Welcome to our latest episode! Today, we have the privilege of hosting Jeremy Dyer, Founder and Managing Partner of Starting Point Capital. Jeremy is an accomplished real estate investor, with experience in both active and passive investments, and currently a Limited Partner in over 4,000 multifamily doors and $400M+ in assets. He’s also the author of the upcoming book The Fundamental Investor and the host of The Freedom Point Podcast.
In this episode, Jeremy shares his journey from a corporate sales career to building financial freedom through passive real estate investing. He discusses the transition from active flipping to syndications, strategies for identifying value in multifamily investments, and the importance of educating new investors on diversifying beyond Wall Street. Jeremy also provides insights into navigating today’s market challenges, maintaining transparency with investors, and finding opportunities even in a high-interest rate environment.
Whether you’re new to real estate or looking to refine your passive investment strategy, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you grow your portfolio.
Tune in now to learn how Jeremy helps investors start their journey toward financial freedom through passive real estate investments!
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE
00:00 – Welcome to the Big Mike Fund Podcast
00:18 – Guest intro: Jeremy Dyer
02:53 – From corporate sales to real estate investments
04:12 – Fix-and-flip ventures and balancing a growing family
06:29 – Pivot to passive syndications
09:42 – Multifamily as a “gateway” to passive real estate investing
14:32 – Identifying distressed multifamily deals and undervalued assets
23:42 – Diversification across asset classes
27:06 – Investor expectations and the importance of clear communication
34:12 – Book recommendation: The Hands-Off Investor by Brian Burke
37:08 – Jeremy’s upcoming book: The Fundamental Investor
38:34 – How to connect with Jeremy
If you found this episode substantial and want to dig deeper into real estate, or maybe you want to discover better investment opportunities, be sure to check out www.tempofunding.com.
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Full Transcript:
Intro: Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast, where you’ll learn about advanced wealth building strategies from real estate investing to creating massive ROI and secure retirement profits. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, grab a notepad, and lean in. Because Big Mike has got the mic, starting now.
Mike Zlotnik: Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast. I’m the Big Mike, Mike Zlotnik, and today it is my pleasure and a privilege to welcome Jeremy Dyer. Hi, Jeremy.
Jeremy Dyer: Hey, Mike. Thanks for having me.
Mike Zlotnik: Thank you so much for coming on a podcast. Jeremy is a founder and managing partner at Starting Point Capital. Also is VP of Capital Formation at Rise48 Equity, host of the Freedom Point podcast and author of the book called The Fundamental Investor.
Uh, once again, thank you, Jeremy, but before we go into your career, things you do, tell the audience a little bit about you, you, where you live, your family, anything you want to talk about. I, I, I like to use these terms, dogs, cats, pets, kids, anything you want to talk about family.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, I know. No, I know. I appreciate that, Mike. I actually, I live in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, which is a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis. I’m a husband of my wife, Marlene, for the last 21 years. Also a father of 4 homeschooled children. Um, I’m a limited partner investor in over 30 deals as an LP, um, recovering fix and flip, uh, fix and flipper, so to speak. Um, also a retired marathon runner and current, uh, youth hockey coach.
Mike Zlotnik: Wow, that’s, uh, that’s a great, uh, short history of Jeremy and, and, you know, wonderful family. You have a blessed family. That’s great. And I guess, uh, marathon runner, you, you must be quite an athlete. Uh, that’s, that’s not easy. So
Jeremy Dyer: yeah, well, if you caught what I said, Mike, I said, I’m a recovering, uh, marathon runner. What does that mean?
Mike Zlotnik: Recovering marathon runner. You used to run a lot. Now you are taking it easy.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, that’s right. So I, uh, I was able to make it to 20 different marathons ran in multiple different cities across the country. So had a lot of fun back in those days, but, um, now with four kids, you know, most of which are in kind of those teenage years, it makes it a lot more difficult now to, to, to balance, uh, you know, the, uh, the, the long distance running, uh, with, uh, you know, quote unquote running the kids around, so to speak,
Mike Zlotnik: I, I, I know this story really well. I have four kids too. I have four monkeys and a cat. Well, I have a real cat, but four kids. So I know the drill. Teenage kids and you have to be full time daddy. Uh, so, well, we have a wonderful family. Um, all right. So let’s move a little bit beyond that. So let’s talk about your business. Um, so what do you do today?
What’s the biggest, let’s just call it, uh, opportunity, uh, that you’re working on today. Let’s start there.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, no, that’s great. I appreciate the question there. So just to kind of give you a little bit more background on myself. So I’m also a recovering sales professional in the technology space for over two decades.
Um, I was very blessed in my career, uh, to be able to be in a position by the time I was just 24 years of age to have my dream home. off, uh, had a couple of children, a couple more on the way, uh, 40 foot RV sitting in the driveway, you know, maxing out the 401k plan, you know, trying to find the next, you know, Tesla, Facebook, Apple stock, so to speak.
Uh, my wife, uh, was able to, uh, exit, uh, the W2, uh, back when she was just 23 years of age. And, uh, we, I’ll be honest, we got a little bit bored in our mid twenties. And we decided to start up a real estate company, uh, which was primarily a fix and flip a company, which, you know, was designed obviously to, you know, buy distress, single family assets, you know, essentially provide renovations, you know, turn those assets over.
And hopefully walk away with enough profit to want to do it again, right? And so that business was going well for us. The challenge was, is just a few years into that venture is when my wife and I decided to double down on kids. And we went from two kids to four kids. And at the same time, I was still crushing, you know, my day job.
Uh, you know, crushing the commission check, so to speak, and it was time for me to, to decide to step off of, uh, you know, riding two horses at the same time, uh, the horse that we decided to step off of, you know, was the active fix and flip business. I decided it was best just to focus. Um, on continuing to crush the commission checks, you know, all at the same time, you know, being a good husband and being a good father and, you know, community leader servant, so to speak.
And so, at that time, this is now 2015, Mike, we decided to passively invest into real estate syndications back in that time period. I had no idea what the word syndication even meant other than it was just simply a group investing type strategy. I was able to diversify. You know, into, you know, Main Street, real estate investments, you know, outside of traditional, uh, Wall Street investments.
And I wasn’t the guy that had to evict, you know, tenants and swing hammers on the evenings and weekends. And so we started investing in syndications back in 2015. And now, if you fast forward from 2015 until today. We’re in 31 investments as limited partner investors. I’m in five investments as a general partner and my company, uh, which is starting point capital, uh, merely exists for a couple of reasons.
Number one, Mike is to educate investors on the benefits of passive real estate investing one. And number two is to use our leverage of a community of investors, uh, to come together. Uh, in order to properly vet out, uh, deals, sponsors, and ultimately give our investors a better return profile into the deal, given the leverage of investor capital that we deploy into each individual opportunity that we source.
Mike Zlotnik: That’s really cool. That’s a great story. Uh, from fix and flip, going back to the corporate job. Um, and are you still holding the corporate job or you, you, you, you, you’re done with that and you pretty much have been just passive investor and then, uh, you, you said you are a GP or cog on five. Just curious where you’re at today.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah, so I’ve been very blessed in order to be able to, to step off of the W2, you know, hamster wheel, so to speak. Consider myself to now be a corporate refugee in large part. And, you know, why was that possible? While it was primarily possible because, you know, very early on, um, you know, we got smart about our finances, right?
Um, certainly we had. Uh, we chose not to spend 100 percent of my commission checks and bonus checks. Instead, we chose to, you know, live a more balanced lifestyle while at the same time, you know, being diligent about pursuing investments and it wasn’t just, you know, wall street investing. It was also investing in main street businesses, you know, that produce, you know, regular, consistent cashflow.
So it just got to the point. With my wife and I specifically where that dependence on the paycheck continued to get less and less over time, right? You know, I was no longer dependent upon the salary. I was no longer dependent upon, you know, hitting a hundred percent of my, you know, month Quarter or year in order to achieve or earn a paycheck, right?
And so, you know, now I tell potential investors and existing investors that every month I receive 31 direct deposits into my bank account because I’m in 31. Investments that produce, you know, regular consistent, you know, cashflow, and that doesn’t even include, you know, the equity upside that we receive, you know, and those investments go full cycle.
And it also doesn’t include the fact that there’s, you know, significant, you know, tax benefits as well, you know, being an investor in real estate.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, I appreciate that explanation. So it makes a lot of sense. So you give up on the full, on a full time job to be a passive, uh, or semi, you know, semi active, uh, or maybe even an active, uh, investment.
So what are these syndications? I’m just curious, are they all multifamily? Are they all, uh, there’s some storage, industrial? I’m just curious what, what gave you the, um, the foundation for financial freedom?
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, a great question. Well, I will say multifamily was certainly the gateway drug that led to the other types of investments that I made.
But, you know, of the investments that I’ve made historically, including deals that have gone full cycle deals that I’m currently in today, about 80 percent of them are tied specifically to multifamily, the majority of which have a value add, you know, component to them. Um, of the other 20 percent it’s in other asset classes like self storage, assisted living, uh, flex office, retail, uh, just to name a few.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, I appreciate that. And we’re recording this middle of October, 2024. So I just want to make sure, uh, I’m hearing, hearing it, right. You have 31 syndications and when, when we’re. They started, uh, and they’re still paying distributions because, as you know, number of deals in the last couple of years have had some challenges due to the higher interest rate environment.
I’m just curious, uh, what kind of deals are paying the clockwork, um, and, and if they were value ideals versus sort of a stable fixed rate, fixed, uh, income type of deals. Just talk a little bit about that.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, it’s a great question. So, my investing really was in a pause in the year 2000, 2021, and early 2022, fortunately.
Okay? I didn’t make a lot of investments during that particular time period. Um, I had, uh, invested in a number of different angel type projects. Investments during that time, we can get into maybe a little bit more of that, you know, later or off camera
Mike Zlotnik: high tech angel or is this business central
Jeremy Dyer: business and high tech both. So, you know, my, my investing oftentimes is to really consider, you know, what’s next on the landscape? What problem exists for the consumer today? That at some point in the future, somebody is going to be looking to solve. Okay. You know, certainly biomedical, you know, is a good potential angel type investments, you know, to make there’s a company out there that exists today that has successfully mapped, um, you know, uh, All elements of the periodic table of elements using radio frequency.
So now they can detect, uh, inside the body over 220 forms of cancer without any invasive, you know, surgeries or operations. Um, obviously it has a lot of use cases when it comes to, um, you know, uh, Weapons, for example, you know, detecting explosives, narcotics, you know, those types of things, um, beyond that, the other big problem that I know exists out there today is affordable home and affordable housing, uh, the way that we, uh, You know, manufacture homes using traditional, you know, cement and sticks, right?
There has to be a better way. Uh, if we can assemble a vehicle on an assembly line in less than 2 minutes in Detroit, why can’t we do the same? Why can’t we apply the same types of principles to how we manufacture homes? Okay. And I’m not talking specifically about that are constructed that look like shipping containers.
Okay. I’m talking about, you know, You know, 9 and a half foot ceilings, you know, 20 by 20 boxes that could be stacked on top of each other side by side, et cetera. So my interest during that time period was very laser focused on trying to find out what is the next major disruptor out there, whether it be medical or be housing.
Or some other, you know, types of angel investments that I made as well. Um, so I was largely able to, to, to get past, you know, some of those challenges. So fortunately, you know, the investments that I’m in, in large part, you know, are paying regular consistent distributions to investors. Um, and I haven’t had any deals, you know, so to speak at this point, you know, where I’ve had to introduce additional capital call into the deal to keep it afloat.
Mike Zlotnik: That’s great. That’s that’s the words of the wise, right? You figured out kind of the market timing and you stayed away from new multifamily deals, uh, at the peak of the market, per se. So if you did that, you probably are in great deals that were bought. Deep enough, long enough, long, long ago, enough that these deals are still probably pretty good shape.
Although if the rates continue to stay higher for longer for too long, we obviously going to have more maturity wall and other fun things, but we’ll see if that started to cut. So that’s actually great to hear. So you, you, you ventured into biotech, you ventured into, um, manufacturing of, I guess, new affordable houses.
They’re manufactured homes, right? There’s a whole industry that builds the house somewhere else and then they bring it to the, uh, to the, to the lot and then they kind of bunker it down, right? That, that whole industry exists too. So what opportunities ahead? If you’ve had your foresight, uh, that the market was going to turn in, uh, Basically, uh, after the Fed started to hike rakes, so where do you see good opportunities today?
Fed started to cut, right? Which is welcome news for the entire commercial real estate industry in general. It’s good, good news for high, for high tech too. High tech doesn’t like high interest rate environment. So where do you see best opportunities on a forward basis as far as, um, you know, your view of the world?
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, I know. I appreciate that. And obviously today is a good point or in Q4 of 2024. So we’re not quite sure what the next black swan event is going to look like. And certainly I haven’t always been, you know, as successful as maybe others at trying to catch the falling knife, so to speak. Right. Um, but in 2023 and 2024, I personally have been very bullish.
Um, on investing specifically in multifamily, the deals and opportunities that I see personally come across my inbox that I’ve chosen to deploy my own capital into Mike, um, have for the most part, those deals are not penciling unless there’s some major distress involved. Okay. When I say major distress, obviously for most operators that are distressed.
Uh, within the last, you know, 12 to 24 months, it’s largely been on the financial side, right? Uh, to your point, you know, the historic rise in interest rates, you know, have made it difficult depending upon how that debt was structured, the amount of liquidity, you know, the operator raised on the front end for reserves, right?
Their ability to execute, you know, the business plan, you know, on time and on budget. Right are incredibly important than the truth is is that there was a lot of sponsors that over leveraged It felt a little bit like the dot com days back when I was in college, right, you know Uh day trading stocks and trying to find the next penny stock to ride it into the ride it to the moon So It felt a lot like that back in 2021.
Okay. When everybody was running into the fire, we should have been running out of the fire, right? You know, valuations were high cap rates were compressed. Um, there was deals that I know sponsors in the space. We’re putting in an offer and there was 50 other offers and they were 17th in place. Well, at that point, you know, something’s gotta give.
And what gave is that you got sponsors that were in the space that were chasing after, you know, the acquisition fee they were chasing after the a UM. You had sponsors in the space that didn’t even need to execute any. Part of the value add business plan and they could just write it out another 6 or 12 months, you know, uh, bank on natural or organic appreciation occurring during that time and essentially flip the property without actually actually executing, you know, any element of that business plan.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, that was a great full theory. Unfortunately, um. The, well, how should I put it? This was the peak of the market and, and, and it was, it was hard to detect and the money was chasing, uh, deals. And yes, a lot of, let’s just call them aggressive underwriting, overpayment and no need to. Be a good operator. And a lot of those deals have crashed hard, right?
So today I do concur with you that markets have corrected. Many markets have corrected and all the Asians, um, appear to be healthy on a relative basis, but the interest rates are still high. We just started to see, uh, rate cuts and it’ll take, take a while for fed to bring those rates down. So where do you see, um, you, transaction volume is, is very, very low.
As we all know, uh, do you see these great opportunities happening in any kind of volume? Because essentially what you just described is a, uh, an environment where fundamental multifamily is still solid, but the Uh, the distressed sellers, liquidity, liquidity crisis that they is running out of cash. They have to sell because they can’t raise cash.
So you’re seeing enough of these deals where these deals are, what parts of the country, uh, what kind of discount are you getting, uh, to the, I guess it’s all relative. How do you know it’s a great deal? If you go look at the big pricing from a couple of years ago, yeah, it’s 25 percent discount for sake of the argument, maybe even higher.
Um, but it also depends on the kind of asset, right? Really high quality assets don’t trade at that big of a discount. So, it’s just Talk a little more. What are you seeing today? Uh, specific examples, just a little more color on that front.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. You do a really good job asking multiple questions all in one. So hopefully
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, I’m trying to overwhelm you. At least give you enough questions so you can pick which ones you want to answer.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, there you go. I appreciate it. I sound like a politician now, right? So no, in all fairness the types of opportunities that we’re seeing out there while they are, you know, Like finding a needle in a haystack, okay You know, we may underwrite a hundred different properties before we even take, you know, one of those Under contract our buy box is fairly narrow.
Okay when I say our buy box, you know We’re traditionally looking for assets that were built 40 years ago You Um, that have 100%, you know, classic interiors. They’re all vintage units, right? We’re coming into those opportunities with the plan to fully renovate, uh, 100 percent of those interiors as part of our value add, you know, business plan, you know, bring in our vertically integrated property management company.
Vertically integrated construction management company, um, and really try to rip through, uh, those renovations, um, in an accelerated manner again on time and on budget, because we control all elements of that value add business timeline from acquisition all the way through through disposition. Okay. Yeah, a great question.
So right now we’re really primarily laser focused on the Dallas Fort Worth market. Uh, we do like Charlotte, uh, North Carolina and some sub markets out in that area as well. And then lately we’ve been, uh, I would say dating or maybe courting is the right word. Uh, some markets in North Florida as well. Um, to your point, the types of opportunities that we’re primarily seeing again that are on the distress side.
You know, couldn’t be anywhere from 20 to 30 percent below, uh, what those properties, you know, did trade for or were trading for just 24 to 36 months ago. So certainly there’s some opportunities to get these properties at a, uh, at a better basis. But what’s also interesting to note out there is that. One other reason why transaction volume, I believe, has been, you know, suppressed over the course of the last two years is because there are a lot of operators in the space today that, quite frankly, have been nervous to transact.
And why they’ve been nervous is because they weren’t maybe sure that they could raise capital from their investor base that they just recently had to go ask for some additional liquidity in the form of a capital call or a cash call, because the debt service coverage ratio has maybe slipped below 1.
25 or something like that. And now the bank comes knocking saying, you know, you need to pump some additional liquidity into the opportunity. Or you obviously run the risk of a potential, you know, foreclosure. So the truth is, is that there’s a lot of best in class operators even out there today that I think have been sitting on the sidelines, you know, not just because they weren’t quite sure, you know, what was going to happen, uh, in the wake of the Federal Reserve Bank, you know, historically running up interest rates and the cost of debt.
But it’s also because, uh, Some sponsors in the space, quite frankly, have a reputation crisis on their hands. Okay. They have a brand that they need to rebuild again, and they just weren’t confident in their ability to raise enough equity in order to be able to, you know, acquire that next property.
Mike Zlotnik: Very true. Uh, it’s exactly the observation, not some, a lot of sponsors. So it’s, it’s unfortunately, um, the entire value of industry got significantly hit with higher for longer rates because Value at industry borrowers on a floating rate that and rate caps expired or expiring. So, um, capital calls, additional capital injections, member loans, mezzanine debt, preferred equity injections.
All that is absolutely true. I mean, we play in this space quite a bit and we’ve, we’ve been providing these med mezz loans on many deals that are still pencil. Well, of course, but the, it’s very difficult to go look at new deals. When you’re trying to stabilize a lot of, uh, existing deals. So very, very true observation.
Not only that you’re, you’re, you asked us the liquidity stuck. So today, uh, when, when things transacted, you can go buy a new one. When you got to sell. So it’s, it’s a chicken and egg problem when sales are not happening, it’s harder to buy and the investors are not necessarily throwing more money into something where they already have a lot of money stuck.
It’s a very, it’s a fundamental shift problem. You got to go find a whole bunch of new investors that don’t have anything today and convince them to be, um, like Warren Buffett says, be greedy when I was a fearful, be fearful when I was a greedy. A lot of people are fearful today. So, so the idea is to bring the greed into the ecosystem and we got to, as a whole industry, we’ve got to bring new dollars that has done really well in stock market, Bitcoin, I don’t know what else, what else, uh, those assets have heavily appreciated and they’re sitting on, let’s call it.
Non diversified portfolios. Heavily concentrated portfolios. So logically, these folks should be good candidates to write a check, but they don’t really know the industry. They can only hear some of the tough stories. So it’s one of these educational, um, necessities, that if you can get them on board, should be able to transact more.
But the observation is exactly accurate. Because previous money is stuck. Same ecosystem of existing investors. How do you get more money from them? Well, maybe a few, but 90 percent of them are nervous about are they going to get their money back? When? How much? But, agreed. Opportunities ahead today are phenomenal.
Certainly like Dallas market. Certainly like, uh, you said Charlotte, I think. So Charlotte is a great market. North Carolina in general is a good. These are great growing markets. demographically improving markets on a long term basis. Jobs are going in. So I couldn’t agree with you more that these are solid markets for sure.
Um, on that topic, how are you raising capital today? Because it’s tough. It’s, it’s, it’s tough and, and you have specific deals. And I can tell you this, just my observation, when we see new deals today, I certainly call a whole bunch of other fund managers where we could raise the capital itself in the past.
Today, I got a call, get the consortium of four people, three people to, uh, get the forces together to have confidence, to be able to get the capital cause it’s gotten three, four times harder. If not more, I’m just curious how you’re able to, uh, get through these opportunities confidently. So you can actually sign the contract or. Commit to getting the check or significant check into the deal.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, no, it’s a, it’s a great question, Mike. And I kind of joke with people sometimes that actually started raising capital 25 years ago. Uh, even though technically I’ve only been partnering with investors now for the last two years. Okay. Uh, and you and I both know this, but you know, your reputation and your own personal brand and your own personal stock price is everything.
Right. And so the truth is that most of the investors that I have brought into, you know, our investment projects, uh, are largely people that have known me personally, you know, whether it be five years, you know, 10 years or two decades. Right. You know, these are investors that will partner with me on investment opportunities.
Just because I’m doing it. Okay. You know, they may not even understand fully, you know, what it means to be a passive limited partner investor in a real estate syndication, right? They might not even be able to, you know, say it that eloquently as an example, right? Um, they maybe haven’t done their, their own due diligence on the opportunity.
But maybe they’ve got 50 or a hundred K, you know, and dry powder sitting on the sidelines and they just know they want to diversify outside of wall street into main street. And they know some of the benefits, right? So why I’ve largely been so successful is because of my, my background. Okay. Uh, my reputation in the business, my connections, uh, my ability to garner.
Referrals from existing investors, but what keeps people coming back because the majority of our investors don’t just invest one time and they’re done. Okay. These are investors that will, uh, that will dollar cost average, so to speak, or they will, you know, drip into a few different opportunities each and every year.
Okay. And why they do that is because of our ability to Produce what we say we’re going to produce. Okay. Whether it be when you can expect your first month’s distribution, what you can expect your year one cash on cash return to be, you know, what we anticipate, you know, Where we’re going to be after 12 months or 18 months in the renovation efforts, you know, how we communicate, you know, to our investors on what frequency and how transparent are we?
I mean, we’re giving our investors access to the same information. That the senior lender, who’s the largest investor in these opportunities, you know, demands. So we’re not just talking about, uh, you know, what the renovations look like and giving you a side by side comparison of the before and after we’re giving you access to the, to the balance sheet, the bank statements, the general ledger, right?
You have access to the very same information that we, uh, as, as. People on the general partnership side of the equation, you know, have access to.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, I appreciate that. That’s transparency and openness and great communications are critical. And, um, uh, the fact that you’re able to hit projections, especially in the last couple of years, maybe you stayed out of them in the past, but it hasn’t certainly been a lot easier.
Uh, the last few years, of course, a lot of projections. I’ve not held up. And, uh, the game’s got a lot harder to get same investors to continue to trust. Um, the sponsors, so I understood and agreed. It’s all about reputation. It’s all about, um, delivering on, on expectations. But as I said, it’s gotten way harder.
So if you’re one of the few who’s stayed out of trouble, uh, market conditions and have done really well, um, on the deals that you picked it, that’s so much more, uh, power. So besides multifamily, what else you see today? I’m just, uh, completely acknowledging the fact that I’m in agreement. Uh, the whole industry is singing the song, uh, today that, that if you can buy today, it’ll be so much easier when the rates are lower, that’s pretty obvious.
Uh, capital raising is still ultra tough. And, um, what other great opportunities you’re seeing, uh, today, besides multifamily, you’re seeing anything else in storage, seeing anything else? Uh, uh, so other obviously sectors, other locations, other, um, deal flow. And it sounds to me again, you and I. Have somewhat similarity where you’re not actively suddenly running these deals.
You’re co GP, you’re partnering with people who are operating the vertically integrated folks. Uh, the business is all about building the strong partnerships. Um, so you finding new great partners, uh, today, or you, you still working with the same folks you worked in the past, just more of a new deals.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, so there’s 3 investment sponsors that I primarily have, have aligned with, um, in raising capital for their, their deals. Now, I don’t. Always partner with them on every single, you know, deal and opportunity. Right. Um, you know, uh, capital raisers typically get to that point of, of saturation with their investors where, you know, maybe their investors need to build up a couple more, you know, commission checks or, you know, Or quarterly bonuses in order to be ready to, you know, invest into your next opportunity.
Right? Um, I, I’m not an expert in other asset classes outside of multifamily, but, you know, I’ve personally invested in, you know, oil and gas deals before, you know, ATM funds, you know, I mentioned some of the other hard asset classes that I’ve personally deployed my own capital into mainly self storage, assisted living, you know, flex office, retail, et cetera.
Uh, but the majority of our investors that invest through starting point capital, um, have never invested in real estate before. And so, hence the name starting point, right? We’re giving your higher net worth individuals. Your accredited investors, or maybe almost accredited investors, you know, that opportunity to diversify, you know, outside of wall street in the main street, while also encouraging them, you know, to, uh, deploy a strategy where they diversify over multiple different properties, maybe in multiple different geographies, maybe with multiple different investment sponsors, right?
So we’re giving them that ability to diversify. But while also encouraging them to consider partnering with other operators with different asset classes that we may or may not choose to partner with them. Um, so I’m all about diversification, but at the same token, I firmly believe that all investors, if they’re going to invest in their first private placement, and they’ve never done it before, a good place to get started and to really learn. About this type of an investing strategy is really in the multifamily space.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, that’s a great view of the world. Uh, you, you, you’re, you’re, you’re helping, I guess, starting investors, which is basically in many ways is the best place to be once you, once you’re dealing with experts, once you’re dealing with a very sophisticated folks, they have a very different view of the world in essence.
So multifamily is a great space in general. We do need more affordable housing. And it’s the problem you mentioned. So that problem will continue to be here for a long, long time. Uh, the asset class is still fundamentally very solid. So, um, don’t necessarily be a jack of all trades, be a master of one, right?
And you’re a master of multifamily. I concur with you. And we’ve done, through our funds, we’ve done investments and many other strategies, but we still love multifamily. It is one of the most fundamental asset classes. So, Do you do, do folks invest with you through a fund or you have individual deals? Just curious how you work with folks, uh, on various deals.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, we can actually partner with investors in both ways. So we can invest, you know, partner with them through a fund type of investment strategy, which is actually what the majority of our investors prefer. Uh, why they prefer it that way is because we’re able to negotiate a better, uh, split equity, split with the sponsor.
Uh, when that deal goes full cycle, then what they would be able to get on their own. Um, Uh, of course, there’s an arbitrage there, and, you know, we split that arbitrage, you know, with our investors. So that’s how we’re able to legally be compensated, um, through the capital that we, uh, source for these opportunities.
And we’re also able to project to our investors a better return profile. Then what they would get if they had invested as a retail investor directly into the sponsor’s deal. Uh, but there are other opportunities that exist out there where we can partner, uh, with investors, you know, under more of a co GP, you know, type of an arrangement where that investor is investing directly with the sponsor and directly into their deal versus going through an SPV or a fund of funds type structure.
Mike Zlotnik: So starting point capital, you’re on. Um, A fund of funds, you run a multifamily fund, or you just do one off SPV syndications. Essentially, I’m just curious, uh, how are you doing? Because what you described is, uh, sounds to be like maybe you have one of those, maybe multiple strategies. So is there a fund, uh, essentially where they just, uh, subscribe to your PPM and then you invest into multiple deals or you have one off PPMs every time you have a deal?
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah. It’s a great question. So it’s definitely done under an SPV. And so we establish a fund, single fund for a single investment asset or property.
Mike Zlotnik: So it’s a syndication, right? I mean, you’re calling it a fund, but it’s really in my, in my head fund means, means many assets, many investors, right? Uh, syndication, single asset, multiple investors. Syndication could be two assets, right? I mean, this certainly can happen. So you’re doing one off deals. You’re not running just a evergreen fund that just keeps doing things over time.
Jeremy Dyer: That’s right.
Mike Zlotnik: Okay. All right. So, um, what’s the best way to reach out? Uh, and then, uh, ask you about, you have a good book to recommend, you have a, uh, good, just general advice.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, no, appreciate that. So, uh, folks, if they’re interested in connecting can find me on LinkedIn. I’m relatively active there under Jeremy Dyer. Uh, you can also hit up our website at starting point, capital. com. Again, that starting point, capital. com when it comes to a book recommendations. Uh, historically I’ve been a very big fan of, uh, the hands off investor.
Uh, by, uh, Brian Burke, uh, I had Brian on my own podcast, which is called the Freedom Point podcast. I think it was maybe episode, uh, 46 or 48. You can check it out there. Um, and then on December 1st, depending upon when this, uh, podcast airs, uh, December 1st of 2024, I will be launching my book, uh, which is called the Fundamental Investor. Again, the Fundamental Investor.
Mike Zlotnik: Very cool. I appreciate you sharing, uh, and, uh, your website and the good luck with the new book. Should be pretty cool. I’m working on the new book too. It seems to take forever to, to finish. Uh, it’s always difficult to, uh, to get the book to look perfect. And no matter how much you, you, you do, if you come back to it, you can always get it better. Right? So.
Jeremy Dyer: Mike, Mike, I, uh, when I hired a publisher, they told me that it would take 12 months and I said, no, it’ll take me four. Well, it’s going to be about 14 since I started.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, it is a wonderful journey and and I’ll tell you this all this book business It’s almost like this. It’d be great to just publish a book that is Completely changing as you revise it like literally you buy of course first edition second edition third edition looking for technology to you buy a book and then the book by itself updates as you want to update the Uh, the content, um, uh, that’s why they have first, second, third edition. Uh, you gotta, you gotta at some point, uh, make, you know, go with, with, with that version and see what happens next. So
Jeremy Dyer: That’s right.
Mike Zlotnik: Um, again, thank you for sharing, uh, any other. Uh, quick, uh, comments, thoughts, uh, before we part, I appreciate your wisdom, uh, wish you good luck with the book and, um, yeah, hopefully find some, some great deals.
It’s, it’s been, it’s been an interesting, uh, intro, you know, maybe we’ll live in interesting times that we do.
Jeremy Dyer: Yeah, Mike. No, I really appreciate the opportunity to, to be a guest on your show. so much. And hopefully we were able to provide your listening audience with some value today.
Mike Zlotnik: Certainly have. Thank you, Jeremy.
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