Stacking Assets & Filling Your Pipeline with Off-Market Deals with Ryan Corcoran – EP 327

The Fastest Way To Build A Six Or Even… Seven Figure Real Estate EMPIRE! 

If you want to automate and explode your real estate business, check out my coaching program!
Coaching

For many real estate investors, it starts with a single flip–but it’s what you do next that really matters. 

Today’s guest, Ryan Corcoran, definitely figured out what his next step was and he hasn’t looked back. Ryan is the founder and CEO of Specialized Property Group. That first flip became a springboard that helped him eventually purchase over $15 million worth of real estate, including over 200 units of multifamily apartments in the Northeast. On top of that, he’s helped other investors do over $10 million in deals. 

Ryan has a knack for finding incredible off-market deals through direct mail marketing–and he’s used this technique to purchase 100-unit buildings at a discount without brokers or realtors. 

In this conversation, Ryan and I discuss how that first flip led to an eight-figure portfolio–and everything he learned along the way. You’ll find out why his latest development fund is uniquely focused on build-to-rent properties, how he’s building a $25 million fund for his upcoming projects, and why great deals (and great investors) were crucial to his success.

Key Takeaways with Ryan Corcoran

  • How Ryan finds off-market deals of all sizes.
  • Ryan’s build-to-rent strategy–and why he’s getting involved in new development.
  • The importance of being creative when raising private money.
  • How building confidence in your deals, especially in new developments, helps to create value to potential buyers.
  • How overextending yourself and shiny object syndrome can prove to be huge setbacks as you build your portfolio.

Ryan Corcoran Tweetables

“Having a really good pipeline and having a network of people who can help you find those really good deals is the most important thing you can possibly do. There is no real estate, there’s no company, there’s no money if you don’t have a really good deal.”

Resources

Rate & Review

If you enjoyed today’s episode of The Accelerated Real Estate Investor Podcast, hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!

Connect with Josh Cantwell

Sign Up For The Forever Passive Income Partnering, Mastermind and Coaching Program with Josh Cantwell

To unlock your potential and start earning real passive income, visit joshcantwellcoaching.com

Josh Cantwell: So, hey there, welcome back to Accelerated Investor. I’m your host, Josh Cantwell. And today, I have a great interview with Ryan Corcoran. Ryan is the founder and CEO of Specialized Property Group that primarily invests in the Northeast, so Rhode Island, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia area. Ryan originally started his investing career doing one single flip.

 

Today, he’s been able to purchase over $15 million worth of real estate. He owns over 200 units of multifamily apartments, and he’s helped other investors purchase over $10 million worth of real estate. And Ryan’s primary superpower that we talk about in this interview is finding great deals through off-market direct mail marketing. So, not just single-family or residential properties, but multifamily, 15 units, 50 units, 100 units and up through direct-to-seller, off-market, direct mail marketing and several other methods to buy discounted properties under market value without using realtors, without using brokers. And that’s one of the things that we’re going to talk about today.

 

We’re also going to talk with Ryan, number two, about his build-to-rent strategy and why he’s doing more development. Number three, we’re going to talk about Ryan’s first experience of raising private money and why it’s so important to be creative. And finally, number four, we’re going to talk about some of the advice that Ryan would give his younger former self, the things that he did right and the things that he did wrong, and specifically, why when he got started out, he focused on far too many things and far too many niches and had way too much shiny object syndrome.

 

So, for those of you that are new to intermediate investors, this is a perfect podcast for you to listen to, to make your pivot from residential into multifamily. So, here we go with Ryan Corcoran.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Josh Cantwell: So, hey, Ryan, thanks for joining me today on Accelerated Investor. Thanks for jumping on the show and carving out some time.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Absolutely. I appreciate it. I’m looking forward to it.

 

Josh Cantwell: Awesome stuff. Again, Ryan, so why don’t we just kind of start, have our audience get to know a little bit more about you? Why don’t you tell us about some of the projects that you’re working on or some of your passion projects? What are you working on today that you’re most excited about? What’s going on in today’s market for your business?

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, so really trying to pivot actually right now into something a little bit different. So, we’re really going into more development now. So, we’re doing a seven-triplex build in a town out here in Taunton, Massachusetts, looking to do some apartment building, some build-to-rent model. And then I’m also trying to acquire a restaurant franchise right now. So, a little bit of a twist off of real estate, but yeah, trying to pivot a little bit towards a few other areas. My background comes from multifamily and buy and holds and like that small, whatever, 5, 10, 15-unit range, but trying to pivot into developing larger 5,000-unit properties like that. So, we’re going to be starting a fund up pretty soon, my partner and I, and going that route.

 

Josh Cantwell: What was the impetus for the switch to get more into development?

 

Ryan Corcoran: So, a lot of what I do is direct-to-seller marketing, and that’s where most of my leads come from. And I had this one guy call me back on a piece of land. It was two-and-a-half acres. I had no idea what to do with it, but I had recently joined a mastermind and this guy was developing real estate and I brought the deal to him. I said, hey, man, two and a half acres, I don’t really know what to do with it. I’ve never bought just raw land before. Here it is. And he started digging into it. It came back to me and he was like, listen, man, we can fit 21 units on here. How much can you lock it up for?

 

And so, I went down that road, ended up locking it up for 275 grand. And now, it looks like it’s going to be a several million-dollar net profit deal when we’re done with it. So, that really got my wheels spinning, too. Okay, hold on a minute. If I can find all these multifamilies off-market, what if I start marketing to just raw land and then doing development of, whether it’s land development, taking it all the way through to the construction process, but a lot of value can be created from just finding a piece of land and then having the creativity to see what the best use for that land is and going down that road.

 

So, I’m really trying to pick up speed on that because I just see a really large profit margin, but not only from a money standpoint, but also building communities, right? I mean, we’re putting in a subdivision. And so, it’s really cool. It’s a different avenue and something that we’re trying to really hammer.

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. Love it. How about the triplex build-to-rent model? What should our audience know about that? What’s attractive about that model?

 

Ryan Corcoran: So, this one, we’re actually not going to build to rent, but what’s attractive about it is that in the same square footage that you would put a typical single-family house, let’s say if it’s 7,500 square feet, you’re essentially putting one building and splitting it into three condos with a garage underneath. So, you’re really increasing the density of that living space, increasing the profit per square foot.

 

Now, if you were to do a build-to-rent model, it could probably work with these, but in the specific town, each one of these is selling for 500 grand. So, it’s going to be really difficult to get the rental numbers to work, but in terms of from a sales perspective, 100%, that’s the way to go on this. But we are looking for more opportunity, like we have a potential 50-unit apartment build in the same town but further out on the outskirts zoned differently, where we’re able to actually build-to-rent model that and then try to essentially do a BRRRR, but instead of buying it, we’re building it. And so, then we’ll be able to refinance out our money and then have hopefully nothing left in it once we do that, but.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, and new construction with very long maintenance for the next…

 

Ryan Corcoran: Correct. To be honest, once I saw this one started to get up and running and I started looking at my portfolio and I’m like, all of these buildings are built in the 1900s. The plumbing is old, the electric needs to be redone. Everything is older. It’s almost like a whack-a-mole. Like as soon as you think you fix something, something else breaks, and it really cuts into your cash flow.

 

Being up here in the northeast, most of the buildings are built in the 1900s. And so, the multifamily layout out here, like you go down to Florida, tons of 5,000-unit apartment complex is built in the 80s. It’s not like that up here. So, up here, you have a lot of choppy 8 units, choppy 12-unit buildings that just really are a lot of maintenance.

 

And so, it looks really good on paper, but once you actually start to own them, it really starts to cut into that profit margins. So, that’s another reason why I’m super attracted to the build-to-rent model is you have deferred maintenance, no CapEx for, let’s say, 10 years. The maintenance should be, hey, I’ve locked myself out of my room. That type of stuff instead of, hey, that the plumbing is leaking underneath. So, yeah, that’s the pivot, so we’ll see.

 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. Got it. And is there something about today’s market that you see where those strategies are better suited for the market as we go forward? I mean, when I look at the market, we just had a great conversation with one of my commercial brokers yesterday. And we agree that we think the peak of the market was July of 2021. We look back, that’s when the market where that was the most money in the system, the economy was on fire. There was no war in Ukraine. Interest rates were super low. Everybody was liquid. And every time an apartment building came up for sale, there were, I mean, 7 to 10 or 20 offers.

 

Now, that’s pretty much been cut in half. Talking with brokers, the number of offers is cut down. The amount of bridge financing, there’s less. There’s obviously war in Ukraine. Cost of energy is up. Inflation’s up. So, is there anything about the market going forward that you think is beneficial to or helping you along with this decision to make some of these pivots?

 

Ryan Corcoran: So, in my personal opinion, I can’t see the future, so don’t come back at me. Bryan said so, but– so construction costs have been high for the last couple of years, along with property values and all that kind of stuff. And so, just based on just looking back in the past when construction costs have gone up, real estate has also gone up. And when real estate prices sort of level out, come down a little bit, construction price also comes down a little bit. It’s all supply and demand.

 

And so, my thought process with this is I can lock up land right now, get the engineering done, get ready to build. In six months down the road, my estimate is that construction costs are going to start coming down. As long as interest rates aren’t back down to 2%, I don’t see how can construction is going to go through the roof again.

 

And so, I’m trying to put myself in an opportune position where, okay, I’ve got these projects going, trying to time it where everything is becoming cheaper to build, essentially, just widening that profit margin. So, that’s my take on the whole new build section side of it.

 

Josh Cantwell: And to me, the challenge is, I think, if you’re an infinite-minded thinker and you’re owning assets for a long time and you’re going to own them for seven, ten years, or longer, 20 years, 30 years, the short-term hiccup and the cost of debt is not really a main driver. Like you could build that thing. It might even bleed some cash while it’s under construction. You get into your first loan, but the idea of owning brand-new real estate is very attractive, even if the cost of debt is more. And so, we just have to get through this very kind of short-term bump. I mean, interest rates historically are still lower than the average, right?

 

Ryan Corcoran: Correct.

 

Josh Cantwell: So, it’s just about, do I really want to own this piece of real estate? And what I’ve been telling some of my consulting clients and people that I coach a little bit is that, look, right now, because the higher cost of debt, the less availability of bridge financing because it doesn’t get service coverage and there’s just different loan to values problems and things like that, there’s actually less buyers in the market today. Now’s a good time to actually really be very aggressive with offering, not being aggressive with offering a high price, but being aggressive about offering on a lot of buildings because there’s less competition instead of having 7 to 10 people to compete with, maybe competing with three or four.

 

Ryan Corcoran: It’s funny, just to sort of bridge off of that. So, I have eight flips that are just sitting on the market. They haven’t moved, like now, fortunately, I’m not overleveraged on them, so I’m not bleeding, but they’re not moving. And so, that tells me that, okay, number one, the amount of buyers has dropped. The demand for those specific types of properties are dropping. And so, I was flipping everywhere. I was wholesaling everywhere. And it was going great until everything comes to sort of like this halt in the status quo.

 

And so, that was another reason why I was trying to find the next avenue and sort of make that move. And so, that’s another reason why I was jumping into new development, again, because these are all older properties. And in my perspective, when a market is on its downturn or it’s just leveled out and there are more properties and less buyers, people are going to want higher quality, newer builds, less maintenance, more ideal layouts, a driveway, a two-car garage, all the things that people are looking for in properties that it didn’t necessarily matter over the last couple of years.

 

Last couple of years, it was, okay, what can I afford and not get beat up by 50 grand, right? And so, you could buy a jump to family, throw some paint in there, and sell it for 100 grand more. And I was doing that. And then, so now, like I said, I’ve got a couple of them sitting on the market that aren’t moving. And so, that’s why I’m sort of I’m making that pivot to, okay, good locations, new assets that have low maintenance that are going to last a while, that are always going to be in demand.

 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. Yeah, one of the traits, I think, of an elite investor, and it’s a talk that I regularly give, number one, is all about creating cash flow now, today, because ultimately, that’s what sets us free, big income pops from flips and stuff like that and even selling an apartment building which I’ve done, made a million bucks or more. It’s like, okay, great, but that million bucks coming in next month or that 50…

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, you can’t stop. You can’t stop, right?

 

Josh Cantwell: Right.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Exactly.

 

Josh Cantwell: So, investing for cash flow now, whether it’s new construction, new build, build to rent, BRRRR, those types of things, or buying some dirt to convert and then own or even refi, those kind of things, those are all different ways to create cash flow now. That’s a big trait of the elite investors that I’ve been around and really, really important. Ryan, help us understand from this development now of taking the dirt and building, what are some of the different income opportunities that are in that type of play?

 

So, if I’m a multifamily investor but never did new construction or if I’m a residential investor, never did multifamily, and I want to look at building, like what’s in it for me? Like what’s in it for you? Are there loan sponsorship fees? Are there acquisition fees, like development fees? Tell me about that because that is a way to build and not have to delay all of your income just for equity later or cash flow payment. Help us understand that.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, well, right, because it takes 18 to 24 months for these things to get off the ground from acquisition to engineering all the way through until you’re up and rent it. So, it’s a long time. It’s a lot of hemorrhaging capital until they’re up and running. However, first of all, if you can find something under market value, first thing you can do is you can assign it or wholesale it. So, that’s the number one way to make money.

 

Second way is you have engineering done. You now have plans on it. So, now, you own the land and you have engineered plants so you can sell it. Now, it’s worth, I don’t know how much more, it’s going to depend on actual property, but now you can sell the land with the plants.

 

The next step would be to get permits. If you have plans, permits, and the actual land, you can go sell back to an investor. So, there’s a bunch of different ways that where if you’re getting too far in that you can always sell because you’ve built up equity. And nothing you have done so far, you haven’t stuck a shovel in the ground yet.

 

The next step would be land development. So, you take the land, you get the engineering done, you get the permits, you get the approval from the town, and then you put, let’s say, a road in or it depends on what you’re building, but if you have a road and you’ve got curves and everything in there and all the lots are split, you can now sell that and you can land develop it

 

And then the last step would be, obviously, constructing it up. But yeah, you can get creative throughout the process, which is another reason I like the build model because if you get too far in, the profit margin doesn’t look like it’s going to hit where you wanted it to, or simply, you just need the capital for something else. You can offload to the point that you’ve gotten to another investor who can take over.

 

Josh Cantwell: Right. Yeah, I love it. I love the opportunity that we’re in the process right now. We own a couple of acres infill in a prime urban suburb and it’s right by the water, it’s one block from the lake, and that’s exactly where we’re at. And I’ve never done new construction. We’ve done 4,000 apartments and 19 syndications, but I’ve never built anything. So, I have a little bit of heartburn still over, how does it all work and exactly how is this going to grow because I’ve just never done it before. I have a lot of confidence that we’ll get it right. We’ve got a lot of professionals, builders, designers, our team. I can see it through, but it is nice to know that there’s places we can pull the parachute, right?

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, 100%, which you can’t necessarily do that if you’re buying an already set multifamily. I mean, if you’re buying a property and you’re not buying an under-market value, you’ve got to ride that out or improve the value somehow, increase rents or something to get the value up. But in the build, again, you have a bunch of different steps you have to take. And don’t get me wrong, it’s so tedious. Like there’s just so much work, like a lot of paperwork, a lot of meetings, board meetings, planning board approvals, so much stuff that goes into it. And that’s why it takes 24 months. But again, at each stage, you’re able to sell if you need to.

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. Yeah, I love it. I love it. So, Ryan, you’re developing now. You’ve done $15 million worth of real estate that you’ve bought. You helped other investors do over $10 million worth of deal flow, but it didn’t all start that way, right? You started from scratch, like most people. Tell us about the early steps and kind of what are some things that were pivotal moments for you to not only go from zero to start getting to $15 million worth of deals, but then also, like as you look to make this next pivot, what are some of the things that were early challenges or challenges that you faced and how did you get through those?

 

Ryan Corcoran: The biggest thing for me was lack of capital. And the challenges have changed throughout the course of my journey here. But initially, it was lack of capital. I was 21 years old. I was about to go either to medical school or to get my master’s. And I’m thinking about, okay, I’m going to come out doing X, whatever it is, making X amount of money where I could go flip two houses and get that.

 

So, I started really looking into that, ended up buying a duplex. I borrowed $110,000 from my uncle, borrowed 20 grand from my parents, combined the two, bought the property, fixed it up, sold it, paid them both off, and I walked away with an almost $100,000 check. And I was like, okay, light bulb moment.

 

And so, from there, I went from a duplex to a three-family to a five-family to a six-family to a 10-unit. So, I just kept going up in the amount of units per building because I saw that the more units under one roof that the numbers started to look better, and also the price per unit started to drop because there were just less of them. So, when I bought that 10-unit, we bought it for $80,000 a unit. When I bought a three-unit, it was like $140,000 a unit.

 

And so, also commercial lending came into play at that point and commercial lending, obviously, you know, but for people who don’t know, commercial lending is so much easier than residential lending. You can be so creative. You can pull money from anywhere, partnerships. It’s really about the asset that you’re buying instead of how much money do you make, let me see your tax return-type deal.

 

Yeah, so money was really my issue at first. So, I really had to master creative financing. So, I’ve done literally everything from private money, hard money, seller financing, the deal we’re doing, I have a 12-unit under contract right now. They’re giving us a $200,000 seller credit because it’s blowing walls. So, just like random things like that, but you have to get creative. I’ve got a saying, like be stingy about how much money you put into a deal and really try to focus on how creative you can actually be with each deal because in my opinion, in your 20s, it’s really difficult to scale a rental portfolio or any business than you have to in real estate if you have to use all of your own capital upfront.

 

And I’m not saying be reckless and borrow people’s money and do crazy things, but if you have a solid deal, you have good mentorship, you’ve got a partner, maybe, who knows what they’re doing. That’s what I did. I started to take the leap and I would borrow money and pay people back and just start leveraging real estate through that way.

 

Josh Cantwell: That’s great. So, tell me about that, so many people have heartburn over raising money, borrowing money, recruiting capital. We’ve raised and recruited over $100 million. I don’t have any heartburn over it. Matter of fact, I feel like it’s my superpower. Ultimately, it’s the rocket fuel that makes the rocket go. And I’m responsible for buying or creating the rocket fuel in our business. So, I love it, like I thrive in it.

 

Other people are deathly afraid of it. And for you in your 20s, I was a financial planner in my 20s, so I got comfortable being around money, talking to people about money. In my 20s, it’s probably one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given is to, as a very young age, get comfortable talking about money and talking to other people about their money. It sounds like you got very comfortable with that also at a young age. Just talk our audience through that. Like, a lot of times, it’s just a mental barrier because they haven’t done it, they don’t think they can do it. How did you overcome that challenge in your own mind?

 

Ryan Corcoran: So, that was me, right? It was, okay, if I borrow $100,000 from this person, I am now responsible to pay that $100,000 back. I don’t even have $100,000 in my bank account. How the hell am I going to do that? And so, for me, it was the partner that I had brought in on one of my first– it was like my third or fourth deal. His name’s Mike. He had already had 50 units at the time and he was already comfortable with this. He was also a financial advisor.

 

And so, when I brought a deal to him and I essentially raised the money for that and he really walked me through, listen, like the asset is going to pay for the debt, for the interest that you have on it. We’re going to go in, we’re going to rehab it, we’re going to refinance it. And within 12 months, that balloon payment will be paid off.

 

And so, I was sort of leveraging his knowledge when I first started and leveraging other partners who had already done it before. And once I did one and I got over that mental barrier of, okay, yes, I’m responsible for the money, but we just bought an asset that’s going to completely pay for that debt, I just started to– I was like, all right, this is genius. Like, this is unbelievable. I can do this at a large scale.

 

And so, that’s the way I look at it now. I look at the asset that we’re purchasing is really responsible for paying that back. And so, if you’re buying a good enough asset and you’re making sure that it’s a really good deal, then there should be no– like that mental issue goes away because you don’t feel the weight on your shoulders anymore to make those payments because you know the cash flow is going to pay for it.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. What I just heard you say in a different way is, even though you didn’t have the money, the deal had the money, and you kind of placed your confidence in that you bought the right deal. Instead of saying, like, I’ve got to come up with $100,000, it’s like, let’s add one additional step in the middle, which is I found the right deal that’s going to support that $100,000 investment, or I found the right deal, that’s a $10 million investment, an apartment complex or whatever. I have a $100 million deal in Houston that I own. It’s like I got a lot of success, but can I just pay back the $100 million? The answer is no.

 

I was confident in the underwriting, the team, the deal, the pro forma, the business plan of that transaction to say, yeah, we’re going to go buy this $70 million asset, we’re going to go get another $8 million for CapEx, we’re going to recruit some money from private investors and family offices. And yeah, I’m freaking responsible. Me and my other GPs are responsible. But now, the confidence was really placed in did I buy and structure the right deal.

 

If you can offload your confidence onto the deal, which is kind of, Ryan, what I heard you say, like you built confidence in the deal you bought, the deal could support the money, that’s where I think the leverage becomes in our own minds to get comfortable borrowing the money or having equity partners, those kind of things, is in getting the right deal and being really dialed in and confident that you found the right deal that’s going to support the private investment.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, 100%. I couldn’t agree more. And also, the other thing, for people who are trying to start out and they’re afraid to raise money, if you’re trying to grow a business, I don’t care what business is, look around, the biggest businesses you know, the most successful businesses you know, they all raise a ridiculous amount of capital to get where they’re at. Like it’s impossible to do it all yourself.

 

And so, that was a sort of an eye-opener to me when I started looking into Walmart, like they all raise money. Everybody raises money to grow. It’s the only way to scale. And so, we take that from starting with $100,000, and now, we’re trying to start a fund, a $25 million fund to start to ramp it up a little bit. And so, it’s the same concept, though. So, we have to find a really good deal and you raise money and you have confidence in that deal, combine that capital. And not only are you making money yourself, but you’re providing everybody else a great return and in the meantime.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, that’s great. I think finding the right deal, placing your confidence in the deal is then going to give you a sense of personal confidence to go pitch the deal, recruit the money, and recruit the next deal. I watched the series. I think it was on Amazon Prime. It’s the series about Uber, Super Pumped. If you haven’t watched it, Ryan, you, my audience, like you have to watch this series, I think it’s on Amazon Prime. It’s called the Battle for Uber. It’s a lot about Travis Kalanick and the growth and the build-up of Uber.

 

But to your point, the first several episodes is about all the funding, like the different rounds of funding. And Travis is a different animal. His level of confidence and cockiness is like just through the roof. And of course, it’s Hollywood. So, even though he’s well known to have this overabundance of self-esteem, they put this in the movie and you could realize he’s even to the point where he’s like, I have such an amazing freaking company. I don’t care if you got $250 million. I’m going to pick and choose the investors that I want in my company.

 

And ultimately, when you get to the point and we’ve done this a little bit in our business, you’ve created this almost exclusion mentality where I know I’ve got an amazing apartment complex or I’ve got an amazing build-to-rent opportunity. And you, Mr. Private Investor, have to qualify to work with us. Now, all the leverage is on your side of the table because it’s like I’ve got $5 million of investors. I only need a million bucks to fund this. Why are you one of the million dollars of investors that I should pick?

 

Then ultimately, like, you’re sitting in the pot at the end of the rainbow, you don’t just see the pot. You’re literally sitting in the pot, and you can pick and choose who you get to work with. And a lot of it, again, comes from I’ve got so much confidence in my deal. I don’t know if I want you as an investor. Like I’m only going to pick and choose who I want to work with.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, well, to kind of leverage off your point right there, we both know that having the wrong investor in a deal can make a deal a disaster or a super big headache. So, while they’re vetting you and your deal, you also need to be vetting the investor very carefully. And it’s not just about how much money they’re putting into it. Like for us, we’re looking for people who relatively want to be hands-off. Okay, you want to set up a call, we can chat about the property, what’s going on, and we’ll walk you through.

 

But as a GP and as an operator, it’s on me and my partner to run the deal. So, if we have investors coming in who are trying to essentially control everything, it becomes very difficult and it’s just not people that we want to work with. So, having the right investors on board is just as important as finding a really good deal.

 

Josh Cantwell: No doubt. Awesome stuff, Ryan. Great pieces of advice there around raising capital and confidence in your deal and selecting partners, selecting the right investors, a lot of good nuggets there. Any other pieces of advice for our audience now that we know, you kind of started from zero, got that first build on, a little bit of help from mom and dad, help from the uncle, the whole pieces together, do the first until you make first 100. Now, you bought $15 million, $20 million worth of real estate. You’re doing these basically build-to-rent communities and different things like that. You’ve obviously had a lot of success in a short amount of time. What else can you pass back to our audience? What else can you tell them, things that you’ve done right or maybe things that you’ve done wrong that you’ve learned from?

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah. So, let’s start with things that I’ve done wrong, and then we’ll get to the right. So, things I’ve done wrong is I tried to focus on way too many things when I first started, like I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And so, I was just dabbling in everything and I was not working, like none of it was work. And I looked into short-term rentals. I backed out of a Hawaii condo. I looked into commercial, like retails. I backed out of a retail deal. And then I stumbled across multifamily. And then I figured out, okay, this is the path. And I just hammered it.

 

And so, when you’re starting, it’s really important to fully, really focus on one thing and really dive deep on that before you start building a bunch of other bridges. After you have that one built and it’s functioning on its own and it feels like second nature, that almost gets boring. You want to try something else? That’s fine. But to start, it’s super important to really focus on one thing, and I did not do that.

 

Now, I’m at the point where, okay, if I want to dabble in something else, I’m happy to do that. But I understand that I have the 200 units that are just there. It’s all working. I don’t have to do anything with that stuff anymore. So, yeah, I didn’t do that at first. I probably could have saved myself a couple of years by really focusing on one thing, but things I’ve done right is the number one thing that I would say to anybody at any stage, it’s the most important thing, is to really find good deals.

 

And so, having a really good pipeline and having a network of people who can help you find those really good deals is the most important thing you can possibly do. There is no real estate, there’s no company, there’s no money if you don’t have a really good deal. So, I know a lot of people say, okay, well, having the money is the most important thing, but you can’t move that money if there’s no deal. And so, I’ve always focused, whether it was the first duplex I bought, or for this fund or for build to rent, it’s always, all right, how can I find the absolute best deals? Who do I need to be sending me leads? What type of marketing can I do? Just basically building this massive funnel at any stage, it doesn’t matter what stage you’re at, you have to have that perfected. Otherwise, your business is going to start dwindling. You need to have consistent good leads coming in.

 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. Yeah, a lot of guys talk about the money first, right? And a lot of guys talk about you got to find the deal first. And we all know at the end of the day, they both have to arrive.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Correct.

 

Josh Cantwell: At the same time, right? Like closing, which is you got to have the great deal, you got to have the money, and it’s got to come together. I have a $6 million apartment, kind of a small apartment for us. We’re actually closing next week. And we had to renegotiate at the very last minute because there were some problems with some of the leases. We ended up working through that. And it’s a classic case of we found a great deal, recruited all the capital.

 

Now, we’ve got a great deal. We have a sophisticated seller, sophisticated buyers, sophisticated brokers, really smart lender. Everything is there. It’s all arriving at the train station, if you will. You got five different trains arriving at Grand Central at the right place at the right time, which is a beautiful thing when it all comes together.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, the thing I want to just harp on for a second is that you can’t be good at all of those. So, you can’t really be good at finding deals and also be good at being a lender and also be good at raising the money. It’s really difficult to do that. So, it’s super important you have a team. And so, all I meant before was that what I’m really good at and what I stress is finding a really good deal. And I leverage everybody else for everything else.

 

So, I’m going to have a good relationship with lenders and stuff like that, but I have partners that raise capital. You have to have a team. This is not one individual person that’s able to do this. I just happen to excel at finding really good deals, and when I bring those to the table, everything else falls into place.

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, I love it. Again, I give this talk around the traits of elite entrepreneurs and the bonus trait is to be super niche. And Ryan, I’ve mentioned that several times, his super niche, his superpower is finding great deals and doing the marketing and casting a wide net, evaluating a lot of deals, finding an amazing deal, and then JVing and partnering to kind of round out the team. I love it. So, Ryan’s living that all day. It’s fantastic stuff.

 

Ryan, listen, thanks so much for joining us today on Accelerated Investor. I’m sure our audience will want to connect with you after the show. So, where can they connect with you on social media, your website if they want to invest with you, get coached by you, do a deal with you?

 

Ryan Corcoran: Sure. So, I’m actually just starting out my social media. I’ve had a bad relationship with social media my entire life. I just never used it, but I see everybody else crushing it and I’m like, wow, these guys are growing their business like crazy just from social media. So, rjcorcoran08 on TikTok and Instagram, and then I have a YouTube channel as well. I can send you the link after just to put in there. But yeah, I mean if everybody wants to go follow, make some comments and likes, hopefully, you can learn something. That’s the point of it, so.

 

Josh Cantwell: I love it, Ryan. Awesome stuff today. I appreciate you sharing. Thanks so much for joining me on Accelerated Investor.

 

Ryan Corcoran: Yeah, really appreciate it, man. This has been awesome.

 

[CLOSING]

 

Josh Cantwell: Well, there you have it, guys. Listen, thanks so much for joining me again on another episode of Accelerated Investor. Don’t forget to smash down on the Subscribe button right now. Don’t forget to leave us ratings and reviews and share this all over social media. I would be so grateful for you that have left us ratings and reviews recently, that have left us comments, that have shared this all over social media

 

This is kind of a pet project for me and a good time for me to share and learn from all my different guests and share with all of you. And so, when I get new ratings, reviews, subscriptions, it really fills me up with gratitude, fills up my heart knowing that people are enjoying what we’re sharing and enjoying all the different guests that we’ve had. So, thanks so much for being here today, and we’ll see you next time. Take care.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *