Multifamily Investing Tips from CBRE’s Diva Rescia

Skyler (00:00)

got past it. I’m always very impressed with any… Go ahead.

Diva Rescia (00:00)

Yeah. And, and the, and the people don’t see like how hard do you have to work? Like I had to live in the ghetto just because I could not find capital to live in a more affluent area. But a lot of people are not willing to take that risk. So what I always say is that I didn’t have a mattress. had to sleep on the floor. I didn’t have a toilet. This sounds really crazy, but sometimes I would have to use a Home Depot bucket with a plastic bag. This is how it’s like, how bad do you want to really, How bad do you really want to succeed? So it’s just how much are you willing to put in?

Skyler (00:29)

Thanks.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I am your host today, Skyler Byrd, and today I am joined by Diva Rescia. I know I did not say that quite right on your last name, but I’ll let you correct the record here in just a second. Rescia. I gotta work on that one. But Diva, thank you very much for joining. I’m super excited to talk to you. You’ve got a very

Diva Rescia (02:16)

You gotta roll your R’s.

It’s still good. You did good.

Skyler (02:31)

you know, very interesting background and the fact that you’re investing in large multifamily now and how you got there. I’m excited to kind of hear the story here. So again, thank you for joining.

Diva Rescia (02:41)

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Skyler (02:43)

Yeah, absolutely. yeah, Diva, can you start just by giving everybody your background, how you came into real estate, and ultimately what you’re doing now?

Diva Rescia (02:49)

Sure. Yeah.

So I’m actually a ex-news anchor for Fox News and Univision Network. I worked there for many years. My parents at that time were in the real estate game, but I was living out of state because of my job with a contract. And they kept pushing me to do real estate. My parents were fix and flip. I come from a Hispanic family, so they buy everything cash. And after like two years of pushing me, a light switch went off. I was like, you know what? I’m going take a risk.

So I ended up moving back to California. I had already saved some capital. I ended up buying my first property out in the boonies, which is San Bernardino. Mind you over there, you got to walk with a bulletproof vest because it’s very ghetto. And ⁓ I didn’t have sufficient capital to fix the property. So I had to, you know, just go on YouTube University, learn how to put plank wood flooring, pick up my workers. You know, they helped me out. I would go to Home Depot.

see if they specialize in anything and bring them like all the plumbing and electrical. did that for me. But fast forward is that when I sold that first house, I made twenty thousand, which was not a lot of money. But one thing that was an eye opener is that I had to work half a year to make that money on TV. Yes, TV was my passion, but I did not have control of my time. So when I sold that house, I was like, my goodness, this is a no brainer.

So then I just started flipping properties. Fast forward, I flipped about 30 properties. There’s some properties that I made over 200,000. So it was a good timing. Not so much competition. I got a good market. And then my parents taught me to buy everything cash. So they didn’t know the power of leverage. One day I was on YouTube. I came across Grant Cardone and I was hooked. I didn’t understand all the math of formulas. So I just submerged myself.

studying the material for like three years. went to a couple of his conferences. He is now my mentor. I got very close proximity to Grant. And now that’s when I got more into multifamily. And then I always wanted to work for the big dogs. I always say I want to own a big building. And ⁓ one day I was in Los Angeles and I said, you know, one day I’m going to work for one of these large brokerage companies, the top of the top. So I always.

heard Grant talk about CBRE, Marcus and Millichap, JLL. So it was a goal of mine to work for one of those brokerages. So now I work for CBRE, but I also do a lot of acquisitions.

Skyler (05:04)

Nice. So you started just by flipping single family homes. And by the way, let me ask you, how long did that first deal take?

Diva Rescia (05:10)

Ugh, like six months. Six months. Yeah.

Skyler (05:13)

So yeah,

there was a learning curve there, but

got past it. I’m always very impressed with any… Go ahead.

Diva Rescia (06:04)

Yeah. And, and the,

and the people don’t see like how hard do you have to work? Like I had to live in the ghetto just because I could not find capital to live in a more affluent area. But a lot of people are not willing to take that risk. So what I always say is that I didn’t have a mattress. had to sleep on the floor. I didn’t have a toilet. This sounds really crazy, but sometimes I would have to use a Home Depot bucket with a plastic bag. This is how it’s like, how bad do you want to really

How bad do you really want to succeed? So it’s just how much are you willing to put in?

Skyler (06:33)

Thanks.

No, that’s super impressive. mean, anybody that can get into real estate without like a mentor or somebody, somebody just to like bounce ideas off of and get you some sort of idea that you’re doing things right. That’s always impressive to me. I know your parents did it, but it sounds like that first deal was completely on you, correct?

Diva Rescia (06:54)

Yeah, first deal was on me. ⁓ It was on me and I mean, you learn from everything. There’s probably things that I could have done better. also lost, I lost money on one deal because the market started taking a shift. But you learn from everything. They’re all experiences.

Skyler (07:08)

Absolutely. No, I think the same way, 100%. All right, so now though, we’re pass flipping, you’re investing in large multifamily, commercial multifamily really. So what was the first apartment building that you bought? What would that look like?

Diva Rescia (07:19)

Yes.

⁓ it was, I, so it had really bad management. So I took over, just to put into perspective, one of the units, there is a lady living in there and she had 18 dogs in a one bedroom, one bath apartment building. had no idea she had put 18 dogs in there. So I had to go through eviction. had to go through court. it was in, ⁓ it was in a tough, there was just like a lot of drugs going on in that apartment building.

So I had to completely reshift and stabilize the whole building, gut it down, to the studs, re-stabilize it. But, ⁓ that stabilization process took me a little over a year.

Skyler (08:00)

How many doors was it?

Diva Rescia (08:01)

⁓ It’s nine doors Yeah, but on that on that deal there’s gonna be a ton of upside because The rents were very low. They were like fifteen hundred. I was able to bring it up to twenty one hundred

Yeah, but I had to put a lot of money for each unit. would calculate maybe about 15, 20,000.

Skyler (08:12)

Nice.

Wow, okay. that’s a tough first deal, I would imagine, on your first real commercial multifamily there.

Diva Rescia (08:21)

Ugh.

Yeah, it’s a lot of hours, long hours, tired going back and forth. You have to be very hands on. You got to have good contractors, good labor workers. You just have to have good relationships with a lot of vendors. In close proximity and boots on the ground. You have to have, I always say like if you’re going to shop real estate, make sure you do boots on the ground. It doesn’t matter if you want to buy out of stages, take a plane or take a drive and.

Skyler (08:38)

No, that’s a very good point.

Diva Rescia (08:49)

You know, just go scope the area because on a Saturday night could be completely different from a Monday or Tuesday during the day. So you have to stay there for like a week and really scope out the area.

Skyler (09:33)

Now that’s a really great point. Now I love that you brought that up as a side I haven’t really heard before. So no, I love that. And let me ask you, how many multifamily properties do you have now in the portfolio?

Diva Rescia (09:44)

So I have over So I have a business partner me and my business partner. We have over hundred doors in Las Vegas Here I have about in California 15 doors, but we were repositioning that and then we’re actually submitting LOIs on 300 plus units in the Florida market Arizona and Las Vegas Thank you

Skyler (10:04)

Congratulations, that’s awesome.

I was going to ask you you’ve kind of just stuck in the Southern California area or if you’re expanding out to other markets, but it certainly sounds like you are.

Diva Rescia (10:13)

Yeah, I’m expanding it out of the markets just because there’s less regulation on policies and it’s more landlord friendly, business friendly. Plus you’re not getting, you’re not getting hammered with all the taxes like we do here.

Skyler (10:21)

Yeah, a little.

Excellent point. Yeah, I know would would imagine if you cut your teeth in in California though with everything, then I would imagine most other states are pretty easy after that.

Diva Rescia (10:26)

Yes.

Yeah, everything else. Right.

Yeah, it’s like, then you think like, why are you torturing yourself over here in California? It’s just like us Californians, we just love the weather. Yeah.

Skyler (10:42)

Yeah, well,

hey, it’s hard to leave 75 and sunny every day, that’s for sure.

Diva Rescia (10:49)

Yeah, it’s difficult, but I always say like if your portfolio you can you could just have a really good management in place so you could live anywhere. That’s the beauty of multifamily. It creates so much passive income that you can live anywhere and just have a good management in place.

Skyler (11:04)

Absolutely. All right. So along that line, you had mentioned having a good property management, right? So how do you pick a good property manager? What do you look for? What’s the criteria for you?

Diva Rescia (11:16)

So I want to make sure that they’re actually managing the type of assets, whether it be a B asset or an eight property class asset, what’s their track record? How many units are they currently managing? Have they managed before in that market? So you have to vet them. You have to vet them. then also within your network, that’s good about being in these networks, these real estate networks is that you get referrals from people that already maybe operate, let’s say in Florida. So you get that referral.

Skyler (11:32)

You

Okay, no, yep, it always pays to know people, that’s for sure. Absolutely. Now, just a quick question, again, kind of along those lines. do you ever see it as a downside if a property manager is managing too many properties or something that way? Have you ever come across that?

Diva Rescia (11:47)

Yes, yes it does.

yeah, sometimes they take on more than they can handle. I’ve actually had a buddy, not me personally, but I’ve had a buddy of mine that, owns, ⁓ is an LP in a few deals. And that owner, that operator actually, ⁓ took on more than he can handle and they integrated vertically. So they had a property manager, everything, but, they just did a capital call, meaning that they haven’t paid any distributions to their investors. So you run into that issue.

you have to have a good property manager because that could make or break your business.

Skyler (12:31)

Yeah, absolutely. I was going to say that’s it’s almost like if as you invest more and more into the commercial multifamily, it’s more you’re managing the property managers and trying to stay on them, correct? Yeah.

Diva Rescia (12:42)

Yeah, that’s correct. You

got to make sure you have a good property manager. have to vet them. But I always say you have to keep them happy. If your property manager is happy and you’re paying them a good amount, they’ll take care of your property.

Skyler (12:56)

Mm-hmm. There you go. Cool. Absolutely. So tell me, especially when you’re checking out properties out of state, I you said you like to have boots on the ground, but what are you looking for in your current situation for buildings? What meets your criteria? What stands out? How are you finding them? Tell me about that.

Diva Rescia (13:54)

So I want to make sure that there’s employment growth. ⁓ There’s foot traffic. We got retailers. It’s a sense of a community where people actually want to live. Schools is a big thing. Make sure that you have good schools in that community. How far are you from the freeways? What’s the accessibility for transportation? Do you have to drive 30 minutes to get maybe, let’s say, to a grocery store?

or can you get there like in five minutes? I think those are big factors. Crime rate you also wanna check, a lot of this, I’ll do all my research. The good thing about being in commercial real estate is that we have access to a ton of software. So I’m always looking for analytics and data. I can put it into perspective, we’re like data scientists. So I do my homework through the software. Then like, let’s say I pick a market, everything checks the box.

Like you got growth going on. they’re building, there’s a lot of development going on. There’s good schools. Then I’ll fly out, take a plane and I’ll probably stay in that town for a week and I’ll drive around for a week. Then I’ll go undercover act like I’m a tenant and I’ll visit a few properties and seeing, Hey, I want to rent this apartment. So I want to see like, what can the property manager tell me about the building?

Skyler (14:53)

Okay.

Okay. Yeah. you’re kind of vetting the property manager at the same time with how they treat people and how they’re taking care of the building and things like that. Very nice. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Now that makes a ton of sense. Absolutely. So obviously I understand a little bit more about your criteria. How are you finding these deals at this point? Do you choose an area and then go in and try to find a building? How does it work?

Diva Rescia (15:11)

Yes. Yeah, you have to do some undercover work. Definitely.

Uhhh

You got to make phone calls. So there’s a lot of low maturities. You can talk directly to the, ⁓ to the owner, but a, the, lot of these, institutionals, your big brokerages have them. So you have to create those relationships. The beauty about being a, CBRE is I get first dibs on a lot of things. I get to see a lot of things that come out to market. and we have a proprietary software where I could just go in and look at certain, deals that have not hit the market, but.

Key like anybody that’s trying to invest is that you have to create a relationship with those brokers Because just keep in mind that those brokers are making a ton of phone calls or they had have already built that relationship with those clients So they’re going to get those deals. So if you have a relationship and you have already closed with that broker They’re going to call you on the next deal. Hey, I got this. Are you interested?

Skyler (16:13)

So regardless, and you said it a couple times, it seems like this is still a huge relationship business.

Diva Rescia (16:18)

100 % Unless you’re buying a smaller deals. Let’s say you’re buying I don’t know 20 units or 30 units That you can I mean you can go on to a software get any software You could go on loop net you can go on crexie and look for deals and you can talk Directly to the agents there. Those are just smaller deals, but I mean there’s deals out there There’s deals out there. You just have to look and then you gotta know how to do the math and the underwriting

Skyler (16:20)

Yeah, absolutely.

Diva Rescia (16:46)

And if you don’t know, my advice is always, you know, join as an LP limited partner so they can teach you. And, and then you go on to the GP side, the general partner side.

Skyler (16:56)

Yeah, no, absolutely. Like I said, I mean, I think everybody needs a mentor, especially in the multifamily. There’s that that side seems so complex. You really have to know what you’re doing. You can get in a lot of trouble if you don’t. But that’s that is good to know. So let me ask you, what what’s the minimum size that you’re looking for now for your future properties?

Diva Rescia (17:02)

Yes.

So right now I’m looking to take down 200 plus units in the Sunbell State. So I’m looking at the Carolinas, Florida, Arizona, Texas. I’m staying away from Texas. A lot of investors will go into Texas. But what’s happening in Texas is that there’s a large supply of inventory coming to market. the vacancy is going to creep up pretty soon there because there’s so many units being delivered. So that’s another factor that you have to look at. You have to see how many developments are going on.

Skyler (17:39)

wow.

Diva Rescia (17:44)

how many developments are coming to market because that’s going to be your competition. But if you’re buying class C properties, older properties, like let’s say 1950, 1960s or vintage or 1970s, then you’re not really competing with that market. But I’m going for institutional quality assets.

Skyler (17:59)

Okay, that was gonna be my next question. And so you’re looking for newer buildings, so you’re not looking to go in and do a lot of upgrades and things like that, is that correct?

Diva Rescia (18:10)

Well, I mean, if there’s a good deal, always I’ll always look at it. But yes, at this point, I’m looking for class A buildings, is which is newer construction just because, you know, there’s lured less deferred maintenance. Your tenant profile are usually. Tenant profile, you know, stable jobs, good income, the area household, I mean, the area.

average price of a home is probably, don’t know, let’s say a million dollars in some areas. So those are factors that you have to kind of take a look at closely.

Skyler (18:42)

Yeah,

absolutely. All right. And you said you’re looking around the Sun Belt area. ⁓ OK.

Diva Rescia (18:48)

Florida yeah, so at the end of

the month. I’ll be flying to Miami. I know Fort Lauderdale There’s a lot of supply coming on to market, but I’ve never been to Tampa So I’ll be in Miami, and then I’m driving to Tampa. I could take a plane because my plane ride would be like $70 You know, but I miss all those little markets the tertiary markets that could be good So I’ll rent a car, and then I’ll drive across and I’ll stop by a few little cities and I have lime it

The good thing is that I made a lot of friends, so they kind of told me what areas are good. So I’ll make sure to stop by those areas and kind of do boots on the ground.

Skyler (19:23)

Yeah, get to go have a good scouting mission. I like it. All right. Yeah, yeah, it’s a great way to do it. All right. And in D.V.S. we kind of come up on our time here. Please let people know if they’re, you know, maybe if they’re interested in getting in touch with you or working with you perhaps, how can they get in touch?

Diva Rescia (19:25)

Yes, yes, it’s like a road trip.

Sure.

Sure.

So they could visit my website. My website is ⁓ www.resciaproperties.com. Or you can also follow me on my IG at Resia Real Estate.

Skyler (19:53)

Nice, okay. Well, Diva, again, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. I learned a lot from you. Again, I think it’s super impressive that you kind of just dove right in, started flipping houses and just figured it out. And now you’re working up to 200-door properties. It’s an excellent story. Absolutely. And yeah, and for all of our listeners out there, if you’ve got anything of value from this conversation, please hit that subscribe button.

Diva Rescia (20:07)

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes, thank you.

Skyler (20:17)

We have got more interviews coming down the pipe all the time, and we’ll see everybody on the next episode. Thank