Kyle Malnati on Commercial Real Estate, Mentorship & Multifamily Investing for Long-Term Wealth

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Erika chats with Kyle Malnati, a commercial real estate broker and podcast host. Kyle shares his journey in real estate, discussing the importance of mentorship, the challenges and opportunities in the market, and his passion for multifamily investing. He emphasizes the significance of building relationships and personifying the impact of real estate investments on people’s lives. The conversation also touches on the challenges faced in the industry and Kyle’s future aspirations in real estate.

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Kyle Malnati (00:00)
We’re like, Jim, thanks for inviting us. We’re so excited to be at your retirement party. And he goes, no, Kyle, thank you. Thank you for enabling me to retire. Thank you for giving me the possibility through the apartment investments that you’ve helped me with. And then I further helped him with single tenant net leased properties that are dollar general stores. But thank you for helping me retire.

Erika (01:53)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host Erika and today I’m excited to be chatting with Kyle Malnati. He is a podcast host and commercial real estate broker. Kyle, I’m so glad to have you on the show today.

Kyle Malnati (02:08)
I’m thrilled to be here, Erika. Thanks so much. It was fun getting to know you during our prep.

Erika (02:12)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I’m excited to dive in for our listeners. So first off, can you share more what that journey was like in real estate?

Kyle Malnati (02:22)
Absolutely. So most recently I sold my real estate brokerage company that I started from scratch. My wife and I owned and operated a brokerage called Calibrate Real Estate, which is also a podcast. use the podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts, as well as YouTube to really grow our brand for seven years. We had nine agents, two full-time staff members, and then my wife and I, so that’s…

That’s a total of 11 people. And we just had so much fun owning and operating a business. And it came to a point where it made sense when a competitor that was larger than us, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate in Denver named Kentwood approached us and said, we’d like to acquire your brand. We’d like to acquire your company and the podcast still lives and we still use it to educate, empower, encourage, would be real estate brokers and or investors. And

It really all started 20 years ago, way before ever owning a company. I was a guy in college and I was inspired by my future wife’s cousin, a guy named Matt. Matt was a real successful commercial real estate broker. I knew that he had gotten a degree in finance. I knew he drove a nice car. I know he wore a suit. And I was like, this is a guy that’s a couple of years older. He feels like an older brother.

And I just want to learn more about what he’s doing because I was looking for a job. And I started working for Matt as an intern before I graduated. And then when I graduated, they had a spot open on their commercial real estate brokerage team. And I was hired and given the task of learning all of the ins and outs of commercial real estate brokerage. And that’s how I got my start in the real estate industry.

Erika (03:58)
Wow. And to fast forward today, Kyle, what have you been up to? What kind of opportunities and threats are you noticing in the market around you?

Kyle Malnati (04:08)
Well, think one of the biggest ones is artificial intelligence. That’s both an opportunity for some, depending on how you look at it, and a threat for others, depending on how you look at it. I think though, in our commercial real estate space, whether you’re a broker or an investor, I think the biggest threat is what we called in some of my finance classes in college, the opportunity costs that we embark on. And quite literally, when you’re investing in real estate,

You have a certain amount of money. ⁓ You could raise money and get more of it, but generally most people have a budgeted fixed amount of money and you can’t invest that everywhere. You have opportunity costs. If you choose this investment, it means you can’t invest in something else. And if that thing you didn’t invest in did better over the time that you had the first investment, well, your opportunity cost is the difference in those two returns. I think that our time and our energy has opportunity costs.

in our digital age. I like to quote a thought leader, a guy that I aspire to interview someday. name is Brian Buffini, and he’s been coaching and consulting with real estate brokers for over 30 years across the United States and Canada. Brian says that we are in a digital age here. We’re in a culture that’s drowning in information and starving for wisdom. We have so many things that come across our digital desk, whether it’s DMs,

or whether it’s some email that comes across as an opportunity that might be interesting and staying focused and adhering to what you’re doing best I think is oftentimes the hardest thing to do as an entrepreneur in the real estate space is staying focused in what you’re uniquely gifted in.

Erika (06:36)
Yeah, and speaking of that, Kyle, for someone who’s new, how do they figure that out?

Kyle Malnati (06:42)
No, I would say that I was so benefited and you heard in the intro for having a mentor and that mentoring relationship happened to be in the construct of an employee employer relationship. I know that there are some digital mentors out there. There’s some great, ⁓ there’s some great authors that they could be your mentor from afar, but I think that anyone that is, that is younger. And I actually used to ask this question of my podcast guests is what’s the

What’s the information you wish you knew when you were 22? What’s that advice you’d give to a 22 year old? Because a lot of us, if you went to college, 22 is kind of when you’re leaving college and starting trying to figure out this world as an adult, there’s a lot of people who say adulting. So I think that having a mentor is really important. And I had an exit interview with an employee a couple of months ago, and it ended well.

kind of knew a lot of people and our personal sphere of influence together. So I really wanted to make sure that even though they decided that this wasn’t going to be the right fit for them to work with me, I wanted to impart some wisdom. And one of the things that I shared is that you need to find a mentor, someone that you aspire to be like at some point in your growth is probably someone that’s older than you. And you do work really hard for them. You need to work harder than they expect.

You need to come in early, you need to leave late, and you’re going to expend more energy working for that person than maybe you think the compensation is fairly going for. And I’m not talking about doing something that’s abusive. I’m talking about like just working your tail off for someone. that person will give you introductions to people that you’re probably going to end up working with in the future. And that person is going to give you guidance.

on areas that you need help with. And having a mentor has just been such an important thing for me. And those mentors, those relationships, if they’re good ones, they tend to expand as you get away from that mentor and you come back years later and share experiences with them.

Erika (08:47)
Yeah, yeah, that’s wonderful. And Kyle, when it comes to growing those relationships outside of having that mentorship, what’s been a game changer for you?

Kyle Malnati (08:58)
Well, I was really lucky with Matt that I spoke with that I got my first gig in commercial real estate. I was very lucky in that I kind of married into that relationship. It’s, my wife’s cousin, so it’s a little bit more distant, but, know, we’ll see each other for personal occasions, for Thanksgiving, for Easter, for different things, graduations. And my relationship with Matt started as an employee. Then I rolled off of his team and became an individual

top producer at his company, his commercial real estate brokerage. Then I got hired away from his company by a competitor, but it was an investor client of mine that wanted me to grow a commercial brand within their residential real estate company. So there was some period of time where I was away from Matt and didn’t have his tutelage, didn’t have the pipeline to call him right away and ask him questions. But fast forward, I started my own company and

He suggested that I become a part of a forum in Entrepreneurs Organization or EO for short. So he gave me some guidance there and then kind of the peak situation is as I was considering selling my company to the company that I’m with now, Kentwood, Matt gave me lot of guidance and tips because he has been a part of sales and acquisitions. And then finally, I was able to broker a deal to Matt that

He did a private equity syndication and I was able to invest in that on the backend. so these relationships are multi-dimensional if you allow them to be. I kind of look at like a Rubik’s cube, it’s got different facets or a dice. You’ve got different faces or sides of that relationship. And if you allow it to turn over, you’ll see different sides of that mentoring relationship if you stick it out long.

Erika (11:17)
I love that analogy and real estate itself is kind of like a Rubik’s cube with all the different aspects of it too. And I know you’re really passionate about multifamily. So can you share more about that and your experience there?

Kyle Malnati (11:31)
Yeah, multifamily investing for me, especially when I was in college, I was learning about all aspects of finance as a finance major and multifamily investing was both commercial. So that felt to me like it was a little bit different than residential real estate investing, which is still a big investment for a lot of people to own ⁓ and have a home. So I’m not discounting that, but I wanted to do it with business owners. And I felt like working with

mom and pop investors that had already owned a couple of rental properties and they were upgrading to a duplex, triplex, fourplex. Then they make that next upgrade into an eight or a 10 unit. Then they start to get even bigger and maybe hire a management company. That fascinated me because I could meet real people that had a big old ring of keys on their hip. They had all these doors that they were unlocking quite literally. And the properties that they owned

were tangible, you could go up to it and see it as opposed to maybe working in investment banking where you’re maybe not seeing the day to day operations of the stocks and bonds that you’re trading or the companies if you’re in mergers and acquisitions, you may not be able to see every aspect of it like you can when you walk up to an apartment building. So apartment investing was perfect for me, was high brow enough where it was not someone’s single family house, but it was not like

some of the bigger commercial real estate transactions where it felt like it was very corporate. It felt very tangible and it felt very local, which is what I really appreciated.

Erika (13:02)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you told me earlier that you had a story that you also wanted to share.

Kyle Malnati (13:10)
Yeah, and I really feel like it’s important when people look at investing in real estate, the most important thing in real estate investments is being able to personify who you’re helping for young brokers. But then also, if you’re an aspiring investor, I want you to hear this story. This is about 10 years into my career. was still a young enough person. I was in my 30s. My wife and I got invited to a retirement party and

A lot of people don’t stay with a company for more than a couple of years now. So for someone to be with a company for over 30 years, my client, Jim, asked me to attend his retirement party from Lockheed Martin. He was quite literally a rocket engineer, rocket scientist, if you think about it that way. He led teams on several different missions with rocket launches and satellite launches. so after 30 years, he was ready to retire and

I come into this clubhouse at this condo that he and his wife live in, in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood. It’s packed wall to wall, shoulder to shoulder. Jim is way in the back. mean, there’s probably 80 people between us. And I’ve got a gift for him, of course. And we’re like, kind of like Cirque du Soleil, like contortioning our way through this crowd of people. And my wife and I finally get to Jim way in the back near the bar.

We’re like, Jim, thanks for inviting us. We’re so excited to be at your retirement party. And he goes, no, Kyle, thank you. Thank you for enabling me to retire. Thank you for giving me the possibility through the apartment investments that you’ve helped me with. And then I further helped him with single tenant net leased properties that are dollar general stores. But thank you for helping me

And

10 years into my career, first of all, my wife is right next to me. I’m like, you know, she gets to hear all this. Like this is the day to day stuff that she might miss. It was right before we started our own company. I was a broker at, was a partner at a large residential real estate company and operating a commercial brand there. And I just sat there and I said, this is what it is. This is it. This was embodied right in front of me. The power of this guy was a really intelligent person, worked really hard for a company, saved his money.

bought real estate investments. I didn’t help him with his first investment, but I helped him take his multifamily property and trade that into larger buildings that gave him enough income outside of his job that he could retire early. Jim likes to golf. I golfed with him a couple of weeks ago. Jim loves to go fishing. He’s got a place in the mountains. He and his wife love to travel. They have quite literally been to dozens of countries.

and love to see wildlife in those countries. And without people like Jim in your life, it’s hard to personify why you’re doing this. It’s hard to persevere, candidly, past all the cold calls if you’re a real estate broker that don’t amount to anything. Or if you’re a real estate investor that’s dealing with a tenant that’s ticked off at you for a variety of reasons, it’s hard to remember why you’re doing it. And that moment where I had the ability to walk across that room

and hear that from Jim, that I was somehow a part of his retirement was just really special to me.

Erika (16:59)
Yeah, wow. that must have been so motivating to hear how much you had an effect on him.

Kyle Malnati (17:06)
It’s been 10 years and I still share that story and I can picture it like it was yesterday.

Erika (17:11)
Yes, yes. And you know, we, we love those kinds of positive stories on the podcast here on the flip side, Kyle, we also like hearing about the challenging moments that you have in real estate. You know, every pro has that, you know, maybe a deal went sideways. Maybe you had to completely pivot for a client. Can you share one of those moments on your journey and what you learned from it?

Kyle Malnati (17:37)
Eric, I’m really glad that you asked me the flip side of what a lot of podcasts talk about people who are successful and have accomplished something. You could think of millions of dollars of real estate that were sold when I owned and operated calibrate. We were recognized by the Denver Business Journal three years in a row as a top 20 brokerage firm, which we were small but mighty. We would sell 50 to a hundred million dollars worth of multifamily transactions every year.

totaling almost $350 million in our lifetime. But towards the tail end of operating a real estate brokerage, I was hitting a growth ceiling, both personally and professionally. I was starting to feel tapped out. I was struggling because I would coach people up and they would either not take the information and run with it, or they would and then they’d leave. And so I just

I felt like owning and operating a brokerage company had hit its natural course of evolution for me. And that was really hard because when you aspire to start a company and you do it from scratch, you come up with the branding. mean, this logo, I remember writing it down on a piece of scratch paper with my wife and then sending it to someone at Fiverr and saying, hey, can you concept this out for us and actually design it? Because I didn’t have any sort of design experience. So like,

literally like breathing a brand into existence and growing it and then kind of realizing, okay, this growth journey that we’ve been on may not be serving us anymore. It may not be what we expected. It may not have evolved the way that we had hoped. Maybe I’m not the leader for these people anymore. You know, I love our calibrate crew. were 25 people that walked in and out of those doors over seven years that were either brokers, employees or owners. But

you I don’t get to see any of those people anymore. that is, that’s the sort of the devil in the details that you don’t think about when you start a company. It’s easy to think about the growth and the upward climb, but then dismantling it, paying off an office lease that you had years left with, selling all the office furniture, having one-on-one conversations with every person as they walk out the door, and you may never see each other again. I mean, those are…

Those are not the things that I ever expected and they were real challenges for me and things that I still hack away at in therapy with my therapist about actually.

Erika (19:56)
Yeah, yeah, wow. And that was that was a lot of change to to go through. But I’m sure you got things on the horizon that you’re excited about, Kyle. Can you share more about that?

Kyle Malnati (20:07)
I do. My wife and I have three teenagers. And one of the reasons that we decided to sell our company two years ago is that those three teenagers were in middle school. Boy, I am so excited to be out of the middle school years. And high school is a lot more fun. we have twins that are freshmen and we have a sophomore at the time of this recording. And we have just a couple of years left with them. We’re going to be empty nesters before the age of 50. And I see endless possibilities as it relates to travel.

⁓ with or without our kids. We may travel to wherever they go to college. But then the big thing too, as it relates to the show is I just see an opportunity to invest in real estate and invest in client relationships that will help to grow our family’s wealth. Behind every apartment building are tenants and families and people that I think can be handled in a professional.

profitable relationship, but with dignity. And that’s the thing that I look forward to as I have this big, hairy, audacious goal of owning five apartment buildings with my wife and I, ⁓ where we’re the sole owners of them. That may look like several partnerships over years that help us grow into it, but over the course of the next probably 10 years, that’s really what I look at is being able to focus more on the investing side of the business that I’ve spent 20 years.

learning with my clients and I have some investments already but I really want to bolster that part now that I’m not operating a company.

Erika (21:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Malnati (21:33)
And of course, doing deals, finding ways to help my investors and my clients either sell or buy properties that can help them with their investment journey like Jim.

Erika (21:41)
You know, I was just thinking about Jim. that was perfect. Well, Kyle, this, this has been great. If our listeners here want to collaborate, learn more about what you’re doing, or they want to check out the podcast, where should they go?

Kyle Malnati (21:55)
best place to check out the calibrate real estate podcast is you can either go to our website calibratere.com. You can go to Spotify calibrate real estate or Kyle Malnati’s calibrate real estate, Apple podcasts and YouTube. And I would just say that if anybody wants to connect with me, they can send me an email [email protected]. I’m a real estate broker a real live person in Denver.

And if you look up Kentwood Real Estate and Kyle Malnati, you’ll find me. So please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Erika (22:25)
Excellent. Thanks again for being here, Kyle.

Kyle Malnati (22:27)
Erika, thank you. This was an absolute thrill.

Erika (22:30)
And for our listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pros podcast. We’ve got more experts like Kyle who are out there building fantastic real estate empires. We’ll see you on the next episode.

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Kyle Malnati on Commercial Real Estate, Mentorship & Multifamily Investing for Long-Term Wealth

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