REI Wealth Magazine Featuring Paul Finck | Page 86
W
hat About
Enhanced
Diligence?
In the beginning, commercial
real estate brokers invented the
term “due diligence”. Lacking a
specific definition, it basically
means, “Check it out”, when
making a real estate purchase.
Nowadays, the term has received
wider use in home purchasing,
turnkeys, syndications, and
more, but its application still has
no formula. This article aims to
correct that for syndication
investing with what can be
called Enhanced Diligence.
Initial Philosophy
When an investor purchases a
syndication share in a distant
location from a promoter, the
investor is investing in the
promoter as much
or more than in the
property. The
property could be
bad, or good, or so
so. The promoter
could be competent
and honest, or
incompetent and
honest, or
competent and
dishonest, or
incompetent and
dishonest. BUT the
investor’s funds are
tied up for 3, 5, or 7
years, and the
success or failure of
the project might
not be known until the end of
the holding period. This is why
Enhanced Diligence is so
important.
A Recent Example
There was a “meetup”
attended by about 70 people
with an attorney speaking on
the subject of “Asset
Protection”. At the close, the
organizers called out, “Who
here is an accredited investor?
Come up to the table to learn
about our multifamily
syndication in the south side of
Chicago.” Now, Chicago has
the highest murder rate in the
country by far, and the south
side is where it happens. Can
you just imagine the robberies,
the violence, the drug dealing,
the arrests, the vacancies, the
turnover costs, the lawsuits, and
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the insurance claims? And some
“real estate entrepreneurs” from
the Bay Area of California are
going to successfully nurture this
syndication for 5 years? Uh, huh.
No doubt they just graduated
from some “guru’s” “bootcamp”.
The Basics
Syndication” is a generic term
for a group investment. It can take
the form of a joint venture (JV),
LimitedLiability Corporation
(LLC), Limited Partnership (LP),
TenancyinCommon (TIC), or
possibly another legal structure.
The LLC is most popular lately due
to the ability to pass through to the
investors such things as
depreciation, interest expense,
operating expenses, and other
deductions. A “sponsor”, or
“promoter” puts the syndication
together and runs it during its term.