bro. Be loud and obnoxious and post with reckless abandon on
social media and tell everybody in the world what you do. I have had disproportionate success to my
talents because people on the internet know who I am. And three, get after it every day, bro.
You can't buy multi-families if you're spending every dollar on about single families. You want
to buy multi-families, spend every day in the multi-family space and it'll be easy.
Matt Faircloth: This is an awesome
complex. Promise me you're going to paint all these shutters, the same color, right?
Alexander Felice: I'm going to paint them. I
talked about it today. Matt Faircloth:
You are going to blow the lid off this place. Alexander Felice:
I know you got to go. Yeah. I know. Agreed. Matt Faircloth:
Yeah. This is a phenomenal complex. Alex is going to make absolute magic out here. When
we get to the end markets and we make friends and we get to hang out with more and more people
and I love coming into North Carolina, because you and I get to do our thing, man.
We got to go. Matt Faircloth:
All through my coaching and my complete just-
Alexander Felice: I could not have done it without you.
Matt Faircloth: It has rubbed off on you, right? Yeah.
Speaker 4: This is the day and we're having a life.
Alexander Felice: It's a Beatles song, I totally get it.
Matt Faircloth: So here's the thing, guys.
Speaker 4: How's my hair look?