If you’re exploring strategies to build wealth, especially through real estate, the recent conversation between Jay Conner and Kenneth Gee on the “Raising Private Money” podcast is a must-watch. Kenneth Gee, a seasoned real estate investor, CPA, and commercial lender, has over 26 years of experience, has raised more than $50 million in private money, and has been involved in transactions totaling over $2 billion. In this episode, Ken shares his journey, insights on raising and leveraging private money, and actionable strategies for both active and passive investors.
From a 3 AM Epiphany to Real Estate Success
Ken’s story begins with a deeply personal motivator: time with family. While working grueling hours as a CPA at Deloitte, he found his only quality time with his newborn daughter was at 3 AM feedings. This realization sparked his pursuit of better financial freedom and work-life balance. Surrounded by successful real estate clients during his lending and accounting career, he decided to dive headfirst into the multifamily property space.
His start wasn’t glamorous—three small apartment buildings financed using a mix of seller financing, a home equity line, and support from his in-laws. What’s notable is Ken’s emphasis on starting where you are, using creativity, and not waiting for perfect conditions. He warns against being paralyzed by inexperience; instead, leverage what you have and learn as you go.
Why Multifamily?
While many consider starting in single-family homes, Ken chose multifamily from the get-go. His logic was straightforward: scalability and risk management. With multifamily, one vacancy doesn’t devastate your income stream the way it might with a single-family unit. Plus, greater cash flow allows you to hire help, freeing up your own time—a crucial consideration for those juggling busy careers or family life.
Raising Private Money—Built on Trust and Transparency
One of the most powerful sections of the podcast focuses on Ken’s approach to raising private money. Early deals were funded via personal connections, but over time, his network and credibility expanded. Now, Ken runs regular webinars—open and education-focused—for potential investors.
This outreach isn’t about high-pressure sales. Instead, he invites people to observe, learn, and engage at their own pace. Many followers tune in for months—even years—before choosing to invest. Ken’s approach is a model in building trust: provide value, answer questions, and empower investors to make informed decisions.
Education and Mentorship: The Real Difference-Makers
Both Ken and Jay stress a critical but often overlooked step: get educated before diving in. Ken’s advanced multifamily acquisition program is a year-long commitment with weekly group coaching calls, resources, and hands-on support. The curriculum guides students from developing their personal financial statement and business plan, all the way through underwriting deals and asset management.
Why so much focus on the details? Because, as Ken says, lenders and private investors will “sniff out” gaps in your knowledge. Being detail-oriented signals trustworthiness. It’s also the key to building your confidence and making sound decisions—cornerstones for long-term success.
Common Mistakes—and How to Avoid Them
Ken has seen many new investors stumble by underestimating the importance of due diligence and accurate underwriting. Treat real estate as a business, not a side hustle. Those who ignore the details, rush deals, or skip coaching often pay dearly, both in lost money and missed opportunities.
Jay adds an important point: don’t go it alone, especially early on. A coach or mentor can help you avoid unseen pitfalls and accelerate your learning curve. The resources and podcasts available today can save you the hard lessons Ken had to learn the slow way decades ago.
Final Thoughts: Your Path to Wealth
Ken’s message is clear: real estate, particularly multifamily, offers a path to wealth that’s accessible, scalable, and time-tested. Whether you want to be an active investor or a passive one, education, diligence, and building real relationships will get you there.
10 Discussion Questions from this Episode:
- How did Kenneth Gee’s experiences as a commercial lender and CPA shape his approach to real estate investing?
- What were the key challenges Kenneth faced when he initially entered the world of real estate, and how did he overcome them?
- Discuss the significance of trust in raising private money, as emphasized by Kenneth Gee during his conversation with Jay Conner.
- Why did Kenneth choose multifamily investments over single-family properties for his real estate ventures?
- Kenneth mentions the importance of understanding details in real estate transactions. How can this attention to detail impact investor confidence and success?
- What strategies does Kenneth Gee use to attract new investors to his webinars, and how might these be effective in building a network?
- How has the approach to finding real estate deals evolved from Kenneth’s early days to the current market landscape?
- Discuss the importance of having a mentor or coach in the realm of real estate investing, as highlighted in the podcast episode.
- What are some common mistakes new real estate investors make according to Kenneth, and how can these be avoided?
- How does Kenneth Gee’s advanced multifamily acquisition program support new investors, and what benefits does it offer to someone entering the field?
Fun facts that were revealed in the episode:
- Kenneth Gee’s first real estate deal was found in a newspaper ad.
Before online listings and podcasts were the norm, Ken kickstarted his real estate journey by responding to a simple ad in the local paper, a reminder that opportunities are everywhere if you’re paying attention! - His initial funding came from a home equity line AND his in-laws.
Ken admits he didn’t have the down payment for his first apartment building, so he creatively combined a home equity loan with an investment from his (very trusting!) in-laws, proving that private money can start right at home. - Ken’s path to investing was inspired by feeding his daughter at 3 AM.
It was those quiet mornings, bottle in hand, that made Ken realize he wanted more time with his family and set him on the path from CPA to successful real estate investor. Sometimes, life-changing ideas come at the quietest moments!
Timestamps:
00:00 $50M Private Money Insights
04:07 Re-evaluating Success and Family Priorities
07:47 Risky Investment with In-Laws
12:57 Guided Steps to First Deal
13:56 Deal Underwriting Essentials
17:20 Yearlong Multifamily Acquisition Coaching
22:49 Importance of Understanding Details
26:07 Importance of Mentors in Success
28:33 Connect with Kenneth Gee
30:15 Jay Conner’s Free Money Guide:
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Connect With Jay Conner:
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What is Private Money? Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner
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Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $67,000 per deal.
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The Art of Raising $50 Million in Private Money with Kenneth Gee
Jay Conner [00:00:01]:
Welcome to another amazing episode of Raising Private Money. I’m Jay Conner, the Private Money Authority, also the host of the show. This is the podcast where we talk about how to raise private money for your real estate deals without ever having to ask for money. Well, my guest today, who’s joining me here on the show, he’s raised $50,000,000 in private money. So you don’t wanna miss one second of this episode because we’re gonna dive deep and talk about how he’s going about raising this private money and also how you can have an opportunity if you have a desire to find out how you can be passively investing in real estate and just sitting back at home and collecting big checks. Well, he’s got a lot of experience. He has been in real estate now for more than twenty-six years, and he’s been in lots of different areas of it. It’s been banking, private equity, and real estate investing experience in and of itself.
Jay Conner [00:01:00]:
Now listen to this. He’s been involved in more than 2,000,000,000, with a b, more than $2,000,000,000 in transactions, and this includes all aspects, acquisitions, management, financing, multifamily projects, and etcetera. Don’t go anywhere because in just a moment, you’re gonna meet my special guest, Mr. Kenneth Gee, right after this.
Narrator [00:01:30]:
If you’re a real estate investor and are wondering how to raise and leverage private money to make more profit on every deal, then you’re in the right place. On raising private money, we’ll speak with new and seasoned investors to dissect their deals and extract the best tips and strategies to help you get the money, because the money comes first. Now here’s your host, Jay Conner.
Jay Conner [00:01:58]:
Oh, my lands, Ken. I’m so excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the show.
Kenneth Gee [00:02:04]:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this.
Jay Conner [00:02:07]:
Absolutely. We’re gonna have a good time. You have many years of experience, over twenty-six years in real estate. You’ve raised millions and millions of dollars. You’ve been involved in over a billion transactions. So you’ve got all kinds of experience to share with us. Here on the show, we’re gonna talk about how you’ve gone about raising private money and your favorite ways to do that. And we’re gonna talk about passive opportunities as well, if you have any.
Jay Conner [00:02:34]:
So my first question, Ken, you can answer this as quickly and as short as you like.
Kenneth Gee [00:02:39]:
Okay. Or
Jay Conner [00:02:41]:
You can take as much time as you like to answer this question. And here’s and here is the first question. Tell me and my audience, who is Kenneth Gee?
Kenneth Gee [00:02:53]:
Yeah. Thank you so much. So, the quick story of my life. I grew up in Toledo, Ohio. For those of you who loved mash, Max Klinger was from Toledo, the twenty Packles hot dogs guy. So, anyway, got my undergrad, University of Toledo, moved to Cleveland, spent five years as a commercial lender, with now, the bank that’s part of PNC. So while I was a lender, I went to school at night at a small private school called Case Western Reserve University. And, it’s there I got my master’s degree where then I became a CPA and went to work for Deloitte for seven years, one of the big firms, and, spent seven years doing federal work, state and local work, a lot of merger and acquisition work, got to work with some very, very cool private equity firms.
Kenneth Gee [00:03:40]:
And it was there that I got into real estate. If you think back, this is a long time ago. My kids were very, very young. I used to do my daughter’s feeding at 3 AM. It was because it was the only time I got to spend with her. My wife would be sleeping, my son would be sleeping, and I was working eighty hours a week at Deloitte as a CPA. So, that 3 AM feeding was really important to me, and it was cool. Right? If you’re a parent, you know father-daughter time is cool.
Kenneth Gee [00:04:07]:
Except in I started to realize after a while that, wait a minute, Ken. It’s three in the morning, and this is the best you could do for your daughter. And it started to get me thinking. This is probably a problem. Right? See, I did I thought I did everything I was supposed to do. Went to school, got good grades, got a great job. I felt like I was successful, but now I realized that there was a real chance that my family was gonna grow up without me, and that made me sick. And so, being around the bank for five years, being around Deloitte for as long as I had up until that point, I had been around so many people who made insane amounts of money in real estate.
Kenneth Gee [00:04:42]:
So I said, I gotta figure this thing out. This is way back when the only thing out was Carlton Sheep. This kind of podcast never even existed. I don’t even think podcasting existed back then. But in any event, took me a year and a half, found three deals, small baby apartment buildings, 28, 20, four, and 22 units. Bought them. Sold them three years later. Made half a million dollars while I was still working at Deloitte and realized, man, I thought this real estate thing was for me, and nothing’s better than improving it.
Kenneth Gee [00:05:12]:
Right? Think about that. This is back in February. I’d never had half a million dollars in my bank account, especially earning it on the side. So that’s how I got into real estate because I realized at that point, this is not something I can ignore. And, you know, fast forward twenty-five years, this is all I do. And it’s all I’ve done for a long time.
Jay Conner [00:05:33]:
Has all of your investing, been in, multifamily or commercial investments? Have you done any single family or any other asset classes?
Kenneth Gee [00:05:44]:
Yeah. Great question. So when I first decided to buy that first apartment building, I was trying to figure it out. I’m like, okay. How do I do singles? It seemed like the safer way to start, but I could never figure out how to make money there. It’s because here’s the way I thought, whether it’s right or wrong. And I know there are a lot of people who make a lot of money flipping singles. But I thought, man, okay.
Kenneth Gee [00:06:04]:
If I eke out a hundred bucks a month and then my roof goes bad or the furnace goes bad, I’m like, well, there goes all my profit. And that stressed me out. I couldn’t figure it out. So I picked multifamily because back then, think about this, I had a small family. I was pretty busy. I was working a ridiculous amount of time at Deloitte. It’s a great place to work, but I worked a lot. So there’s no way that I could eke out more time and go fix things on the weekend or anything like that.
Kenneth Gee [00:06:30]:
So I had to find something that was big enough that create enough income that I could pay someone to help me. And that’s how I ended up in the apartment world. With that, 28 units were my first deal. I did. I found a lady who worked part-time. She got a free apartment, maybe a little bit extra money, and did things, showed the apartments, did all kinds of stuff around the property. And so that’s why I ended up in a multifamily. That’s why I didn’t start with single-family.
Kenneth Gee [00:06:57]:
And, I’ve I’ve actually never done a single family, investment property, believe it or not.
Jay Conner [00:07:04]:
Well, it makes a lot of sense. Now that on those first apartment buildings, how did you fund those first ones? Did you do it, like, traditionally with institutional money?
Kenneth Gee [00:07:13]:
Oh, gosh. No. Oh, no. No. No. No. My first building was $575,000. Some sounded you know, now that sounds tiny, but back then, it wasn’t.
Kenneth Gee [00:07:24]:
I found a really good seller. Right? I found the property listed in the newspaper back then, which just dated me. Found, found, found, the guy was a great seller. He said, I’ll take a note back for 10%. I needed to find the other 10%. He found me a good lender, but now I needed to set I needed $70,000, and I didn’t have $70,000. So I said, alright. Let me I again, I’m just trying to figure it out.
Kenneth Gee [00:07:47]:
I’m like, man, I really wanna do this. So I decided I was gonna borrow 35,000 on my home equity line, and I’m not telling anybody else to do that. I’m just telling you what I did. And my in-laws said, okay. We’ll put in the other 35. So I went in fifty-fifty partners on my first deal with my then-in-laws. You know, I think they knew that I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt like I kinda knew some stuff, but they trusted me, and they knew that if I didn’t take care of them, they knew where I lived.
Kenneth Gee [00:08:15]:
So they felt kinda safe there, and so that’s how I come up with the down payment. I I literally borrowed the the down payment.
Jay Conner [00:08:22]:
Okay. So your first private lenders were your in-laws.
Kenneth Gee [00:08:26]:
Yes. Well, they were equity partners.
Jay Conner [00:08:28]:
Okay. They were equity partners.
Kenneth Gee [00:08:29]:
They were real partners. Yeah. Yeah.
Jay Conner [00:08:31]:
They were not in debt. That was not debt. They were equity partners. Still yet, it was private money and and private, private investing. Mhmm. And so you’ve raised, I mean, you’ve raised a lot of private money, over the years in in investment. What are some of your favorite ways to go about attracting private money instead of feeling like you’re chasing it?
Kenneth Gee [00:08:53]:
Yeah. That’s a good question. So early on, I’ll, I mean, I’ll just tell you how it evolved for me. So the first ten deals, I think, we didn’t I didn’t use any outside money, for a lot of reasons. One, I just didn’t think I could raise it. And secondly, I didn’t feel like it would be fair to ask an investor to kinda take a chance on me other than my in-laws, right, when I didn’t have a feel for what I was doing. So after ten years, I felt comfortable. And, we just started raising with people that I knew.
Kenneth Gee [00:09:22]:
And my it’s it’s that circle of influence that you know, I grew up poor. I didn’t have a great Rolodex, but I had met people over the years. And those people said, yeah. Okay. I’ll I’ll give you a little bit. I’ll give you a little bit. And I raised money on the first deal, and then every deal thereafter, it just kept expanding. Now, today, what’s my favorite? My favorite way, and I say this because I get to talk to people, and that is, we’re doing one tomorrow night, but we do them every other Wednesday.
Kenneth Gee [00:09:50]:
We do webinars online. They’re free. And, we do two series of webinars. One, we just teach people how it is that we do what we do. Those are for people who wanna be active in the business. And then the other Wednesday, the opposite every other Wednesday, we do what we call a real deal investor update, and that’s where we walk investors through our portfolio. What are we doing? What’s going on? You know, what’s happening on the ground? Because we want our investors to be able to hear and have an opportunity to ask me questions. You know, we have hundreds of investors right now.
Kenneth Gee [00:10:20]:
It would be hard to do individual calls. So we give them that opportunity. So I like to raise money through that process because it gives them a chance to to I get to meet me where they are. Right? Some people will just they’ll watch me for years. Okay. Those lists have come to this webinar and that webinar, and they’re just they wanna try to figure out what I’m all about. They’re trying to figure out how to build trust. And then when it’s they’re comfortable reaching out, you know, sort of extending the olive branch and saying, hey.
Kenneth Gee [00:10:50]:
We’d like to talk to you. We do it on it it happens on their terms. So that’s my favorite way because it puts investors, gives them the ability to do it when they’re comfortable. It’s not me going out and trying to pull them out of the crowd, so to speak.
Jay Conner [00:11:06]:
Right. Now, how do you fill your webinars? Of course, you’ve been doing it for a long time. I’m sure you have a very robust email list. But how do you get new potential interested investors to the webinar and on your email list? Are you doing Facebook ads or other ways?
Kenneth Gee [00:11:23]:
We do that. We do all sorts. Right? You gotta do a lot of different things. We do a lot of social media posts, a lot of networking. We get a lot of new people through word-of-mouth. Right? Because if people are happy with what you do, at some point, they’ll probably, hey. You should go listen to this webinar. This guy is interesting or whatever.
Kenneth Gee [00:11:42]:
Right? Because I provide a new perspective. So it’s all of the above. Yes. We use email. Yes. We use text messages. Yeah. We actually have our own app, Care I Partners.
Kenneth Gee [00:11:52]:
You go to the store, download it, and now you would have already connected. Right? We’re not gonna get you news that way. Nobody goes to the Apple Store and searches for and finds an investment firm. But, you know, what we try to do is try to meet everybody where they are. Right? And some people like to communicate in different ways. So we just try to match that. I mean, most people come in through networking, word-of-mouth, and the ads that we put out.
Jay Conner [00:12:20]:
Okay. Well, since you mentioned it, and in case anybody’s got to jump off the show quickly before we finish, let’s go ahead and give out that website, which is www.kripartners, k r KRI Partners Com. So, I take a couple of minutes, Ken, and sort of just give a 30,000-foot view when you’re teaching someone on the webinars Mhmm. What you do and how you do it. What’s an overview of of what that an outline of what that teaching looks like?
Kenneth Gee [00:12:57]:
Yeah. That’s a great question. So everything that we do, we teach other people how to do it. So it’s a process. Right? So it’s a multistep process. So the first thing we want people to do is take a good, hard look at their situation, their life, and what they’re trying to accomplish. Then we help them by helping them develop their financial statement, their bio, as maybe would be read by a real estate person, maybe a lender, an investor, and then we end up with developing a business plan with them. Right? Because we want people to get their first deal.
Kenneth Gee [00:13:35]:
So we have a lot of visibility. We know that, you know, you gotta have some liquidity. You gotta have net worth. We know what all those guidelines are, and we help them put all of these things together to put a plan together that makes sense for them. Now we once we agree, remember, it’s their plan. It’s not mine. So every person is different. Then the next step is okay.
Kenneth Gee [00:13:56]:
How do you underwrite a deal? That’s when you get into the nitty gritty of our business, it’s a business. And you gotta know the numbers, and you gotta understand how to underwrite. So we ask you to go into the details. We give you the same sort of spreadsheets that we have, the same ones I use when I underwrite our deals, and you underwrite. You’re underwriting at the detail level. And then after a while, what happens is you’re able to start underwriting a little quicker using what we call our deal screener, maybe a little quicker attempt at underwriting a deal, and make sure it makes sense. So once you know underwriting, something happens. Right? Up until that point, you think you can do this, you think you know, you think this makes sense.
Kenneth Gee [00:14:34]:
And then when you start underwriting and understanding the numbers, all of a sudden, you become massively confident. Because now, you know, brokers put out a deal. You’re like, that doesn’t make sense. But now you know why it doesn’t make sense. And as soon as you know why, and as soon as you can show somebody, no. This is a good deal. This is a bad deal, and you know why. And you know you know why.
Kenneth Gee [00:14:54]:
Right? That’s knowledge. Then you’re ready to go. Then you have confidence, and then you can start talking to brokers and start interacting with them, touring properties. Right? Now we’re gonna take you through the process of, okay, you found the deal, or you learned what you need to look at. You figured out how to write it. Now, how do you get awarded the deal? It’s a whole process. Right? It’s pretty detailed. But the goal here is to get awarded the deal that you want.
Kenneth Gee [00:15:21]:
My goal is for our people to make a million bucks on their first deal. That’s what I want. Whether they can achieve it or not is a different story, but I mean, people do this all the time. So now we’ve gotten you the deal, and now is when people start to get nervous again because they don’t have visibility. Once you get awarded the deal, oh my gosh. What do I need to do? Now, a whole bunch of things have to happen at the same time. You gotta do your due diligence, your physical due diligence, your financial due diligence. You gotta apply for a loan.
Kenneth Gee [00:15:50]:
You gotta make sure you raise the capital, and you gotta begin the process of closing that deal. Again, this is twenty-seven years of experience that we just led you through the process. So it’s very hard for you to get blindsided by things that you don’t know because we tell you what you don’t know because, you know, we’ve been doing it for a long time. We’ve seen not everything, but we’ve seen a lot. And then finally, we help you get the deal closed. And we’re here to help you even manage that asset if that’s something that you want. So what you see here is it’s, it’s turnkey, but it’s very methodical and detail-oriented. Remember, I’m a commercial lender by background.
Kenneth Gee [00:16:28]:
I’m a CPA by background. And I believe that if I teach you the details when you know, this is a capital raising podcast. When you’re in front of an investor and they ask you a question, you can tell them the answer, and you can tell them why. As soon as you do that, the trust factor goes through the roof. And that’s the number one thing I think you need to do with potential investors is earn their trust. So you see, we’re teaching them all this detailed stuff so that when they’re in front of an investor and raising money or a lender or anybody, they’re so informed that it’s hard not to build this level of trust with that, with that person.
Jay Conner [00:17:07]:
That’s fantastic. So that’s the training that you do on the, you know, the underwriting of deals, etc., for individuals. That takes place over how many webinars?
Kenneth Gee [00:17:20]:
So we so we if you were to sign up for our whole program, it’s called our advanced multifamily acquisition program, and I’m with you for a year. So we get you get all the videos and all that, and you get all the prior recorded Q and calls. So what I do is Tuesdays and Thursdays from twelve to two, I’m with, I’m with you. And we’re there for group coaching. Right? Because think about this. Anybody can put a video course together, but now the real world is different. It is always changing. So if I’m there and I did the math, it’s two hundred and eight hours a year.
Kenneth Gee [00:17:54]:
If I’m there with you for fifty-two weeks, four hours a week, that’s a lot of time. Right? So now, when the real world hits you, I can help you integrate what you’re being taught, what you’ve learned, into the real world, and that what I think is what I think is important. So, you know, some people get deals quickly. Some we’ve had people get deals, locked down as quickly as thirty days. We have people that you know, it depends. That’s what I think about real estate. You can do this at your own pace. Some people will take months.
Kenneth Gee [00:18:23]:
Some people will take two years. It depends on their personal situation as to what they have time for and how fast they wanna do this.
Jay Conner [00:18:30]:
Well, that just sounds fascinating, Ken. How can people learn how to get information on that training and sign up for it?
Kenneth Gee [00:18:38]:
Yeah. So, again, the the website, kripartners.com. Or if you wanna get right to our team, you can call or text the number (216) 290-1710. Again, call or text (216) 290-1710. There you go. And, our people will will walk you through it. What you’re what you’re gonna experience is the conversation is gonna be about you. Right? We’re not gonna try to sell you some program.
Kenneth Gee [00:19:09]:
We gotta understand what you’re trying to accomplish, where you’re trying to go, because that’s the reality. Right? We’re here to make you successful, and we need to understand what you’re trying to accomplish. And then we just make sure that a program like what we’re doing makes sense for you.
Jay Conner [00:19:24]:
Well, that’s fascinating, Ken. I’m so glad you offer that, particularly the hands-on, you know, working directly with the individuals, you know, that you’re coaching. And today’s so you dated yourself. You admitted it.
Kenneth Gee [00:19:37]:
I did.
Jay Conner [00:19:38]:
You you said your first deal, you found an ad in the local newspaper, of someone that was selling an apartment complex. My guess is that’s probably not where most deals are learned about these days Right. In the in the local newspaper. From your experience, where are the best places to find these types of deals in today’s market?
Kenneth Gee [00:20:00]:
Yeah. We find our deals through brokers. So we do most of our deals. In our first ten years, our business grew up in Cleveland. And then about fifteen years ago, we said, man, if we can make money in Cleveland, what if we went to a market where people wanted to live? And that took us to Florida because it’s just an incredible place to be. And the broker community there is just extremely deep, extremely talented, and they work like there’s no tomorrow. So we get our deals from brokers. Right? We’ve got deep relationships with them.
Kenneth Gee [00:20:29]:
Now, those of you growing up in the single-family world, you’re not used to that. That’s a tough change for a lot of people in, you know, doing singles and flipping singles because they’re used to finding these off-market deals. Doesn’t mean you can’t do it in the multifamily world. It’s just a lot harder to do, especially in a market that, you know, everybody wants to be in, like Florida. So brokers are where we get most of our deals.
Jay Conner [00:20:54]:
So I don’t even guess as to the answer to this question, but you’ve got the answer, Ken. And here’s the question. On average, how many deals have you got to review before you can close on one?
Kenneth Gee [00:21:09]:
It depends. Right? We’re just, as we record this or do this live, I guess, we’re closing on a deal. The prior deal took us a year. It’s been a very, very, very slow market. I would say 300 deals at least. Right? That doesn’t mean I fully underwrote them, but I looked at them. And the deal flow has been slow. Now I will tell you, I’m very excited to tell you that deal flow has changed considerably over the last three to four weeks.
Kenneth Gee [00:21:35]:
And I’ve probably gotten more deals through my email in the last month than I probably did in the prior six months. So, it is not uncommon to kiss a lot of frogs before you find the prince. If you’re gonna get into this business, you just gotta be prepared for that, and that’s why you gotta know numbers. Once you know numbers, you know you can tell the difference between a frog and a prince. You just can’t. And it’s so obvious once you understand. Well, Ken
Jay Conner [00:22:03]:
The space, I would suppose. And what are you, what have you made the space hand out a red flag or warning regarding these things?
Kenneth Gee [00:22:20]:
Yeah. So, say that again. You just broke up a little bit. I apologize.
Jay Conner [00:22:24]:
No. That’s fine. So, what are some common mistakes that you’ve seen among new real estate investors getting into this space?
Kenneth Gee [00:22:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. Boy, I love that question because it’s the mistakes I try to get everybody to avoid. Number one, this is a business. It’s a business. It just happens to be apartments, so treat it that way, number one. Number two, you gotta get into the details. And it seems obvious.
Kenneth Gee [00:22:49]:
A lot of people don’t like details. I’m with you, man. I don’t I wish I didn’t have to work so hard. But here’s why it’s so important. When you talk to a lender about how much money they’re gonna lend you, when you talk to an investor about how much money he or she is gonna invest with you, they’ll sniff it out if you don’t understand the business, if you don’t understand the details. And that’s the number one mistake people make. They don’t think that the details matter because there are some people out there who tell people, you you you know, just fly up here. You can do that.
Kenneth Gee [00:23:16]:
You don’t need to know the level of detail, but I will tell you, I follow a lot of wealthy people, and I have yet to hear somebody wealthy say that they’re not wealthy because they paid attention to the details. That’s the number one thing that I want people to focus on The for so many reasons. Now let’s forget about the external reason. Let’s forget about raising money. Let’s forget about the lender. It impacts your ability to move forward because most people won’t move forward if they know they don’t know, because they don’t wanna lose money. They’re risk-averse people.
Kenneth Gee [00:23:52]:
Right? If you know you don’t know something, most people, some will, but most people will not charge headlong into that cave with no light in it. They just won’t do it until they know. They understand. They believe, yes. I understand this business enough now. I feel comfortable moving forward. So there are so many reasons why those details matter. And if you can just resist ignoring the details, I I you’re gonna be wildly successful.
Jay Conner [00:24:20]:
I love it. That is fantastic advice, Ken. And I’ll add and look. I don’t have the expertise you do, but I’ll share another mistake that new people getting into this space make. And you probably didn’t say it because you didn’t wanna be self-serving., But one big common mistake is they’ll get out there and try to do this thing on their own, and they don’t even have any coaching. They don’t have any education. They haven’t been trained.
Jay Conner [00:24:48]:
They haven’t been taught how to underwrite a deal. And so now they’re out there in the wild wild west, I’m sorry to say, with an arrogant attitude saying, you know what? I’ve been successful over here. I’ve been successful over here. I can figure this thing out on my own. Would you agree?
Kenneth Gee [00:25:07]:
Yeah. Unfortunately, people do do that. You’re you’re right. And it’s, you know, it’s funny. You know, twenty-five years, twenty-seven years, I’ve been doing this a long time. Knowing that what I have available now to people and what you know, this podcast, just this podcast alone, never existed twenty-seven years ago. I learned every single thing I did the hard way, very hard, probably cost me a lot of money, a massive amount of time. And the reality of it is now, I improve myself every single day.
Kenneth Gee [00:25:39]:
I get better at what I do every single day in all aspects of what we do. This is here for you to take. Let somebody lead you through the process. Right? I think people get worried about the investment. I mean, you know, guys like me, we can’t do this for free. I just can’t, for a thousand different reasons. But take advantage of people who have been doing something for a long time, especially in an industry where you know so many people have been successful. Let them show you the ropes.
Kenneth Gee [00:26:07]:
You don’t need to have them on your back for decades. Just once you get that first deal, everything changes for you because you’ve gone through the whole process, and that coach, that mentor, that person, whoever you’re working with, probably sees things coming that you have no idea are there. And that’s the problem. Right? Most people, it’s not the things that they know about that get them. It’s the things they didn’t know that get them. So, you’re not wrong about that. You’re right. I don’t usually talk like that because it is self-serving, or so it seems.
Kenneth Gee [00:26:39]:
But I’m here to tell you, if I wanna learn how to do something, I go find the guy that does it well or the gal that does it well, and I’ll pay them to teach me because I’ve learned now that that’s how you get better. That’s you can’t invest enough money in yourself. That’s what I believe.
Jay Conner [00:26:55]:
Absolutely. And I have experienced that for myself as well. Ken, any final comments before we wrap it up?
Kenneth Gee [00:27:04]:
No. Just, hey. You know what? Here’s what I’ll tell you. A lot of people have done multifamily for a very, very, very long time and done extremely well. I like it because it’s it it’s a relatively safe asset. I can’t use the word safe without the word relatively. Right? It’s multifamily. I can’t figure out how to make that go away.
Kenneth Gee [00:27:25]:
Right? So if you can get into a business passively or actively, it doesn’t matter; that seems like it’s hard to make it go away, and you can figure out how to make money doing it. I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it. Right? I’m a CPA. I’m a lender. I’ve got all kinds of things I could do, but this is what I do. And it’s for a good reason because it’s the least.
Jay Conner [00:27:47]:
By the way, Ken, I hadn’t asked you, Ken, but do you have any open funds at this time where passive investors can get involved?
Kenneth Gee [00:27:55]:
We do. We do. Yep. Our fund four, we’re just wrapping up right now. So you’ve got about ten days left to invest in it. We do the blind pool fund method now. So we used to syndicate. Right? We used to go find the deal, then go raise the money.
Kenneth Gee [00:28:10]:
That’s stressful because you gotta raise a lot of money in a short amount of time. Many years ago, we flipped that model over. So we go raise the money front and now find the deal. So we’re just wrapping up fund four. We found a deal for Fund Four, and we’re just wrapping up close, closing up that fund. So, that deal is that the fund already has a deal locked down. We have some extra money in that fund. We’ll go for the next deal, and we just keep rolling it forward like that.
Kenneth Gee [00:28:33]:
So, yeah, if you’re interested, reach out to KRIPartners.com or the same phone number, (216) 290-1710, and our team will get you hooked up. You don’t have a lot of time there, but don’t worry. If you don’t make it in time for Fund Four, we’ll have another fund. I don’t want anybody doing this under pressure, so don’t sweat it. We have another place for you if, you know, I want you to do your due diligence and get to know us before you give us your money.
Jay Conner [00:28:57]:
Sure. Well, that keeps it simple, at www. Kr kripartners.com. You’ve got your education there for learning how to do this, and there’s also investment opportunities for, private investors as well. So that’s great. You’ve got it covered on both ends. Ken, thank you so much for blessing me and my audience. God bless you.
Kenneth Gee [00:29:21]:
Well, thanks for having me.
Jay Conner [00:29:23]:
So good to have you. And there you have it, another amazing episode of Raising Private Money, and I need your help. For me to keep having more just amazing guests come join me here on the show, you are one step away. You’re one conversation away from making a huge impact on somebody in your life. And that is, I wanna ask you right now to share this episode with just one other person. Share this episode with just one other person whom you believe this show will have a meaningful impact on them and will keep having great guests like Ken come back and join us. I’m Jay Conner, the Private Money Authority, wishing you all the best. I’m looking forward to seeing you right here on the next episode of Raising Private Money.
Narrator [00:30:15]:
Are you feeling inspired by the knowledge you gained in this episode? Then head over to www.JayConner.com/Moneyguide. That’s www.JayConner.com/Moneyguide, and download your free guide that shares seven reasons why private money will skyrocket your real estate investing business right now. Again, that’s www.JayConner.com/Moneyguide to get your free guide. We’ll see you next time on raising private money with Jay Conner.
