Journey to Multifamily Millions

Why Good Property Management is Crucial to the Success of Your Investment! with Dan French, Ep 104

July 25, 2024 • Tim • Season 1 • Episode 104

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Welcome to the Journey to Multifamily Millions podcast, where we discuss money matters with experts! 

The guest this episode is Dan French, the managing director of ATX Acquisitions, where he has helped orchestrate deals totaling over $2 billion in assets under management, delivering remarkable returns exceeding $1 billion to investors. Dan also happens to be the CEO of ResProp, a real estate private equity and property management firm, where he has overseen the operation of a staggering 15,000+ apartments and properties..

In this episode, Dan shares his journey from a public servant to a successful real estate investor managing over $2 billion in assets. He discusses the importance of aligning with property owners' business plans, retaining top talent in property management, and the strategic shifts that led his company to transition to third-party property management. 

Dan also sheds light on the lessons learned during the 2008 financial crisis and how to navigate the challenges in property management, especially amidst current market conditions.


Episode Topics

[01:17] Meet our guest, Dan French
[02:15] How Did Dan Begin His Journey into Real Estate?
[04:18] What Lessons Did Dan Learn from Navigating the Great Financial Crisis?
[10:34] Why Are Scaling Up and Strategic Investments Crucial?
[14:49] How Can Property Management Insights Transform Your Investments?
[22:34] What Are the Biggest Challenges in Property Management Right Now?
[32:44] What is one red flag every investor should look out for?
[31:17] What is a myth about the real estate business?
[34:02] Connecting with Dan 



Notable Quotes

  • "Real estate is one of the only things outside of the stock market that people talk a lot about in terms of generating wealth." - Tim Little
  • "You may complain about the obstacle in your way, but in the end, that's going to be the thing that makes you successful." - Tim Little
  • "Starting with those two to four units, that's where most people get started in real estate." - Tim Little
  • "It was years of working things out with the banks and restructuring things through grit and determination." - Dan French
  • "You have to be attached to a broader mission. It's about serving owners and residents." - Dan French
  • "Building a very strong culture is the best way to retain them. People need to feel like they are really connected to a greater goal." - Dan French

 



👉Connect with  Dan French

👉 Connect with Tim

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/journey-to-multifamily-millions/id1634643497

[00:00:00] Dan French: The biggest illusion around communication is that it actually took place. So the key thing is if you don't know the owner's business plan, if you don't really know it deep, deep down, because sometimes you can even have it on paper, and have a weekly call, but you, or for whatever reason that communication didn't really happen. And so you have to, first of all, get on the exact same page as the owner, cause you're their agent. At the end of the day, you have to execute what they want and you can give advice and tell them, Hey, do this versus that. But you really have to let them be in the driver's seat to the extent that they want to.

[00:01:08] Tim Little: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the journey to multifamily millions. I'm your host, founder and CEO of ZANA investments. And on today's show, we have with us Dan French. Dan is the managing director of ATX acquisitions. He has helped orchestrate deals totaling over 2 billion in assets under management, delivering remarkable returns exceeding over 1 billion to investors. Dan also happens to be the CEO of res prop, a property management firm where he has overseen the operation of more than 15, 000 units. Dan, welcome to the show.

[00:01:40] Dan French: Tim, thanks for having me on, man. I'm a big fan of the podcast and excited to get into it.

[00:01:45] Tim Little: Yeah. And we're glad to have you. So Dan, I have to tell you, I am excited to have you on specifically because you are from the property management side of things. And it's that view that we rarely get to see. We have plenty of syndicators on the show, CPAs, But rarely do we get, property management and transparency, you are property manager for one of the properties that I'm a general partner on. I won't show any favoritism, but, no, I, I'm excited to get your honest opinion on some stuff. So before we get into all of that stuff, why don't you get into how you got started in real estate and how you got to where you are today. Yeah,

[00:02:27] Dan French: a, it's a long journey. and so it happened, it started 20 years ago and I was, basically fresh out of undergrad, about a year out and. I was chasing a career in public service. That's what I felt called to do. And at that point, you served in the military and thank you for your service, man. you guys are the reason why we can do what we do as in a thriving society, capitalist society. It's wonderful. Appreciate you guys. and what you've given to us. But so for me, a lot of my friends went to the military after 9 11, right? And instead I didn't really feel called to do that, but I did feel called to do something that was community service oriented. And, my dad also happened to pass away. I found myself back in my hometown. He was a great example to me of someone who was very active in our local community, in recreation type programs, never in public service, that he was doing. in terms of elected office. But I started pursuing elected office and I felt passionately that I can help people that way. And so I did that and I became an elected official for seven years. I was elected in my hometown, starting off as a councilman and then becoming a town supervisor. It was like a mayor. but I quickly realized, I always had it in my heart that I wanted to have a big family and, I thank God that actually I had that big family now, by my standard, it's big. I know some people with eight or nine kids, but I have four kids and I was gone for four or five kids and I knew that being a public servant was never going to happen. Generate like true wealth I would maybe keep the lights on and that was about it. So when my business partner, who is my current, still my business partner, still 20 years ago, is when we started. But so he approached me all that time ago, still in business with the same person. His name is Pete Rex. and I, someone who I had the fortune of, Where I was fortunate to grow up with them since the time I was seven. So him and his brother approached me. I became their, basically their second partner. So we had a small partnership and we started buying two unit buildings and four unit buildings. That's how it all started. It was Oh four Oh five. We thought we were really, on top of the world, very smart guys. Of course, we own all these buildings and quickly, the great financial crisis hit us. extremely hard. And so it was years of working things out with the banks and restructuring things and through grit and determination and,some financial savvy, we got through all of that reposition, those assets sold a lot of them. Avoided bankruptcy and on a lot of the stuff that impacted other people. And then by 2011, I ran for higher office. I lost that office. and, I called up my partner Pete and, and he was launching a much bigger platform. This is the one that bought 2 billion in assets between 2011, 2019. I joined at a very early stage. So that's my, my, the arc of my career. And that's the reason why I started. grow some wealth and then it became more like a missionary thing. Like I can serve a lot more people. There's residents, there's investors there, there's teammates. It's an amazing gift to be in real estate. So let me pause there. And that was Genesis.

[00:05:13] Tim Little: That's great. And I think a lot of the steps on your journey will resonate with a lot of people, right? anyone, like you said, in public service, in the military, government work that those can resonate Pay well or well enough, right? Like you said, to provide for your family, keep the lights on, but they'll never generate that economic, that financial freedom that I think a lot of people are looking for. And I think that's how people find themselves eyeing real estate. Because it's one of the only things outside of the stock market that people talk a lot about in terms of generating wealth, tax benefits and stuff like that. And then I also think, like you said, starting with those two to four units, that's where most people get started in real estate, if not with a single family, right? their own property, maybe renting that out, your accidental landlords, stuff like that. I found it. It is very interesting and inspiring that you were able to get started, early on, because, in the 2005 timeframe, I had just bought my first house and I was pretty proud of myself just for doing that. now, looking back, I wish I had bought like a, a four unit with my VA loan with 0 percent down, hindsight is 2020 when you figure out all these,tips and tricks after the fact, but having

[00:06:29] Dan French: Right.

[00:06:30] Tim Little: done that and then been able to make your way through the financial crisis without it being a crisis for you, talk a little bit more about that and the lessons that you learned coming out on the other side, which, I'm sure you didn't come out completely unscathed, but you did come out of it not destroyed like most people did.

[00:06:52] Dan French: Yeah. One reflection I heard someone say this recently is like, man, when you and I got started by actually owning real estate in 05, let's say, you for your single family home, and then maybe some investments later and me for investments. the things available to us were like, you'd have to go to a library and find some things, right? There wasn't a lot online. Isn't it? wonderful people like you sharing knowledge on your podcast basically, for free, just as a passion and also great books. I see some of them behind you. rich dad, poor dad was out, but Yeah, that's not really a toolbox that just says, go do something and think this way. It doesn't really say like the best ever book says that's also behind you. Hey, here's an actual playbook. You can do this. so for us, like for me, at least, it was like, I could buy real estate for dummies at Barnes and Noble, or I could just go learn as I do. And I don't know how we did it. of course we read what we could, but, it was experiential and, you take some hard knocks. So yeah, the way we got through that was, I would give a lot of credit to Pete, my partner. He was very tenacious when it came to being very, very good about restructuring things. It just has a great mind for this. And, what people might forget is A lot of the banks that had our notes were just going out of business, which is why I think this is such a different crisis now. and today, the climate that we're speaking about today is 2024. It's definitely not 2007 and eight, because at that point and the whole investment banks were going out of business, obviously all the subprime banks just completely belly up. I remember being on the phone call for hours at a time, just trying to find out who had my note. like who owned my, my, cause it had been bought up by private equity in different or a different bank bought the assets of this, this other bank that went belly up wild times, just hours and hours of doing this and unwinding it. And of course, operating as we're going and paying as much as we could for. To keep the mortgages somewhat in,float, if you will, and then, just have to restructure it, but many of them were open to it because they had paid pennies on the dollar for that bank's balance sheet. So there, anything they get is better than someone who just throws in the towel. Does that make sense? So we had a fight.

[00:08:53] Tim Little: yeah, exactly. And that's what I was going to say. I have to imagine that they'd be open to negotiation if it's something versus nothing, which is what they were getting from a lot of homeowners, right? if not, multifamily owners. And then the other piece that you talked about is you and your partner, being tenacious. And a lot of times that's like this, the single distinction. distinguishing between, who survives and who doesn't, they just keep pushing through, trying to find solutions. even if they don't know exactly where to look, they just keep looking until they find it. Whereas the other people, they just don't have that, that, that will, that drive. And they're just like, you know what, I don't need this. And they just let it go, drop the keys off, and just walk away.

[00:09:38] Dan French: 100%. Yeah. Pete has one of his models like Invictus. so basically like a bro in the Roman context, I think people would call Caesar Invictus. He's unconquerable. Like you can go up against them. You might win a skirmish here and there, but you will never defeat them, So just having an Invictus mentality of just, we're never going to get, might have some tough days and maybe even a couple of tough years. but we're going to be fine. We're going to win.

[00:10:01] Tim Little: Yeah. I love that mentality. I'm a big fan of stoicism. So the idea that the obstacle is the way you may complain about, all these challenges, but in the end, that's going to be the thing that makes you successful in the long run because it made you stronger, made you find solutions to problems, et cetera. All right, let's move forward a little bit and talk to me about how That turned into, you talked about, your two to four unit properties. What was the next step in that Genesis? And then we'll get into how you got into the property management side of things.

[00:10:33] Dan French: Yeah. So Pete, my partner,got out of Harvard Law School in 2010 and he basically scoured the country, just from a data standpoint and thinking about what is it, what is a really good contrarian play? Because that was a great time to do a contrarian move, right? Just even being active in that timeframe, 2010 and all the way to 2015, it was more contrarian. It was very quiet. it became exceedingly. More frothy as you went year by year, more players entered. But, so his bet was that Florida, in particular to begin with, would just really rage back. And it was a thematic bet based on a business friendly environment, regulatory friendly, a regulatory environment that encouraged business and no state income tax. We felt that it was overblown to say, Oh, the state's tourism focused, we thought it was more dynamic than that. And it. That all turned out to be true, right? So that was a wonderful contrarian, long term mindset. That's really how he founded the company that bought 2 billion. So then quickly from Florida, we started investing in Texas. I think our first Austin deal was in 2013. And so we really bet on Texas, specifically Austin and a little bit in DFW, a little bit in Houston and one or two deals in San Antonio, it was a great basis to play. A lot of these were distressed, Both financially and physically, especially in Florida. And it was this neighbor that has ever decimated. And we brought these deals back to life. and we just kept churning that, and built it a vertically integrated shop. So it was able to do all the property management, construction management, and over time bought 17, 000 apartments. or, over time a little bit better, B to B plus, instead of some of the, some of the stuff in the early days was C. Like C class product, taking them over from banks. So we, in our DNA, know how to do all the really heavy, deep turnaround stuff. But then we also know how to do lease ups, we've done a couple of those and many of them as resprout, right? We serve all kinds of owners as resprout management. including student housing, including affordable, including lease ups, including BTR, and obviously value add because we know that very well. So that's how that all went down. And I was just very, very blessed to join Pete, at a wonderful time where the business was like right before scaling. And then by 2016, I became CEO of that firm. And he was really, I guess you, we would say executive chairman. He's still involved in strategy and investment decision making, but the day to day ops would be left to a leadership team.

[00:12:47] Tim Little: Yeah. And I have to say, I wish I had the crystal ball that you guys had back then, because you made some really smart decisions, obviously, again, in hindsight, when it comes to Florida, Texas, I think it made sense back then. Maybe the economies weren't as diversified back then as they are now. you could say that about markets like Orlando, Tampa, back then, if you talked about Orlando, it was like you said, Oh, it's just tourism. It's a one trick pony. That is not the case anymore because frankly, so many old people wound up moving to the Orlando area that they're like, Hey, we're going to turn into a medical city. And that's a. That's a huge part of how they're selling themselves. In addition to, of course, all the tourism stuff. And then you have a place like Tampa, which again, it was nice, but there was no buzz until company headquarters started moving there and they're like, Hey, we're living here. And their employees wanted to live there and it's tax free. And so all these things started piling on each other. And I don't need to tell you, during COVID, all that stuff got just supercharged. so you guys were in a very enviable position, as was anyone else who already owned properties in those markets, before that rocket ship took off.

[00:14:06] Dan French: Yeah. Yeah. You're making great points and I totally agree. And it's great. I lived there for six years and when I got there, it was more of a sleepy town, and now when I go back, I'm like, whoa, this, there's a lot of new stuff here, it's really great to see. And it shows you, with good policy and good, cause I think, I do think the state economy, like the policies that they have, they're really encouraging business and you see now, trillions of dollars of wealth too. because of all these old people that are moving and they have a lot of money for retirement. And so they're bringing trillions of dollars of wealth from high tax states. And some of that's going to trickle into the economy for sure. they're spending their money and they're investing as well into these giant economies.

[00:14:49] Tim Little: Yup. And so it sounds the experience that you guys had, with all your acquisitions, especially, in different asset types, or asset classes, I should say, from your C class to your B class, all of that was your schooling for better property management, right? You learn by doing, and then that way, when you become a property manager, you recognize both the problems and the potential solutions. Is that accurate?

[00:15:16] Dan French: yeah, definitely. Like I said, certain things I do believe get baked into a company's DNA based on some of their founding and how they found a market and found success. And so for us, it was always, what we say, like find a way or make one, or for WOMA, find a way to make one. And you probably have heard about this, dealing with our team, but that's the kind of people that we get. And I think that's a secret sauce of property management because, A lot of groups that are on a product,in core locations, especially, during the boom times when it was, it's like shooting fish in a barrel, trying to get renters in some of these places. Like it's really easy. they have a marketing program and I'm not trying to take anything away from groups, but, that's a, that's an easier playbook. And where I think we've excelled and always excel. I think we will excel into the future. I should say the spots where it gets a little dicey, like when COVID happened. I think our team really accelerated during COVID and we found we were, we grew tremendously during COVID because people noticed that we were not going to give up. Every single day we're going to go fight for the owner. And a lot of other groups were like locking offices and hiding behind desks and you just couldn't do that. You were essential workers. and you had to stay, you had to stay alive and fight for the owner because, Then we're fighting for our business too. So that mentality is baked in so much into our DNA of our team. And we've also done a good job keeping our core team together. Like people have been around with each other for 10, 12 years. Now, many of them, the core people that are very important to the business, five years, six years, seven, eight, and we've homegrown a lot of talent. So anyway, I think that's some of them. Yes.

[00:16:52] Tim Little: I think it's a matter of seeing all those different challenges to my, my property, it's just one example, right? This was a property that was all student housing. And then we got all the students out to down to 0 percent occupancy and said, we're going to make this market. rate housing, right? Just slightly different, but we did that so that we could renovate the entire thing and then start leasing up building by building as it became available but people may not think about what a huge lift that is to go from 0 percent occupancy it's it's akin to a brand new build right? in terms of that heavy lift and that's very important Property management intensive, especially when the property management company is overseeing the construction, the renovation associated with that property. Talk to me a little bit about what that looks like for you guys and how you have to have your team built out in order to support. something like that where you're not just looking at leasing, right? You don't just have a couple of folks sitting behind a desk, but you have a whole team of people so that you can do this full service model for folks that are doing heavy renovations on a property.

[00:18:39] Dan French: Yeah, again, I do think it goes back to how we started our property management and construction management teams. And when we started it, it was purely vertically integrated. So for folks at home, that means that we only operate and do construction management for our owned assets. If an owner,some other owner comes to us, we would say, no, we're, this is our deal. We only do our own stuff. A lot of people did come to us because we had a good reputation and we always turned people away. but we, so we built all these programs and solutions of this vertical integration mindset. So thinking like an owner is. Is how we just do, that's just how we're built, So when we pivoted, don't get me wrong. It was a difficult pivot because, being vertically integrated, you can do all things, every single thing one way. Because it's one owner. Now, when you have 50 owners, every owner is a little bit unique. Clearly, some of them have their own reporting. They have their own GL stuff. They have a lot of different things. They want to see something different bespoke to them. the answer to the question, like, how do we coordinate all this from management, property management, construction management, lease up it's cause that's how we had to build our firm.  So it carried forward from how it got built.

[00:19:52] Tim Little: Okay. And so you guys already had that team built and in place before you ever started offering those services to outside owners, right?

[00:20:02] Dan French: Exactly. Yeah. We built it for ourselves. We built it obviously with a lot of care, because that's one of the ways we thought we had alpha. And I think we did have operational alpha, there's buy side alpha. They can differentiate yourself in the marketplace based on how well you buy or maybe when you buy and what kind of debt you put on it.

[00:20:21] Tim Little: but there's also operational alpha. Can you execute better than the person down the street? And then that's what we seek to do to give to our owners. We want to serve owners with, so they get operational alpha. So they're beating their sub market. Yeah. And so my next question would be then what was that point where you knew that you were ready to go outside of just the properties that you own and you made a decision that we are going to offer these services to others. What was the impetus for that?

[00:20:53] Dan French: It was really a decision, our strategy. The choice was a really big pivot because we had a very well regarded deal acquisition, kind of private equity, but the buy side, the machinery of that was very well regarded, throughout Florida and Texas and people knew we could close on deals. We can execute well. But we decided to sell and first, we decided to stop buying because the idea was like, it just got super frothy. Looking back in hindsight, we could have timed everything to sell exactly right the day before rates increase. but thematically, yeah, I think we called it very well, which was pricing had just got so frothy in Florida and Texas. So many groups had shown up to do the play that we had already been doing for eight or nine years. and we just said, you know what, now's a good time to be net sellers. So we actually sold a billion point five, 1. 5 billion of our portfolio, deal by deal, not in a, not in one assets, like portfolio sale, but actually deal by deal. So it took a long time and we looked at it from a strategic standpoint, just whiteboards for many days, had debates and this and that, but we love property management.we, that's where we decided we love property management and we knew that the property management team couldn't stay, together if it was only serving a couple thousand, 3, and that kind of diminished over time. So in order to grow it back up, it needed to go out and pivot and become a provider to third parties. Owners. So it really happened out of that strategic choice. And then the next strategic pivot was, okay, let's become, let's build up that capability of a third party provider.

[00:22:33] Tim Little: Yeah, that's awesome. And obviously a lot of times owners talk about the issues that they have with property management challenges, I'll say, but I want to hear from your perspective, what are the challenges that you guys face in your business generally? And if there's anything specific to the environment right now, what challenges are you seeing there?

[00:22:56] Dan French: There's a lot, I would say one of my favorite quotes is like the biggest, the biggest illusion around communication is that it actually took place. so the key thing is if you don't know the owner's business plan, if you don't really know it deep, deep down, because sometimes you can even have it on paper,and have a weekly call, but you, or for whatever reason that communication didn't really happen. And so you have to, first of all, get on the exact same page as the owner, cause you're their agent. At the end of the day, you have to execute what they want and you can give advice and tell them, Hey, do this versus that. But you really have to let them be in the driver's seat to the extent that they want to. So first of all, understand their business plan. What are they trying to achieve? Is it a refi?Like in the case we've talked about, or is it a sale or is it like a whole forever start from there? and then really okay, how do I execute the business plan based on that backward design from that? I think that's a key thing. I've seen a lot of groups get wrong. I think we're getting very good at that. and then the other big thing is, it's people, it's a people business and just finding the right people and retaining them. Very difficult in our business. I think the average attrition rate in our business is like 75%. So that means most people are churning out of your business. We're beating that, as a team. And we focus a lot on that. We actually were driving some of the comp programs for our team to, to actually increase, retention of our teammates, because, that's very jolting for an owner. and it's also bad for our team because If you're on, if you're on this treadmill of constantly retraining, hiring new people is very costly and then you can't focus on the owner's asset. So we want to always be beating the industry benchmark there. and then I think great things happen from there. because that's also baked into that is that you've hired good people. Cause if you didn't, you would be firing them.

[00:24:45] Tim Little: Yeah. and so from what I'm hearing from you, communication and understanding the owner's intent, their plan for the property are two of the biggest keys there.

[00:24:56] Dan French: Yeah. Those would be the biggest keys. And then from our standpoint as a team, as a property management company, a proper property management firm. I think it's all about people, retention, building culture, being the kind of place where people seek you out and they say, wow, that's an amazing team. I've heard nothing but great things about you guys. I want to be part of that,

[00:25:18] Tim Little: Yeah. And let me ask you, we, as owners, what do you wish,that we would do more of or do differently that you think would just help improve, improve the performance of the property or help you help us as it were.

[00:25:34] Dan French: wow, that's a good one. It's probably different depending on the owner. Yeah. The personality of the owner is very different across the board. some are really hands off, like surprisingly And some are like. If you go to the site and visit your team, they know the owner by name. They're the owner of some smoking cigars out and then the back patio overlooking the lake, because is this his baby? That's his baby. He's just there all the time and he loves mixing it up with the team. I don't know, I think it tells us how you want to be served. Do you, is your goal to be hands off on this deal? and we just send you wonderful reports and everything. You're always beating NOI and you're loving life and the less amount of time you have to spend on that, you can go spend on your next deal. Is that your goal or do you want to be active? every week. I'm on the call. I'm diving in. And then every month I visit the property. Every week I visit. Who knows? Some people it's in their backyard. I don't know. Does that make sense? Like, how do you want to be served? I think that would be, that's a good conversation.

[00:26:37] Tim Little: Yeah. And I think you're right. Like every owner is different. like you said, when it comes to their expectations, their desired level of involvement, which I think is what you were getting at. So you probably have to take it on a case by case basis. what about. Incentivizing,the folks that work at the properties, what are you seeing as the trends is because you talked about turnover and that's, that is a huge issue, like you said, not just for you, but also for us as owners, because, just like having continuity makes everything smooth, like that's in probably any business. but especially a customer. Facing business like this where tenants get to have real relationships with the folks that are on the property, right? They say hi to them. They go and grab coffee in the lobby. Whatever the case may be They know the names of their dogs and you know If you have those folks leaving every three months a year that can be disruptive Not just for you, but for the owners and for the tenants themselves. What are the best ways to retain that top talent on that property?

[00:27:48] Dan French: I do think, and I'm going to get back to your other question about how to incentivize them. But I do think the best way to retain them is to build a very strong culture and that might, some people throw around the word culture, but I've seen it really, manifest over so many years now within the business, people need to feel like they are really connected. To a greater goal, if, because property management is so difficult, you're going to get yelled at, which isn't funny, you're going to get yelled at. It's a difficult business because no one,very often people are giving you their complaints, right? My roof caved in because of the water. There was a roof leak. That's not the property manager's fault really, but they have to deal with it and they have to make it better. They have to recover. And, so it's a very intense business. It's a people's home. So if something goes wrong, their toilet doesn't work, okay, they're going to let you know. and there's no way out. You have to fix it. You have to find a way. so I think burnout can happen in the business. It's very severe. I've seen it so many times. people get burned out, but so they have to be attached to a broader mission. And that is, we like to try to make it like, all right, this is about service. It's about serving owners. Number one. But then that's our key customer as a firm. But through the years, we also know we have to talk about serving residents. The importance of having a clean, hospitable, friendly environment, and safety. It's got to be safe. so doing a good job, like attaching all that to, you're not just sweeping the floor, you're helping someone go to the moon. you know that one like from the NASA thing, it's yeah, no, I'm not sweeping the floor. I'm helping. bring these guys into space. Like that's attaching someone to that broader thing. and then friendships, I think friendships are deep in our business and, getting people off their site,recognizing them. If they've done excellent, you recognize them and then celebrate them and get together with your, the rest of your region or your region to come see you and give you some props, holding you accountable when they need to, but having fun too. That's gone a long way in our business. And we're very intentional about it.

[00:29:56] Tim Little: no, that's awesome. And you're right, obviously, people talk a lot about culture. but if you tie, if you get them to tie what they're doing toMission, then that's huge to keeping people because they will put aside the smaller things, in pursuit of that, that greater mission. Yeah. This has been some awesome conversation, but right now we do need to move on to the turbo round. So I'm going to ask you three questions that I ask every day. Every guest is just looking for a quick, honest answer. Are you ready?

[00:30:31] Dan French: I'm ready.

[00:30:32] Tim Little: All right. First question. What is one red flag? Every investor should look out for.

[00:30:39] Dan French: I think a short term mindset is the biggest red flag that I would. That I would tell people and some of this, you can, it's revealed if they're really focused on fees or if they have above market fees, that's very bad. So if someone's investing with our ATX acquisitions team, we want to make money really only when they make money.

[00:30:58] Tim Little: So when they do well, we want to do well. So you have to have that long term mindset and incentivize and align your interest with the person you're stewarding their capital, Absolutely. Yeah. Alignment of interest is huge. If you see that diverging, that's certainly a

[00:31:15] Dan French: Ron,

[00:31:16] Tim Little: okay. Second question. What is a myth about this business that you would like to set straight?

[00:31:21] Dan French: I just wrote about this on LinkedIn, where I try to be active, but there's an article in the Wall Street Journal about Brad some rock, which. I'm not necessarily taking shots on what he's done. I like that he's educated people, but basically he was saying, buy, everyone needs to buy like today. It's always the best time to buy today. And I have trouble with that. I don't think that's right. I think you have to be careful about when you buy. I think the time to get active and build your knowledge and think about, and start executing toward your goal, which might be real estate ownership is today.

[00:31:56] Tim Little: But it doesn't necessarily mean Oh, you have to go buy something at this very moment. Because then people get dealt heat and they get in trouble. Yeah, I completely agree. I also agree that there's always a deal to be found, but it doesn't necessarily mean for that individual. It's the best time to buy a deal, right? Do they have the proper education? Do they have the proper partnerships? Are they? Is it the right time for them?

[00:32:21] Dan French: And I think that's the question they need to ask and not have. And I'll use the G word, a guru tells them they have to do it now. Cause. there's probably some incentive for that person who's saying bye bye bye Yeah. You nailed it. Yeah. You nailed it.

[00:32:37] Tim Little: All right, last question, what does success look like to you?

[00:32:43] Dan French: I think that we're living our mission, which one way we say is elevating humanity. and in everything we do, So if it's, if we're stewarding capital, that investor has, They've slept very well. We've aligned our interests with them. They can enjoy their life and just trust that we're always going to do the right thing.  And we're going to give them great returns. if it's an owner of an asset like you, that same thing, we've tried to align our team with what you want to achieve.and we've gone above and beyond. whatever we thought was humanly possible, we've done it all for you, and then, everything else, like residents are living a good life.  They, when they're near us, we wave to them, we smile, so just elevating humanity and the small things and the bigger things. That's, I think that's successful or that is success to me.

[00:33:29] Tim Little: Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that's true for property managers and property owners. We need to remember that, yeah, these are properties, but there's real people, real families. Living in these properties and not losing sight of that. All right, Dan. Hey, I have really appreciated you coming on and giving that property management perspective, which I truly think is lacking, at least in this podcast space. So I want to thank you for coming on. Please tell our listeners how they can get a hold of you. And if there's anything else that you'd like to share with them.

[00:34:02] Dan French: Yeah. I always give out my cell phone number. It's, and people have hit me up on a few podcasts and straight up like texting me. So feel free if you want to cheat, just chat or trade ideas or what have you, or if we can serve you as one of our businesses, but it's 8456291808.  text me, call me. I try to be active on LinkedIn, so we'd love to interact with you there or check out what I'm posting about or DM me there. and then if res prop can serve you, if you're an owner of an asset and you, maybe you're buying a new one or you don't like your group now, we'd love to talk to you and see if we can serve you and ATX is buying deals. so if you're an investor and LP, look at ATXacquisitions.Com.

[00:34:41] Tim Little: Awesome. we'll have all that information in the show notes. Dan, again, appreciate you coming on and I look forward to continuing to see you do big things on your journey to multifamily millions.

[00:34:51] Dan French: You as well. Thank you

[00:34:52] Tim Little: Take care.

 


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TIM LITTLE (FOUNDER/ CEO)

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