How He Built 42 Rental Properties Across 6 States Using Data | Nilesh Singh

Nilesh Singh (00:00)
You don’t build a network by collecting like 500 business cards. You build it by becoming somebody people actually want to work with you again, right? So start small. Find one good wholesaler, one good agent, one good lender, a property manager, one investor who is a few years ahead of you. Go to the local meetups, get involved.

in podcasts like yours, in investors community, ask intelligent question, but also offer something back.

Issa Hanna (02:03)
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Issa Hanna, and today I have Nilesh Singh, a property investor, turned app designer. 75,000 people a month traffic this new app.

It is revolutionary. Nilesh, welcome to the show.

Nilesh Singh (02:20)
Thank you, Issa. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s good to be here. it’s a big time opportunity for me. Thank you.

Issa Hanna (02:26)
Definitely. And I am super excited to have you. very, very knowledgeable person in the game. So I know you’re gonna get a lot of knowledge out there to our viewers. I wanna start off. You have forty two rentals across six states. So can you kind of tell our viewers how you got into the rental game and then how you’ve been able to acquire so many since starting in 2022?

Nilesh Singh (02:48)
Yeah, that’s a great question, Issa. my journey in real estate wasn’t traditional at all. I come from a immigrant background. I have spent much of my career in United States on visa, H-1B visa. and I came here primarily to build my career in tech. real estate wasn’t originally part some.

Grand plan. So, like many immigrants, my initial thinking was very pretty simple, right? Work hard, build a good career, buy a home, create a stable life for your family. So that’s when I bought my first house. and eventually we rented out that first house. So we got a house, we stayed there for three years, and then I moved out of the house and got another house. But when I rented that house, I was paying

On a monthly basis, I was paying my mortgage, including like bit PITI was like $1,400. And I was making $2750 on the rent. I was like, man, that’s when it clicked. Like $1,200 in like from rental. I think that’s a good, that’s a good signal. Like I can do bigger. So that’s when I started buying out of state because Utah is pretty expensive market.

So, unless and until you’re able to build equity on the house, for example, my first house, I stayed there for three years and I was able to build that equity. And therefore, the rent has gone up and I was able to make good rent. But if I want to buy a house today and want to rent it, I’ll not be making a decent money, cash on cash. So therefore, I’m a big follower of BiggerPockets. So David Greene is one of the guys. I started reading some books, and David Greene was the one who

Gave me that light, I’m in California. David Greene is in California and he invests outside state. I was like, okay, this might work. I have a I’m a geek. I’m a data guy. I invest in stocks. my 15 years in IT. the best thing which I like is data. So I knew that I can figure out from the micro and macroeconomics perspective.

Like how that specific zip code looks like. And then it’s more like investing in stock, right? If you’re investing in a house, if you know the data and you know that company is going to do good and you have all the data, invest in it. So that was the whole idea of like, okay, I can invest outside state if I have the good data, access to good data, and access to a good team, which I don’t have to be there. I can be there once. There are a couple of properties which I haven’t seen yet.

In Arkansas, I have like three duplexes. I’ve never been to Arkansas. So that’s the whole point. But the thing is eventually it will start kicking in. You’ll be able to improve the process, make the process better, and you’ll be able to tie along some people who would be able to help you along the way. So that is how my journey looks like.

Issa Hanna (06:20)
I love that and a lot of us real estate people, I’m a fellow landlord myself. That light bulb goes off in your head and you’re like, hold on, wait a minute. I can do this, you know? and we get bit by the bug and we just keep rolling with it. So man, I love that origin story. It’s so cool. 2022, such a short period of time. You’ve got your Buy Box down so right that you’ve been able to acquire

Manage yourself, you and your wife, you told me, forty-two rental properties across six states, some you haven’t seen. Unbelievable, true remarkable. and that goes to show the analytical, the knowledgeable approach that you bring to buying actually works. I want to shift focus just a little bit now because we’re gonna get into the new exciting the future, if you will.

CovertNest, you’ve developed an app. I mentioned it earlier. You’re getting so much traffic every month already. It’s such a great app for investors like ourselves. So can you tell our viewers a little bit more about it?

Nilesh Singh (07:18)
Yeah, as of as of today, I was looking in. It’s more than 90,000 now on a on a monthly basis. so this CovertNest, I started having like I have learned in being on in the tech side and on the product side, I have been doing tech and product from last 15 years. what I have noticed is if you like things and if the issue which you are having.

Probably other might be having a similar issue. So basically, that’s what I tried addressing with CovertNest. I was having a similar as I told before, I’m a data geek, but for that I need access to the data. Now the market is pretty fragmented. If I want, I have to look into different sources in order to get the data. And even if I know the source,

They’re pretty expensive. Like to get the I was evaluating some of the some of the website and they were charging like $350 on a monthly basis. I was like, man, this is not for a middle class or a for a landlord who wants to get into like be a bigger landlord or for the first time investors, right? So that’s what I tried to address with CovertNest. CovertNest is more of like Zillow.

Built for rental property investors. with Bloomberg style kind of data, we have 29 different data points you can investors can evaluate on, like, okay, what’s the rent? How much is the cash flow? What’s the cap rate? What would be my ROI? What’s the vacancy looking like? what’s the population growth in that? And that is by zip code, 42,000 zip code data you can get in CovertNest.

So that is what we are trying to bring, everything together, so that you can analyze the data and you have the list of all the properties which are available by zip code. So you, it’s basically convenience which we are bringing to you. And you don’t have to like go through all paperworks and things like that, one place and everything’s sorted.

Issa Hanna (09:11)
One stop shop for the investors. and these are rented properties, they’re occupied, they’re cash flowing. So you could go in, you could go to CovertNest, the secret nest, you guys Nilesh kind of we went in and I said what a great name that is because it is kind of a secret right now. If you guys get on this app right now before it gets too big in the future, boy, do you have a leg up on people, you know? So and then a little bit future planning for you.

you’re thinking about bringing in the mortgage space into CovertNest in the near future. Can you tell us more about that?

Nilesh Singh (09:42)
Yeah, so before it mortgage, one thing which I want to clarify that there are a couple of things which we are trying to address. With most of our investors, we have already helped twelve hundred investors in the last nine months, one year. one of the one of the feedback which I have got from investors, like, man, even like I know you bring in

Data from different sources. You have 29 different data points. But how about like bring us one level above? Like, I don’t know which market is good, right? For in order to get this data, I have to enter the zip code. I was like, okay, let me have an AI sitting on top of CovertNest. So if you don’t know which market you want to invest in, let us help you because we have that deep analysis and we have the list of properties available with the with us.

Ask AI. CovertNest is there to help you. Ask AI, I’m new to this space. Help me find the best property in whatever market you want. Give us whatever you want, and we will be able to help you find the best property based on your Buy Box. So that’s one. Second thing, which we are trying to help with, the second feedback was you have data, you have property, but where to get us money to buy this property, right?

So that’s when okay, let us get into mortgage. Now, there’s a difference, different kind of mortgage. One is where Freddie Mac, Freddie Mac comes in, right? But then there is non-QM loans, where more like a DSCR loans. Because conventional loans, they have a they have a max at seven, sorry, not seven, ten. They have max at 10 a conventional loan you can have at it at a time.

But investors like us, where we have we are buying, like keep on buying properties across different states, like 42 properties, I won’t be able to make it based on a conventional loan. So that’s when I realized DSCR. It’s a debt service coverage ratio, is the kind of mortgage which can help you go unlimited, limitless as a landlord, because it doesn’t go with your W-2, it goes with how much your property is making.

Since we are bringing a tenant-occupied property, banks have or lenders have no issue like lending you because they know you’ll be able to get that money back to them. So that’s what the DSCR component we are going to add. We will be initially whitelisting from the lenders who are already available in the market. And then actually we start being a broker and then the lender. that’s what we are looking at.

to include in CovertNest

Issa Hanna (13:00)
Amazing. Amazing future planning. it’s such a revolutionary thing. It’s gonna make it so much easier. landlords, small time landlords who are not up to up to speed on the DSCR loans, great tool for us. Like Nilesh said, you can grow unlimited with that. the more you cash flow, the more properties you have, the more capital you can access. So

Man, I’m loving this. You’re dropping so much knowledge. I’m getting so excited about CovertNest. Right after this, I’m gonna go check you out, sign up, the whole nine yards. I wanna stick on the point of the future though, because you are a very knowledgeable guy. You have the background in tech, you’ve launched CovertNest, you’ve got all these great plans, you’ve got all these rental properties. If I looked you up in five years, Nilesh, where am I gonna see you at?

Nilesh Singh (13:48)
that’s an excellent question. in next five years, we are changing the game plan altogether. So it would be I want CovertNest to be one of the first places a real estate investors go before they buy the property. When someone says like I have hundred thousand dollars to invest, where should I buy? What should I buy? And what kind of return or the risk should I expect?

I want CovertNest to answer the question with that data. Today, investors are like jumping between the listing website, rent side, census data, spreadsheet, hard data, Zillow, local market. My vision is that five years from now, you tell CovertNest to your investment criteria and it helps narrow, narrow down the entire country down to a market and properties that actually fits you.

now that’s one of the big the biggest thing which we are we are planning to do with CovertNest. The other thing is we are getting into buying distress property. This these distress property we are trying to renovate, and more like as of now, we are buy and hold, but these properties as we renovate, we’ll be bringing it on our CovertNest website so that you get a renovated property.

rent ready property available for you to buy. And we’ll be managing everything for you. So the software, the hardware, everything you’ll get. Down the line, it’s not just the where you can buy the property, see the data. We will be adding the property management tool, everything in one place, all focused on investors, all focused on landlords, so that they can manage their property from our application itself.

Issa Hanna (15:28)
Exciting. I mean, you’ve thought of it all. You’ve thought of it all, Nilesh. the plan is golden. and I just can’t wait for this to take over because I know it is. I mean, it’s so well thought out. I want to get your advice now on new people, right? So our new guys that that watch our show, maybe just getting their real estate license, maybe just buying their first property, right? Our business.

runs on relationships. You’ve got to meet people. You’ve got to be out there. You’ve got to grow your network. what advice would you have for them on growing your their network and establishing their first business relationship?

Nilesh Singh (16:00)
that’s a deep question. that’s a great question. I think the biggest mistake which people make when networking is approaching every relationship with a question. what can this person do for me, right? Especially when you are new. I think the better question is: how can I be helpful to this person? Right? when I started investing out of state.

I didn’t already have this huge real estate network. I had to build a relationship, especially with the wholesalers, right? Because these wholesalers were the ones who were able to get me the property at 70% of the price, right? people I needed to trust, even though I might be hundreds of thousands of miles away, right? So what worked for me was being consistent.

If I said I was going to call, I called. I if someone sent me a deal, I gave them feedback instead of just disappearing on them, right? If contractor did good work, I paid them on time and some time over that because I wanted to build that trust. If an agent spent some time helping me, I respected their time. And I think it’s important for somebody getting started,

You don’t build a network by collecting like 500 business cards. You build it by becoming somebody people actually want to work with you again, right? So start small. Find one good wholesaler, one good agent, one good lender, a property manager, one investor who is a few years ahead of you. Go to the local meetups, get involved.

in podcasts like yours, in investors community, ask intelligent question, but also offer something back.

and you don’t you don’t understand underestimate following up. A lot of relationships aren’t created in the first conversation. So they are created because you stay in touch for six months, a year or sometime longer.

real estate looks like more like a property business from outside, but the longer I have been in it, the more I have realized is really a relationship business. It’s a relationship business which properties attached to it.

Issa Hanna (18:09)
you’re giving us golden knowledge. And guys, if you’re a veteran to this show, if you watch my show a lot, you will see all the great thinkers, all the successful guys that come on and tell you the exact same thing in a nutshell. How could you be helpful to that person? Not what they can do for you, it’s what you can do for them. Stay consistent. That’s how you establish great networks. So

Nilesh, I’m telling you, man, you are very knowledgeable, giving us golden advice to our young viewers. I’m sure they’re gonna really appreciate that. I know I do. I want to give you the floor now. If people wanted to get a hold of you, if they want to download CovertNest, how could they do it?

Nilesh Singh (18:47)
So we are on Instagram, we are on Facebook, we are at CovertNest, that’s our Instagram handle. we are also on, as I said, on Facebook, we are on X, we are on Twitter, same handle. if you want to reach out to me, it is Nilesh, N-I-L-E-S-H, S-I-N-G-H 7133. That’s my LinkedIn, that’s my handle.

you can reach out to me at Nilesh Singh 7133 on LinkedIn.

Issa Hanna (19:13)
Love it. guys, make sure to go download CovertNest right now. don’t wait. It’s the next big thing. I talk to a lot of people, they have a lot of apps. This one is so well thought out, you guys. unbelievable. Nilesh I’d like to thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a true honor to have you on and spend this time with you. And I do want to invite you back on the show for a later date.

Nilesh Singh (19:37)
Sure. Thank you, Issa. it was great talking to you and as I said, I’m pretty excited and I’ll be waiting for the show to be live or on available on Spotify, YouTube, Apple. So yeah, thank you.

Issa Hanna (19:50)
thank you so much for coming on. it was a true honor and I can’t wait to get you back on the show maybe in a year. when you’re the next big CEO of the next big app. to our viewers at home. I hope so. Keep our fingers crossed. I’m in your corner right there, brother. and to our to our viewers at home, if you enjoyed my conversation and want to see more like it, make sure to hit like and subscribe. I talk to people every day that can bring us different knowledge on every aspect of the real estate industry.

Till next time, the Real Estate Pros are out.