WS1131: Shifting Asset Classes and Raising Capital Successfully with Veena Jetti

EPISODE 1131

[INTRODUCTION]

0:00:01.6 

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication. 

And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

0:00:23.00

Whitney Sewell (WS): This is your daily Real Estate Syndication Show. I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is Veena Jetti. Veena is the founding partner of Vive Funds, a unique commercial real estate firm that specializes in creating conservative opportunities for investors. Veena brings a dynamic perspective to targeting, acquiring, managing, and operating assets using best practices combined with cutting-edge technologies. Her professional expertise includes driving corporate strategy and business development opportunities. 

So, Veena and I get into a few different things about her current business and how she’s investing right now, even why they’ve shifted asset classes, and do some details here. I think that’s beneficial to you right now in this current market, and whether you’re a passive or you’re an active investor, you’re going to enjoy that part of the show. But also, we go into how she’s been so successful at raising money as well, and just some different things that she does around raising money. They’ve been very successful in closing some very large deals lately. It’s been very impressive to see how fast they’ve grown. And so, I know you are going to learn a lot and enjoy the show today. Veena, welcome to the show. It’s an honor to catch up again.

[INTERVIEW]

0:01:34.4 

WS: I enjoyed the last few minutes. It seems like it’s been so long. You and I have been working hard in this industry for the last few years. And before anything else, I just want to say congratulations on your success. It’s definitely happening, and it doesn’t happen without a ton of work to say the least.  So, looking forward to hearing a little about that. But, tell the listeners a little more about maybe your business model right now at a high level, and we’ll dive into that, but then how you got there as well.

0:01:59.5 

Veena Jetti (VJ): Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. You’ve done so many episodes, it’s really amazing, ‘cause creating content is like the bane of my existence. So… very impressed here. Yes, it’s been forever. So, in recent years, I actually have rolled out Vive funds, which is a value-add multifamily owner-operator. We acquired assets in Texas, Florida, Georgia. We have built a significant portfolio in the last 12 months in Atlanta, which actually was not by design that it was supposed to be Atlanta-based. I’m looking to get maybe one more done before the end of the year or early Q1. And we’ve kind of shifted our focus a little bit from those B assets to maybe more B-plus and A location assets. So, slightly different investment profile but I think that for this point in the market cycle, it really works for our model and our investor base, so I’m really excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

0:02:55.5 

WS: Yeah, my pleasure. You just mentioned a piece of a topic I wanted to highlight, cause you and I talked about it a little bit. You said you shifted asset classes or the vintage. Anyway, could you just elaborate a little bit, maybe what your thoughts are behind that, maybe why you’re choosing to do that right now?

0:03:11.1

VJ: Yeah, so I think that we are more toward the top of the market cycle. I don’t think that we’re in a bubble. I know a lot of people that are not in real estate think this is some kind of a bubble, that it’s going to burst like it did back in ‘07-’08. I don’t think that we’re in that same bubble environment. Really, what I think this is, is this is fine, demand issues, just economics where there’s not enough supply to catch up with the amount of demand that we’re seeing, especially in our markets. And so, previously we would have invested into 1980s vintage. 

Now, we’re focusing a little bit on newer assets that are a little bit nicer. They may have a more solid tenant base, not so much workforce housing. During Covid, we saw a lot of tenants that couldn’t really maintain their rent payments when they missed a week or two weeks of work from quarantine. So, we’ve really shifted to assets that have a tenant base, that are more work-from-home, or have more solid jobs so that they can continue to pay rent even in the event of something like Covid happening. The other thing we have actually shifted toward is a more spacious and amenity place. 

So, we’re looking for really great amenities now. Everybody’s at home and they’re home with their kids and apartments are small. So, we’re seeing a lot more demand for more open spaces. We’re seeing more demand for nicer amenities, work-from-home spaces throughout the asset. So, those are things we start to shift our focus toward because it serves our resident base. The one thing that you and I both know is we need to know who our residents are, and we need to be able to cater to them. So, that’s really what we love to do when we’re acquiring an asset now.

0:04:50.8 

WS: Now, that’s awesome. Would you say that there are more class-A properties now that are going to have more open spaces or greater amenities, or do you see even some B-class or older projects that are able to compete with those types of amenities?

0:05:04.5 

VJ: Yeah. So, I think we are seeing, definitely class A being built with that in mind. The big difference between class A and what we’re going after — we’re kind of in the B+, B++ space. And I say that because we’re not going after the 2019, 2020, 2021-vintage. We’re going after those assets that still need interior renovation, that are ready for value add, so, maybe early 2000, 2011, 2012. Those are kind of the assets that we’re focusing on, 1990s vintage. And so, those assets we’re seeing a lot of opportunities to go in and start renovating and changing what we’re seeing there and adding certain amenities that were just not planned because they didn’t exist at the time. For example, package lockers, right? That’s a huge amenity that a lot of our attendants really want in their assets. In 1990, Amazon wasn’t a thing. No one got packages delivered like that, so, there was no need for it. But now we’re going in and we’re re-imagining spaces that are already existing to add those in. We’re looking for the focus on amenities or possible amenities in our assets.

0:06:12.9 

WS: Are there any other amenities that maybe we wouldn’t think of, that you are using now?

0:06:17.2 

VJ: So, interestingly enough, last year in 2020, we had acquired an asset in Marietta, Georgia, and it was 494 units. It was a big asset, but it had an entire soccer field in the back, which I’ve never seen before with that much empty space. But it didn’t actually get used as a soccer field. It got used as a walking trail around the back of it. And so, I thought that was a really nice value- add, especially during covid. We acquired it when there was no vaccine on the horizon and we didn’t really know how long we were going to be in the pandemic. Our outdoor amenities were utilized a lot. There also was an outdoor gym there, which got a lot of use as well. It was kind of one of those sports court-type gyms. And then, dog parks get used a lot in our assets because our residents tend to have animals or dogs that they want to be walking. They don’t want to get in a car and go somewhere because now everyone’s used to being at home all the time. But they want to get out of the house, so they’re going to the dog park so we’re seeing a lot of use on those too.

0:07:22.4 

WS: Yeah. So, you all put in a walking track on that property?

0:07:25.4 

VJ: We didn’t. So, it actually had a walking trail, probably more used than I actually thought it would. So, we’re actually focusing a lot now in 2021 and in the future, we’re focusing a lot on revamping gym spaces as well. Because now, everybody’s starting to re-utilize gyms, and we want to make sure they’re kind of up to date when you have those 1990s or early 2000s vintage. They’re just a little bit outdated compared to what we have today. A lot of the bar yoga, pilates, a lot of that is way more used. CrossFit is way more used today, than, I don’t even know if it was around back then.

0:08:01.5 

WS: Yeah. I want to shift gears a little bit and I wanted to hit that cause I know it’s important. A lot of people are thinking about that and right now too, just everybody’s concerned about the market or what’s going to happen. All those things. So, it’s interesting just to hear your thought process behind the types of assets you’re looking at and why. But your ability to raise capital has grown significantly. And that is a place I know you drive and have done very well. 

So, I’d love to talk through that a little bit because I know there are many people that are listening that are trying to do that. Trying to do the same thing you and I have done, and ultimately be able to raise money like you can; have those relationships with investors and provide that value to them. So, I would love to talk through that a little bit with you and maybe your strategy. How are you doing that now, and some techniques behind being able to raise money?

0:08:49.2 

VJ: Sure. Where do you want me to start?

0:08:51.9 

WS: Why don’t you start with some things that you wish you had known three years ago that you know now? Like, I wish I had been doing this thing?

0:08:59.6 

VJ: There are so many things. How long do we have?

0:09:01.9 

WS: Give me ten of them. No, I’m just kidding. Give me a few.

0:09:04.5 

VJ: Okay, so one is, I really wish I had spent a lot more time setting up systems and processes. I think this is true for a lot of entrepreneurs, right? You’re in the thick of it. You are learning new things as you go about how to do things better, and you don’t document it, so I didn’t have SOPs available. When I wanted to tweak the process, I couldn’t look back and say, “Okay, if we do this a day earlier, we could do this a day later”, and tweak that process. Now we do that. I put everything; I chart everything onto a calendar. I can see exactly where we are in terms of our capital raised. I can see which of my investors who normally write me checks have not even opened emails. So, I have a lot of the tracking data available, and now we have those systems and processes in place.

0:09:52.3 

WS: What do you use to track that? How do you see all that? 

0:09:56.4 

VJ: Whitney, we’re very fancy, we use Excel.

0:09:59 

WS: Okay, well, that’s fancy software there. 

0:10:01 

VJ: I know! Not everybody has access to it. We’ve tried a lot of different software and processes, and honestly, sometimes if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. And Excel seems to be the one that manages to do exactly what we need to do internally. And we utilize it on systems like Dropbox or Google Drive where we can share it amongst the people that need to be able to see it. So for example, our CPA, he can log in and see who’s wired what date, stuff like that.  It’s just a nice central database, but we use Excel. And then I think another thing that I wish I would have had is — I wish I would have hired an admin way before I actually did. Oh my gosh, the idea of onboarding someone and having to train them was so overwhelming that I kept putting it off, and I kept putting it off and I kept putting it off. Then finally I was like, I just don’t have any more time. And it has been life-changing. I think also part of it is because I just have a really great support staff.

0:11:05.7 

VJ: So, I’ve just gotten really lucky with who we’ve hired. But, if you can find someone who can help, it is a game-changer, because there are certain things I don’t need to necessarily answer or do. I don’t need to upload things to MailChimp. I just need to review them and then decide if they can go out or not, or if they need to be tweaked. Before, I was always wanting to control every aspect of my business that I was doing it myself, and it’s just not scalable and it’s not practical as you grow.

0:11:33.4 

WS: For sure. More systems, processes, and we’re going to get to that in just a minute. But the systems and processes — do you have a way that you document those things now? Or is it like just a google doc or a way that you can go back and edit it and proof it, things like that?

0:11:47.0 

VJ: Yeah. So, again, fancy software we use. We just use Microsoft Word and we put everything out in steps. But we use, do you know what Loom is? Have you heard of Loom? So, we use Loom. Any time we’re doing something new, we go in, we record ourselves doing it, less than a five-minute video, and then we pop it into the document. So that if I’m handing this to somebody new, they can go through, they can read it, they can watch the video, and then they can replicate the process. It saves a lot of time, especially when you have a staff member out on a vacation or maternity leave or whatever. You can seamlessly transfer that over to somebody else with minimal disruption, some disruption, but minimal.

0:12:29.5 

WS: Yeah. A quote that I’ve read many years ago that stuck with me – “As you take the time it takes, it takes less time”. And you’re doing that right there at the moment. It’d seem like I don’t have time to do that, but oh, over the next couple of years, it’s going to save you a ton of time. To the admin person, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. The faster you hire somebody, the better. Are they going to leave? Probably. But, you’re going to learn a lot of the process and probably hire better the next time. But I wanted to ask you, how did you find this person? What did they do for you at first?

0:12:58.5 

VJ: It was one of those websites; you just put out an ad and then people can apply in. I interviewed with her and she actually had no real estate background. But actually, something that I found in hiring is that you don’t need an admin that has real estate (background).  It’s really the soft skills that you’re looking for. The technical stuff, I can train somebody on what our processes and systems are. I need somebody who wants to be there, who is a hard worker, who is sharp, who can understand problems, and who can problem-solve without me having to hold their hand. So really what I was hired for was more of a project manager. And I actually had hired someone temporarily before that who was also a great fit that came from Disney. She had no experience in real estate whatsoever, but she was a project manager at Disney. It was a really great fit because she understood the nuance of having a company that moves as quickly as we do and having to manage those tasks and projects. So, I interviewed her. She seemed like a great fit and was very, very, very scary.

0:14:03.9 

VJ: Cause she was like, “Okay, give me all of your passwords”, and I was like, “What? You want all of my passwords? “You’re just gonna go into my email?” She’s like, “Well, I can’t organize your email unless I have access there.” And I was like, “Okay, you have a fair point, but what?… this is like…this feels so vulnerable.” And within two weeks, I was like, “Okay, here’s my social security, here’s my mom’s maiden name, here’s my sample of my blood type, like, everything!” Because it was just life-changing. But it was really nerve-wracking. I don’t know if you had the same experience when you first had your admin?

0:14:44 

WS: For sure, no doubt about it. Somebody asked me when I was presenting last week at some mastermind, somebody said: Do you give them access to your email? In your Facebook account? And I’m like, “If you want more of your life back, you have to put processes in place and hand that over.” 

Now, that’s awesome, no doubt about it. Systems, processes, you have to hire somebody. It’s maddening so get yourself some help. What’s something else on the lead generation side, what have you learned now that you wish you’d been doing then?

0:15:14.8 

VJ: The one thing that has happened, and it actually kind of happened organically more than anything else, is I get a lot of referrals from our investors that invest with us already. But the KPI that I track the most is not how many leads I have or how many new investors I have. I actually track the KPI of how my investors are in two or more projects with me. To me, that’s more important because that means that they’re happy and they’re coming back. 

So, at any given time where I’m around 80% of my investors are in multiple projects with me, and that to me, I want it as high as possible. Now, the interesting thing that’s happened is, since starting, we just don’t have that much room in our projects. They go, “They fund so quickly, and I’m sure you have that two-ones, you’ve been doing it long enough”. So, what ends up happening is 10% of them are just investors that can’t get into another project, cause there’s no other project to get into yet. I suspect that that will continue to go up as we continue acquiring more and more assets. But that number is really the KPI that I look for cause it tells me they liked what they had the first time enough to come back and re-invest with us again. 

0:16:23.5 

WS: On referrals, do you ask for that in some way? I mean, I’ve seen it done different ways and I just wondered, how do you, kind of, promote? Is it, “Hey, we’d love for you to tell other people about us”, right?

0:16:32.4 

VJ: I don’t. I want to and I would. But the challenge I have is – so, the way we send out our offerings is we do it in a three-tiered system if you will. So, the first offering and first bite of the apple, if you will, goes to current and previous investors. So, if you’ve ever invested with us before, you get priority into our deals. Problem is, as our deal base grows, that number becomes more and more, and it’s harder for me to get out of that first round and still have any of the offerings available. But the second round goes to what I call a VIP list. That’s any referrals of friends and family or current investors, so it’s really closer connections. But if you… let’s say your brother wants to invest and you’re already invested, that person will get on to the VIP list or that second round, which usually I have a few investors that come in there, and that’s where my new investors usually come from. And then if there’s anything left, which there almost never is, it goes to my general database of investors that I’m just meeting or someone who’s on google docs or heard us on a podcast or something like that.

0:17:39.4 

VJ: So, in doing that, I haven’t actually asked specifically for referrals. It just has happened more organically. But I do put them on to that VIP list, so they get a little bit of an earlier look than the general database.

0:17:53.2 

WS: How much time there do you give the first list versus the second?

0:17:57.8 

VJ:  It depends because sometimes we find a lot faster than I anticipate funding and sometimes it takes a lot longer. So, for example, in 2020 when we were funding, I thought maybe nobody would write a check because it was the middle of covid. We were all kind of like, “What’s gonna happen?” So, I thought it was going to take us a long time but it took us about four weeks, that was $26 million raised. Now in 2021, we’ve put out a few different $29 million raises that have been funded in less than two weeks. So, it kind of depends. Sometimes I don’t even get out of the first or barely out of the second one before I have to do anything. But I’d say about within two weeks, everybody gets the deal at some point or another.

0:18:41.7 

WS: Yeah, now that’s interesting. I’ve heard of different people doing that. Like, if you’re a returning investor, you get to see it first before the next one. We’ve thought about doing that, something like that as well, but I get this question from clients and from other people, often it’s like, “Well, what about that waitlist?” How do you handle them?

0:18:57.3 

VJ: Yes, the waitlist. So, what we do is we put everybody in. I tell investors: if you’re interested in the deal, even if you’re not 100% sure yet, go ahead and put in a soft commitment cause it timestamps you in. And then, what we do is we just go down the waitlist and we offer it to the next investor on the list with preference going to parent and previous investors. But we don’t get to accommodate very many people off of our waitlist. I do try to give anybody who’s on our waitlist from a previous deal. I try to give them a little bit of a heads up like, “Hey, you might want to check your email like all this week because you’ll probably see your deal from me.” So that they can get off the waitlist. I have a lot of investors that will approach me after we send out, “Hey, we’re completely closed and you’re on a waitlist.” They’re like, “Oh, but can I get in?” and I’m like, “No, no.” I would love to take your money, but I cannot. 

0:19:49.7 

VJ: It’s just that, we got a waitlist, we go down in time stamps, and that’s just how we handle it.

0:19:54.1 

WS: Yeah, let’s talk about the emails there a little bit. You said you might send something out. So, if you’re going to put an offering out on Friday, you might send something out earlier in the week or the week before, saying, “Hey, look out for this deal.” How do you handle that communication?

0:20:07.7 

VJ: In my head, yes, that’s how we handle it. But, in reality, we definitely don’t do that. So, usually it’s just: Hey, here’s the offering with the OM and the soft commitment form. Go ahead. And we also host a conference call within that first week to answer any investor question. But generally speaking, we do not give them a heads up. Usually, it’ll just be like a side text or something. If someone’s on a waitlist that has been on a waitlist multiple times, I’ll tell them and be like, “Listen, you have to move faster, you cannot wait to move forward.” So, that’s generally how we release our deals.

0:20:44.4 

WS: Okay. Any follow-ups after what you said? I know we’ve run this already, it’s like they fund really fast, and so there’s almost no need to send more emails out typically. But anything around your follow-up emails or anything after that first initial send-out?

0:21:00.7 

VJ: Yeah, I do send out multiple emails cause I do send out updates as we continue. So, when we find out new information, we send that out. If there’s a change in the market, we’ll send that out. And I do it not necessarily because they’re going to be able to get into this deal, but because I want them to understand how we think about and look at deals for the future deals that they see. 

So, I do send out follow-up emails and I do send out updates to the investor database if I have time. So, meaning if I don’t fund before I can send another email, I’ll send out an email saying: Hey, we’re 60% full, 80% full. But generally, what happens is, by the time we’re awarded a deal, so for example, we’re awarded the deal on Friday, by Monday, I probably am about 50% committed at that point, just from the few phone calls with family offices. They take down large chunks of these raises and I think that investors that write 50 or 100 thousand dollars just maybe don’t anticipate the demand from family offices, especially today, for those hard assets.

0:22:02.8 

WS: Yeah. I didn’t realize you’re working with some family offices as well. No doubt, one of them will come in and take the rest of it, right?

0:22:09.9 

VJ: And then we invest pretty heavily into our own deals, so between our investment and the family offices, that takes down a significant portion of the deal.

0:22:19.4 

WS: Yeah. You mentioned sending out the OM or the investment summary operating memorandum. Tell me a little bit about your process of creating that.

0:22:26.9 

VJ: Yeah. So, it’s painstaking, but I feel like we now have kind of a good groove going on. We’ve actually tested a few different OMs, and what we found is more and more investors seem to really like to read all of the nitty-gritty details. I’m not convinced they actually read all of it, but every time I put out a more detailed OM, we get a lot of feedback saying, “Oh my gosh. This was great. There’s so much information.” And in our conference call, I don’t go through the OM pretty much at all on our conference call, because they’re accredited investors, they can read. They don’t need me to read them an OM, right? So, what our conference call does is it serves those nuances that you can’t really put into writing, that you can’t put into print, and needs to be communicated in a verbal way. So, that’s really what we utilize our conference call for. But the process is pretty standard. We have our normal pitch deck. We revamp it, change our pictures, change out all the information, and then some of it stays the same for the most part. We might play with the layout a little bit and then branding, etcetera.

0:23:30.8 

VJ: It’s pretty straightforward, and our admin team handles that pretty flawlessly now.

0:23:35.7 

WS: That in-house, your admin team in-house will create that for you.

0:23:39.7 

VJ: Yes, I know, and it’s weird ‘cause I didn’t realize that people outsourced it as much as they do, but I think having the control, this is something I can’t let go of completely yet, so maybe one day. Ask me again in a year.

0:23:53.7 

WS: For sure, we’ve done it both ways. We’ve hired it out or found companies to help, or we give them the information and part of the design even, and they kind of go make it look nice. And we’ve done it in-house both, and I’ve gone back and forth about it a little bit. But usually, even if I have it done outsourced, I want them to give it to me in an editable manner, cause there’s always something you found that you need to change at the last minute.

0:24:14.9 

VJ: Capital stack changes, and now you need to go in and update. I know, I totally get that. So, do your investors give you feedback on which they prefer? Or do they not know the difference? Do they look the same?

0:24:22 

WS: As far as what?

0:24:24 

VJ: Whether it’s in-house or not…

0:24:26.0 

WS: Oh, I don’t think so. We use some of the same templates that we have in the past, so I don’t know that they would know it. Sometimes though I’m not extremely skilled in PowerPoint and they’ve used platforms at times to create it, and so it’s just faster sometimes for me to hand them all the information and say: “Make it look like this and go”. Sometimes that’s faster than me trying to do that. But what’s your biggest source for finding new investors right now, besides referrals?

0:24:51.9 

VJ: Honestly, it’s my current investors. They’re the ones that are funding the vast majority of our deals. Also, we’re seeing a lot of family offices seeking us out at this point especially now there’s a really big focus on women in this space. And so I think that it’s just our assets because of the size that we’re acquiring it, they’re getting a lot more attention. We have people who work on the transaction itself that are investing into the deal. So sometimes our lenders will invest with us, which I didn’t expect our lender to invest with us, but they see the deal inside, now they love it. So, we’re just seeing all different sources coming to us, but really it’s my current investors that are increasing their investments as time goes on.

0:25:37.4 

WS: Yeah, now, that’s awesome. And I want you to speak also to — you mentioned family offices are seeking you all out, and now probably there are listeners that are thinking, “Well, how do you make that happen? How do you get to where family offices are seeking you out?” I can just hear some listeners probably asking that question.

0:25:52.5 

VJ: Family offices operate in a very different way than the average investor, even than the way we operate because they have gatekeepers. And their whole entire job is to keep out every single investment and say no to everything pretty much. So, what happens is when they start seeking you out, they’ve already done their initial vetting. They’ve already looked at who you are, your track record. They’ve looked at your background, the assets that you’re currently operating. How are those doing your strategy? 

So, I actually have an investor brochure or a company memorandum, if you want to call it that, that I send any time someone inquires about what we do. I actually have that which I send to them, which is completely laid out. I’ve had institutional funds approach us to write a quarter of a billion-dollar check, which ultimately, we at this stage, have not moved forward on because they’re a little bit more stringent. There’s a little bit of a different nuance taking institutional funds. But, that same corporate deck can be utilized for family offices, and really, they all network with each other. So, once you have one family office that you work with pretty heavily or significantly, they’re going to refer you to their cousin’s family office and then their neighbor’s family office, and so you’ll start getting…

0:27:12.8 

VJ: Again, that referral source, and that’s how you start seeing more family offices approaching you because they heard about you from someone. Or sometimes what we’ll do is we’ll let them co-invest together as one fund and come in as, whatever, 5-million-dollar check and maybe it’s 10 family offices writing half a million-dollar check. Now they’re just putting a toe in the water, they’re seeing… and then once you prove out your ability, they’ll come back, and they’ll re-invest at a higher clip. It’s nice to have those family offices because, a lot of times, they’re not going to be cash-on-cash-driven the way an individual investor is. They’re going to be more IRR or equity-multiple-driven, which gives you a lot more wiggle room when you’re underwriting a deal.

0:27:53.3 

WS: Nice. You mentioned you created an investor brochure. What do you put in that? Just so somebody listening could think, “Hey, I should do that, too.”

0:28:00.4 

VJ: Everything you think a new investor would want to know when they’re vetting you as a sponsor, is what I would put in there. So, this is not deal-specific because you don’t have a deal all the time. This is who you are, your bio, who’s on your team, their bio. This is how you look at deals. I have case studies in there from one or two acquisitions that we’ve done. What were some of the highlights of it? What were the things that we did really well there? How have we looked at exiting deals? What is our track record? All of that is included in our investment company brochure.

0:28:34.2 

WS: Nice. Now, definitely a good idea to have that on hand. And then you can add to it as you gain more experience, right? A few final questions. We can talk about this all day cause you’ve got a wealth of information about this business and capital raising. But I always like to ask operators, how do you prepare for a downturn?

0:28:49.6 

VJ: Oh yeah, so that’s actually what we were talking about shifting asset classes. This is one of the ways we prepare for a downturn. We also have adjusted our underwriting, so as an example of the deal that we went into, the last deal in 2021 that we went into — we adjusted the T-12, the NOI down by 3%, which, do I think we’re going to operate worse in the current operator? No, but our numbers still work, even if we go down 3%. And then our underwriting also did not take into account the full premiums that either think we’re going to get because that’s what everyone else is getting the market, but more importantly, our nearest asset is getting way higher than those premiums. 

So, we’ve adjusted all of the expectations down. We’ve increased our vacancy assumptions, we have gone in with plenty of reserves, we’ve increased our… actually a big one for this year is increasing your CapEx allocation for renovations because of supply chain issues. So historically, we might have underwritten it at 6 or 8 thousand, and now we’re underwriting it at 11 or 12 thousand per unit. So those are differences we made and are underwriting and then we under-promise and over-deliver is the goal.

0:30:03.2 

WS: It’s right. No doubt about it. What about a way that you’ve recently improved your business that we could apply to ours?

0:30:08.9 

VJ: Oh gosh, like I said, I’ve done a lot of improvements and tweaking recently. So one of the ways I’m actually in the process of doing, and I think it actually is useful, and will probably kind of tie into your lead gen question too is — I’ve started outsourcing my social media. So now, cause I hate… Like I said, content is the bane of my existence. I hate it. I don’t want to take pictures of what I do all day cause I sit in front of a computer all day, or I’m on the phone all day. I just hate creating content, so now, I’ve started outsourcing that. So, like my Instagram, I have somebody who puts together content so it all looks the same and can push it out the door. And I think that that’s really going to help when it comes to even investors just vetting you. They want to see that you have a social media presence. They want to see that you’re a real person. And so for me, I think outsourcing social media has been a huge process improvement for me.

0:31:04.7 

WS: Nice. Now, a great suggestion. But what about some daily habits that you are disciplined about that have helped you achieve success?

0:31:11.7 

VJ: It depends on which day you’re asking me because, by mid-race, everything goes out the window. But I have twin 2-year-olds, and so one of the things that I make a priority is between 5:30 and 7:30, most days when I’m not mid-race, 5:30 and 7:30, I shut down my computer. I leave my office. I leave whatever I’m doing so that I can eat dinner with the family. Spending time with the family is how I kind of decompress and unwind. And then after I put them to bed, I go back to the computer and get back to work. So, for me, family time is really important. I also read a lot during the day when I’m in between things, even if it’s for five or ten minutes. Then I also have been… Are you on Clubhouse yet, Whitney?

0:31:57 

WS: I’m not. 

0:31:59 

VJ: Okay, so it’s actually been a wealth of knowledge because there’s a lot of people that you get access to that you wouldn’t normally have access to. And I turn it on, kind of like the radio in the background. So instead of listening to music all day, I turn Clubhouse on, I go into these rooms that are like commercial real estate news. I was in a CRE room this morning, and there’s actually a young lady who runs her family office now. They’re one of the largest office investors in all of New York. She runs that room and so I log in and I listen to her speak. I listen to what she’s doing and how she’s looking at the market. And so, I utilize those people as kind of a way to steal their ideas and use them in my business to improve my business. I think that actually has been a big game-changer, and Clubhouse hasn’t been around that long. But, it’s definitely the social media form that I enjoy the most.

0:32:53.5 

WS: That’s awesome. That’s a great suggestion, too. Any ways that we can be just constantly educating ourselves and from people like that. Typically, that person may not ever start a podcast, but they’ll get on there and talk about what they’re doing. So, that’s a great suggestion. Tell us how you like to give back.

0:33:09.9 

VJ: Oh yeah. So, I do a lot of charitable work. I know this is something you and I have in common actually. So, every time I close a deal, this is a tradition I started maybe like four or five years ago, but every time I close a deal, I actually choose a charitable cause, and then I do another round of fundraising after that. So, I encourage anybody, investors, too, but I encourage anybody, especially if you made money from the transaction, to make a donation to whatever cause that we’re donating to. So, we’ve done a lot in the past. We’ve planted trees and we planted several thousand trees after one deal closed. After another one, we did a breast cancer fundraiser. We’ve done one for childhood pediatric cancer. So, we just pick a different organization. Water dot org (water.org) is another one. We’ve done RIP Medical Debt. We just pick different organizations, just what’s kind of top of mind or important to us for that season of life, and then we run a little mini fundraiser, if you will.

0:34:08.9 

WS: That’s a great idea, that’s a great idea. I love that. Love that thought. Well, Veena, grateful for your time. You’ve been very generous with your time today and the things you’ve learned, things you’re doing right now in your business, and how you’ve improved and going through the capital raising, but even shifting your asset classes as well and why… And any amenities, the importance of those things, and how you handle your lead gen, your offering, your waitlist. All of these things, even hiring your assistant or admin person that is so important and even adjusting your underwriting through a downturn, potential downturn. So, very grateful for your time. Tell our listeners how they get in touch with you to learn more about you. 

0:34:48.1 

VJ: You can come to my website, vivefunds.com, and actually I think you can download my investor brochure there if you go. There should be a pop-up that you can download so you can see what’s in it, and… you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Or you can find me on social media, Veena Jetti, V-E-E-N-A-J-E-T-T-I. I’m on all of them — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Clubhouse. Everywhere. Yes, everywhere. 

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[OUTRO]

0:35:16.7  

ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

[END]