Why Multifamily Investors Make More Money When They Pick the Right Niche

Reid Bennett, CCIM (00:00)
you know, everybody calls it the blocking and tackling or the same thing over and over and just wallowing in the monotony of the boring. Most people can’t do that. You know, I struggle with it, right? I struggle with doing the same thing over and over and over where you want to do something different. And, you know, we call it the shiny object syndrome where it’s like, you know, especially in real estate where it’s like, you know, there are so many different niches within real estate, you know, whether it be

Quentin (00:06)
Yes.

Mm. Mm.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (00:26)
You know, you’re working on multifamily housing like I do.

Quentin (02:00)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am excited to be here today. Have another fantastic guest. And I cannot wait for us to peek through his lens when it comes to business, when it comes to real estate. Gentleman is very accomplished. I mean, I have a list of things, but I’m going to let him pretty much tell you what he’s up to and dive into what he’s involved in now.

But I’m excited. I want you to get ready because this is going to be fun and we are going to get a wealth of knowledge. And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Reid Bennett. Mr. Reid, how you doing today,

Reid Bennett, CCIM (02:43)
I’m doing well, Quentin Thanks for having me on the podcast. I appreciate you having me.

Quentin (02:47)
Absolutely, man. So glad you’re here. Thank you for saying yes. You know, you know, so I appreciate that, you know, and you’ll see I’ll say it later, but I’ll say it now too. Time is our most precious commodity. You can be doing anything you wanted to be doing today. So I appreciate you being here. And so Mr. Reid, I’m gonna type, love to dive in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space where you’re in.

And also man, let them know what part of the world you’re in. People love to know geographically where people are. So what you’re up to, origin story, where you are. Mr. Reid, do you have the floor? Yes, sir.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (03:24)
Awesome.

Okay. Thank you. So I’m sitting right now in Chicago, Illinois. I’ve been in Chicago since 1999. So 27 years. I started in the commercial real estate business selling multifamily apartment buildings in the neighborhoods of Chicago in 2000, the end of 2001, really beginning of 2002. So almost a quarter century selling apartment buildings and complexes.

I was working for a boutique brokerage firm. was the youngest by about 20 years in the office. Eventually merged with a national real estate firm. Now it’s called SVN International. 13 years ago, I took over the National Council Chair for the multifamily division of SVN International. We have about 225 offices around the country.

What that means is I’ve been brought in on deals from, we currently have one in El Paso, Texas, all the way up to Syracuse, New York. We sold a portfolio of 825 units there and everywhere in between. So my main focus, my team’s focus here in Chicago is affordable and market rate apartment buildings and complexes across the Midwest predominantly. We also, again, have partnered up with

A number of our colleagues around the country, actually just listed another low-income housing tax credit deal in Montgomery, Alabama, with our good partner, John Matram down in Montgomery. And this will be our ninth deal working with John in that marketplace. So he’s a local expert. say, know, multifamily and affordable housing is about 80, 85 % the same all over the country.

The last 20 or 15 % is local nuance and what’s going on in the area. If you have a partner that understands that, I can work anywhere in the country. So that’s what I’ve really enjoyed working on over the past few years.

Quentin (06:22)
Absolutely, man. Thank you, sir. Thank you, man. Thank you for letting us know where you are, taking us a peek into the journey of how you got to where you are. And I’m going to purposely regurgitate some of the things that you said. I was writing some subs down, actively listening. And I’m a little flared for the dramatics, if I’m being honest. So I’m regurgitating because I want to make a statement and I want to ask you a question. And so ⁓ Chicago, been in Chicago since 1999, 27 years.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (06:24)
You got it.

Quentin (06:52)
in the 2020, end of 2001, 2002, you were selling apartment buildings. he was the youngest in the office. think you said by like something like 20 years, 13 years, you took over the national council chair. So you’ve been in national counseling for 13 years. I think I got that right. Partner with your colleagues. and you said you pretty much, if, if they know what they know about affordable housing, cause it’s, it’s pretty much the same.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (06:57)
Mm-hmm.

Quentin (07:17)
You can partner with anybody pretty much around the globe. Right? You understand that? Right. So Mr. Reid, I said those things again, show you I’m actively listening, but I want to flair for the dramatics because I had this saying, destiny has no wasted moments. Right. Meaning no matter how the journey is building momentum and no matter what we’ve been through, we are borrowing from the journey and it reinforces our mindset. It reinforces our purpose.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (07:19)
That’s got it. You got it, man.

Quentin (07:45)
It reinforces our why, reinforces business strategies. just would constantly build the momentum. So I would love to know Mr. Reid, what has the journey taught you about yourself? What have these moments taught you about you? Has it taught you resilience, discipline? Has it changed the way you look at innovation? What have these moments taught you about yourself?

Reid Bennett, CCIM (08:05)
It’s a great question. You know, it is resilience because, you know, there were a number of times that, you know, I went through the great financial crisis, the GFC, which was in and of itself, like very, very challenging. And then to take over the roles and responsibilities of a new office and taking on the, you know, the expenses during that time period, not just being a hundred percent commission.

Quentin (08:29)
Yeah.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (08:33)
but taking on an office, ⁓ you know, I was, you know, there, were a couple of years there where I was probably losing, you know, 50, 60, 70,000 a year rather than not even making zero. So zero would have been better. I would have been ahead if I only made zero. ⁓ you know, so, you know, there were just times and that was a challenging time. And then, you know, you have partnerships that, that, that ebb and flow in this business that

Quentin (08:49)
Right, yeah.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (08:59)
you you think are going to be the best and end up being, you know, close to the worst. it’s like, it could take you down. mean, there were, there’s just times when I was looking up going, wow, I mean, how am going to get out of this? You know, what’s going to happen? This is going to be the worst thing that’s ever going to happen. And then, you know, things come around. It’s like, I was trying to explain to somebody like the real estate business is not unlike many other businesses where if you can, you know,

wallowing the monotony.

you will make it. The problem that I’ve seen and I’ve come across, have friends of mine that have, you know, MBAs, that have law degrees, have, you know, that way smarter than me. You know, I usually I’m not the smartest guy in the room, even when I’m by myself. ⁓ You know, but, ⁓ you know, the the the guys that I’ve seen, guys and girls, frankly, PhDs.

that have tried to come and work in this business. First of all, sales, it’s very difficult to take rejection, right? In a business like real estate, you’re talking about 99 plus percent rejection. And that’s tough when you’re focused on 1%. But when you realize that just doing…

Quentin (10:48)
Mm.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (10:57)
you know, everybody calls it the blocking and tackling or the same thing over and over and just wallowing in the monotony of the boring. Most people can’t do that. You know, I struggle with it, right? I struggle with doing the same thing over and over and over where you want to do something different. And, you know, we call it the shiny object syndrome where it’s like, you know, especially in real estate where it’s like, you know, there are so many different niches within real estate, you know, whether it be

Quentin (11:03)
Yes.

Mm. Mm.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (11:23)
You know, you’re working on multifamily housing like I do.

And even in multifamily, if you split it up, there’s affordable housing, there’s market rate housing, there’s student housing, there’s senior housing, there’s, you know, six units and under, there’s, you know, 20 units and over, there’s a hundred plus units, there’s institutional. There are just so many niches, even within multifamily, people don’t even realize it. And so they say that, you know, the riches are in the niches where if you sit there and if you…

Quentin (11:46)
Woo!

Reid Bennett, CCIM (11:50)
try to jump and I just, see it so often where people are like, look, right now, this is the hot thing, right? Selling on Amazon is a hot thing. So I’m gonna try to do that for 15 minutes. Real estate’s the hot thing. So let me try to house hack and buy a house. And then you realize it’s tough. But if you stick with it and just do it over and over and in real estate, it’s, can you sit there and call people?

and make cold calls for two hours a day. mean, five days a week, that’s only 10 hours of cold calls, but most people can’t make it through the first hour on a Monday. You know what I’m saying? And you get the rejection and you get the people there, you know, hanging up on you. And I think that’s, you know, you just have to realize if you’re talking to somebody, if I’m calling you about your, I mean, I don’t know how like how diverse the

the audiences here, whether it’s real estate or different kind of businesses, but take whatever it’s all over. I so you, so you just take your business, right? And if you, have to understand your client, you know, let’s, let’s say, I think you might’ve mentioned somebody who’s a roof. It might be a roofer that might be listening to this, right? If you have a roofing business, right? Anybody with a roof is your client. So if you’re trying to sell them a roof, nobody cares. I mean, I don’t care if like I own a house.

Quentin (12:53)
Talk to them all, son. Yeah. Talk to them, man. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (13:19)
I don’t want to hear a roofer try to sell me something. But if a roofer is calling me, giving me information about, hey, this is a new product that many, many homeowners in your area are experiencing a positive impact. You know, let me just share this with you. Let me share. Here’s the top 10 things that you should be looking at about, you know, maintaining your roof in the future. You have to be thinking about adding value on the other end of the line or adding value on a newsletter blast. Something that

You know, it’s what’s in it for me is on the other end of the line, right? Where we get so mired down. I mean, I even see it the brokerage business where we start calling an owner and we’re like, we’ve done this, we’ve sold this, we did this, we have 225 offices around the country. I’ve been doing this for 25, nobody gives a shit about you and what you’ve done and all this. They only care about what you can do for them. So as long as…

As long as I can add value every time I call somebody and I didn’t realize that until I hired a coach myself. I was doing it wrong for 18 years and I don’t even know how I made it that long after I learned what I was doing wrong for 18 years. But once I learned, I was like, makes sense. it’s like, started, all the calls I started making was sharing. Here’s what we’re doing with other owners and operators of multifamily across the Midwest.

Quentin (14:24)
Hmm.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (14:44)
Here’s what we’ve created to help you maximize the NOI on your property. And people started like, then I started on my cold calls, which ended up starting to become warm. They started answering the phone like, hey, what do you have for me? Like they record my call rather than like, this asshole is calling me again. You know, he’s asking me to sell his, you you want to sell your building? You want to sell your building? No, I’m not, I never asked somebody if they want to sell their building now. I’m always giving them information. Here’s what we’re doing with other people in the marketplace.

Quentin (15:00)
You

All right.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (15:14)
that’s helping them, you know, and then maybe at end of the call, I’ll say, hey, before I let you go, is there anything we should take a look at? They know what they’re, what I’m asking. They’re asking if they have anything that I can sell, right? But I’m not calling them like, you know, the other 99 calls that they’ve gotten that week where it’s like, hey, do you want to sell one, two, three main? They’re like, no, I don’t want to sell one, two, three main. Well, then the call’s done. But anyway, it’s adding value. It’s trying to…

you know, create relationships. And the other thing we’ve started doing is, you know, if I can help you, if I can help you in your business with your property, it’s an apartment complex, if I can help you realize $25,000, $30,000 where you didn’t realize that you were missing out on, even if you’re never going to sell, all I want you to do is tell your buddies, you know, read Ben and his team helped, helped me find.

Quentin (16:45)
Yeah.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (16:49)
These guys, audited my apartment complex and they found $45,000 that I wasn’t realizing from either an expense that we audited or from income that they were not fully capturing. Just tell your friends, I’m gonna be in this for another 25 years. So I don’t care if you’re not gonna sell this year. I don’t care if you have a loan that goes out four or five more years, so you’re just gonna keep it. And frankly, there’s certain markets and there’s certain times.

where somebody says, I’m not selling my building. I’d say, look, Bill, I wouldn’t sell your building right now in this market either. And so if you start saying that to people, this is a broker that makes his living off of selling a deal, telling me not to sell my deal right now, which frankly, over the last, mean, I don’t know when this podcast is gonna go up, but this is April, 2026, the last two years, 2024, 2025,

I’ve told more people to not sell their deal than the previous 24 years I was doing this combined. because if somebody’s telling me, know, we don’t put deals on the market that we don’t think have a chance of selling because it disrupts tenants. It disrupts ownership. ⁓ It gives, you know, it gives you a negative kind of a negative impact to your property. If it doesn’t sell for two years, then everybody’s like, whoa.

This I saw this on the market two years ago. What’s wrong with it? So we make sure before we bring any property to market that first of all, it’s saleable and we were honest about the range that it can sell. And if somebody tells me I need, you know, $25 million for this property or I’m not a seller and I think it’s worth 20, then I’ll tell them that. And then they say, well, you know, this other broker told me you get 25 million. I said, look, have him take it out.

Quentin (18:38)
Hmm. Hmm.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (18:45)
or have her take it out to the marketplace. But let me just be clear with what’s going to happen with it. You know, the thing that you don’t want to do is, it comes because it costs money. It costs money for an owner of commercial real estate to negotiate a contract. Right. It costs you time. And we’re in a market right now that is very unstable. And if you miss a 30 day window by having your property under contract or tied up.

in negotiations with a seller that either can’t get the loan or is never going to execute on that price. You’ve now lost the money that you’ve put in with your real estate attorney to help you negotiate the contract. And you may or may not have missed a window in the market to sell that deal. And now you’re bringing it back out. You have to renegotiate another contract if you still want to sell.

And you might’ve missed a window and I’ve seen people miss windows, where they’ve lost 20 % of what they could have gotten if they just would have executed and not kind of screwed around or messed around with a, you know, with a certain deal or selected the wrong path to go. you know, and I’m seeing it right now in Florida with some of the brokers that we coach, guys that could have taken.

an offer. I there was one, he could have taken a $56 million offer two years ago, and then the market softened so quickly that they’re not even willing to put it on the market for 40. You know, so there’s 16 million that that guy lost right there on that deal by, you know, probably trying to hem and haw about a particular, I don’t know what it was a particular point in the contract or

Quentin (20:20)
Wow.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (20:35)
thinking that their property was worth something more, which we find that all the time. Owners are, you know, somebody will throw an offer at an owner and even if it’s an unreasonable offer that that buyer could never execute, they have that number in their head. This is what it’s worth. This is, now I’m only willing to accept this. Well, that was $2 million above what any reasonable offer would ever come in. So.

Quentin (20:38)
Yeah.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (21:04)
We battle this all the time.

Quentin (21:05)
Yeah, Mr. Reid sir, man, you just gave us a treasure trove of information, sir. A treasure trove of nuggets, golden nuggets. so, man, man, man, thank you. You it’s so much you said that I can just go on a tangent on. But man, thank you. I want to get this question in. What is the next real goal for you and your company? Like, what are you looking to solve a scale next, Mr. Reid?

Reid Bennett, CCIM (21:10)
Yeah.

So there’s a couple things. My business partner and I, we’ve invested with a couple of our clients and then a couple, we also invest outside of the markets that we work just so there’s not a conflict of interest. And we have invested with groups that just have not executed on their business plan. Another thing that I would also…

encourage everybody to do that’s thinking of investing even on like a limited partnership side. Part of the things to vet a general partner that you’re going to be investing with is I would make sure I only invest with a group that has gone through a downturn in the past. How did they weather that downturn? What did they do during that downturn, whether it be the GFC, you know, which was 2008, nine, 10.

So let’s say somebody’s newer. It’s like, how did they weather, you know, the initial parts of COVID? Because that’s, that’s kind of the, was the next downturn after that. and then I would also be, you also have another stretch is when interest rates went up six, seven, eight times in a row, they went up about 500 basis points in a one year period, which we’ve never seen in history. How did they weather that storm? And that was 20, the end of 2022, 2023.

How did they weather that? this is like another cycle that I would see. That’s the question I’d be asking the GPs. How did you deal with drastically rising interest rates when your assumptions were based on the fact that interest rates were going to remain the same? Did you do capital calls? How did you work with that? That’s what I’d be asking moving forward. So that’s a long-winded answer of saying,

You know, we are now going to be trying to put one of these deals together ourselves as the GP knowing what we know over the last 20 years of doing this, 25 years of doing this.

Quentin (23:35)
Love it. Last question, man. I got to get your perspective on this. From your perspective, when you hear the word relationship, what rings bell? What rings true to you when you hear the word relationship?

Reid Bennett, CCIM (23:51)
Well, mean, relationship.

mean, in the business sense, everything’s based on relationships. It’s from who do you know that you can partner with? frankly, the fastest track to success is attaching yourself to a mentor that’s already done it. So that would be the best relationship that you can actually build if we’re talking about from a business standpoint.

None of us have ever had an original thought. If you really think about the billions and billions of people, nobody’s had an original thought. But there are people that have had success. And whatever you think of as a success, find that person, tell that person, I’ll work for you for free.

Cause if they’re worth anything, they’ll never let you work for free, but they might hire you and shadow them and do exactly what they do. Cause don’t reinvent the wheel and do exactly what they do and find it. And there’s tons of mentors out there that have had a certain amount of success that know how hard it was. They either had a mentor themselves or relationships. Getting back to your question.

relationships that have helped them do it. Nobody’s self-made. Nobody’s ever self-made. You know what I’m saying? I mean, you’ve had a relationship that’s helped you. You’ve had a relationship that has hurt you, that you’ve learned from, that might even be more important. You know what I’m saying? So, you know, a lot of times you connect with somebody that you think has your best interest, that you ultimately find out that you don’t.

You know, no matter who, you know, there was one person that, you know, I was in business with that everybody around me was telling me this person that does not have your best interest. Attorneys I was working with that we were going over the contract that I had with them. I would be insulted by this. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. He has my best interest, you know. Ultimately didn’t, but those relationships take a long time to unwind once you realize it.

So it’s the quicker that you can realize it yourself, the quicker you can get out of that relationship, which, and onto one that will be more beneficial and symbiotic for you moving forward. And that’s the thing. If you can’t be in a relationship with somebody in business, that you’re only benefiting from them. They have to benefit from you. You know what I’m saying?

Quentin (26:37)
Yessir. Yessir.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (26:39)
Because why would

they be there? mean, nobody’s in this just to solely help people out that are takers. And if you’re a taker, you’re not gonna be a winner.

Quentin (26:49)
Mr. Reid, so well said, so well said. I often think about relationships. It’s like you’re in the ship with somebody, you know? And so if you’re in this vessel with somebody, like you said, and we listen, and if it’s a rowboat, we got to row together. This is a partnership. So if you, it’s something you should get from them and it’s something they should get from you. And never just devalue yourself.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (26:58)
Yeah, no doubt in the middle of the sea.

That’s right.

Absolutely.

Quentin (27:15)
because you are important cog in this relationship. And so I think just so well said, Mr. Reid, so well said, sir. Listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, Mr. Reid?

Reid Bennett, CCIM (27:19)
That’s right.

Well, first off, it’s easiest to find me on LinkedIn, right? mean, LinkedIn, I’m, you know, 20 plus thousand connections on LinkedIn. And, you know, I’ve just, I’ve grown a ton of relationships and business from LinkedIn. So it’s the easiest way to find me. You can also find me on our company website, SVN.com. But LinkedIn is the easiest way. Just jump on there and do a search.

Quentin (27:53)
Absolutely. Mr. Reid, let me say three things to you, One, thank you for your time. Again, I said it earlier, you could have been doing it anywhere, anything and been anywhere. And I’m sure you can get people to pay you a pretty penny for your time. So thank you for your time, sir.

Thank you for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for your narrative. I paid a premium on stories. think everything we do has a story attached to it. Kobe Bryant, before he passed away, he said, nothing in this world moves without story. So story power is everything. And I believe you sharing your narrative, sharing what you are proficient at, has literally planted seeds in somebody.

that can literally course correct them. Don’t know when they can pull out the information, but you literally gave them information that’s planted on the inside. And when they need it, they can pull it out. And so I thank you so much for your, for your narrative, for your story. And lastly, thank you for your mindset, the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I’m sure you have paid for your mindset, some in money or some in just experience, lessons, laws, lessons learned. And so thank you for bringing that mindset.

to this platform. And I’m going to stop because I really feel like I am promoting you sending me a bill because it’s like, yeah, well, I like you. You’re right. You should be paying me. But no, I really, really appreciate you coming through. Thank you, Mr. Reid. I appreciate you, Yes, sir. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Reid. Please look in his show notes. Get in contact with him. His information is there. Definitely make sure you are subscribed here because we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people.

Reid Bennett, CCIM (29:17)
Absolutely. Great talking with you. Thank you.

Quentin (29:31)
just like Mr. Reid. So sir, thank you again. And everyone else, you all have a fantastic day.