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Real Estate Syndication Explained: How Investors Scale Without Buying Alone

By January 6, 2026Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Desiree, a seasoned entrepreneur and real estate expert. Desiree shares her journey in real estate, starting from her early entrepreneurial ventures to her current focus on co-living and co-working spaces. She explains the concept of syndication, how it allows individuals to pool resources for real estate investments, and the importance of specialization in the industry. The conversation also highlights the rise of remote work and the demand for flexible living arrangements post-COVID. Desiree emphasizes the power of partnerships and the value of being part of a supportive community, such as masterminds, to succeed in real estate. The episode concludes with Desiree sharing how listeners can connect with her and learn more about her work.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Desiree Doubrox (00:00)
    So we took it all out of the stock exchange, because that goes up and down. And at a point, you just don’t want to go that ride anymore. So we do. But that’s what it is. I’m inviting you to participate in an opportunity that’s going to give you some distributions, give you a return on your capital, secured by real estate, built a short enough period of time, tax deductible because the taxes have passed through. So you’re able to take advantage of depreciation and all those things that you may not qualify for. But you know what the big gift is?

    as a syndicator.

    It’s a way for you to build your own portfolio because when you do that, there’s a clause that you conclude that you can sell the property and everybody gets paid out or you can refinance the property and you use those funds to pay all the investors off. And now you own that property that you didn’t have to put any money into and you didn’t have to qualify for the credit.

    Micah Johnson (02:28)
    Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with. Her name is Desiree, who’s been making serious moves in real estate for quite some time now. And is one of my fun things I’ve learned so far. She’s been an entrepreneur since she was 12. Desiree, it’s great to have you. How are you?

    Desiree Doubrox (02:49)
    Well, I’m great. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited.

    Micah Johnson (02:53)
    Me too, me too. I

    think our listeners are really gonna take something away from your approach, especially on syndications and then that cool project homwork that we discussed in the preliminary. So let’s dive in. First off with people who may not be familiar with your world, give us a short version, what’s your focus on these days, what’s your market operating in and just a story on you.

    Desiree Doubrox (03:16)
    Okay, well I’ve been

    an entrepreneur since I was just 12 and to many people that’s interesting because I’ve never had a W-2 or a job. So I’ve always had different businesses and I love that I have that flexibility and I’ve had that experience and exposure in all these different markets. But one of the things I’ve been in since 1989 is real estate, which also allows you to be in all these different asset classes.

    You know, first it was, you know, being the agent and it was fix and flips. And then I’ve done triple net, multi-residential, then you get into notes, then you do short-term rentals. And then you do now more recently since 2018 was coworking, co-living, homwork. We launched a company called Homework, H-O-M-W-O-R-K. And that’s where you can live where you work, work where you live anywhere in the world.

    You know, and it’s funny because I had just became an empty nester. My sons went off to college and then went off to school. And I always worked from home so could be near them. But then I said, well, I didn’t really want to work, you know, home alone. And I had the freedom and flexibility to go anywhere now. So I asked a couple of other people, what they thought about the idea. They were either single, divorced, separated, know, widowed, but just people that wanted to travel.

    but also when they travel, they wanted to land and be around other people. So we did our first project in Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego, and then we advanced after COVID to a 12-bedroom and 12-bathroom in San Diego. And then we have a 12-bedroom, 12 and a half bathroom in Cabo San Jose. And then we just launched a seven-bedroom and seven-bath in Las Vegas. And it really grew, Micah, because of…

    COVID, lot of people working remotely. And it wasn’t just the young ones and the creatives. A lot of professionals, accountants, and doctors do WebMD. And we have PR and insurance. And these people that now work remotely, and why do it from your home when you can do it from anywhere?

    Micah Johnson (05:04)
    Mm.

    It’s fascinating and you were mentioned in a second there because you said that flexibility to go do that. You got that recently. So what allowed you that flexibility to bring homwork to life?

    Desiree Doubrox (06:18)
    Well, one of the things is

    that real estate, we talk about real estate and properties that you’re going to furnish, it was very cash intensive. And so I had to raise the money. I do syndication, and I had used syndication years ago. And I find that a lot of people probably do it but don’t realize they’re doing it when you put people together to acquire property. And it could be any kind of property though. It could be any kind of asset. It could be boats.

    And we had a young lady that syndicated a yacht. The Racehorse Secretariat was syndicated. lot of the Formula One cars, those multimillion dollar cars, are syndicated. So it’s just people putting their money together to acquire an asset. But today we’ll talk about real estate because that’s a powerful source. But yeah, that’s what syndication is. And I always thought it was some big complicated process.

    Micah Johnson (07:05)
    Yeah, yeah, you think it’s like it gets tossed around.

    It’s such like a jargon term, but really it’s just multiple people putting money together to buy an asset. Okay.

    Desiree Doubrox (07:16)
    That’s

    the definition of a syndication. Yeah.

    Micah Johnson (07:19)
    Okay, so how have

    you used that in your career in life to get to where you are today?

    Desiree Doubrox (07:24)
    Oh my goodness, I’ve used it many, many times. I used it first of all to start homwork because I didn’t have, you you needed the licensing and the legal, so I raised a quarter of a million dollars to start a company. You can use it for a startup, so if you’ve got a great idea, your children have a great idea, somebody has a great idea, and don’t have the funds to do it, you can syndicate it. Because I didn’t have any asset, it wasn’t tied to any asset.

    They didn’t get any distributions or anything. It was just based on a percentage rate that they get when I sell the company, in which I have yet to sell the company. So it doesn’t have to be, again, a hard asset. But then ⁓ when I got to that point and I realized I tested the market a bit and then I realized that we needed more money, millions of dollars to buy these larger properties, you simply get the legal work done and you have to get it from a securities attorney.

    See, a lot of people make a mistake by just going to any attorney and say, oh, my attorney will do it, or a business attorney. It’s a security. And what you’re given is not stops. It’s a security. So a security is attorney. And we have some great ones that we’ve worked with, because that’s important as well. And you have to know, we call it the 11 Ds. There’s 11 decisions you have to know when you go to the attorney. Some people say, OK, yeah, I want to do a syndication. Well, you need to know what happens if you die.

    or your investor dies. What happens if there’s a disagreement with you or your investor? happens is it disappears. If you disappear or your investor disappear, what happens if there’s divorce? You divorce your investor. mean, there’s 11 of those Ds that you need to be able to say, this is what I want in my agreement. Because otherwise, it’s a boilerplate. But these are important things that keeps you out of court and then keeps your investor happy because they know that you’ve covered all your bases. But then, yeah.

    Micah Johnson (08:55)
    Okay.

    No, go ahead.

    Desiree Doubrox (09:09)
    Yeah, and so there’s a lot of paperwork. So it’s like a PPM, your private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and operating agreement. It sounds like a lot, but it’s all bolded, plated. It’s only like three or four, maybe 10 pages out of all those documents that are customized towards you and your deal. And then after that, you go and you invite friends and family. there’s two ways, two most commonly ways of doing it, like either 506B.

    which means that you have to invite people that you know of that’s in your network that you have a relationship with and know something about them. ⁓ And they can be accredited or non-accredited. And so that raises what’s accredited. Accredited is someone who makes $250,000 or more a year or 300 as a couple or has assets worth a million dollars, excluding your primary residence.

    So that can be accredited and non-accredited. And then or 506C, which means that you can go out and advertise it, but it’s only accredited investors. So I can advertise it, I can go speak about it, and so forth. But those are the kind of, that’s like the stickiest part of it is making sure that you don’t present as something, someone that’s not qualified. But other than that, you raise the money, the money goes into your accounts. People can use their ⁓ 401Ks, the self-directed IROs, their retirement plans, the TSPs.

    Micah Johnson (10:14)
    Okay.

    Desiree Doubrox (10:32)
    no tax consequences. So they got that money sitting in there, they can pull it out, and they can get anywhere from 18 to 20 percent as opposed to that two, three, four, or five that they’re getting in their accounts. And it’s passive. So you wait, know, some projects are a year, if they do it in fix and flips, with some are three years and five years. Everybody has different projects and different asset classes, some of them.

    represent a lot of different things. Sometimes you can go into syndication where they have, you know, multi-residential and money, private money and this and that. We specialize only in the co-working, co-living, which I think is your best. But then you have the investors and you have the syndicators, which are your GPs and your LPs, and they just do all the work for you.

    Micah Johnson (11:09)
    Okay.

    That’s awesome. So you just said you think that’s the best in the homwork, that space that that company’s in. What makes you think that?

    Desiree Doubrox (12:03)
    But for us, fact that we just do the homwork. think because I think your syndicators should specialize in something. You know, if you have a syndicator that all of a sudden is investing in multi-residential and investing in triple net, investing this and that. Yes, they may have knowledge in all those areas, but they may not be the expert. again, this is your money that you’re entrusting those people to manage. And you just really want to know that they are committed to that industry.

    to an industry. It’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but just like if you went to a doctor, yes, the MD has a little bit of knowledge about a lot of different things, but when you want your eyes operated on, you want to go to someone that specializes in eyes.

    Micah Johnson (12:43)
    I

    think that’s a great point because if you’re new to real estate listening to this, real estate is a huge term. It means so many things and the longer you meet someone that’s in it, usually the more niche down they are, or you hear the story where they niche down for a really long time before they added that next thing. Because what knocks most people out of the game is jumping around because each

    Desiree Doubrox (13:10)
    Exactly.

    Micah Johnson (13:11)
    Eat your, fix and flip is its own game. Syndications is its own game. It’s all its own particular thing, which I love about real estate. I like that because it gives you room to really find your place in this very large space. And it’s in my opinion, what makes abundance mindset so easy in this industry, because there is, if you’re just willing to show up each day and do the one thing that you like to do, you’re going to be successful at it. Your only competition becomes you.

    Desiree Doubrox (13:25)
    Exactly.

    Micah Johnson (13:39)
    because it’s a big arena that we get to play in.

    Desiree Doubrox (13:42)
    It is. And the longer we go, there’s more and more more different niches. And that’s good. It’s good. But I like it also because of the fact that it’s something that’s really in demand right now because everything has changed post-COVID. people now, a of people, it’s a lifestyle. They don’t have a primary residence. They’re moving around the world. They have no freedom. Effectively, some people are doing it for housing. It’s much less.

    expensive to stay. I could stay in Fiji, in Bali, much less expensive than I can stay anywhere in US. and because you don’t have to use pay one flat fee on utilities. You don’t have your trash, you have your cable, you have your Wi-Fi. You don’t have to worry about paper towels, tissue, towels, linens, first month’s, last month’s security, utilities. You don’t have to worry about any of that. You pay a flat fee so you’re able to budget yourself and say, I’ve got $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 a month and that’s it.

    But most importantly, it’s the human, it’s the community. A lot of people realize again when they have that isolation, you know, during the quarantine, that they, people really needed people. And even though we’ve had the luxury of being able to work remotely thereafter, a lot of us are alone. So that people say about our property, they have privacy when they need it, because each one of our bedrooms has a desk and a work area, so they need to do a Zoom call or something, they can do that.

    Micah Johnson (14:38)
    Mm.

    Desiree Doubrox (15:00)
    or they have company when they want it. And they can go down to the kitchen, the community center, to, like one of them, have a rooftop with large screen TVs, or we have a co-working lounge. So that’s right there. And it feels more secure when you’re traveling alone around this world right now. You really want to know that you’re kind of, got a ⁓ nest of people that know who you are, and are coming and going, and so forth. So it’s a lot of advantages. But, you know, talking about the syndication, we,

    Micah Johnson (15:16)
    Yeah.

    Desiree Doubrox (15:26)
    We wouldn’t be able to do this if we had not been able to get the money to buy it. We raised millions of dollars to do this to investors. And they’re happy because, again, they just get to invest. These are professionals that don’t have time to do real estate. They don’t want to be landlords. They don’t want to do any of that. They just want their money to grow. So they invest. They get distributions. Sometimes it’s monthly. Sometimes it’s quarterly. They get distributions. So they get a little money along the way. And some people are building that up to replace their…

    primary income and then the net where they can retire with that. Then they get chunk money at the end. Now you can structure it whatever way you want. You whether they get a piece of the equity or whether it’s just a note where they get percentage interest on the note. We do both. We give them a percentage on their note and we give them equity at the end. And then you as a syndicator, you can split it different ways with your investors.

    You can go 50-50, 60-40, 70-30, 80-80, 90-10. It depends on the project. And for us, it depends on how easy or how popular or how risky the place may be. But there’s so much flexibility in that process.

    Micah Johnson (16:38)
    It gives you tons of flexibility to pull off, not pull off, just put together the deals that you need to put together. Because that’s one thing in the higher you get in real estate and the bigger deals that you do, you run into the money issue. How do you get your traditional lending sources? Can’t fund every deal. And you don’t really think about that earlier in your real estate career until you start to have to come up with money and realize, okay, wait a second.

    Desiree Doubrox (16:52)
    Sure.

    Exactly.

    Micah Johnson (17:04)
    And then you

    start running into people raising that private capital, doing syndications like you’re doing where it’s

    now you’re accessing money nobody else had access to in this flexible, creative way. love that.

    Desiree Doubrox (17:57)
    And you know what?

    Even the people that have those multi, multi-million dollars, like the big guys out there, they still partner up. They don’t put all their money. It’s always that O-W-O, other people’s money, O-P-M, other people’s money. So even the Rockefellers or the Murdochs or the Trumps or whatever it is, they all are syndicated. Every apartment building, office building, even hospitals and schools, college campus. know my friend does a lot of the student housing.

    Just about every single building, medical, commercial, warehouse, is syndicated. Very seldom does a person, even if they have all that money and can qualify for all that credit, put all their money into that. It’s not the way you do it. It’s not real estate. can leverage. Yeah.

    Micah Johnson (18:40)
    It’s a huge risk when you do it that way. You put

    that amount of your own personal capital into a venture and some go well, some don’t. And it’s not every time is it your fault that it doesn’t. There are things that happen during the process where there’s a coach that I’ve worked with in the past and something that he would say is, know, don’t make, don’t make moves that if you lose, you’re completely out of the game. That’s the rule.

    Don’t put yourself in a position where you have to hit home runs because if you do, you’re going to strike out. It’s just this way statistics work. And if all you can do is thread that needle, you’re not going to. It just isn’t going to work. And the one time it does work is just a curse because it makes you think it’s going to work and you do it again and it doesn’t work. Right.

    Desiree Doubrox (19:29)
    No, and it’s again why? Why wouldn’t you? Because not only that, but you’re not giving other people the opportunity. So there’s so many people that don’t even know about syndications. They don’t know they can invest, especially if you’re not a non-accredited investor, because you’re not seeing the advertisements, you’re not going to those dinners, and you’re going to that circle.

    Micah Johnson (19:33)
    and community.

    Desiree Doubrox (19:48)
    So the only way that they know of this opportunity is for you or the syndicator to extend the invitation to them. And that’s exactly how I present it. I’m inviting you to participate in something that, and we invest in ours, my husband and I invest in all our syndications. You don’t have to, but we do because we can’t see, we don’t know anyplace else where we can get 18 to 20 % return on our money.

    So we took it all out of the stock exchange, because that goes up and down. And at a point, you just don’t want to go that ride anymore. So we do. But that’s what it is. I’m inviting you to participate in an opportunity that’s going to give you some distributions, give you a return on your capital, secured by real estate, built a short enough period of time, tax deductible because the taxes have passed through. So you’re able to take advantage of depreciation and all those things that you may not qualify for. But you know what the big gift is?

    as a syndicator.

    It’s a way for you to build your own portfolio because when you do that, there’s a clause that you conclude that you can sell the property and everybody gets paid out or you can refinance the property and you use those funds to pay all the investors off. And now you own that property that you didn’t have to put any money into and you didn’t have to qualify for the credit.

    And that’s Mag.

    Micah Johnson (21:09)
    Yeah, that’s truly OPM.

    Desiree Doubrox (21:09)
    I mean, if you can, if you

    can just do one a year, okay, you know, it be a $50,000 property, can find that anywhere, or it could be a $50 million property. But whatever, if you found a property and you said, okay, I’m going to take this property, I want to buy it, I want to own it, I’m going to make, you know, bring people in, they’re happy because they’re going to get paid. And then at the end of the day, whatever time period it is, I’m going to get paid, I’m going to have the property. Instead of you taking that cash out, you leave it in there.

    and you own the property. And now you have a property that’s seasoned, that you know all about it, you’ve well managed it. It’s like a machine that you’ve had time to oil and get it working correctly. And your investors are happy and they’re ready now to take their money and go into your next project. Bam, do another one and then keep it moving. Yeah, yeah, because they want it, they’re happy. They don’t want to pay taxes on the money.

    Micah Johnson (21:56)
    We got one machine fixed and it’s going over here. Now let’s go use the money to go fix another engine over here.

    Desiree Doubrox (22:06)
    So they just roll it over.

    Micah Johnson (22:07)
    love win-wins and you find a lot of them in real estate. you’ve, were talking about it a little bit before we recorded about the power of partnerships in real estate and you’ve mentioned it a couple of times how it’s, easy to want to go at things alone, but the best don’t do it alone. That’s not what they do. So if you’re listening to this and you’re wondering like, how do all these people do this? The best don’t do it alone. One of my, I think it was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Somebody asked him, you know, how’d you become a self-made man?

    Desiree Doubrox (22:17)
    Yeah.

    Yeah.

    Micah Johnson (22:36)
    I may butcher that quote, but he says, I didn’t, I’m not self-made. got here on the backs of Titans. Like it is, nobody gets anywhere big alone. And it’s amazing. I love meeting people and talking with people that do big things because there’s a certain energy that they have and all of them so far abundance mindset, and they know the value of other people, plugging them into their world.

    Desiree Doubrox (23:01)
    And that’s when you were talking about masterminds. mean, that again, something that’s been around for ever and ever and ever. Napoleon Hill had a quote on it. And you can’t do it alone, but you can’t learn everything alone either. You don’t have those resources. mean, a lot of our deals come from people that masterminds. A lot of our financing come from people mastermind. A lot of our contractors come from mastermind. I mean, so it’s connections. You have to be part of that world.

    to be able to make your deals easier. I mean, it can happen, I guess, but why take the hard road and the lonely road when you have people around you to support you and the feedback? I use a lot of brainstorming. Okay, what do you think about this? And what about this? Brainstorm of people. And those are people that are like-minded people. That’s exactly, that’s what it is.

    Micah Johnson (23:45)
    Literally passed your mind.

    When you get in a room where people have done it, right? The process is the shortcut, unfortunately. So go find the people who know the process. When you can eliminate a mistake that someone will tell you, this cost me two years, and they’ll just let you know and how to sidestep that whole issue in your life, it’s beautiful. It is, I love that about it. Again, that abundance mindset in real estate where you get into these good masterminds where people are

    You’re truly giving, you’re getting those perspectives that we all have blind spots. My dad always said growing up, it’s hard to read your label from the inside of the bottle. And you need those other folks to look at it and see it in a way where you’re like, oh, I didn’t see that. That’s so good. And the events I’ve been to, you go home, they’re not just new customers, friends, people to rely on. You build your, you’re just connected in a way where we were talking about real estate.

    The more you niche down, the fewer people you have to talk to who even understand what you’re talking about. Right. And we like to talk about this stuff. It’s one of our favorite things. So finding those rooms where people enjoy that conversation, where it drives you, you, you, you, ⁓ it’s awesome.

    Desiree Doubrox (24:50)
    It’s laughing.

    motivates you, you come back and

    you’re empowered. Because sometimes even your closest family or friends, they don’t encourage you because it’s a big risk. mean, real estate many times, no matter how large or how small, it could be a risk. And it could be really ⁓ devastating, like you said, if you make the wrong mistake. So why take those risks when you have access to information and access to resources? But you just constantly need to stay motivated because it can become scary. Again, it’s like when you sign on that dotted line.

    No matter how well you underwrite it and vet it and so forth, it’s still a risk. And to have some support behind you, people who have been there and done that, it’s huge. It’s huge. It’s… ⁓

    Micah Johnson (25:42)
    It is, there’s always that feeling. and everybody has it, right?

    I call it, it’s what feeling alive feels like. Your skin’s kind of tingling. There’s that like, woo, here we go. It’s that, I don’t know, maybe that’s what makes people like that tick is that feeling is like, yeah.

    Desiree Doubrox (25:51)
    ⁓ my gosh. ⁓

    No, but I’ve been doing this since 1989. I’ve been doing this since

    1989 and I still get like, Because you say you’ve gone through that journey and so you know, know, what, go this way or that way, no fault of your own. And so it’s, you know, it’s exciting, you know, but it’s always nerve-racking. So to have that, you know, fan club behind you, you know, as part of the mastermind that’s muting you on, that’s cheering you on.

    Micah Johnson (26:05)
    Yeah.

    Desiree Doubrox (26:23)
    you know, that’s there if you need them, it’s huge. It’s priceless, quite honestly.

    Micah Johnson (26:28)
    But it doesn’t belong. You’re gonna need somebody at some point. So as we tie this up, Desiree, it’s been a pleasure. I’ve loved our conversation so far. If someone wants to get ahold of you, to learn more about syndications, how to be a part of what you’re doing, and get plugged in if they’re not accredited, how can they know you so that they get that chance to be in the ones which you’re allowed to be in? What’s the best way to get ahold of you?

    Desiree Doubrox (26:50)
    ⁓ Best way, mean, they can literally call me. My phone number is 818-292-5559. They can go to our website, homwork, H-O-M-W-O-R-K dot com. You’ll be able to connect with me there. You’ll also be able to go to syndication simplified and see more about our syndication. You’ll also be able to see the properties that we have so you can get an idea of what they look like if you want to stay there or if you want to.

    invest so you have all those different options but I guess the best way is homwork.com and my email of course is [email protected] ⁓

    Micah Johnson (27:34)
    Thank you so much. We’ll make sure that things reach for that at the, or in the bottom. So Desiree, again, it was a pleasure. I really appreciated your time, your story, your perspective. We need more folks in the space doing it like you’re doing it. I really appreciate you being here. If you’ve got a lot of value from this, please find Desiree, reach out to her, subscribe to our.

    Real Estate Pros podcast. We’ve got more conversations coming up with folks just like Desiree who are out there building real businesses and helping people build real lasting wealth. We’ll see you on the next episode.

    Desiree Doubrox (28:06)
    Thank you. Thanks so much.

    Micah Johnson (28:08)
    Thank you.

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