Maureen Miles Explains the Next Multifamily Buying Cycle and Where Opportunity Is Coming

Maureen Miles (00:00)
You know, I’ve just been waiting and I think a lot of the operators that have maybe seen a previous cycle as well, we just knew we’re just waiting, waiting, waiting. And I’m just starting to see a trickle of that. I’m seeing the end of the extend and pretend I was calling it from lenders. We’re like, everything’s fine. Nothing’s happening here. But you know, people aren’t paying their bills. They’re defaulting on loans, but the lenders aren’t always willing to grab them so quick because they don’t want to take ownership of them so.

Cody Crabb (01:59)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Cody Crabb. And today I’ve got Maureen Miles, owner of 4M Capital and Queen MF. I’ll let her tell you what that stands for. Maureen left corporate America, bought 3,500 multifamily units in seven years and sold before the market got ugly. And now she’s gearing up for what she believes is the next major buying cycle. Thanks so much for joining us, Maureen. It’s pleasure.

Maureen Miles (02:24)
Yeah, thank you for having us, Cody. Happy to talk to your listeners and educate people a little bit about what’s about to come. I’m super excited.

Cody Crabb (02:31)
Yeah,

yeah, you and a lot of people it seems. ⁓ I feel like, ⁓ and it’s not very often that I get to talk to someone who’s just down the road from me. I’m in Salt Lake City area and you’re also kind of in that area, but you don’t invest here importantly. You mentioned that your market is not here. Why is that? Well, before we do that, me that initial story, the origin, the Peter Parker, Uncle Ben story. What got you here to where you are now?

Maureen Miles (03:01)
Well, my background is network engineering. I left my job in 2013 after I was in a room with no windows for 12 years. I used to work on just high tech stuff and just a very dedicated center secure. But again, it was a job and no matter.

What I wanted to do, was always owned. My time was owned by them and everything. I’ve been in real estate since I was like a teenager. I used to work for a house flipper when I was like 16. And I learned how to build a house from the ground up myself. I went to school for electrical. So I know just enough to be dangerous there. But I had some friends and I saw some of the people that bought more than one house and they would rent it out. And it was just kind of fascinating to me that that was a path. And then when I got married, had kids, you know, we were young, we didn’t have a lot of money. And so I’m like, whoa,

You know I could buy this rental and if I rent it out I can pay for a pickup truck for my husband or I could pay for this extra thing so I started kind of just using it as a very systematic thing and I’d flip houses and then I eventually started getting into smaller duplexes. This is up in Connecticut where I grew up and we would keep some, sell others and I got to about 30 units which is my max. I was self-managing, ⁓ self-renovating me and my family. My kids had basically grew up like eight years old painting trim and stuff like that.

So even though they’re 30 now, they’ve had like two decades of real estate experience under their belt and they’re part of the company as well. ⁓ But anyway, I just hit this point where there’s no more time in a day. I still was a slave to the grind and you know, there’s just, there’s a hard point of like popping out getting out of that where I wasn’t quite making enough to leave my job. ⁓ Because I made good money and every time I get a raise, it was almost like a punch to my guts. I’m like, my gosh, now I’m gonna need that much more money to like get out of the rat race, right?

Cody Crabb (04:24)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Maureen Miles (04:47)
So, but in 2013 they offered a package and I took it and I was like, all right, like I have this 11th hour luck where when my backs up against the wall, I can usually make stuff happen. So I was a little excited to kind of be put in that position.

Cody Crabb (05:48)
Yeah, I feel like there’s a subset of people

that they get laid off and they’re like, ⁓ no, really? Yeah, that’s awesome.

Maureen Miles (05:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, this is great. so I went and I had been studying a little bit about syndication. I stumbled on it just looking for private money for one of my smaller four families in Connecticut one time. And I stumbled on a course on syndication. I’m like, what is this? People can own stuff like that. And I felt like I couldn’t really do it until I got out of my job, which I think in hindsight was my own limitation. But I did do it. I bought my first 100 plus complex with a partner in Atlanta, Georgia.

And that’s the reason, he said, why the Southeast? I’m from Connecticut. I figured I wanted something easy to get to, right? I could fly in and out the same day if I needed to, so that was kind of one of my criteria. And Atlanta was one of the last major markets to come out of the last recession. So this was 2013, 2014 when I started in that. So there was a lot of opportunity. So that’s what led me to get to where I am. I realized I was really good at it. So a lot of the people I meet, they’re doing the small two to four-year

units and you know they think they’re wasting time. I always feel like I was wasting time but it got me to learn the lessons, make the mistakes on the smaller units so when I got into the bigger stuff I realized I was like I’m really good at this. Like I’m really good at operations, I’m really good at identifying opportunities and value add and so I immediately I just kept rolling. I’m like this was so easy to me after dealing with you know people wouldn’t call me directly for somebody parked in front of the dumpster and all the crap I was dealing with before where you know I had a professional company and a manager that

showed up every day on my property to manage that hundred unit, you know, property. And so over the next seven years, I bought 3,500 units, over 3,500. And yeah, that’s how I just hit the ground running. I was able to retire my husband at the time and just do wonderful things for the family. Literally changed generations of my family now.

Cody Crabb (07:48)
That’s fantastic. Yeah, I love stories like that because sometimes I love that you could have done that way before that. You kind of sounded like you were, that was something you were always interested in and you always get, you but it just took you having to like, someone had to make the decision for you basically. And I totally relate to that. Yeah, that’s so true. Sometimes that’s all it takes. ⁓ Well, that’s, like I said, I love that story because ⁓ you also, I noticed in that story, you kind of,

decided you narrowed as you went. It sounds like you decided the bigger multifamily stuff is more your style or your speed. Am I reading that correctly?

Maureen Miles (08:29)
Yeah, you know, it’s easier to finance when you’re doing the smaller stuff. Financing is one of the biggest things. Even if you’re using a local bank, you have trouble going after 10 properties. There’s certain limitations even for like portfolio lenders. And they’re always like, if I get a new car and I have a car payment, that’s going to affect my ability to buy more investment properties. Where once you flip over to the commercial side, it’s not like that. And it’s like, wow, you have 10 loans with us. Can you take more? Like it’s easier the more you have. So it was totally a different flip. And I was like,

Cody Crabb (08:56)
Hmm.

Maureen Miles (08:59)
like, wow, like, and so all the things that constrained me with the smaller properties kind of opened up opportunities to the larger stuff.

Cody Crabb (09:07)
Interesting. So who should kind of be looking at the commercial side in that case? What situations could you be in? Like you said, is it that kind of like the personal finances stuff or what kind of situations could someone look at that where commercial might be a better fit?

Maureen Miles (09:23)
Yeah, and just to let you know, like some people think, I don’t have a lot of money to start. And there’s a lot of people tell me I didn’t have any money. I was a really good operator. I teamed up with somebody that was raising money. I was able to raise some money into that first deal, but I worked with people that basically had no operations. So they’re lucky they had me because I like saved that deal. Um, cause you get a lot of equity people. get people that sell companies and think they’re going to become multifamily operators. But without the operations, like you can have a great property and it could go down the hill very fast if somebody’s not watching.

what they need to watch. I would recommend it to people that maybe you hit a threshold where, I’m working so hard,

there’s not enough hours in a day, you kind of hit a limitation on maybe lending available to you, or just like…

When you have say 30 small multis, which a lot of people out there do, or single families, you think you have 30 roofs, you have 30 different groups of people where what if you had one person, they show up every day at that property and that’s their job. That’s what they get up for in the morning is to go make sure your property runs good. And to me, that was just a life changing where I could direct one person is now controlling 250 units or a hundred plus units. And again, I didn’t have money coming into it. My piece of it was, was my operations. was what I learned in my single family and you

smaller multi experience. So ⁓ and that’s where I learned I was really good at it. If that’s your experience, smaller stuff, looking to grow big, like you are valuable to a team in that sense for sure.

Cody Crabb (11:24)
⁓

I like that too, because it seems like it was a light bulb moment to you to have somebody else do it. You’re like, ⁓ OK, yeah, this is way better. I can just kind of direct somebody to what I need them to do, and then they can just focus on that. If I trust them, then that’s just done. ⁓

Maureen Miles (11:42)
And this is

going to sound terrible, Cody, but my first really appreciation of that is I showed up on a site, it was my second property I bought, it was a 250 unit property. And we showed up, we doing just normal inspections and stuff, and one of the tenants had died. one of the, their dad came out to visit, and this is a terrible story, like this girl is like 10 months pregnant, right? And her dad came out to help and he passed away while she was at work. And I’m just like, I didn’t know what to do. I’m like, don’t, and like, wait a second.

Cody Crabb (11:58)
⁓

my gosh.

Seriously.

Maureen Miles (12:09)
my

manager knew what to do and I was like, whoa, like that was the first time I’m like, so I can leave and they’re like, yes. I’m like, thank you. I’m like, give the girl a three months rent. Why she has her baby. feel so bad for her, but I’m like, and I can leave. Like that was my first.

Cody Crabb (12:14)
You… Bye!

See, that’s good.

Yeah, that’s a perfect example. You’re like, that sounds terrible. I’m like, the introvert in me is like, yes, yeah, I would do anything to avoid that. So that’s very true. ⁓ So, all right. ⁓ When someone is kind of, some people look at rentals and they kind of think ⁓ they’re not any different. mean, obviously there’s differences, but like where you have somebody in a residential property and they pay the rent and then you do the things for them.

What are the sort of things like the pitfalls that people might not be aware of when you’re going from kind of the smaller rentals or even even like small multifamily into larger multifamily? Like what are some things that you maybe should know before that?

Maureen Miles (13:07)
you know, I believe your management company you use, your third party manager, I always tell people like, I knew stuff, I probably listened to advice of the larger companies in the beginning more so, even though I knew they weren’t necessarily doing the right thing, I was trusting them a little bit more than I probably should have. ⁓ But as far as, it’s your team, it’s making sure that…

that you can trust what they say, verify numbers, stay on top of it. Some people, they buy property and they’ll never go check on it. The management companies always say, make sure you give us a 24 hours notice or 48 hours notice before you come on site. I’m like, okay, but yeah, you never do that. You just show up all the time. I’m not gonna give you notice. I wanna be surprised. I would have people shop if I knew some other people in the area. I’m like, hey, go shop my property. Let me know what’s happening. So just always being on the ball and be.

trying to be aware of stuff and really it’s your team makes or breaks you so as you’re developing this and you get a good person that’s solid that thinks like you like hang on to that person they become very valuable so over the last you know decade I built a great team in Atlanta like I have such good but I went through people that weren’t so great so just keep trying you know they say hire slowly fire quickly in the beginning your property management company should take care of that for you you know but as you find the people you know you make sure your person stays yours

Sometimes when a property management company, I would work with them, they’d become a great manager, and then all of sudden they would exit to another property. And so I always make sure upfront, like, no, my people are my people. Like, you can’t take them and move them. So that was important in the beginning.

Cody Crabb (14:45)
Hmm.

So how do you kind of go about finding companies like that? mean, it’s probably a little bit like, you know, they always say like, it takes three therapists before you find one that actually gets you, know, is it just kind of like trial and error? Do you have any recommendations on how to find someone that’s a little more reputable or trustworthy?

Maureen Miles (15:49)
I say ask for, ask for recommendations, you know, and go down and interview them and talk to them and see. So you’ve got, did fire for, for different property management companies. And then I actually built my own before COVID. And I, I, after I sold the majority of stuff in 21 and 22, I did go back to a third party and oddly enough, it’s one that I had fired originally, but I realized in hindsight as I knew how to manage things better, I appreciate, I could see what they were doing. And I was just a little bit too,

hyper vigilant I think on some stuff driving myself and them crazy so it wasn’t totally their fault it’s something definitely laid on me but now we know how to work together better that I’m more experienced too but you know just go and really listen to podcasts get educated out there the more you know and the more you’re

less risky this stuff is, the more questions you learn how to ask up front, the red flags you learn to look for, that’s so important.

Cody Crabb (16:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s really good advice across the board. mean, pretty much with everybody that you work with. I’ve heard so many times this is like a people business. The people that you invest with, the people that you hire to build things, the people that are your tenants. mean, the network you build ends up being the whole business, really. So how have you kind of built that network over time in the…

different spaces you’ve been in and things. Has there been some crossover as well once you kind of pivoted?

Maureen Miles (17:25)
Yeah, 100%. So, you know, I used to do flips and things in Connecticut. One of my larger projects, I bought a 280 unit property down in Atlanta that was 40 % occupied. That was one of my most, like my largest projects I’ve done. So I had 200 down units and it wasn’t down units where it needed a little bit of, you know, carpet and some appliances. Like these were, some of these were like mold breathing walls. These were like gut jobs. Some of them, it was horrendous. ⁓ And so during that project is where I fired my final property.

management company before I decided to build my own and then also a construction company. We built a construction company from the ground up. But basically I had, you know, I fired four GCs off that one particular project because once you have like a bridge loan, like you have to meet certain deadlines and if they’re too slow, like you have to figure out a way to still make things happen. And I don’t want to stress people out or scare people. You don’t have to do deals like this. That was a pretty heavy lift. But just because I have a construction background, I did it. But it’s really, it’s really staying on.

Cody Crabb (18:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Maureen Miles (18:25)
And for me, rather than put the energy into constantly trying to catch people that were doing things wrong, I’m like, let me put the energy into building something new. So that shift for me was awesome. And so like I we have the construction company now where one of the GCs wasn’t paying his guys. So he told them originally we weren’t paying, which wasn’t correct. So he left, and all of sudden I had like 15 guys, and that was an instant start of the construction company. I’m like, all right, I will pay you and hire you. Do you guys want to keep working? They’re like, yes. Go ahead.

Cody Crabb (18:51)
I do.

I love that. It’s like, well, he told us that you’re he told us that you’re the one paying us and you’re like, all right, I guess I am. That’s good.

Maureen Miles (19:02)
Yeah, so he was out of the picture. Yeah, he just disappeared

on him too. So it’s not like we stole him. He bailed on him. And so we had an instant construction company. yeah, we just, and I pulled people from Connecticut from my old rehab days to come down and help. Like just your resources are solid. And one of the things I learned early on is the sooner you pay these guys, the better. Like I would have contractors leave other jobs to come do something for me because I would pay them, if I could pay them that day when they’re done, I would. Like for these, it’s a huge, a huge difference and contract.

Cody Crabb (19:07)
Yeah.

Maureen Miles (19:32)
between me and another operator because I’m not 60 days out. And so, ⁓ like I said, they’ll leave to do something for me and you just build this really great group of solid people that are loyal and that perform and you keep the good ones and you cycle through the bad ones as fast as you can. That’s my advice.

Cody Crabb (19:50)
That’s that’s great advice and

stuff like that paying them the same day kind of thing I love advice like that because it’s one of those things that you just wouldn’t really think of if you kind of had just started like of course I’ll pay him like what’s the problem but just a simple act of like putting a check in someone’s hand as they’re finishing up is like that would make a huge difference to me certainly if I was working on something so and I mean who’s not gonna tell their buddies about hey yeah if you get a job from her make sure you take it ⁓

Maureen Miles (19:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, even if it’s the

same week, doesn’t even necessarily have to be the same day, but just not waiting 30 or 60 days now in a commercial world,

Cody Crabb (20:22)
Yeah, just right away, yeah. Yeah, that’s

awesome. ⁓ So as we’re kind of winding down here, ⁓ I’d love to hear kind of what’s next for you. What are you kind of looking forward at? Is there anything you’re excited about that’s coming up?

Maureen Miles (20:37)
Yeah, so I’m super excited about this market now. So I had a bunch of bigger projects and during COVID things got delayed. And so when they started coming up for sale, which was in 21, I listed a couple and then I started getting offers for projects I had that weren’t even for sale. And there was a weird bump of appreciation of like this 20 or 30 % that we weren’t expecting after COVID. You know, a of the multifamily owners were hanging on, like we didn’t know what was going to happen. So I was able to exit properties that, you know, I met five year

Projections even the one of them I was only 13 months in and so we met yeah It was a crazy time and I’m just like if they want them like let them take them because You people were buying things for three caps and I’m like if you’re buying something for a three cap like where’s your runway? I feel like that’s an important just for anyone to know that wants to get into this is pay attention to the market You know, we have to remember real estate always rolls in cycles and when it’s not a good time to buy when When numbers don’t work and people were buying multifamily that had negative cash

And I said it’s like buying a plane you can’t fly or a car you can’t drive like you buy multifamily for cash flow That’s the reason

Cody Crabb (21:42)
It’s borderline worse than that

because you have to still you’re still bleeding money through it like it’s it’s not just useless It’s like actively hurting you. Yeah

Maureen Miles (21:54)
Yeah,

when I heard people like, we’re buying because I need the tax depreciation. Like, well, you can do that. It should be a side benefit, not the main reason. Like, you still want cash flow, right? That’s why you should be buying it. So I sold the majority of my portfolio then. I still held on to a few projects, but now we’ve been waiting. So I’ve been in this CFO mode, which is chill that blank out. You could fill in the space, right? Because it just hasn’t been time to buy. And while all these people are competing over stuff at, again, four and three.

Cody Crabb (22:03)
Yeah.

Maureen Miles (22:24)
recaps, which is insane.

I’ve just been waiting and I think a lot of the operators that have maybe seen a previous cycle as well, we just knew we’re just waiting, waiting, waiting. And I’m just starting to see a trickle of that. I’m seeing the end of the extend and pretend I was calling it from lenders. We’re like, everything’s fine. Nothing’s happening here. But you know, people aren’t paying their bills. They’re defaulting on loans, but the lenders aren’t always willing to grab them so quick because they don’t want to take ownership of them.

there’s been this weird

like 24 months thing we’re all just waiting like is it time yet is it time yet and I’m just here to tell you Cody and to tell your listeners like we’re just starting to see ⁓ Some of these deals let go so they just started turning the faucet on and there is a huge backlog There’s a huge amount of this stuff in the pipeline I stay in touch with a lot of brokers who are saying the same thing and I’m from New England So what I tell people it’s like we knew the redcoats were coming we knew for a while that this mess was coming right now We can see them coming over the hill, but I’m like,

Okay guys, don’t get too excited. It’s like don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes. We can’t see the whites of their eyes yet, but they’re close, they’re here. So what I’m advising, I have some students.

Cody Crabb (23:33)
You’re Paul Revere, you’re

Paul Revere right now, yeah.

Maureen Miles (23:36)
Exactly. What I’m advising my students and my community to do is like keep underwriting. Figure out your markets you want to invest in. You know, pay attention because if it’s the first deal you’re underwriting and a good deal falls on your lap, you won’t see it. So underwrite, pay attention, show up, start really looking hard because in the next few months it’s going to open up and there will be opportunity. Anyone that’s tried to buy over the last four or five years and you haven’t been able to, like congratulations because you stuck to your numbers. You didn’t make a stupid mistake.

that have been buying over the last four or five years, I guarantee you they’re having some sleepless nights right now. I don’t think anything, anyone that has bought it will come out unscathed. So I’m just excited.

Cody Crabb (24:14)
Yeah, it’s a gamble. Yeah,

certainly. Yeah, you never know because because they people are also looking at it like who maybe will end up like that that crazy time in post covid like it’s it is a gamble. But like you said, ⁓ it’s the right now, the math kind of doesn’t really say to do that. So, yeah, I’m with you there.

Maureen Miles (24:33)
Yeah, it’s just starting to open up. So you’re going to see more and more opportunities. as lenders start letting these properties go for, I don’t say discounts because it’s actually the value that they are at the moment, right? But these lesser prices, entire portfolios will have to be revalued. And then at some point, it’s going to pop like a champagne bottle is my crystal ball reading. And then there’ll be a ton of opportunity. So it’s getting closer.

Cody Crabb (24:57)
Well, this has been a great episode. ⁓ Thank you so much for everything that you’ve shared. Tell us a little bit before you go about the education side of what you do ⁓ and the mysterious acronym that may or may not be profane that everyone’s been thinking about the entire time.

Maureen Miles (25:14)
So there’s not a lot of women that do what I do. They are out there and congratulations to you guys. They always think I’m the property manager when I show up, which is cool. I don’t care. But so I was able to buy Queen of Multifamily, the domain, which is just to show you that ⁓ there is a limited amount of women, right? But Queen MF, we shortened it to, ⁓ which my name is Maureen Francis. It’s multifamily. There’s several acronyms that could all, more freedom might be one. There’s a whole bunch of things we could stand for. Yeah.

Cody Crabb (25:38)
There you go, yeah. That’s what I was thinking of the whole time. Yeah, that was that

one.

Maureen Miles (25:42)
So QueenMF.com, I have a lot of free resources out there because I love this game. said if I was taken out by a bad deal, my first or second deal, I wouldn’t be where I am today. So I have resources out there for people. It teaches you the lingo, there’s different things in there, there’s a community. So go ahead and sign up. Again, it’s free. You’ll meet other people that are all crazy into multifamily like we are. So you get to meet your tribe a little bit. that’s ⁓ www.QueenMF.com. ⁓

forward to hearing from you guys too and happy to answer questions you could post things in the comments there and things like that.

Cody Crabb (26:19)
Awesome, yeah, it sounds like a great resource, especially for our listeners that are maybe wanting to get started or kind of getting off the ground still. ⁓ So definitely go check that out. Thanks so much for your time today, Maureen. This has been great. And thank you listeners as well for giving us your time. If you liked what you heard today, go ahead and give us a like, subscribe, comment, all the things, and make sure you follow us so you don’t miss more great conversations like this. Maureen, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for ⁓ having some chat with me today. It’s been great.

Maureen Miles (26:46)
Yeah, thank you, Cody, and thanks for spreading the word. Like I said, this is a great ⁓ business to get into, and I’m honored to carry the torch. Yeah.

Cody Crabb (26:52)
Yeah, spreading the good word of real estate.

Sounds good. All right. Well, thanks so much and we’ll see you next time.