How to Start Raising Capital and Buying Multifamily Real Estate Before You Feel Ready

Nicholas Delmonico (00:00)
Yeah, just go for it. Like a lot of people have dreams, they have goals, and they sit on them for too long, and then they don’t act on them. And I think that that’s one of my superpowers is acting on inspiration immediately. Like if I have an idea, I chase it, I act on it. I don’t just think about it for an extended period of time. And I think a lot of people get…

They think about it and they’re like, what could go wrong? But what could go right at the same time? And so I try to look at it from that lens of, okay, maybe it won’t work out, but what if it does?

Scott Bursey (02:09)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host Scott Bursey. And today we’ve got an absolute power host joining us. Our guest has mastered the art of capital syndication and is driving massive growth in the investment world. We’re talking about the high octane fuel that powers big deals and he is bringing gallons of fuel to us today. Please give a huge pros welcome for Nicholas Delmonico of IronFocus Investments.

Nicholas, thank you for joining us.

Nicholas Delmonico (02:42)
Absolutely, thanks for having me on, Scott. It’s an absolute pleasure.

Scott Bursey (02:46)
For those of our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us, where did your career begin and what’s your main focus now?

Nicholas Delmonico (02:56)
Yeah, so I started in the finance area when I first graduated from college. I went to Syracuse to study finance and economics. I moved to New York City, the Big Apple to try to find a job with a bunch of my friends and I started working in small jobs and then I moved on to banking at JP Morgan and then eventually sales at Bloomberg. But after a while, I just kind of wasn’t getting what I was looking for. I wanted I had ideas.

that I wanted to push and I had opportunities around me that I wanted to take advantage of. But a lot of the times just being a number in such a giant company, it’s really hard to stand out and kind of make an impact that you want. if I had stayed in the roles long enough, I probably would have been there. But being, you know, active and aggressive is kind of how I’ve been. If I want something, I always go after it. And so

I decided to move into real estate. was looking at it investing part time on the side. I was looking at maybe buying a duplex or a triplex or quadplex. Um, and I just kind of realized that it wasn’t really scalable. So I attended a few meetups, local meetups in New York city, which were amazing. I met some really cool people and they told me, I met some guys who told me about a mastermind.

which seemed pretty appealing to me because I didn’t have any mentors. I don’t have anyone in family who invest in real estate. I don’t really have any friends or coworkers who were in that space. So it was just a great opportunity to network with some individuals and meet people who I potentially partner with. And from there, maybe three, four, five, three, four years ago, I invested in my first syndication as a general partner in Atlanta.

And since then, my firm has done two deals in Texas and central Florida last year. And so the goal is just to continue to acquire more multifamily real estate value add opportunities in the Sunbelt region. And we’re looking to do another two or three deals this year. And so that’s kind of been how I got to where I am and kind of what we’re looking to do going forward.

Scott Bursey (05:58)
Exciting, Nicholas. Let’s keep the fuel flowing. If someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, hey, this is someone that I’d like to partner with. What do you want them to know first about your business?

Nicholas Delmonico (06:11)
Yeah, so I might not have a super strong track record like a lot of syndicators who have been in the business for 20 or 30 years, but because of that, I bring tenacity. Like I’m gonna outwork everybody else to try to bring the best deals. I will be focused on the deals that I am on with 100 % focus. Cause a lot of other syndicators have a lot of deals going on. And so maybe their attention is elsewhere, but.

I’m looking to grow slowly. Like I said, only do one, two, maybe three deals max a year just so I can focus on these deals and bring as much power and focus as I can to each deal. So that’s kind of, you know, a pro and a con at the same time. So yeah.

Scott Bursey (06:54)
That laser focus is so critical and you know, no business is perfect.

one or two things that you’re trying to work around here recently that you found as perhaps a roadblock.

Nicholas Delmonico (07:11)
Yeah, so the content creation has been kind of an opportunity, but also a little bit of a bottleneck for me because content is great. Whether it’s hopping on podcasts like this is amazing, can generate some great content, whether it’s posting on LinkedIn or Instagram, other social medias, it’s great to tell, you know, prospective investors kind of what you’re doing about your story. But creating that content takes a lot more than just

you know, filming a video and hitting go like you have to edit the video, you have to make sure it is distributed correctly with good captions and try to capture people’s attention because there is so much content out there and I want to make good content that makes sense to other investors and not just a bunch of AI slop, if you know what I mean. So that’s kind of a bottleneck of trying to create good content and have it be beneficial for investors as well.

Scott Bursey (08:08)
Nicholas, if you could take us down that road and how you’re able to create that good content.

Nicholas Delmonico (08:15)
Yeah. So it kind of starts with finding, okay, I’ve gone on a couple of different ventures here. So, ⁓ podcasting is great, but I’ve also started to do some, little bit of comedical content on LinkedIn, which has done really well, like post, you know, a funny twist with a serious idea behind it. So maybe a little meme with, you know, content, which has been great for, for generation. And, know, it helps people laugh. People don’t want to just read.

Doom posts on LinkedIn all day. So if you can get someone to smile, it helps it go viral. And then a lot of the times I’ll just link some content, maybe something that’s interesting about the market that I’m seeing right now, or maybe an opportunity that we’re looking at. But I like to include a little bit of, you know, comedic value or satire to kind of help lighten the mood and not just be like, multifamily. It’s so intense. Like, yes, it is an intense industry. But you can always have fun. And I enjoy having fun while I’m working at the same time.

Scott Bursey (09:14)
It’s so critical to have ⁓ that light mood. Tell us, how are you able to achieve that?

Nicholas Delmonico (09:24)
Well, I think that there’s just, there’s so much doom on the internet that if you can be optimistic and positive. Also, I just don’t think being super negative and pessimistic is beneficial in the long run. If you’re super optimistic and you’re to have opportunities come your way and just, you’ll attract other people who are optimistic instead of people who are thinking that the world is ending, that AI is going to take over and

all this negative media stuff that you see every day, whether it’s the war in Iran or other things, oil spikes. If you can just post some content that, you know, takes away from the negative and maybe puts it in a funny spotlight, it just helps people appreciate kind of that you have a touch to it.

Scott Bursey (10:45)
Sure. That’s some big time advice right there. Some big time words and that allows you to make the big time moves. Nicholas, what do you feel is your biggest opportunity right now in the market?

Nicholas Delmonico (10:59)
Yeah, so a lot of people kind of got burned in multifamily real estate and whether that when they were buying the top of the market in 2021, 2022, where they were just kind of chasing deals and rents were ripping, they were going so much higher and people were penciling rent growth that was really unrealistic and cap rate compression. So I think that a lot of people are sitting on the sidelines right now until opportunities will be for these deals that people bought, you know, five, four or five years ago that

are in hot water. Maybe they’re already been taken back by the lender or they have a lot of bad debt or high occupancy. So looking for deals that are distressed. There’s a lot of them right now. Not all of them are coming to market. So having good connections and being able to be in with brokers who are listing these deals is huge. And I think that if you can get a property at a pretty good discount, a lot of the offers that we’re putting in are 30 to 40 % off of what they previously sold for.

If you can get a good deal and have a good business plan and execute that business plan, I just see home run potentials and even maybe not home runs, but just singles and doubles. And I think that’s what people are trying to when they’re trying to go after those home run deals, I kind of miss good deals where if you just have a solid business plan and execute and have good debt, you’ll be solid. But when you’re trying to go after crazy aggressive deals and make crazy assumptions, that’s kind of when you can lose your shirt.

Scott Bursey (12:27)
Stepping up to the plate and having focus, just seeing the ball and putting the bat on the ball is so critical. You don’t always have to hit it over the fence if I’m hearing you correctly.

Nicholas Delmonico (12:38)
Absolutely.

Scott Bursey (12:40)
Nicholas, is there any challenges you’re watching closely, like market risks or something of that nature?

Nicholas Delmonico (12:48)
Yeah, I mean, we always have to watch the Fed and the decisions that they make because that really impacts everything coming down. So I think one risk that I don’t really foresee happening, but is potential risk that we’re monitoring is if the if something happens and the Fed has to cut rates immediately, similar to what they did in 2020 during COVID, then all of a sudden, there’s tons of market, tons of money and capital getting forced into the market.

and we’ll bring in new participants and new competitors. So I think that that’s something that we have to be wary of. I don’t think that that’s a likely scenario, but it’s something that we always have to watch.

Scott Bursey (13:28)
It’s something that, yes, we must have an eye on. Let’s put it that way. Nicholas Curious, what is the hardest part about getting new investors to commit to a five-year hold in the current economic environment in your eyes?

Nicholas Delmonico (13:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like I said, a lot of investors got burned on bad deals. And so just telling them don’t be like this time, it’s different kind of explained to them, I understand why the deal that did was potentially bad. But here’s the risk factors. And here’s why we think that this is a good opportunity and just kind of being understanding that a lot of people lost money on bad deals. And a lot of people are skittish looking at, you know, Iran and oil spikes and

Again, like I said, there’s a lot of doom out there. And if you can kind of just put that noise to the side and find good deals, they’re out there. And I think that people weren’t finding good deals. They were just buying anything they could back then because money was easy. It was easy to raise money. It was easy to get cheap debt. Now it’s more difficult, but if you can buy a good deal at a good price, I think that it’ll be a lot easier to be successful in your business plan.

Scott Bursey (14:40)
Filtering out the noise, so important. Let’s talk some strategy, long term, short term. What’s some of your strategy?

Nicholas Delmonico (14:54)
I would say that most of our strategy is long term. We don’t really have any short term strategy because we’re looking at long term deals anyway. Most of our deals will be between a five to seven year hold. So a lot of the deals we buy, we want to buy. And we also want to buy deals that if we decide we want to hold on to them forever and refinance, get investors capital out and just hold for cashflow. We want to do that too, because we don’t want to just buy deals and try to flip them for

quick profit, we want to buy deals in good markets, good locations, the cash flow. And we would be willing to hold these deals forever if that’s what the investors wanted. But I think that that’s also when you can get into hot waters. If you’re looking to flip a multifamily property, it’s not like flipping a house, you have to have a three five year business plan, not just a 12 month plan.

Scott Bursey (16:30)
You’re playing the long game. That’s so smart. And for our listeners out there looking to make the jump from raising small checks to raising millions for institutional grade deals, what’s a solid piece of advice that you could give them about building trust and credibility with that level of capital?

Nicholas Delmonico (16:32)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think you just have to have self-confidence and confidence in yourself that if you walk into a room, just know that you’re there and know that you can provide value to these potential investors and just having a mindset of optimism. Because if you go into a room being like, I don’t belong here. I’m out of my debt. I’m out of my league. I’m, I’m in too deep. Then you’ll probably be nervous and investors can.

sense that they want you to be calm and they want you to be experts because they’re investing in you assuming that you are the expert. So just know that you’ve done work and that you know your market or know your deal extremely well and just have that confidence going into the room. And it’s not that different raising money from, you know, a family office and is individual they have very similar questions they have, you know, the same risks that they’re looking at. It’s just a bigger check size. It’s just difficult to get conversations with bigger players because they’re so busy. They have a lot of people

coming to them and so not trying to and have a different your differentiator like mine is endurance sports. I you know, channel what I do in my endurance sports into my business and a lot of people appreciate that discipline that I take from my hard training to then use it in business.

Scott Bursey (18:09)
It really does correlate. Tell us a little bit more about your endurance sports.

Nicholas Delmonico (18:15)
Yeah, so I compete in Ironman triathlons, which is a race that consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a marathon all in one day. And, you know, I grew up doing smaller triathlons so that when I, when I got older, I wanted to do one of these Ironman races and I’ve just really enjoyed it. And I’ve met so many amazing people with the sport and it’s a sport that you can do well into your fifties, sixties. It’s not like, ⁓

American football where you can only play it when you’re younger. So I really enjoy that, that I can still be active and still do these races, even though I’m way out of college in high school. So, and that’s something that, you know, teaches you a lot when you’re training for these races that take anywhere between, you know, nine to 12 hours, depending on the course. And when you’re doing training for these races, it’s a lot of discipline that you need to have to be able to train.

and continue going when the going gets tough.

Scott Bursey (19:16)
Tell me, how do you find the balance with ⁓ training, ⁓ sport related and then finding time to keep your business thriving?

Nicholas Delmonico (19:27)
Yeah, so I do better when I have a lot on my plate because it keeps me focused. If I have really nothing going on, then I’m gonna, it’s gonna take up way more time. But if I know that, okay, I want to work out for a few hours today, then I need to make sure I get everything done before then. And that will lock me in and enable me to get everything I’ve done, everything I need to get done done. Because if I don’t, then I don’t get to work out and I love working out. So.

I need to make sure that everything gets done before that. And yeah, like there’s a saying that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. So I try to stay busy so I can, I can be efficient.

Scott Bursey (20:07)
You

have said that you outwork the competition and I definitely respect that. You’ve given us so much great advice here today. Any nuggets or any further advice you’d like to leave with our listeners?

Nicholas Delmonico (20:21)
Yeah, just go for it. Like a lot of people have dreams, they have goals, and they sit on them for too long, and then they don’t act on them. And I think that that’s one of my superpowers is acting on inspiration immediately. Like if I have an idea, I chase it, I act on it. I don’t just think about it for an extended period of time. And I think a lot of people get…

They think about it and they’re like, what could go wrong? But what could go right at the same time? And so I try to look at it from that lens of, okay, maybe it won’t work out, but what if it does?

What if it does become a business that is super successful and you never acted on it? So that’s kind of my philosophy is, is have action. It doesn’t have to be a crazy big action, just small action every day. If you want to get into real estate, start posting content, start underwriting deals. You don’t have to.

do a deal right away, but start underwriting, looking at markets, calling brokers, doing anything you can just to get your feet wet. ⁓ And I think that’s how I did it. How I got started was I just started to get my feet wet. I didn’t try to overanalyze and have a script of what am I going to say to a broker or potential investor? Just, you’re going to make mistakes. It happens. It’s a guarantee. And so you might as well make those mistakes quickly so that you can learn from them and move on.

Scott Bursey (21:45)
and being consistent, being proactive. know, taking small steps every day is what I was able to take away from that. ⁓ The golden words, if you will,

Nicholas Delmonico (21:56)
Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Bursey (21:58)
Nick, this has been explosive. It’s been big time dynamite. You’ve definitely supplied the high octane fuel today. And for those of our listeners that want to follow your journey or perhaps collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Nicholas Delmonico (22:14)
Yeah, you can finally on on LinkedIn, Nicholas Delmonico or you can visit my website, ⁓ ironfocusinvestment.com. And yeah, I’m always looking to connect with potential investors or like minded individuals or also just endurance athletes.

Scott Bursey (22:31)
Nick, it was awesome having you in the studio today.

Nicholas Delmonico (22:37)
Thanks, Scott. Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Scott Bursey (22:39)
Thank you.

Thank you so much. And for our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ve got a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Nicholas, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you on the next episode, everyone.