Building Financial Freedom: Becoming A Limited Partner In Real Estate

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Building good relationships with your investors is a must for Keisha She believes that having a deal is a marriage You will be with them for several years and creating that good environment for them ensures that they understand before investing in a deal Keishia is an army veteran with six years of service in the Army National Guard During her enlistment she was a Human Resource Specialist and also deployed to Kuwait as part of Operation Enduring Freedom She has also pursued education by earning a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry as well as a second Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science and a Master of Arts in Homeland Security Following her enlistment she began investing in real estate in 2011 and has been expanding and managing her portfolio of properties for the past 10 years In April 2021 she decided to take the next step on her entrepreneurial journey by founding Kennedy Remedy Investments Kennedy Remedy Investments will focus on investing in commercial multi-family properties in Virginia with plans to expand to other southeastern states 00 01 – 03 36 Opening Segment Keisha Kennedy focuses on multifamily real estate She started investing eleven years ago and has been successful so far She is a passive investor who buys bank foreclosed properties and then invests in new multifamily properties Focusing on apartment investing and she thinks she can do it alone until she finds out about apartment syndication 03 37 – 15 32 How to Become a Limited Partner in Real Estate Keshia suggests educating yourself first before investing Through syndication a partner can have a faster growth rate than if they were to do it independently General partner vs Limited Partner What s the difference General Partner is Active Investing Limited Partner is a Passive Investing Keisha does both Surrounding oneself with investors and picking deals based on personality Living the Luxury Life as a General Partner in Kuwait Keisha recommends becoming a general partner while living in a different country giving you more perspective on the industry Establishing good relationships with operators and investing in deals Keisha also shares how she started building her investor base 15 33 18 26 Secrets to Keisha s Success Building Financial Freedom and generational wealth The key to Keisha s success is credibility and building a brand She emphasizes the importance of time blocking and auditing one s progress to ensure that they are making the most of their time 18 27 – 20 17 Closing Segment Reach out to Keshia See links below Final words Tweetable Quotes I believe in educating all of my investors first and foremost prior to them investing in apartment syndication because this is foreign investment for most And a lot of people have never heard of it Keisha Kennedy I built those relationships prior to investing with them Because it s just like a marriage If you re investing in a deal you re with them for X amount of years As long as the deal makes sense as long as the numbers pencil and as long as I have that relationship built over And I really look through the deal Then I will go ahead and share that deal with my investors and ensure that they understand prior to investing in the deal Keisha Kennedy —————————————————————————– Connect with Keisha Kennedy on Instagram and LinkedIn Visit her website you may download The Beginners Guide to Investing as A Limited Partner here Connect with me I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns Facebook LinkedIn Like subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on Thank you for tuning in Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com Want to read the full show notes of the episode Check it out below 00 00 00 Keisha Kennedy Massive action equals massive results And because I m putting in the work that s how I m seeing the results 00 00 16 Sam Wilson Kesha Kennedy is the founder of Kennedy remedy investments Her company focuses on building strong partnerships with fellow passive investors in multifamily Keisha welcome to the show 00 00 26 Keisha Kennedy Thank you for having me Sam I m so excited to be here with you 00 00 30 Sam Wilson today Awesome Glad to have you on the show 00 00 32 Three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less Where did you start Where are you now And how did you get 00 00 39 Keisha Kennedy Sure I started investing about 11 years ago in the residential space and I have been still investing and I m investing from a reside in a country called Kuwait I am from Richmond Virginia and currently I help fellow investors invest in apartments through apartment syndication 00 01 01 Sam Wilson That is great So 11 years ago you were investing in multi-verse give me a single In what capacity were you buying them as turnkey properties Were you buying them as you know buying them and managing yourself What did that look like for you 00 01 17 Keisha Kennedy Yes I started buying bank foreclosed properties so Those are no longer in existence the prices that I was paying 00 01 25 Right And I was self-taught and I figured it out on my own So my first property I paid 29 500 for it came with the lot next door And I invested in this property in 2011 The property was built in 2010 So all I had to do was go in and pull up the flooring lay down new flooring and stick a for rent sign outside and figure it out 00 01 49 Sam Wilson Wow It was a year old property you bought for 29 000 Now this was an REO or was this a foreclosure at the auction block 00 01 58 Keisha Kennedy Now this was the REO through the bank Wow And it came with the lot next door 00 02 05 Sam Wilson That s crazy That s crazy Why 9 500 bucks you ve replaced the flooring and put an REO or put a for rent sign out front 00 02 13 Where did your business go 00 02 15 Keisha Kennedy Yes And so the next year I said man this is pretty simple Let me continue to grow and to invest in other properties And so the following year I invested in another deal that was a bank foreclosure and then continued the cycle And then last year I decided to I wanted to scale into apartments and I thought that I had to do it all alone 00 02 36 And but this I m not going to be you know I m not gonna figure it out on my own I m not going to be self-taught I went to educate myself And so when I started educating myself through podcasts reading books blogs and joining Facebook groups I came across that little key term called apartment syndication and realized that Hey I can have a partner in scale much faster 00 02 59 And so that has been the key to success to scale so fast within the last 00 03 04 Sam Wilson What do you what were some things you know syndication is its own It s its own kind of sub world or subculture if you will because I was speaking to a very successful single family investor here in Memphis then You know I don t know 800 a thousand homes 00 03 19 And he goes man I still don t understand syndication I have no idea how that works I mean so there s a lot of nuance to it but I guess were there some things that you thought that certain things had to be in place or worked in a certain way That aren t actually how they work That once you figured it out you re like oh wait this is very different than 00 03 36 Keisha Kennedy Yeah So I assumed of course that I had to be the one to sign my name on the loan and on the debt And that is not the case and it s called leverage And that s why I m able to scale so fast As I mentioned earlier through apartment indication and just you know as a general partner on a deal Active in the deal 00 03 58 Whereas a limited partner is passive in the deal So limited partner investors their capital and the general partner is active And so I have invested both as a limited partner and an active partner as a general partner And so I m getting the best of both worlds at this point 00 04 18 Sam Wilson Right right Yeah 00 04 20 You said you mentioned something about signing on debt I mean as a general partner You are signing on the debt in some capacity whether or not it s recourse or non-recourse is you know I got something else to talk about So is that one of the things you ve I mean when you say leverage via syndications for the debt side of things is that what you mean by that 00 04 38 Where you re able to bring in other partners that can help you take it down and sign on the debt 00 04 43 Keisha Kennedy Correct Correct So we have key principles and sponsors that bring the net worth to the deal Right And so that s what I meant by not myself me personally I do not have to sign on the debt just yet I m still building my net worth and eventually I will but I m so blessed to partner up with people that are willing to sponsor and be a general partner and a key principle 00 05 04 Sam Wilson in the deal 00 05 05 Right right Yeah That s necessary absolutely necessary bringing on either a balance sheet Or KPI s that have the net worth to to make the deal go around That s a that s really cool How did you get involved in your first deal And tell me about that experience that process why you decided that was the deal for you deal as you passed on 00 05 24 Give us they ll tell us about the first deal first Then we ll talk about deals Maybe you ve passed 00 05 28 Keisha Kennedy Yeah absolutely So I ll tell you about my first limited partner deal that I invested in on And then I can also tell you about the first co GP deal that embassy and on So the first limited partner deal was located in Richmond Virginia 00 05 43 I am from that area And so that was the first deal I invested in a year ago back in may of last year And so I was still new to the commercial space However I had to educate myself and understand the terms cause it s just like speaking a second language And so I already knew the market I knew where I was going 00 06 03 I just had to understand how the numbers you know work in the commercial space And so I consider it a home run because you invest your capital in the deal After two years there was a cash out refi So I was getting a hundred percent of my invested capital back And then I was still remaining in the deal until it s it sells you know between year five and seven 00 06 28 And then there was an exit strategy One of the exit strategies is to sell each unit as A condo And so this was a no-brainer already had the capital just sitting in my account and I wanted to make my money work for me and test out how it you know the perspective of being a limited partner since eventually I wanted to become a general partner 00 06 49 And so I was really excited about the deal I m from the area And I knew that I would you know get my money back in two years So that was a no-brainer and I consider that a home run for my first limited partner 00 07 01 Sam Wilson investment Has that deal 00 07 03 gone as you expected 00 07 06 Keisha Kennedy Yes it has It has And that has also allowed me to invest in other deals 00 07 12 So the first deal I invested in was 27 units in Richmond Virginia the home run deal that I just mentioned The second deal I invested in was in Florence Kentucky that same month in may of last year 81 units followed by two more deals which was student housing in July 00 07 28 So 19 units in Scranton Pennsylvania and then 24 units in Columbia South Carolina And those four deals I invested passively as a limited partner And then fast forward to October I had my first opportunity as a co GP on 56 units in Waco Texas So this time I was more active in the deal so I helped raise capital and then I also helped asset manage 00 07 55 So that was my first coach GP opportunity alongside I also invested as an LP and a month ago we close on 120 units in Des Moines And I invested both as a GP and as a LP And currently we are working on 174 units in Tulsa Oklahoma So I m really excited about that Followed by a couple of other deals that we have in the pipeline 00 08 22 So a lot has transpired within the last year And again I am investing from Kuwait outside of the country So I hope this inspires you along your journey whether you re on a journey or you re thinking about investing in real estate and just remember me that I am investing outside of the U S and if I can do it and make it happen 00 08 42 So can you 00 08 43 Sam Wilson bright Yeah absolutely I love the I love the starting as a passive investor first I feel like that s where a lot of people should start Cause they ask me all the time Hey what s the you know if I want to kind of grow bigger it gets you know do some bigger assets I would say start as a passive investor like start there 00 09 01 I mean assuming you have the capital to do so to great way to learn Early on and get a front row seat to how deals are packaged up The things that people are doing the investor communication styles like you get to learn so much it s a pay to play program Yeah But it s also pay get paid to play program 00 09 18 So it s not a bad way to do it especially if you re halfway around the world 00 09 24 Keisha Kennedy Yes I love how you put that in And I also highly recommended as well You know a lot of people want to be so eager to jump into the general partner role And I advise you know the same thing go ahead and learn from an LP perspective 00 09 40 So that way when you are a GP you can speak about your experience and that also builds credibility 00 09 47 Sam Wilson Yeah well for sure And you get to see what other sponsors are seeing what they re thinking why why have they chosen to invest in this particular market or this particular asset 00 09 58 And I think those all of those are just little and again none of it s going to be the thing that s oh this is the pivotal moment but it s going to be all the little building blocks that help you along the way How did you select Your general partners to be a limited partner with out of the gate 00 10 15 I mean that s five different student housing in Scranton Pennsylvania is not the same as an 81 unit in Florence Kentucky Those are very different asset classes that I m imagining with different options 00 10 26 Keisha Kennedy Yes absolutely So out of the first four deals that I invested in as a limited partner three of them are under the same operator 00 10 35 And two of the student housing is under the is with the first operator that I invested in at from Richmond Virginia So My thing is about relationships Whether I m eliminate partner or a general part I m going to make sure that I like no interest the operator And I felt comfortable after the first deal 00 10 55 So I was even more comfortable investing in the two student housing deals as well 00 11 00 Sam Wilson Got it So they were the same operator That s really interesting How did you have competence in this operator for student housing and multi-family apartments I mean cause again student housing especially seems like a much more nuanced nuanced assets 00 11 15 Keisha Kennedy Yeah Yeah So both of the operators actually have experienced on the residential side and in smaller multifamily units as well One of them in particular came from the hotel industry So I was able to leverage his experience and you know believe in him It s all about trust like it knowing who you are investing with prior to investing in the deal 00 11 37 Right So I was comfortable in deploying capital in the deal The deal made sense I did my due diligence the numbers worked And so I executed and I m so proud that I did because man the returns on that because you know you get to charge per bed versus you know three bedroom two bedroom in some really excited when both of those deals exit 00 12 00 Sam Wilson Yeah no that s really cool I love that And now let s talk about the general partnership side of things I mean becoming a general partner while living in Kuwait and working as you know as a you re a veteran working as a military contractor I mean at what hour of the day are you doing this And then how are you making sure that what you re packaging up and bringing to your investor group is the right answer 00 12 26 Keisha Kennedy Yeah So I am seven hours currently I m seven hours ahead of Eastern standard time So right now as we record this podcast it is 7 19 PM here So the time difference is crazy I ll be honest There are some nights where I m up late Early in the morning and even up in the middle of the night but it s how bad do you want it 00 12 48 Massive action equals massive results And because I m putting in the work that s how I m seeing the results all the way from another country again And so I have to balance and manage my time I do a lot of time blocking I do time auditing as well I m a big believer in also working out I m a bodybuilder 00 13 09 So I find discipline in that and it helps me as far as like my mental health and relieve stress and things like that So if I can beat myself mentally and the gym then I can you know face anything when it comes to adversity and challenges in life And so the military has also taught me to be disciplined and you know go after what I want 00 13 31 So I believe in educating all of my investors first and foremost prior to them investing in apartment syndication because this is a foreign investment for most And a lot of people have never heard of it I didn t even hear about it And so last year to be honest so I educated myself and so I want to educate my investors first and foremost 00 13 51 And so I ensure that the deal makes sense And it s something that I personally wants to invest in And once the deal does make sense And I built that relationship to work with other general partners in the deal because I built those relationships prior to investing with them Because it s just like a marriage 00 14 08 If you re investing in a deal you re with them for X amount of years And so as long as the deal makes sense as long as the numbers pencil and as long as I have that relationship builds over And I really look through the deal Then I will go ahead and share that deal with my investors and ensure that they understand prior to investing in the deal 00 14 31 And again this is happening all the way from Kuwait outside of the U S but I m investing in the U 00 14 36 Sam Wilson S how has that worked for you So now this is a lot of questions or you know especially if those are scaling the question of how am I going to raise capital How am I going to build an investor base How have you gone about building an investor base 00 14 52 Keisha Kennedy Yeah So I started with zero emails again I started last year and I have an email list of over 600 people and it took some time It did take some time It took a lot of work I post every day on social media So I use that platform to educate inspire and motivate as many people as possible And so because I am speaking about my real estate journey I am attracting investors on a daily basis 00 15 23 I am also using a lead magnet And then I ll also mention previously that I had So every month I have an educational webinar I started this back in January And so I have guest speakers that come and you know educate my investors on different topics like this month tomorrow actually we re speaking about infinite banking 00 15 43 Back in January we spoke about leveraging your self-directed IRA and being able to invest in apartments You know the next month we had spoke about investing in apartment syndication and just walking through investors on How they can invest pass Libby passively in a syndication through a sample deal 00 16 02 So again I started with zero investors a year ago I am constantly being requested to come speak on podcasts because people are blown away by how am I investing from Kuwait in the U S and it s all about credibility you know building your brand And then I m basically just using social media as a platform to as I mentioned earlier to educate inspire and motivate and just speak about my personal journey in real estate 00 16 33 Sam Wilson I love it That is awesome Yeah And I love the idea of time blocking time auditing and then just saying Hey how you know what was your question You said earlier how bad do you want it And I think that s the question that many need to answer when they re not seeing Not seeing results as well 00 16 48 How bad do you want it And then take the necessary So you know get in the middle of the night and doing a webinar I m sure is not priority you know Cause I guess that d be especially if you have people in the all you know you re doing a seven o clock or 6 00 PM webinar here in the central standard time 00 17 03 That means you re up at one in the morning or no it d be two in the morning for you hosting a webinar 00 17 09 Keisha Kennedy Exactly but it goes back to Sam It goes back to your why you know why am I doing this I m doing this to not only help myself but to help others build financial freedom generational wealth you know educating fellow veterans 00 17 24 And you know my my target investors are fellow veterans because I m a veteran My father was a veteran my grandfather my great uncles And then also minorities There aren t many mines Minorities in this space especially women And so I am being the voice to help others you know to acknowledge and let them know that Hey I started from nothing and you can as well 00 17 47 And so just helping bridging that that wealth gap and continue to inspire educate and motivate others I love it 00 17 55 Sam Wilson I love it Yeah that s absolutely awesome You know that the idea that anybody can do this is just something that people certainly need to hear I had an interview with somebody else earlier this morning and it was nine years ago 00 18 06 They moved to the U S with 180 bucks in this And now he owns like 40 million in real estate It s like okay He goes Hey man You know what Nine years ago I had nothing I was broke But if I can do it so can you so that s really cool Keisha thank you for taking the time to come on today and tell us what the secrets to your success 00 18 25 And it sounds like a lot of it is They get it done You put your nose to the grindstone figure out your plan and go implement it And you ve given us a lot of things here really to think about So certainly appreciate that if our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you what is the best way to do 00 18 40 Keisha Kennedy Yes So I have a free guide It s the beginner s guide to investing as a limited partner in apartment syndication So if this message earlier resonated with you feel free to get it from my website at www of course dot Kennedy like the president K E N E D Y Remedy R E M E D Y Investments with an S 00 19 02 So Kennedy remedy investments com backslash We are the remedy to your investment So that s the first thing And then the second thing is to reach out to me on LinkedIn I love getting on phone calls and getting to you know getting to know my future and fellow investors And you can find me on LinkedIn Kesha 00 19 23 K E I S H I A Kennedy And I am also on Instagram so Kennedy remedy And then of course on Facebook we have Kennedy remedy investment So feel free to reach out and I would love to connect with each and every one 00 19 38 Sam Wilson of you It s a lot of great ways to connect with you and we ll make sure that we also put those in the show notes Kennedy excuse me Kennedy Collie 00 19 45 He got me saying Kennedy The last thing you said Keisha thank you for coming on the show today I certainly appreciate that 00 19 51 Keisha Kennedy And thank you for having me It was a blessed Click here to visit this podcast episode