Why Cash Flow Is King in Multifamily Real Estate Investing and Long-Term Portfolio Growth

Nizan Mosery (00:00)
So we’re using, so again, AI, you gotta use AI. You’re not using AI, you’re left behind.

Under so that’s that’s one thing right for generational wealth to be created ⁓ Having I always talk about the team the team is is Crucial your team will make or break you having the right people by your side ⁓ Is everything ⁓ it’s the number one thing

Scott Bursey (02:07)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host Scott Bursey and Pros do we have a powerhouse in the house today? Our guest is bringing the kind of fuel that ignites massive portfolio growth. The kind that separates the sideline players from the heavy hitters who are genuinely transforming the market. He’s the visionary behind Acrell Multifamily Investments, a firm known for sharp execution and unparalleled investment strategy.

Grab your pens and clear your desk because Nizan Mosery is in the studio. Nizan, welcome to the show.

Nizan Mosery (02:46)
Thank you, Scott. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Scott Bursey (02:49)
It is a outstanding pleasure having you in the studio. And Nizan, for those of our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us, how did your career begin and what is your main focus right now?

Nizan Mosery (03:02)
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I have my parents to thank for me getting into real estate. You know, when I was a little kid, they always stressed how the wealthiest person on the planet is someone who owns a piece of land, and clear. You can do with it whatever you want. It’s yours to own and no one could ever take it away from you. And my father always stressed to me that there’s two types of people in this world, those that pay rent and those that collect and some.

you always want to collect. And I watched his leadership, him and my parents, their leadership growing up, looking to acquire properties and managing them and repositioning them. And I learned from that and I grew up helping manage the family business and the family portfolio. And I grew from that into the multifamily space. When I was 25 years old, my father passed away.

And that kind of threw me for a downward spiral. And I left the country. I went back to my homeland, Israel, where my family’s from. I stayed there for about a year, and then I went traveling for many, many years. I became a traveling hippie. I long dreadlocks and the whole nine yards. I kind of lost my way. And then in 2006, 2002, I met my wife, and we connected.

2009 we moved back to we moved to Florida we were living in Israel at the time and we moved to Florida and I got back into real estate flipping houses and Wholesaling and doing you know it was the lowest hanging fruit at the time right the whole world was on fire and I realized very quickly after a couple years of doing that that that’s not really what I wanted to do because I learned that once I flipped the house I wasn’t making any more money until I Found another house. I renovated it and then I sold it

which was a lot of fun,

but I wasn’t able to really scale that much. And I kept hearing my parents’ voice in the back of my head, know, rental properties, rental properties. And growing up managing our rental portfolio in New York City, I said, okay, let me see what I can do. Let me see who I can learn from. Because I was out of the business for a while, traveling the world and trying to figure out who I was. And then I met a gentleman.

probably very famous gentleman, name was David Lindahl, and I started learning under his guidance and whatnot. And ⁓ I started slowly. My partner and I, bought a duplex in the south side of Chicago, and then we bought a fourplex in Riviera Beach in Florida by where live, on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. And we had the cream of the crop as our tenants, and prostitutes, and drug dealers, and all that good stuff. So I learned quickly about what not to do.

And from there we went on and we took the 27 unit property and that got us the ball rolling into the bigger multifamily projects. And I’ve been very blessed and very lucky to find good partners, be in a market in a time where the market was great for acquisitions. And there was a lot of upswing. And then COVID happened and that kind of separated the ⁓

the boys from the men and the girls from the women and the good operators were able to really be conservative and hold on and survive that. And here we are today post-COVID and we’re still seeing some volatility in the markets, but that’s kind of my journey at a 30,000 foot level.

Scott Bursey (07:37)
That is a great journey and we’re all watching it from that level. That was just just marvelously explained. Thank you so much. And we know that your focus is on it. Execution at a high level. Let’s dive right on in, Nizan. What is Acrell multifamily investments greatest operational strength in a turbulent market in your view?

Nizan Mosery (08:05)
That’s a great question. So I would say it’s twofold. One, it’s the team that we have. One of my partners is a former Fortune 500 CFO for companies public. Another one of my partners and his wife was a CPA for the SEC in the compliance department. So we have these two minds working on financials and ⁓ compliance.

And then my other partner, name is Andre, he comes from the cybersecurity world, also investment banking. worked with UBS and HSBC. He was in the luxury hotel world, ⁓ hospitality. So he brings us that institutional mindset, the systems and processes, how institutions think, how investment banking works, ⁓ how AI.

to implement AI. So right now our company, Acrell, we’re very AI focused. We put AI first into our business and we let that help us with our acquisitions, our management, disposition, everything that we do. ⁓ And it’s just been an incredible journey putting this team together. And again, I’ve been very fortunate because they are a lot more advanced than I am. And being with people that are

that higher level of caliber makes me, forces me to raise my game and my level of expertise and skills to them. So that’s the two sides of the coin. Putting AI and the team.

Scott Bursey (09:48)
That’s right, pros.

Absolutely. Having a robust, repeatable system is key to navigating any market headwind. Totally agree. And, Night Sun, when underwriting a new deal, what factor poses the greatest potential weakness that you constantly guard against?

Nizan Mosery (10:43)
Sure, that’s a good question. you know, when we look at a property, one of the toughest things for us to determine, and one of the things that could make or break a deal, is the market rent. A lot of people look at the financials and they start in the financials. We start with the rent roll. The money, the gold is in the rent roll. Understanding the rent roll, understanding who are the tenant base.

and then going out there and really pinpointing what the market rent is for that area and dialing in. A lot of people get that wrong. A lot of people think the rent roll is just something to look at and they dive into the financials. Financials are financials. Expenses are expensive. There’s only so much you can do with that. But understanding where you can take the property, the journey on increasing rents, how far you can increase rents.

We’ve come out of a market cycle where rents shot up drastically and dramatically to where now there’s a lot of markets that are seeing a flattening of rent growth. And if you don’t understand that, if you can’t underwrite properly to that market, to that rent growth, ⁓ you’re going in there and I see a lot of newbies do this and even some seasoned investors, they…

they’ll go in and they’ll put in that 3 % rent growth. Well, that’s what we’re used to. But what if that market isn’t at a 3 % rent growth? What if it’s flat for the next year? What if it’s only a 1 % rent growth? While expenses are increasing more than that, your numbers are going to be way off. So understanding that is one of the key points that I see a lot of people failing at and very few people succeeding at. And that’s why we have a lot of

a lot of distressed assets coming to market. People thought that rent growth was going to, they’re going to continue for years and years and now they’re going, well, wait a minute, what happened? What happened to that rent growth? What happened to that valuation growth? It kind of got stunted.

Scott Bursey (12:55)
Jason, if I’m hearing you correctly, it’s all about mitigating the risk before you sign. Due diligence isn’t a checklist at all. It’s a deep dive study.

Nizan Mosery (13:00)
Absolutely.

absolutely. Absolutely. That’s one thing. That’s one of the ways that you mitigate risk, right? Doing the physical due diligence obviously is one thing. But doing your market research. And I teach a lot of my coaching clients. That’s what I teach. The number one thing is do your homework in the market. Understand the ebb and flow. Understand what’s going on. Who’s moving in? Who’s moving out? What’s the local government?

all about. How much job growth is happening there? know, my mentor, Dave Lindahl, he told us the holy grail is job growth. How many jobs are coming in? What type of jobs? Where are they being created? What’s going on there? And when you figure out the market, the neighborhood, the area, then you look at that rent growth. So it’s all about that due diligence on rent, market, all of that.

You need to be able to mitigate, that’s from, like you said, mitigating the risk. But also when you’re raising capital and you’re talking to your investor base and they see that you’ve done your homework, that adds a it ⁓ adds a big layer of comfort and it gives them a reason to invest with you.

Scott Bursey (14:24)
Nizan curious to know outside of your primary asset class, where are you seeing the most significant untapped opportunity in the next 12 months?

Nizan Mosery (14:34)
That’s good. So I see two outside of multifamily. I see two asset classes. One I’ve been involved in and the other one is I see a lot of multifamily investors moving into that realm as well. And it’s been around for some time, but I see it really taking on speed and that’s assisted living. So you have assisted living and student housing.

Those two niches.

which I think fall under the multi-family umbrella, but they have their different nuances, obviously, both student housing and assisted living. But, you know, we’re not getting any younger. Our generation, right?

Scott Bursey (15:57)
And.

We’re not getting any younger. And also we have to remember the market is constantly shifting and the smart money follows where the value is being created, not just where it currently sits.

Nizan Mosery (16:06)
That’s right.

That’s right. Absolutely. know, during COVID kids were home studying, but now post COVID, these kids, want to go back to school. And we’re seeing an influx of students going back to school. We’re seeing universities expanding. Now with student housing, you’ve got to look at schools that have ⁓ a good athletic department, right? A winning athletic department. Kids want to go to a school that’s winning.

so they can party, they can have a good, you know, a good time while studying, a good economic, a good educational platform as well. And assisted living, it’s, you can make a lot of money in assisted living if you know what you’re doing, right? There’s a lot of money to be made there. I, you know, I remember when my mother passed away a year ago, but before that, we were about to put her into an assisted living because she couldn’t live on her own anymore.

And these ALFs, it’s a cash business and they’re charging an arm and a leg to bring someone in. They’re not taking insurance, they’re not taking any of that. And if you have a great product, you can really make a lot of money. But again, different nuances than the multifamily. again, you’ve got to know your product.

Scott Bursey (17:38)
Nizan if you could walk us through what external threat, be it interest rates or localized regulatory changes. Do you view as the biggest potential friction point for real estate investors right now?

Nizan Mosery (17:53)
Yeah, that’s a tough one because it’s a good question, it’s a tough… The threats are volatility in the markets, right? Everybody’s talking about what’s going on in the world, gas prices, know, towards the end of 2025, a lot of the big investment banking companies were talking that there might be a recession this year. Interest rates were very high.

23, 24, even 25, we saw them come down a bit. Everybody was praying that they would come down even further in 2026, but we’re seeing that it went up a little bit, are they coming down? So now mind you, I remember when I was a teenager back in the 80s and my father went to build the house that we moved into, he was paying 18 % interest rate on a mortgage.

But mind you, at that time in the 80s, he built our house for $180,000. Today, you can’t build a bathroom for $180,000. So while the cost was a little bit less back then, interest rates were sky high. And today, we’ve gotten so spoiled, 3 % interest rates, 4 % interest rates. But even 6 % or 7%, you’re not crazy. The problem that I’m seeing is that sellers still think that we’re in

2019, 2020 markets and they’re not bringing their prices down. And they were very stubborn. But now what we’re seeing is we’re seeing a big influx of distressed assets because they bought at a three cap with 3 % interest rates thinking that this would continue to last for years and years. And now the value isn’t there.

There’s a lot of things moving, a lot of threats, high interest rates, high pricing, volatility in the market. But again, it goes back to understanding the market that you’re in. If you’re able to really hone in on that specific market and be conservative on your rent journey and the rent growth, there are still opportunities to be had today. You just, you’ve got to be conservative in the underlay.

Scott Bursey (20:13)
If I’m hearing you correctly, staying ahead of legislation and macroeconomics isn’t a suggestion, pros. It’s a requirement for long-term success.

Nizan Mosery (20:24)
Absolutely. You kind of have to have a crystal ball without having that crystal ball. You have to read, the tea leaves, seeing what’s out there. Looking very conservative. For example, we’re in the Midwest now and when we’re underwriting, we’re always underwriting with an expansion of the cap rate when we’re selling the property, not a compression.

So there were, in the past several years, you could say, well, we’re buying a seven cap and the market is so hot that we’ll probably sell it on a six cap. We’re now doing the opposite. We’re going in and saying, you know what, we’ll buy it a six cap and we’re looking to sell at a seven cap. And if we can take that journey and ride it and still give our investors a good return, that’s something that we want to take a look at.

Scott Bursey (21:15)
And Nizan, know our listeners are gonna wanna know this. How does Acrell ensure it maintains investment discipline and avoids deal creep while rapidly scaling its portfolio?

Nizan Mosery (21:29)
That’s a good one. Well, it’s disciplined underwriting, right? It’s using AI technology. So, you my partner, Andre, he’s in the AI world. So thanks to him, we’ve created different AI bots that can help us do research, that can help us analyze. Now, we don’t take everything that they spit out as gospel. We still go in and we look and we research and we investigate.

But we have that discipline of the CFO, of AI, of understanding the investment world so that we can go in and we can unlock the hidden values through these targeted enhancements with operational excellence. And what does that mean? We go in and being an operator myself for the last 15 years, having my partner

who’s the CFO, putting the spreadsheets and the numbers and the projections together and then having AI analyze it with the investment banking world and model behind it, it’s a holistic outlook that now we’re putting into our investments. And of course, we always take our investors and their capital as the primary fiduciary responsibility.

We’re always looking to them to make sure that we’re mitigating the risk, that we’re the market, the property, the value growth in a very conservative way.

Scott Bursey (23:10)
Scaling without discipline is just chaos. You have to build the right foundation first and then pour the fuel in.

Nizan Mosery (23:14)
Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. And that’s what we’re doing right now. We’ve taken the first four or five months of the new team and we started putting the systems and processes in place. We started the outreach to the brokers. We started analyzing the markets that we’re going to be in. And we said, okay, we’re going to do two or three deals as a regular syndication model where we’re raising capital for that specific

And once we have those three projects and we’re stabilizing them and we’re running them and all the systems are in place and we know where all the hiccups and whatnot, that’s where we’re going to pour the gasoline on. That’s where we’re going to go institutional and really build out that platform.

Scott Bursey (24:11)
Nizan, this is the moment we’re talking to the pros, the ones ready to elevate their game. Could you share one money secret, a non-obvious piece of due diligence or acquisition criteria that truly separates a good deal from a world-class generational investment?

Nizan Mosery (24:32)
Yeah, ⁓

Repeat that question again. I want to make sure I get it.

Scott Bursey (24:39)
Absolutely. Yes. As far as ⁓ a generational investment, what do you feel right now could be world class? What’s some strategy that you’re ready to implement to capitalize on the future?

Nizan Mosery (24:55)
So we’re using, so again, AI, you gotta use AI. You’re not using AI, you’re left behind.

Under so that’s that’s one thing right for generational wealth to be created ⁓ Having I always talk about the team the team is is Crucial your team will make or break you having the right people by your side ⁓ Is everything ⁓ it’s the number one thing

When when you’re when you’re looking at

acquisition, when you’re looking at properties, we’re looking at opportunities for that. Okay, let’s buy the asset. We’re looking at it now five years out. And we’re saying we don’t want to sell necessarily, right? That we were shifting our mindset from three to five years. So we’re looking at long term cash flow. Yes, we want our investors to make their money. We want everybody to make money. We’re not

We’re going to hold these properties for 10 years, 15 years. So we’re looking at assets and markets that can actually last that long and have that longevity tied to them. Because for us, it’s all about cash flow. Cash flow is king.

Scott Bursey (26:25)
words of gold right there. That was broken down like a surgeon ready to operate. Fantastic, Nizan. And before we sign off, my friend, we need to make sure that our listeners stay connected. For those that would like to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Nizan Mosery (26:32)
Ha

Yeah, absolutely. I’m all over social media. I’m on all of the major platforms, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. You can find me on my name, Nizan Mosery, or the traveling investor. You can email me at [email protected], nm for Nizan Mosery @acrell, A-C-R-E-L-L dot com. If you’re looking to get coaching, I have a school community. It’s called Multifamily Accelerator.

It’s a free community. We educate. We hold people accountable. We talk and we grow together. So, definitely, hook me up.

Scott Bursey (27:26)
Absolutely. Thank you for that. And as Nizan highlighted everybody, success comes down to discipline. Never confuse being busy with being productive. A truly great investment often requires more deep thinking and less frantic doing. Schedule time to analyze the why behind your deals. Nizan, thank you for being here, my friend.

Nizan Mosery (27:50)
Thank you so much. was pleasure. I enjoyed our conversation.

Scott Bursey (27:53)
It was an absolute master class. And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ve got a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Nizan, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.