Chad King, CEO and founder of Titan Capital Group, joins host Ash Patel on the Best Ever Show. In this episode, Chad discusses his GP portfolio, which consists of $106 million AUM across multiple asset classes. An expert underwriter, he also shares his strategy behind losing out on deals today to buy distress tomorrow, how to buy right in self-storage, and the opportunity available now in the office sector.
Chad King | Real Estate Background
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- CEO and Founder of Titan Capital Group
- Portfolio:
- 855+ MF units, 210 self storage units, 3 mobile home parks, 2 office buildings and limited partner on 100+ million RE
- Based in: Nashville TN
- Say hi to him at:
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Transcript
Ash Patel (00:02.37)
Hello, best ever listeners. Welcome to the best real estate investing advice ever show. I'm Ash Patel and I'm with today's guest, Chad King. Chad is joining us from Nashville, Tennessee. He is the CEO and founder of Titan Capital Group. Chad's portfolio consists of being a general partner on $106 million of assets consisting of 800 units of multifamily, over 200 units of self-storage, three mobile home parks, two office buildings and being a limited partner on another hundred million dollars worth of real estate. Chad, thank you for joining us and how are you today?
Chad King (00:39.391)
Doing great, Ash. Thank you very much for having me on. I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Ash Patel (00:43.026)
It's our pleasure. Chad, if you would, can you share a little bit more about your background and what you're focused on now?
Chad King (00:48.947)
Sure, yeah, no, I came out of college with a finance and accounting degree, just looking to learn a little bit more about money. I've been fascinated with the topic of it since I was a young man. Unfortunately, college only really teaches you to balance other people's checks books and doesn't really teach you how to get independently wealthy. But I found ability in sales to create your own income and stroke your own checks. So I sold copiers at Xerox door to door out of college. And that's how I got started in my career.
I climbed that corporate ladder for a little while and then eventually realized I didn't want to work for anybody else. So I jumped into real estate full time. And I was doing pretty well at Xerox, but I just couldn't justify the whole traditional deposit to your 401k, go down this path, climb the corporate ladder, that kind of mentality. So I wanted to make more money faster, build wealth quicker. So I got into real estate, jumped in and found a little niche in the wholesaling, fixing and flip space, which is kind of the blueprint where everybody gets started.
Uh, made, uh, I've done over 400 flips in my career and, and it was some great active income, but ultimately as I was learning the, the fix and flip business, I found it to be very, very transactional. You get one done, you got to go find another one. And then I didn't want to live in that rat race of the kind of the hamster wheel of transaction after transaction. So I started taking the profits from the flipping space and buying small multifamily apartment complexes. I bought my first three deals with my own capital and then realized that I wanted to do more of the commercial stuff, but was limited only by the capital that I had. And then I learned a lot more about syndications.
So started doing some 506B, 506C syndications. To date, I've completed 23 commercial real estate projects with 14 of those being syndications. We've successfully exited 11 properties. So taken full cycle, repositioned and exited 11 properties. So I currently hold, I think it's about 13 properties right now totaling 106 million in assets under management. And most of its apartment complex is about, 85% is multifamily. And that's where I'm at. And we're under contract right now on $32 million right here in our hometown outside of Nashville. That's closing in the next couple of months. So just really scaling the commercial real estate business.
Ash Patel (03:09.826)
Chad, how long ago did you start Titan Capital Group?
Chad King (03:14.439)
Well, the in my, it's been seven years, seven years. So I count, you got to count the time that, you know, I was underwriting deals and walking properties on the weekends long before I bought my first deal, almost two years that I was doing all that activity, trying to source opportunities and everything before I actually closed my first one. So it's been actually over seven years if you count the time it took to get the first one done.
Ash Patel (03:39.69)
And you're a general partner on $100 million of assets, and you're a limited partner on another $100 million in real estate. So the LP portion is you're just a passive investor, and it's 100 million of syndications, which you have an investment in. Okay, the 106 million of GP partnerships.
Explain to me what those assets look like. Did you find them, take them down, race capital for them?
Chad King (04:10.227)
Correct. Yeah, those are actual deals that I'm the general partner. I created the LLC, put together the team. We manage them and yeah, we run them. We operate them. We raised the capital for them on 506Bs or 506C syndications. We've also completed two funds as well. So yeah, we run that 106 million.
Ash Patel (04:29.686)
Who's we?
Chad King (04:31.839)
I have partners on almost every deal. I don't think I've bought a real estate deal on the commercial side without business partners. So I have one main, two main business partners that I pretty much do most of my deals with and that's Jason Urussi and Bill Allen are my two business partners. But these big commercial deals, it takes a lot of work. There's a lot of things to do. There's a lot of different roles to be played, a lot of hats to wear. So, you know, if you can find yourself with some good partners, it allows you to go faster further, you know, together rather than being a one man shop, you're, you're pretty pigeonholed, um, you know, doing every single piece of the transaction versus, you know, having some good partners in your corner. So, yeah.
Ash Patel (05:10.35)
Okay, so but again All of the hundred and six million dollars of assets that you are GP on those are ones that you found You raise capital for and they're your deals and you let other partners in
Chad King (05:27.387)
Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Yeah, I'm mainly on the acquisitions, due diligence and underwriting side. So my partner Bill handles all the capital raising and then my partner Jason handles all the operations and asset management. And I'm mainly on the deal sourcing. I do a lot of the operations as well, but underwriting is my skill set as well.
Ash Patel (05:45.13)
Good. Okay, so you're a bit of a unicorn in that you have multifamily, self-storage, mobile home parks, and office. A lot of people will say stick to what you know, stick to your niche, hyper-focus on one asset class. What are your thoughts on that?
Chad King (06:24.436)
Well, you're, every asset class in commercial real estate operates that same way. So I think if you're only looking at multifamily apartments, like you, you're doing yourself a disservice because self storage, although a different asset class and it runs different with different expenses, it's just a business. It's got income, it's got expenses, and it's got net revenue. So you, you know, you can really take the skillsets that you learn in one of the asset classes and parlay them over because all commercial real estate operates the same way and values are driven by the income that it produces.
Ash Patel (06:59.582)
I love your philosophy and I agree with it 100%. These asset classes also rise and fall with different market cycles. So why not have all these tools in your arsenal? So if all of a sudden, multi-family is back on fire again, you've got the skills and the team to deploy capital and assets towards that. Let's start with the multi-family, almost 900 units. Where are those located?
Chad King (07:27.943)
85% of those are located in Middle Tennessee. I'm in Nashville. I live in a little suburb called Murphysboro, which actually was the third fastest growing country in the United States last year. So I have, gosh, at the end of April, we'll have 700 units just here in Murphysboro. So you can really win in your backyard. You don't have to go all over the country to try and find deals. But Middle Tennessee, Nashville, surrounding areas is my sandbox.
Ash Patel (07:57.302)
Not everyone's backyard is Tennessee though.
Chad King (08:00.495)
Yep. I agree with you. Yeah.
Ash Patel (08:02.162)
Yeah, so, uh, and Tennessee's had a parabolic rise in rents, real estate. How is it doing now? Have rents subsided a bit?
Chad King (08:12.163)
Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, this is the cool thing about commercial real estate. When you get to know your market really well, everything is sub market by sub market. So we have places, you know, we have an asset in Davidson County, which is like your Nashville, main Nashville sector. And we're seeing a lot of rent suppression. We're actually we're seeing the class A is giving three to four months concessions on some of their rates, meaning, you know, they're charging twenty five hundred dollars, but they're given three, four months free. Their effective rent is only sixteen or seventeen hundred dollars a month when you do the actual math.
And then, so we're seeing rents when we have that property and we're actually having to drop our rates a little bit to fill up and put heads in beds. So we're seeing rent suppression in Davidson County. Murfreesboro's been able to hold pretty well. However, we are seeing that growth, the rent growth that we've seen since 2019 up into 2022 where it's been kind of crazy growth, that has stopped. Now we are pretty flat here in Murfreesboro.
Some markets are on the decline, like I said, even Nashville, as popular as it is, has had so much absorption of units being dumped into the market that all those units are now having to get filled and they're only being able to do that with concessions and lower rates. So then everybody else's rates are gonna fall in correlation to the amount of units that are getting dumped. So you really gotta know your market. You gotta know how many units of inventory are coming online and then what that's gonna do to your class because everything kinda moves down as class A has to to drop rates to fill, everything kind of moves down.
So we're seeing some rent suppression in certain areas. We're seeing some rent stagnation in a lot of other areas, but we're factoring that into our underwriting. I'm looking at deals right now and I'm really stress testing deals to the point of like, hey, if I can't raise rents for the next five years, does this thing pencil? Or if I, I'm really trying to kill deals on not going in with crazy rent growth numbers or thinking that we're gonna jack everybody up on organic rent growth a couple hundred bucks, because that's just not happening anymore.
Ash Patel (10:11.754)
When you underwrite multifamily with no rent growth, are you losing a lot of deals to people that are outbidding you?
Chad King (10:21.083)
Sure, but then I'll just take that property back from the bank when they lose it in 12 or 18 months. If they find it on bridge debt. Yeah, I might be losing, but they're not going to be able to execute the business plan the way they're underwriting it, especially if we see some more turbulence in the economy or some other stuff go on in the world. You know, they may be overinflating. I'm seeing it right now. We're seeing distress all over the market. I'm seeing people give properties back to banks.
I'm seeing people that are trying to sell the property for 20% less than what they paid for it at the peak. Like I'm seeing it all over the place. People that bought on bridge debt, you know, that have maturity dates come and do that thought they were going to get saved by the market appreciation and the rent growth and that stopped. So I would be cautious. Um, and if, if I lose out to someone who bids higher than me, so be it, because I know that I'm buying safe properties for my investors right now. And that's what I'm trying to, that's what I'm trying to find.
Ash Patel (11:14.614)
The reason I asked that question is to gauge how much of that exuberance is still in the market. So it seems like there's still quite a bit. People are still hoping for the best and making some high offers on apartments.
Chad King (11:29.656)
Yeah, I would say there's a little bit there's still a little bit of exuberance left. I think I think a good chunk of it has sort of tapered off given the rate increases that we've seen from the Fed over the last 18 months. I think a lot of the exuberance is sort of tapered off but there's still people that look at deals through rose colored lenses, you know, and they're just trying to find all the best things about it when somebody brings a deal to me. I'm just trying to figure out all the ways I can kill it.
Ash Patel (11:56.718)
Chad, you mentioned your Class A apartments in that market are $2,500 a month, but they're effectively $16 because of the three or four months of free rent. Are they doing that just to pump their NOI numbers on paper?
Chad King (12:13.211)
Yeah. And let me clarify. I don't own any class A. My entire portfolio is between $900 and $1,500 price point in rent. That's my sweet spot. I'm C plus B minus guy 70s to 2000s vintage. But the class A stuff, they're doing that to increase occupancy. So, you know, they'll give concessions basically, you know, if they're sitting at a if they've had a new building come online, and they're sitting at 30 40% physically occupied, they're going to give all those concessions to try and get their occupancy numbers up, you know, north of 80%.
So it doesn't really help their NOI. It actually hurts their NOI based on their, you know, their loss to lease. But from an occupancy standpoint, they need rent. They need revenue to cover their expenses. And they're just trying to get people in the door to get in there.
Ash Patel (12:59.762)
From a psychological perspective, does that work? Charging higher rent, but giving three months of free rent versus just lowering the rent.
Chad King (13:10.031)
Yeah, it does. It works. It works for the tenants. But you if you're looking at deals, you got to be careful because on the rent roll, this is the thing is when you're underwriting deals like on the rent roll, it's going to show $2,500 on the rent roll. So if you don't do a lease audit during your due diligence phase and realize that they gave three months concessions to get the 2500 bucks, and you're thinking you're going to go out to marketing, be actually collect 2500 a month, you're going to over inflate the purchase price of that deal and the value of that property. Just a little
Ash Patel (13:37.47)
Yeah, because you've got some juiced up numbers there.
Chad King (13:40.079)
Yeah, they're all I'm seeing a lot of juiced up numbers, people trying to sell deals. I've seen a lot of juiced up numbers from brokers, from sellers. So just be careful right now. This is a.
Ash Patel (13:49.73)
Yeah, interesting times. Uh, no one really knows what's going to happen next, but it seems like the majority of Wall Street folks and real estate folks think we're in for some hefty rate cuts, which I disagree with. I don't think that's going to happen. What are your thoughts?
Chad King (14:08.486)
on specifically rate cuts or what?
Ash Patel (14:13.295)
You know, rate cuts, the future of the economy, the near-term economy and the health of it.
Chad King (14:20.439)
That's a that is a loaded question. I'm going to do my best to unpack it in a short amount of time. I think I think the world I think the United States specifically everything everybody's a little bit on pins and needles being this election year seems like it's going to be one of the most important ones for the future of our country. I think we're in times that we've never really experienced before there. There there's a lot of trepidation in the market. There's a lot of uncertainty about what's going to happen.
Unfortunately, real estate, in my opinion, is directly a tie to the socioeconomic environment and the political stuff that goes on in D.C. as much as I wish it wasn't because the Fed responds so much to politics and the Fed directly affects what we do that I think the Fed is waiting to do rate cuts until a little bit more certainty about what's going to go on in November comes to light as far as who might be, you know, who might take the White House.
You know, I think I think we really have a couple of directions we can go. I think for us real estate investors, you know, I think we all know who we would prefer to be in office just because of the policy, the fiscal policies that work with us. I think if the other side gets in office, that we could be looking at a severe recession coming sooner than later. I think either way, I just came off of a mastermind event in Dallas and I was speaking to, you know, 40 or 50 real estate investors.
And I'm just, I'm very bullish on, I think everybody who's really trying to get into commercial real estate and gain wealth needs to do so within the decade. Because I think we're in somewhat of the roaring twenties again, just a century later. And I think we're going to have maybe another bull run in the market with some Fed rate cuts that are going to open up the economy a little bit.
But I think that might be followed by a severe depression, just due to the $33 trillion in debt that we have and due to the GDP and all the numbers that are just basically writing on the wall that America's bankrupt and a lot of its programs are bankrupt. At the end of the day, commercial real estate, I want to own where people need to live because it doesn't matter what the currency is that we're going to be using, meaning I don't believe in the dollar long term. Whatever the currency is that we're going to be using, someone's going to need to pay me to live there. So hard assets, especially ones that produce income, are the best bets right.
Chad King (16:50.759)
There's no crystal ball. Nobody knows what's gonna happen, but I can tell you that there's a lot of everybody is kind of on pins and needles. And I even think the Fed is just sort of waiting it out before they do decide to cut rates if they're going to. And if they do cut rates, I don't think it's gonna be slashing. I think they'll pull back rates very, very slowly. And I honestly don't ever think that we'll see an environment like we did in 2021 where the treasuries were, you know people were getting two and a half percent mortgages.
The treasuries were like one, 2%. Like we're not going to see that low ever again, in my opinion. I think when rates come back and the treasuries are sitting at, you know, three and a half percent, maybe 3% is about as low as we might go for another bull run. And then it could get, it could get ugly or it could open up and we could, we could be back to normal, but it's either way you need to buy commercial real estate in my opinion, whichever direction it goes.
Ash Patel (17:46.194)
Yeah, my opinion is I don't think the Fed is doing a good job taming inflation, which is their precursor to cutting rates. I personally don't see rates being cut anytime in the future. So good contrasting view. You have self-storage units as well. What are you doing with those? Are you acquiring more?
Chad King (18:10.791)
Yeah, we're looking for more self storage. Very cautious about the sub markets that I'm buying storage in. But yeah, self storage is a great little investment. Overhead is pretty minimal. I'm just trying to buy good facilities in good areas. I love the self storage market. Yeah, it's a solid little asset class. If you buy it right, just like everything else, you just gotta make sure you buy it right. But some good lending options there. I'm getting good LTVs on those loans.
It's a good asset class.
Ash Patel (18:42.574)
Chad, I hear a lot of discussion about self-storage being overbuilt. What are your thoughts?
Chad King (18:48.815)
In some areas, it's sub market by sub market. I think there was like a big push for self storage there for a while. But it's the same as it's the same as apartments. Like if too much absorption comes on into the markets, you're going to be dropping your rates in order to get people to store their stuff there. So, you know, the stuff that we have, there's mixtures of climate controlled units, non climate controlled units. We have boat and RV parking. We have covered parking. We have a lot of different things. So we're not solely reliant on external storage.
We have a good chunk and variety of stuff that's climate controlled, non-climate controlled, different sizes. So I would give yourself as much a hedge with diversity of units offerings as possible in your self storage and make sure you're in a little good sub market. The other thing that you need to do in self storage is you absolutely have to look at your rates that you're planning on charging and then look at the demographics in the area of the zip codes that are surrounding your place, because number one, people are not gonna travel far to dump their stuff off.
And number two, if your rates, like for me, I need to see my median home prices north of 200,000. I need to see my median household income north of 60 to 70,000. Like I need my specific metrics that justify somebody can afford to store their stuff versus just piling it up in the garage. So do your homework on your sub markets about where you're buying and make sure that your demographics can actually handle this and support for that stuff based on what you're trying to charge.
Ash Patel (20:13.598)
and one of my favorite asset classes, Office. Tell me about the two office buildings that you have, please.
Chad King (20:48.495)
In Columbia, South Carolina. That was just a great opportunity, came across our desk. And I love office. Leases are a little bit different. You have your tiered increases on your leases and then you have your triple net versus your modified gross and cam. So you kind of have to learn a little bit different lingo when you start to come into office. But at the end of the day, like I said earlier, it's a business and it runs the exact same way as everything else.
Ash Patel (21:13.834)
Yeah, I also love that we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to pick up office for pennies on the dollar, right? Everybody's fearful of office. Lenders hate it. Real estate investors think it's toxic, but the people that have and know office, it's a great asset.
Chad King (21:29.795)
Yeah. So I currently hold two. I've actually had five office buildings, and we've exited three of them. So I love the office space. If you're in, again, if you're in the good sub market and you have the demand there, I love it. We are seeing a lot. I've seen a lot of people that are converting office to apartments recently. They're trying to do conversions, which is pretty cool, but those are very, very capex intensive. So just be careful. If you think you're just going to make an office building an apartment complex.
Ash Patel (21:57.446)
Yes, there is money available from the current administration if you build a zero, sorry, if you convert it to a zero emissions building. And there's billions of dollars available, but you're right. It's usually cost prohibitive to do that conversion. Chad, what's the hardest lesson you've learned in this industry about people, partners, deals, investors, share with us a couple of hard lessons you've learned.
Chad King (22:12.199)
Sure. Yeah.
Chad King (22:27.967)
Oh, God. That's a good question. I've learned. Yeah.
Ash Patel (22:31.478)
Dig deep, man.
Chad King (22:35.387)
You know, there's so much that happens in real estate that's outside of your control that you have got to be a non-emotional, you have got to be non-emotional to it because you'll get knocked out of the game so easily if you are, if you ride the roller coaster that commercial real estate is, and real estate in general. There's a lot of things that happen that are outside of your control with regards to the buildings, tenants, things like that, property managers. So there's a lot of people and a lot of emotions that are involved.
So you have to do your best to be very centered and non-emotional and non-reactive. And just do everything that you can to be proactive in your endeavors here. I've had a building that's burned down on me. I've had tenants that have lit my place on fire. I've had all sorts of stuff happen, you know, and it's just about taking it with a grain of salt and moving forward.
The last 24 months, I've actually bought out, just shy of, I've bought out six partners in different LLCs that I had. So I guess the lesson that I would teach, that I would give is, date before you get married, these businesses that you buy, where we talk about you're buying a business, right? Whether it's an apartment complex, storage facility, mobile home park, office building, doesn't matter, you're buying a business. And if you buy it with somebody, you are married to that business for as long as you own it.
So, I see people that are getting into partnerships really way too early with other folks and they just like create a LLC and they say, let's go 50 50. And then they start buying stuff in it. And then they realize the workload is not what they thought or expectations weren't clearly set. And now they're now they've created this company and they're kind of locked in. What I do now is, you know, I have my company Titan Capital Group that I own 100% of and I will partner on deal specific deals with other individuals.
And I think going deal by deal has allowed me to avoid a lot of the stress that comes along with partnerships that don't necessarily work out. Having good core values, being rooted in those, and picking good partners to do this with is the most important thing because bad partnerships will drain your energy and it can really slow you down as far as your momentum and your growth. So I guess my hard lesson is just making sure you're picking the right partners and and doing business with people you like and enjoy doing business with, because that's where I'm at now in my life. I don't have to do deals now, I choose to, and now I get to do deals with people that I really like and wanna work with.
Ash Patel (25:06.338)
That is great advice and I too have learned those hard lessons about friends. So I love what you're saying. Do the partnership deal by deal. It doesn't have to be a lifelong commitment, right? And yeah, if you want to do your own deal, you're not obligated to share with your partner everything. Chad, what is your best real estate investing advice ever?
Chad King (25:30.567)
My best real estate investing advice ever. I should have known this question was coming because it's like the name of the podcast. So I should have figured this question was coming. I didn't know exactly what they were gonna be. I'd say that fall in love with the spreadsheet. Don't fall in love with the property. I think I see far too many people where they'll go walk a property and they just get so inundated with the excitement of being on site and the building and the flash and the cash flow and it looks all cool, but I need you to come back to the Excel spreadsheet or your underwriting templates or your models.
And I need those things to get you excited. And I think far too many people are looking at these properties through rose colored lenses because they go on site and they just get so jazzed up and excited to buy a piece of commercial real estate that they ignore the red flags that are glaring in the financials. You have, I don't care if you're a numbers person or not, you have got to get a basic understanding on how to read financial statements, T12s, rent rolls, because they will tell you a story. So if you can read the stories and you can read the narratives that the financials are telling you, then you can have the ability to change those narratives, AKA value add.
You cannot force appreciation or execute a value add strategy if you don't understand the current story. And I'll tell you guys the truth, people lie and people are full of BS. So if the broker's telling you a story or the seller's telling you a story, it may be entirely different than the story that the numbers are telling you. And I trust the numbers. So, my piece of advice would just be to fall in love with the numbers and the spreadsheets and learn how to read those narratives because that's where the money's made is in the spreadsheets.
Ash Patel (27:13.09)
Chad, let's hit the best ever lightning round. What's the best ever book you recently read?
Chad King (27:19.343)
Oh man, I just read Extreme Ownership again. I've read that one a few times, but I just got through Extreme Ownership another time and that one's so applicable. I'm recently a father to a couple, couple of children. And even in, even in fatherhood, it has so many applicable lessons in real estate business and life. And it's just a great book. So I re I just read that one again. So Jaco Willink, Extreme Ownership.
Ash Patel (27:45.102)
Chad, what's the best of a way you like to give back?
Chad King (27:50.951)
The best ever way I like to give back. A percentage of my net profits at Titan Capital Group go to a couple of specific charities. So I have a percentage at the end of every year that after we do our books, we donate to a couple of charities, I'm trying to give more back with my time, but pretty busy recently. So yeah, we give back via charitable donations. And helping people, man, I really am passionate about people doing this and I try and help people avoid doing bad deals because I believe the best sometimes the best deal you ever did is no deal at all. Like so it's just I like helping people to do good real estate deals as well. Yeah.
Ash Patel (28:34.35)
Chad, how can the best ever listeners reach out to you?
Chad King (28:37.787)
Yeah, you can you can get me on Facebook at Chad King or I'm on Instagram at Mr. Chad King, Mr. Chad King. Just give me a follow and shoot me a message if you need anything or want to talk real estate. I love I love the topic. I love talking about money and freedom and anything else you guys want. So give me a follow on Facebook and Instagram is kind of where I'm at right now.
Ash Patel (28:56.582)
Chad, what a pleasure it was talking to you today. You are a unicorn in this business. You are asset agnostic, great lessons you shared today. Thank you for your time.
Chad King (29:06.104)
Ash, appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me.
Ash Patel (29:08.618)
Yeah. Are you going to the best ever conference by chance?
Chad King (29:12.26)
I don't believe that I have the dates for it.
Ash Patel (29:15.374)
I believe it's April 9th. It's a whole bunch of us will be out there. It's great networking. I'm going to share code with you and all of our best ever listeners. It's just the word connect if you're interested.
Chad King (29:17.884)
Okay.
Ash Patel (29:32.986)
It's a great time. No one's selling anything. It's the you know, the who's who of commercial real estate. It's it's a fun time Yeah, awesome brother again, thank you for having Thank you for making the time to come out here and best ever listeners Thank you for joining us as well If you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a five-star review share this episode with someone you think can benefit from it. Also follow subscribe and have a best ever day.
