A management lesson I relearn every day

Here’s something I learned years ago about management of a growing organization but seem to keep learning over and over again: It’s mainly about the number of reasonably high quality decisions you can make each day. Why? Well, let’s take the sentence above apart. The “number“: If your organization is growing, it means that you are confronting new challenges … Continue reading “A management lesson I relearn every day”

The difference between being opportunistic and systematic

For the past year or so, we have been putting out a lot of capital on behalf of one major investor. Sure, we’ve sprinkled in a few other deals with people able to write checks for $2-3MM. But we’ve mainly got into the habit of opportunistically finding deals, then bringing it to one capital source. And … Continue reading “The difference between being opportunistic and systematic”

What’s the difference between investing in a crowd-funded deal and buying shares in a REIT?

Today, instead of writing a post from scratch, I answered the following question on Quora, a Q&A site that I like very much: Question: What are the pros and cons of crowd-sourcing real estate platforms like Fundrise or RealtyShares compared to traditional REITs? Can see the difference in projected returns but what makes them different … Continue reading “What’s the difference between investing in a crowd-funded deal and buying shares in a REIT?”

Why work with Adaptive

Met with a potential new agent for Adaptive yesterday who asked an interesting question: What differentiates Adaptive from other brokerages that he might join? The answer is actually pretty simple: Unlike pretty much every other brokerage I can think of, Adaptive specializes in advising buyers of investment property (as opposed to sellers). Representing sellers is definitely … Continue reading “Why work with Adaptive”

Passing on some great management advice

Sorry for the limited posting last week; I was up in SF at the EisnerAmper Real Estate Private Equity Conference. At the conference, heard a talk about building an “excellent, enduring organization”, which is obviously what we are trying to do here at Adaptive. The talk included several good pieces of advice, but one really stood … Continue reading “Passing on some great management advice”

Pro tip: Don’t move the mailbox

When you renovate an apartment building, you may be tempted to move and/or replace the mailbox. Don’t. Why? When you install a new mailbox for an apartment building, it comes unlocked. The USPS needs to install a master lock so that the mail-carrier can access the slots. But, due to budget cuts, the USPS is down to … Continue reading “Pro tip: Don’t move the mailbox”

Pondering single family home brokerage

As deals become harder to find in this cycle, we’re thinking about new ways to expand our business. One of the options is to make a push into single family home brokerage. Before you keel over, understand: I’m not advocating that people buy single family homes as investments. Except in very specific circumstances (like 2009-2011), … Continue reading “Pondering single family home brokerage”