Most Investors Quit Too Early… Here’s What Happens If You Don’t

Melissa Hawkins (00:00)
as soon as you probably think that I’m like this is not gonna happen for me the success is right around the corner and most people quit right before they achieve that success so don’t give up keep going stay motivated

Scott Bursey (01:44)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. Today we’re strapping in for a high octane ride with a chewed Titan in the capital market space. She is the engine behind Veritus Capital Partners, and she is bringing the fuel for massive growth in your portfolio. Get ready to learn how the big money thinks and moves. We have Melissa Hawkins in the house. Melissa, welcome to the show.

Melissa Hawkins (02:09)
Hello. Hi,

thank you for having me.

Scott Bursey (02:13)
It is awesome

having you here and for our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey. How’d your career begin and what’s your focus now?

Melissa Hawkins (02:24)
Well, I’ve been in actually healthcare executive world for almost 30 years. So currently a president of a pharmacy association nationwide, been working with county government for pretty much my whole career. And that’s been my main focus, obviously ⁓ challenged, you know, going through multiple mergers and acquisitions and ultimately landing in a space where I feel like I need to build my first generational wealth. So that kind of navigated me to real estate. My husband’s a realtor in North Texas. So always kind of constantly talking about real estate, but

But ultimately for me, ⁓ the multifamily is what I landed on. Doing a lot of research and there’s a lot of talk about multifamily and so that’s where I landed and so that’s where my main focus started was in multifamily. Didn’t really know it was going to take me down the rabbit hole that it has taken me down, but it is very intriguing and I’m super excited and I love, love, love looking at multifamily. ⁓ Everything. Everything multifamily. It’s all we talk about.

Scott Bursey (03:21)
That

journey is inspiring. And Melissa, what caught my attention about you was your disciplined approach to mid-market growth. And on that note, what are some core strengths of your operation right now?

Melissa Hawkins (03:34)
I would probably say underwriting in our team. ⁓ It’s taken me a little bit to really find really strong partners, dedicated partners, people who are really serious and they’re not just treating it like a, you know, a flipping business. You know, they’re super serious. They’re serious as I am. They will do late night calls with me on zoom that kind of gave me that dedication to know that they’re dedicated, you know, they’re motivated. And so I would probably say our underwriting in our team is probably our biggest strengths because we are constantly fine tuning our

underwriting. We love the details. That’s where the devil lives at is in the details and we love that. So we’re constantly stress testing any deal that we’re looking at.

Scott Bursey (04:16)
That’s a huge distinction right there. If someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, hey, this is someone I like to partner with or learn from, what is the first thing that you would like them to know about your business?

Melissa Hawkins (04:31)
Well, we definitely do rigorous underwriting and we’re constantly looking for deals in Dallas Fort Worth. That’s where I’m located. I’m obviously located here in Dallas Fort Worth, but I also have partners that are in Tennessee. So we’re constantly looking at deals in Tennessee and my other partner obviously is in Florida. So we’ve got all the great bases covered right here about Texas, Tennessee and Florida. And so that’s where our markets are. And so we’re constantly looking for strong operators, obviously, and partners that can obviously complement what we’re doing.

But we don’t like to get too big obviously with 2BGPs, but we do have a very strong, strong connection and we want to make sure that we get to know those partners very well. And not to mention like our limited partners, our equity partners looking for strong operators and very, very thorough underwriters looking for these deals.

Scott Bursey (06:08)
Those relationships are so critical, especially in this business. you know, it most certainly is, and I know you’re playing the long game, and that’s really where the relationships come in. Establishing those relationships that you can rely on. The trust factor, if you will, Melissa.

Melissa Hawkins (06:12)
Yes. It’s a long relationship name.

Yeah, yes, it’s very trustworthy. I mean, when I first got into this kind of space, I actually invested as a limited partner myself because I wanted to kind of see how that user experience, I guess, was so that I could really see what it was like on the other side before ever even thinking about jumping in on the GP side. And it’s very interesting space. And that’s what really kind of pulled me in even further was going from an LP to a GP.

Scott Bursey (06:59)
Absolutely and I love that framing. No business is perfect. What’s the one thing that you’re still trying to figure out?

Melissa Hawkins (07:09)
Ha ha ha!

Capital raising, think, you know, that’s probably, you know, it’s funny because you meet so many people along the way and it’s just come second nature to them. I’m an introvert really. I mean, I’ve been in executive world, you know, doing bids and doing presentations is different than capital raising. Capital raising to me is a challenge just because it’s not as simple as just going and presenting to someone who needs a service or a product. They know they need it. They know they have a problem. And then they’re just gonna instantly probably buy from you if they see the presentation.

That doesn’t work like that in capital raising. It’s a long game. They’re going to trust you and they need to trust you and I would be the same. It took me months before I decided on who I was going to invest in as an LP. So I completely understand. But it’s a challenge.

Scott Bursey (07:56)
And what do you feel is your biggest opportunity right now? This could be a market shift, a new offering, or just a part of your business that you want to double down on.

Melissa Hawkins (08:08)
Well, I mean.

We have recently, I’ve obviously been looking for deals in Dallas-Footworth, but we landed on a deal in Clarksville, Tennessee, and that particular market is amazing. I haven’t seen that market type in a long time, so I feel like there’s a huge opportunity there for us, and we’ve already started opening doors with other ⁓ opportunities that are not even on market yet. So we’re currently under-contracted on a deal right now in Tennessee, and so that is a huge opportunity for that. That state was not.

on my radar. And so after doing research and coming from government world, you know, I listen to commissioners courts, the city planning, economic, you know, kind of reporting. It’s just a very compelling market. And so I really like Tennessee and I think that that’s going to be a huge opportunity for us this year.

Scott Bursey (08:56)
like it yes now if you could take us back to your first deal and give us the highlights the lowlights ⁓ tell us about how that first deal developed and ⁓ what happened after that first deal.

Melissa Hawkins (09:02)
you

Well, you might not know this, but this is my first deal. The one that we’re working on right now. So obviously, like I said, I didn’t get it in my backyard, which I’ve been searching for. I’ve looked at over 100 deals and underwritten over 100 deals and DFW toured probably 60 deals and it’s, around the holidays and right before NMHC, everything kind of got slowed down. But it’s just, you know, like in the eighties, you know, you go read your newspaper and read, you know, drink your coffee or whatever. And that’s me every morning looking for deals. And so I happened to just stumble upon

on this one in Tennessee and kept looking at it and had to call the partner over there and say, know what, we need to really look at this one. was like five days before, you know, the CFO was due. He immediately got on the horn, got on there, got on the tour and he went into it and he’s like, yes, Melissa, this is a great property. We’ve got to go after it.

That was kind of a down rule down downhill mudslide. I think at that point because that was back in November and now we’re ⁓ in almost nearing up the end of April and we’re still kind of tying up the ends of that which is like it takes a long time. People say like they do two or three deals a year. I’m like how how do you do that? There’s so much to do even in just one deal especially your first deal. The first deal there’s a lot of blind corners and I don’t know what what’s around the corner so I’m kind of learning a little bit as

I go with a lot of people kind of helping navigate, but from their lens, not my lens. So my lens is very different than others. So I’m excited to kind of finish this race, I guess you would say, till I can kind of learn all the corners so I can go back and figure out what I need to fix and change.

Scott Bursey (11:26)
exciting

you’re working on your first deal what strategy are you employing to to get it done.

Melissa Hawkins (11:34)
I’m what am I, I’m sorry, cut out the first part of the question.

Scott Bursey (11:36)
What sort of strategy

are you employing right now? What sort of techniques, what kind of discussions are you ⁓ exerting to wrap up this deal and get it done to earn your very first commission check?

Melissa Hawkins (11:55)
Oh, well, we first started with a project planner to keep everybody on tasks. We constantly meet every week with the team to align. mean, we probably about four or five times a week we meet. We are doing webinars. We’re doing constant learning. We’re networking. We’re constantly talking about the deal. We’re constantly trying to find opportunities that are going to help us excel in this deal. I’m excited about the deal, obviously, because it’s my first. Obviously, my sponsor, it’s his hundredth or whatever. I don’t know how many deals he’s done a lot.

very experienced, in the space for 20 years. So I’m learning from him. I have an advisor I’m learning from, but it’s, I mean, it’s a long process and it’s kind of hard to kind of absorb everything that’s happened over the last five months. Cause there’s so much, but I will tell you the strategy is ultimately trying to stay on target. Don’t miss deadlines. Don’t miss any of those extensions. Make sure you know your contract, your PSA, any deadlines that are in there. And luckily we have a great attorney that keeps us on point. Like we get reminders at least every single

day so I’m glad for that because I already had that in my plans to put it on everybody’s calendar. Hey we don’t forget this deadline. So I think the strategy is just pulling into running executive you know business for the last 30 years you know it’s just it’s a project. You got to have a project planner, you’ve got to have timelines, you got to have deadlines, you got to keep everybody accountable and everybody needs to be responsible for their role.

Scott Bursey (13:18)
And with that ⁓ process in play, I know it’s going to get done. Is there any groups you’re involved in that may be nurturing you along the process? Any visionary groups that you belong to?

Melissa Hawkins (13:36)
I do, I belong to four right now. So, started with one in Dallas that was kind of focusing on multiple asset classes. that wasn’t, I needed to focus on one. So, I had picked multifamily, so I needed to find one. I did find and navigated through another big group that a lot of people know about, I’m sure. But they talked from up here, 30,000 feet up at the top. They didn’t tell me where to get there. So, I did a lot more research, found another one, and I would honestly say that they have been my

on the Sunday. have the group, the people, the advisor, everybody in that group is super supportive and I have probably missed maybe five classes in two years and they do them twice a week. So that’s where I constantly know that I am safe and I can ask questions that you know might be a dumb question to some but to me it might you know I just I don’t know what I don’t know. learning along the way that group has been you know astronomical and just helping me excel in my in my journey.

and I will be forever grateful for them. And then I’m in a capital raising another group. So yeah, there’s a lot of groups, a of meetings.

Scott Bursey (14:43)
They’re so, so, so

important, so vital to be in the same room as like-minded individuals. And Melissa, is there any advice that you could give to our listeners? know, you’re in the beginning stages. What’s the advice to continue, continually to plug away and to stay as positive as you are?

Melissa Hawkins (14:52)
Yes.

Well, I will say it’s it’s if you’re new in this space, just keep going. Make sure to keep building relationships. Relationships are important. I know it’s exhausting. Trust me. I’m an introvert myself. It is extremely exhausting. I have to kind of pull from the bottom. You walk into a room of all these different people that just want to talk to you and by the end of it’s like super exhausting. But I would say continue the journey. Continue to learn. Continue to network. Continue to nurture your relationships because as soon as you get

up and

as soon as you probably think that I’m like this is not gonna happen for me the success is right around the corner and most people quit right before they achieve that success so don’t give up keep going stay motivated

go watch motivational videos to keep you on your toes call me I will motivate you whatever but keep going

Scott Bursey (16:38)
great

words of wisdom. Melissa, this conversation has been pure value. And for our listeners who want to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Melissa Hawkins (16:43)
Thanks

Well, they can find me on Facebook or they can find me on LinkedIn. I’m on my business, my Veritus Capital Partners is on there as far as a business or you can find me as a person on LinkedIn or either on Facebook, either one. I’m also on Instagram too.

Scott Bursey (17:07)
Nice, nice, you have the major platforms covered. And thank you so much for being on the show and the very best of luck securing your first deal.

Melissa Hawkins (17:12)
Yeah, and TikTok. Of course.

Yes, I’m excited and I appreciate you having me on the show.

Scott Bursey (17:22)
It’s

been truly wonderful. And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We have a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Melissa, who are making huge moves in the market and are looking to capitalize on that first deal in some instances. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.

Melissa Hawkins (17:25)
Alright.