Devin (00:00)
Ashley, welcome to the show. It's good to see you. How are you?

Ashley (00:02)
Good, thanks so much for having me.

Devin (00:04)
Yeah, looking forward to diving in and always like to connect with other entrepreneurs and learn how they built their businesses and what makes them tick. But for the audience here, how about some background and, uh, always interested to hear how people got the real estate bug and made the leap. So we'd love to hear about that.

Ashley (00:23)
Sure. So I actually started in pharmaceuticals. I worked in clinical R&D and I was introduced to real estate actually by my husband. He was researching ways in which he could invest his money in alternative investing strategies as compared to the stock market. And he introduced me into bigger pockets in 2007. So we started...

researching through bigger pockets, eventually listening to their podcasts. And I got hooked. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, like most people do. And we bought our first investment in 2009 while we continued with our jobs, me and clinical R&D. And my husband actually was a professional athlete. So our first investment was a house hack where we own the property, but then we rented out other rooms to his teammates.

And in the off season, we did Airbnb. So we actually did really well on our first investment. And I actually look back on that investment and say, why didn't we double down in Airbnb? Because we made handover fist in Airbnb. And because we weren't close to the property in the summer, we had to automate everything. It forced us to automate everything. And it was a very scalable, successful model, but.

we were just too distracted by our W-2s. So we continued in the W-2 world and we did a few long-term rentals. And then eventually I left Pharma in 2014 and I started a high-end flipping business with my father. My father's a general contractor and he served as boots on the ground. And then I did...

everything else from running deals, finding deals, making offers, scheduling contractors, ordering materials. And my dad was the glue, um, where he would literally make sure that all the materials arrived, make sure that things were done correctly. And he liked to call it adult, uh, babysitting or adult daycare where he showed up to make sure the contractors would show up. Um, so

Devin (02:35)
That's the truth.

Ashley (02:40)
We focused on doing full gut rehabs, primarily homes from 1890 to 1960 were our bread and butter and high-end homes. So what we would do is we would keep the integrity of the home. We would restore all of the original character, but with modern conveniences, modern mechanicals and utilities. So we did that for a while. And then my husband retired in 2017.

and we moved back to the area and we switched to commercial. So we did an analysis of all the different asset classes we were interested in real estate and we identified 22 and over three months every Saturday night we did like a high school debate debating each asset class and we fell in love with multifamily. So large multifamily. So my first multifamily project was 124 unit

that I partnered on and led construction and asset management. And then it kind of snowballed from there where other groups, I was very vocal about the fact that no one was focusing on operations. Everyone was just trying to buy, buy because of the state of the market, but no one actually knew how to run these deals. And I was very vocal about that. And there were certain groups that appreciated that.

Over a six month period, I got approached by 70 different groups and only one of which was underwritten to the point where I actually thought it was a solid underwriting and I partnered with that group. But all of the other ones, I think they were very aggressively bought and I didn't want my name attached to it because at the end of the day, the asset manager is the person who gets the reputation of whether or not the deal does well or not, not the underwriter.

So I partnered on that deal and I just realized, you know, if I'm going to partner on these deals, why not do it myself? I know how to do all the aspects to it. So I then built out our company further and a few years ago brought on Jay Scott. He is a partner of Bar Down Investments, our company, and our company has grown since then. So now we do a little bit of

everything in the multifamily space. We have a lot of different product offerings and we have a coaching program and we have other complimentary things, both that have recently been released and are in the works to be released this year, but all centered around multifamily.

Devin (05:23)
I love it. Well, that's a nice succinct overview. I'm sure it was a very long and sometimes difficult journey. I want to go back to the houses. What were, what were kind of the price ranges you guys were selling at? And then I also very curious on how you guys were funding these projects, right? Was it hard money? Was it personal cash, lines of credit? How did, how did you kind of get in that first stepping stone to get into these houses?

Ashley (05:29)
Yes.

So on the acquisition price where we found the sweet spot to be in our market was anywhere from $350 to $650 on the acquisition. There was a significant drop off after $300,000 of competitors. There was also a significant drop off on people focusing on full gut rehabs. And then there was another significant drop off when it came to older homes. So we had a seven to one conversion ratio. So if I wanted to acquire a house.

One week, all I had to do was make seven offers and that worked like clockwork. So I love that, knowing those statistics, except one week we made seven offers and got three properties. So that was interesting. Good problem to have. On the resale, we were reselling them anywhere from upper 800,000 to a million plus. So that was...

Devin (06:20)
mother.

Yeah.

Ashley (06:46)
really an easy model to replicate. With regards to your second question, I actually think that, you know, I look back on my tenure as a business owner and there are multiple areas where I could have done things better. And sometimes I think your strength becomes your weakness. And our strength, what I thought was our strength of having money was actually a weakness.

because we then limited our scaling to the money that we personally had. So we, very early on, I'm a huge believer that nothing is impossible. So very early on, I was told by multiple sources that I would not be able to tap into bank financing until I had two years of tax returns and then it was the average of your profits.

blended over those two years. That's what you could access in terms of a loan. But I knew that there's no way that that's possible. I would find a solution. I would find a bank to lend to me. And I did. And it was the very first bank I talked to. So after just a year in the business, I was able to secure a construction loan that totaled about $450,000 that they

to us. And that was off of one year's tax return. And the first year, I think we made a profit of $66,000. That was, I mean, that's good, but that was it. And that was only off of one house. So off of one house's success, we were able to do that. So I think it's just a matter of figuring out strategically how to go about it. And I was very strategic in trying to tap into bank loans.

because of tapping into bank loans and all we had to put up was the down payment. And even our holding costs were covered. So that was a game changer for us, but still we used our own money for the down payment. And obviously we're buying pretty expensive homes. So we got to a bandwidth about four houses at a time.

If we had been more strategic on using other people's money and not using any of our money, I think we would have been able to scale much larger, but we didn't build that into our business model. So looking back on that, that's something if I was to do the business today, I would probably not even use a penny of my own money to do it because you don't have to. So that was a huge rate limiter in terms of

scaling the business to an even bigger empire, so to speak.

Devin (09:40)
Yeah, there's a lot in there that it's really important, I think, for people to hear. One is don't get your buddy's advice stuck in your ear. You know, there's a lot of kind of rules of thumb in real estate and somebody will tell you something and you'll carry that belief around with you for years. Oh, I can only do this because so and so said and I couldn't agree more with that. And then also to just call 50 banks if you need to, but just because one bank says no to something that does not mean that's how banks operate.

Ways to get these things done. So I love that that's great And you don't often hear flippers, especially starting out going for the higher-end stuff, right? There's some risk and holding costs there but I think if you have the right team to execute on Something that a million dollar buyer is gonna go for then it can make sense and I really like what you said about That your conversion rate. I mean that's totally different than what you normally hear right about the flipping and Making offers and so forth

Ashley (10:40)
Yeah, we were very focused on the business. I'm a business minded person. So in terms of how I looked at the business of flipping, I think most people look at the business of flipping as just a paycheck and how to get to the next paycheck and the next paycheck instead of analyze the entire process of what was going on. So for example, our first flip took us a year to date from close to close is what I call it, which is acquisition to sale.

but it took us nine and a half months to rehab. Our third house had this same scope, if not a larger scope, and we did it in nine and a half weeks. The first project we made 66,000. The second, excuse me, the third house we did, we made over 100,000 in a shorter period of time. And it's interesting because it all comes down to perspective, so after that first house, my dad and I were 50, 50.

partners and my dad was ecstatic at that time. The statistics on house slippers were 90% of first time house slippers failed. They did not make any money and of that 10% remaining 95% of them made 5,000 or less. So when my dad saw that we made 33,000 each, he was ecstatic and I was furious at what had just transpired and we had a debrief meeting and my dad was

was coming into the meeting so excited. I can't believe we made all this money. We're off to such a great start. I turned to him and I said, this was a complete failure. He was like, what do you mean? I said, well, can you live off of $33,000 a year? He said, no. I said, neither can I. That's why it's a failure. Because if we can only do one house at a time, this is a failure. We were two, because my dad's a general contractor. He's had his own business for over 45 years.

Devin (12:21)
Right.

Ashley (12:32)
we were two in the weeds. We physically did so much of the work on that house and that's not a scalable model. The way we structured the deal is not a scalable model. Whenever we would have a trouble with a contractor, we would step in and fill whatever needed to be done. And that's not sustainable. It's not scalable. So

It was really good exposure for me and experience because I had never seen a full gut rehab in terms of the process. So then at that same debrief meeting, I outlined the entire process and I said, okay, dad, here is where we're gonna have things overlap. Here are things that are contingent upon other things. Here's where...

We need the same trades to be on that property at the same time. Here's how we're going to incentivize trades to work weekends. Here's how we're going to incentivize trades to work evenings. These are the things that we're going to do to compress the timelines because time is money. And to your point, he was already conditioned. Most trades don't want to be on the project at the same time. They like to have the whole house to themselves. Well, that's too bad. That's not how this business works.

And it's a reeducation. It's maybe using different trades who are more in the vet investing space. Their clients are investors versus retail clients. There are a lot of different pieces that you have to change in your mindset change. And then my dad was very reluctant on it. And then when we did this project, he was like, okay, I get it. I see now the process. I see what we can do. So most of our rehabs took under three months after that, even though they were full gut rehabs.

And to your point earlier, you said, you know, there's a lot of risk associated with larger rent, you know, higher end homes and also full gut rehabs. Most notably is market shifts, the holding periods longer, the constructions longer, you're more susceptible to market shifts as we've just seen over the past three years. And you can't plan out the market six months to a year out. So it is very risky. But

Devin (14:26)
Yes.

Ashley (14:42)
there's upside and that's the way real estate works. The more risk associated, the more upside. So in order to minimize your risk, you have to compress your timelines and you have to figure out how to do that. So for example, one of the things that we do, like what we did was all of our trades came in the house prior to day one. The work actually started way before we got the keys, which is something that I didn't know on the first project. So we had everything lined up on the first day.

The other thing is we would have all the products ordered. So if there was any sort of issue in terms of delays, we knew that way in advance so we could get replacement products. So there was no backwater on a vanity that was holding up the tile or the plumber or whatever you have, like in terms of like all the different pieces to the puzzle of finishing that room. Those are just little nuances

I'm glad I had the exposure of the first house to see the entire process to figure out how do we streamline this. And that's what we did. And that's why we were able to be so successful with that company.

Devin (15:52)
I love the detail there. Thank you. Yeah. Flipping houses lives and dies by hustle. Right. I mean, another week on something can change it. It sounds like you had favorable bank terms, but you know, especially if you're in a hard money loan or you're, you've got other people's capital in this deal. Your cost of capital can just erode things, but 66 K net on a first learning project, that's pretty solid. That's, that's a, that's a good start for sure.

Ashley (16:18)
Thank you.

Devin (16:22)
What was the trigger for you guys to start exploring other people's money, which is often this catalyst, I think, for a lot of investors to really kind of grow to the next level. What was the on-ramp for you guys to start exploring that?

Ashley (16:38)
So we didn't in single family. It was only when we went to commercial and we were buying 10 million plus properties that we were forced into exploring. It's not even exploring, it was forced into doing, and finding other people who wanted to invest with us. That was a very interesting road. I did not get, no matter how many times someone told this to me at the beginning,

Devin (16:41)
Right.

All right.

Yes.

Ashley (17:08)
you aren't asking someone to invest, you weren't begging them to be an investor, you're actually presenting them with an opportunity that they otherwise wouldn't have. And once that really sinks in and you really own that, your whole way of presenting the whole way you offer, the whole way you think, the whole way you approach investors is

100% difference. It's almost like 180 degree shifts in how you communicate with investors. It's funny because when I first got started, I would have taken any investor that came our way. Now Jay and I have a list of investors that we would not, it doesn't matter how much money they would want to invest with us. We're not taking them. They're difficult investors and

it's not worth it to us to, they're essentially a partner, right? So they're a partner in the deal. You can have really good partners and supportive partners and they can provide constructive criticism and you can just have flat out difficult partners to work with who make it even harder to go about the day to day. We...

have always been a very cohesive group in terms of who we hire, who we work with, who we partner with. And that is something that honestly has really kind of taken some time to develop that kind of confidence, I guess, and mindset and approach at which we do things. But you know, we have

Uh, it's an accredited offering, um, that is about to launch and we are in the process of a soft launch and we have it almost fully subscribed and we haven't even revealed any of the information yet in this market. And I think that speaks to, um, how detail oriented we are, how, um, ethical we are, how, how much hard work we put into things. And

Devin (19:14)
Right.

Ashley (19:27)
years ago, even though I still did all of those same things, my approach to investors would have been like, oh, can you please invest with us? It would just be a completely different approach. It's funny because now I find that it's easier to raise capital than it was before, yet the market was so much more frothy before than it is right now. I also think it's doing good.

Devin (19:37)
Right.

Ashley (19:55)
by your investors being very transparent. Let's face it, multifamily right now is extremely challenging to operate. There are a lot of things working against it. Interest rates, insurance, and taxes are the top three. And no one is coming out unscathed. I think it's very challenging. I have always been very transparent about what we're doing. We've stopped all distributions on our properties and we stopped them way before everyone else did.

And some people may say, why did you do that? That actually looks bad from an optics point of view. But our whole position was we don't want to give a distribution for the very next month to do a capital call, which I've seen repeatedly. So we are of the opinion that we would rather hold reserves. We would hold the cash flow in case there's a 200%

Devin (20:43)
Right.

Ashley (20:52)
percent jump in insurance rates, which is happening across the country, most notably in one market that we're actually in, you know, and taxes that have gone up exorbitant amounts. And then, you know, we only have one product that's our one investment that's on variable, but we have a rate cap, but still the paying into the rate cap affects your cash flow. So for those reasons, and we are very transparent about it, this is what we are choosing to do.

Devin (21:00)
Hmm.

Ashley (21:22)
And that's why we're in a position where we haven't even had a discussion on doing a capital call. We're not in a position where we need to do a capital call on any of these properties, because we were very protective and conservative about where the market was heading. And that's something that we have a discussion about on a weekly basis to analyze the market. And I'm very fortunate because

Jay and Kyle, two of my partners, are so tapped into the US economy and I'm more at the micro level that between the three of us, we can have some very strong conversation about where we should be conservative and where we should protect our investors because honestly, that's our number one job. Our number one job isn't to run apartments. That's how we protect our investors. Our number one job is to protect our investors' investment.

Devin (22:18)
Yeah, I love it. Lots of good stuff in there. Let's talk about that first 124 unit project. You guys had done a lot of research and different asset classes. You've had success flipping houses and now you decided to go into 124 units, which in the multifamily world, you know, is there's bigger apartments, there's smaller apartments, but that's for a first time project. That's a mindset shift. How did you guys, let's hear the story about

What was your mindset kind of going from these single asset flips to 124 units at one site? And how did that project transpire?

Ashley (22:58)
So we were flipping houses and we decided multifamily was a good fit because multifamily provided wealth building and the way we had structured house flipping was more, it was a new, another job. So now that I knew that I wanted to go into commercial specifically apartments, I looked at it very differently than 99% of people who approach me and want to work with us.

look at it, which is what is the value that I provide? What is a strength that I can provide that is a gap in the current system that someone would want to bring me on as a partner? Because one of the things about getting into large multifamily is no one, and I repeat, no one can get into large multifamily on their own without bringing in partners if they're using

traditional financing, like a mortgage, because it is off of your experience, it is a component to the consideration of the loan. So you need other partners, right, to go in and get started. And that's what I saw as, okay, where does my strength lie? And where's the weakness? The weakness in multifamily then, and it still is today, is that the majority of ownership groups outsource construction management.

Devin (24:04)
Right.

Ashley (24:25)
And when you do that, you create misalignment because you are not aligned on identifying the most beneficial solution for the investor's investment. Instead, the solution is driven by the property needs instead of ROI. So in order to be really good at construction management,

you have to have a very unique background, which I just happen to have. So first of all, I grew up in construction. My dad's a general contractor. So I was exposed to residential and commercial construction since I was a baby. Right. My presence day off from school holidays were spent on a job site. And then I had the influence of my mom, who was a office manager.

So that speaks to how I'm good at operations. But then I was in a financial position to learn about investing. So I have both, or three components. I have operational experience. That's what I did in pharma. And that's what I was exposed to through my mom. I have construction experience from my dad. And then I'm in a position to invest and know investing and how to invest and all of the fundamentals of investing. So for those three reasons,

make up a pretty good construction manager. So just like the bank situation where, you know, it's about figuring out all of the reasons why someone would say no to you and then coming prepared for all of the self-talk that person's going to say no to and answering those questions for them. That's what I did. So I went

to someone I knew was in this space and I said, I really wanna get into large multifamily and here's the value that I would provide. I would be a really good construction manager. I explained the three reasons that I just explained to you. And I said that I would create alignment and a safeguard for investors because instead of someone saying, oh, we need a new roof, I would say,

We need a new roof, but we're only holding the project for five years, so I only need a 10 year lifetime shingle. I don't need a 30 year lifetime shingle. That's a completely different price point. Or that roof has seven years left and there's some issues on the roof. Maybe it doesn't need a full replacement. Maybe you can patch those parts of the roof and we can get by, right? So there's a lot of different ways in which you can manage construction. But if you don't know construction,

Devin (26:53)
Right.

Ashley (27:12)
you're not gonna know the different options for it. If you don't know how to manage contractors, you're also not gonna know how to manage renovation. If you don't know how to manage scope of work, how to do payments in terms of you don't put down too much, you always have to be aligned with where they are in the work. But if you don't know where they are in the entire process, if you don't know the scope, they could be saying they're 75% completed of the job, but they're really at 30%. So that's why it's really beneficial to...

be knowledgeable about construction. So it was one of those things that I provided, you know, tremendous value. It just so happened that person, which I didn't know at the time, I, and I followed up with saying, do you know of anyone who would be in need of a partner who's a construction manager? And he turned to me and he said, you will not believe this, but we're in your contract for 124 units.

and one of the buildings just burnt to the ground and none of the partners have any construction experience, would you be able to rebuild or manage the rebuild of this project and work with the insurance companies and the contractors?" And I said, absolutely. And that's how I came on doing construction management on that project. A month into owning that property, I noticed that unfortunately the partnership

partnership group for me to work with. We just didn't align in a lot of different ways. And one of which of the misalignment was they were in acquisition mode all the time. And like a lot of people, they didn't run the asset. So after the first week I asked who's managing the cash position, who's clearing what checks we should be writing, you know, who's managing the financials and the business plan. They said, oh, we'll look at it in a, you know, in a couple of weeks.

Then I checked in a couple of weeks, we'll look at it in a month. They didn't check in a month, check in on it in a month. So I said, you know, who's looking at it? They said, we'll do it at the quarter. And after the first month, I said, would you like me to do it? Because not only had I had my own money into it, but I also had brought in investors. They said, we would love if you would do that. Our bandwidth is so tied up with acquisitions.

So then I absorbed the asset management role on that property too. So that's how I came into asset and construction management. Now, an asset management is probably the most scared I've ever been at taking over something in my entire life because I only managed a single rental. I hadn't even managed a duplex before. I didn't know what I didn't know. So to tell you that I spent thousands of hours researching everything I possibly could

Devin (29:52)
Yeah.

Right.

Ashley (30:05)
how to be an asset manager is an understatement. I went to conferences, I listened to podcasts, I read every single book there is on asset management, which, spoiler alert, there isn't many, and I just tried to figure out every component. I learned everything that a property management company should do, where they can take advantage of you, where you can work really well with a property management company. I mean, like, I literally worked so hard

to learn every single aspect of asset management. So I did all the hard work upfront. And I'm a huge believer, if you do all the hard work upfront, when the situation gets hard, it's really not that hard for you because you already did all the hard work upfront so you know how to manage the situation. And that's, fortunately for me, has been something, you know, right now, everyone's really scrambling and

we are not scrambling. And everyone was scrambling during COVID. When I worked in clinical R&D, talk about luck. Sometimes I feel like I'm living some dog millionaires real life, which is I worked in vaccines, in pharma, and I worked on pandemics. I actually worked for LaxosmithKline during the last pandemic. So I already knew the protocol of what was supposed to happen during a pandemic. So when-

Devin (31:16)
Ha ha.

Ashley (31:31)
we first started getting the notifications in February of this pandemic, I already changed all the operations on our sites. So everything from like touchless points of, you know, contact for all of our common space, documentation, how we would do tours, virtual tours, all of these different components that we had to do, we started in February.

because, and if you remember, it was until March or April where everything was shut down. We even got a property out of it because I told the broker, Houston's got to go through a second downturn and you're gonna call me back and ask me to buy this property because I just know how this virus is going to trend. Like it's just.

It's what I did. It's what I did before here. So, um, and that's exactly what happened. We were watching the news on a Sunday night and the broker called me Monday morning because Sunday night they said on the news, Houston takes another downturn with COVID cases. And then Monday morning at 9 a.m. he called me. He didn't even say hello. He just said, do you still want the property? So, you know, it really has kind of worked in my favor that I did all the work upfront.

Devin (32:45)
Yeah.

I love the slumdog millionaire comment and I can relate to that. I feel like a lot of the trials I've been through out my life have benefited me in some way in business. And you never knew what that was going to be for, but the situation presents itself and you go, okay, I've got a skill set for this. Like I've seen this before in some fashion. So that's really interesting. I want to talk a little bit about geography for the first deal and then for the current portfolio too. Where are you guys based out of headquartered? And then where do you guys like?

Ashley (33:09)
Absolutely.

Devin (33:23)
to own and operate assets.

Ashley (33:25)
So we are all over the place. I am outside of Philadelphia. Jay is outside of Sarasota, Florida. Kyle, my husband is obviously here in Philadelphia. Another partner we have is outside of Atlanta. So those are the four partners. Our team is all over the country. The majority of our assets are in Houston. We have one in Kansas City, one in North Carolina. We have another project that's coming out soon that's not in

any of those markets were really market agnostic, I would say to some degree. I think that you can be successful in any market. I always get asked the question, should you yimby or nimby? Yes, in my backyard, no, in my backyard in terms of where you should invest. And I'm a firm believer there's pros and cons to different markets. There's pros and cons to different asset types.

The challenge is really just staying focused and becoming an expert in a particular, um, asset type and, and market. And I think that too many people look at other people being successful in all these different asset classes, which is the beauty of real estate. You can be successful in really anything as long as you stick with it.

Devin (34:44)
Sure.

Yeah, I love it. And if there was ever a time to have a remote team with all the tools that we have now, it's now, especially after COVID, where if you weren't doing that, you learned it very quickly. How are you guys handling acquisitions? So our firm acquisitions is like, we're pretty focused on Central Texas, and that keeps kind of the scope or the top of the funnel relatively small. We're not looking at deals in a bunch of markets, but for a team that is looking in different markets

markets, how are you guys handling just the volume of potential deals that you could look at to narrow it down? As we know, it takes a lot of underwriting and a lot of looking before one makes sense. So how do you guys handle that given that you're in multiple markets?

Ashley (35:35)
So we have a few key targeted markets that we focus on at Bar Down, and we know those markets pretty well. So that speaks to our internal structure, and we have a solid acquisition team that can handle the load, so to speak. But then we also have a coaching program called Apartment Addicts. And in that program,

There are students that are focused on other markets and they have become experts in other markets. And we coach everything like soup to nuts. Our program isn't just about finding deals or raising money for deals. It literally encompasses everything because we believe that you can't really underwrite deals correctly without knowing how you actually operate them.

So it's kind of a full cycle. Now you can't be an expert at everything, but the acknowledgement and the awareness of these different pieces speaks to why rules of thumb and underwriting actually don't work. So for example, if you say, I'm gonna put aside, you know, $200 a door for marketing expense. Well, what if you have a thousand unit versus a 75 unit? That's a completely different.

number in terms of what that marketing spend looks like, but you might not need that much, right? It's not always scalable to an algorithm, right? So when we have our students focus on particular markets, we give them the confidence that we can partner with them, help with asset management, help with their first deal raising or subsequent deal raising if they're in a situation

they're doing larger deals, but we come in on multiple aspects to help them. But then they serve as that market expert. So they really need to know the market. They need to know all the trends in the market and we teach them how to do market analysis. So when we are going through everything, we're pinpoint asking them these questions because we don't just partner just because they're a student of ours. It has to be a solid deal.

Our reputation is on the line. We are very protective of our reputation to the point where I know a lot of people focus on unit count. I can't even tell you how many units we have, but I can tell you to the dollar how much we've returned to our investors last year. So that is where our focus is. And because of that, we are very protective of our reputation. So our potential partners or...

Devin (38:05)
Sure.

Ashley (38:19)
partners we've partnered with before, they are experts in those given markets. So we really rely on a team-like atmosphere to be able to expand. So we cover certain aspects, like we know how to operate. Just because it's a different market means we might have to do something a little bit different, but we know so many different levers that you can pull. And then they kind of give us the framework in which

that property is situated and that allows us to guide our suggestions on how to, you know, change up leasing strategies or help minimize delinquency and evictions. Like there are all different things that you can do. It's not just a matter of following whatever laws are in that given market and you just operate within those laws. There's other protective measures you can do.

Devin (39:15)
For sure. Yeah. You get a lot of boots on the ground through that coaching program. I imagine in a lot of local contacts. Um, and you, we've been saying it kind of the whole podcast, but it's a team sport. And you don't go buy these $15 million buildings, um, by yourself a lot of the time, especially with kind of this model. Well, we're talking, uh, Q1 2024 last year was an interesting year, especially for multifamily and just the broader economy with, with a steep hike.

and rates there. What are you guys seeing for the year ahead? Kind of what's the game plan for you guys?

Ashley (39:52)
So I think you might get a different answer depending on who you ask and the partners in terms of what we think the economy is going to do. I'm of the opinion that I feel like our interest rate environment is probably gonna be stable for a little bit longer than people probably hoped. In terms of stable as in, I'm not saying that I like these interest rates, I'm talking about in terms of fluctuations of the interest rates.

Devin (39:58)
Right.

Sure.

Right

Ashley (40:22)
Most notably, I think it was because, you know, good news, my husband said this best, which is good news is now bad news. You know, we had a good jobs report and that translates to bad news for interest rates, right? So when we look at it that way, I think probably summer we might see a little bit of a sign hopefully. But I wouldn't be surprised if...

interest rates stay consistent through the summer and maybe fall, we start to see a down tick on the interest rates. I wouldn't be surprised. I think overall, there's so many other challenges that are going on. And I think in terms of government,

interference might be something that we see in the commercial world. You know, in the commercial world, it's been kind of the wild, wild West compared to residential loans and regulations and, um, commercial just because the nature of, uh, the, you know, the buyers in that market, the investors in that market, not having the, um, being so susceptible to,

Devin (41:23)
Right.

Ashley (41:44)
just being taken by loans. I mean, that's really what 2008 was all about was protecting the consumer. And I don't think, you know, commercials looked at the same way because it's kind of buyer beware and you should have that knowledge because it's a higher price point. It's a more complex purchase. So I don't necessarily agree. I think if there is a big enough impact on our overall economy, I think the government will have no choice but to step in and

Devin (41:51)
Yep.

Ashley (42:13)
whether it's from an optics point of view, or if it's actually genuine, I think there's going to be some regulations we see come out of this. We're already starting to see changes in regulations on the SEC side, and I think that's gonna bleed over into lending. I also think from a lending environment, just in terms of where some of these products are pricing for the properties are going, they're...

I just don't see lenders being able to get as much revenue on loan origination if they don't soften their insurance requirements for the properties. I think it's a little overkill right now, the likelihood of an entire complex of 30 buildings being destroyed all at one given time. I think it's pretty rare, but yet you have to carry that coverage.

Devin (42:54)
Right.

Ashley (43:07)
I think that's something that is a low-hanging fruit that we'll see moving forward. There's a whole other, you know, a lot of other things we could talk about, but in regards to your second part of your question on what we're planning to do this year is we never stopped in terms of acquisitions. In my opinion, it's always a good time to acquire, but it just matters how, you know, what you believe the value to be.

and the value changes, but in regards to whether or not it's a good time to acquire or not, it's never a bad time to acquire in my personal opinion. A deal is a deal. So we are still in full acquisitions mode. I think we are very advantageous in distressed assets more than ever before. We have a very good track record. Lenders are reaching out to us directly. Sellers are reaching out to us directly. Builders are reaching out to us directly.

And I think that's a testament to what we've built. So I hope we're able to capitalize on one of those opportunities, but we're not, and we've never been a group that is acquiring to keep lights on. So we don't run our business model off of fees. So that, you know,

Devin (44:26)
Right.

Ashley (44:36)
Fortunately, all the partners are pretty well situated financially. And I personally believe that's a good thing to have within a partnership because if you have people who are really driven by the needs of the income, decision making becomes more challenging within a group. So yeah, that's the game plan is to keep operating what we do have and not take our

Devin (44:45)
No doubt.

Ashley (45:05)
foot off the gas for acquisitions.

Devin (45:09)
I think it's a great approach. I mean, I think there's gonna be some great basis plays to be had the last few months and for the next few months and maybe longer. Just gotta figure out how to make the debt piece work. But these are the prices we've been asking for years. Feels a little scary to get into them, but you're not gonna get low prices and low rates at the same time, but there's some great basis plays to be had right now if you can structure the debt. Well, actually, this has been a great insight into your business.

condensed the whole journey and career here into, into a podcast, but I really appreciate you sharing your, your story. If somebody listening wants to connect with your team, where do we send them?

Ashley (45:51)
You can reach out at barr You can also follow me on Instagram at badashinvestor and you can link to any of our companies there.

Devin (46:03)
Perfect. We'll link to that in the show notes. What's the origination of the company name?

Ashley (46:08)
My husband was a professional athlete. He was a hockey player and I was a field hockey player in college. Bar down is the most difficult shot to take in hockey. You hit the top of the crossbar and then the puck goes in the nut. So it requires hours of precision and practice. So, um, to us that is representative of the, um, commitment we have to the company. And in fact, our logo is.

an aerial view. Most people think it's just the B and the D, but it's an aerial view of a hockey net and the crease, which just happens to form the shape of a B and a D.

Devin (46:42)
Mm-hmm.

I love it. Thanks for breaking that down. Well, Ashley, really appreciate it. This is a pleasure and I wish you guys continued success.

Ashley (46:57)
Thank you so much for having me again.

Devin (47:00)
All right, take care.