Realty411 Magazine The Future of Real Estate is Here | Page 13

Texas
Expansion
with MemphisInvest.com
S
uccessful investors realize
how important diversification
is to risk management in their
portfolios. MemphisInvest.com,
the largest turnkey investment company
in Tennessee, is responding to the needs
of their nearly 900 clients by expanding
their operation to what they believe is
another top market: Dallas. Although
it’s over 400 miles away from their
Cordova-based company, the Clothier
family, principals of Memphis Invest,
are quite at home in the Texas market as
they had lived in Dallas for many years
as proprietors of a grocery business. So
comfortable in fact that they quickly
expanded into the market by purchas-
ing hundreds of homes, which were
rehabbed and sold as turnkey invest-
ments to their loyal clients, many of
them already own multiple properties
in Memphis. All the properties were
sold without any direct advertising or
marketing. Now that a secondary office
has been set up to handle their growing
list of properties under management,
they are well on target to expand to
nearly 800 doors. Recently, we had the
pleasure of interviewing Chris Clothier,
co-owner of Memphis Invest to discuss
their explosive expansion into the Texas
market.
Question: Why did Memphis Invest
choose Dallas as their next rental
market?
Answer: There were a couple of rea-
sons, but mostly our familiarity with the
market. We still have family and busi-
ness ties in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area
and luckily the market was a fantastic
investing opportunity. We had been
looking for which market to expand
into and Dallas kept presenting the best
opportunity for our success and, more
importantly, for our clients’ success.
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Q: I’m sure your team and clients had
wonderful reactions to the expansion, but
were there any concerns about adding a
second city?
A: The biggest concern was consisten-
cy. We had developed a very stable and
reliable model in Memphis with a fantastic
team and that is very difficult to duplicate.
We were very methodical about
who we hired and how we trained
them. Our culture of putting cus-
tomer service first and being trans-
parent in our communication, both
good and bad, was very important
to us. So our biggest concern was
how do we keep the high quality of
work, communication, service and
the reliable model while moving
into another city.
Q: When did Memphis Invest de-
cide to expand to Dallas and how
long did it take from the initial
idea to actually selling properties
and overseeing rentals in that market?
A: We decided in the 4th quarter of 2011
that we were going to open an office in
Dallas. We were actually buying our first
properties there in February of 2012, but
we were not advertising the new city at
that time. We were having private con-
versations with individual investors about
the opportunities there and taking orders
for properties. At first, we outsourced the
property management, but learned very
quickly that no one was going to show the
same attention to detail and care like we
were, so we opened our property man-
agement division in October of 2012. We
held our first sneek peek event in the Fall
of 2012 and hosted 140 investors to the
city. Today we are managing just under
250 properties in the DFW metroplex and
on average completing between 17 and
20 deals a month over the last couple of
months. Our goal for 2014 is to complete
PAGE 13 • 2014

Interview by
Linda Pliagas
between 250 and 300 transactions in the
Dallas market.
Q: How did you put your team together
in a far away city and what tips do you
have for other companies and inves-
tors trying to manage a long-distance
portfolio or staff?
Chris Clothier
A: Without the ability to have a Clothier
or a high-level team member in the city
each day, I am not sure we would have
undertaken a remote location. Our rep-
utation, our commitment to excellence
and our integrity are too important to us.
So without the easy commute to Dallas,
I am not sure we would have chosen
the city. We could leave early morning
and be in our offices by noon. There
are also daily flights back and forth for
the hour-long flight. So we chose a city
with three attributes for us:
a. We were very familiar with the
layout of the city.
b. We had great connections in the
city and were able to locate high qual-
ity personnel quickly.
c. It was close enough for a Clothier
or one of our top leaders to be in the
city almost daily.
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