Today’s guest is Vlad Arakcheyev, a licensed real estate agent, syndicator, and multi-family investor. He, the owner of Zontik Ventures, a privately held commercial property investment and asset management company, was launched to help create long-term wealth in multifamily and commercial real estate for its investors.
Vlad is an active investor, co-sponsor, and JV partner in a multimillion-dollar portfolio of 500+ multifamily units and land development. He has extensive experience in sales and marketing for residential and commercial real estate, leading direct marketing efforts and acquisition and disposition efforts relating to investing in distressed, off-market properties.
Vlad joins us today to share his insight into investing in syndications and raising private money! Don’t miss this episode!
Key Takeaways:
- Raise private money as early as possible because there is no quick way to raise private money.
- Private money lending requires trust—investors don’t invest in deals, they invest in you and your skills.
- The worst time to raise private money is when you need it for a deal because people feel your desperation. Be confident.
- Raising private money for syndications
- People buy into stories: teach people about private money by simply starting a conversation.
- Take advantage of social media and short-form videos.
- Zontik Ventures and their work
- Investing in syndications
- On leveraging 45 to 50% and not over-leveraging
- Learn sales and negotiations
Connect with Vlad:
Website: https://www.ZontikVentures.com
Check out my book: 7 Reasons Why Private Money Will Skyrocket Your Real Estate Business and Help You Build Incredible Wealth!
Get it here for FREE: www.jayconner.com/moneyguide
Sign up for the Private Money Academy and get 4-weeks free: https://jay-conner.mykajabi.com/offers/AMM4hCPW/checkout
Sign up for the Private Money Academy Conference: https://www.JaysLiveEvent.com
Timestamps:
0:01 – Raising Private Money with Jay Conner
1:09 – Today’s Guest: Vlad Arakcheyev
3:10 – Raising Private Money: No Quick Way About It
5:43 – The Worst Time To Raise Private Money Is When You Need It
9:40 – Raising Private Money For Syndications
12:32 – Social Media: Tell People Your Real But “Short” Stories
15:09 – Jay’s Free Money Guide: https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide
15:52 – Zontik Ventures – https://www.ZontikVentures.com
21:49 – Return On Investments
22:58 – Investing In Syndications
25:35 – Biggest Lessons Learned
27:39 – Connect With Vlad Arakcheyev – https://www.ZontikVentures.com
500 Homes-$2 Million in Private Money With Vlad Arakcheyev & Jay Conner
[00:00:00] Jay Conner:
Welcome to another amazing episode of Raising Private Money. I’m Jay Conner, your host, and today my guest, just last year raised 2 million in private money. My guest today, he’s an active investor, he’s a JV partner in Listen, over 500 multi-family units and land development are bouncing to a multi-million dollar portfolio.
Now he’s got some very sharp skills. He is still in acquisition negotiations and multiple creative financing strategies. Now, specifically, he’s in charge of the operations of a company called ZEC Ventures. Now ZEC Ventures is a privately held commercial property investment and asset management company, and it was launched to help create long-term wealth in multifamily and commercial real estate for its investors.
In just a moment, you’re going to meet my special guest, Vlad, in just a moment right after this.
[00:01:12] Narrator:
If you are a real estate investor and are wondering how to raise and leverage private money to make more profit on every deal then you are in the right place on raising private money, we’ll speak with new end 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.
[00:01:44] Jay Conner:
Now Vlad, I almost butchered your last name. I wanna make sure I’m getting this right now, Vlad Arakcheyev!
[00:01:53] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Exactly. Thanks,
[00:01:56] Jay Conner:
Vlad. Welcome to the show
[00:01:58] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Awesome to be here. Thanks, Jay.
[00:02:01] Jay Conner:
I’m so excited to have you, Vlad. Now Vlad, we actually have two segments of our audience. Part of our audience is real estate investors. Some of those are brand new, and some of them are seasoned. Some are doing one to five deals a year. And they want to raise private money and get private money for real estate deals. The other part of our audience is interested in being passive investors, right? And might want to invest with you and just sit back, prop up their feet, and, collect nice returns.
So first, Brad, let’s start with our audience that’s looking to raise private money for their real estate deals. So first of all, tell us how did you get into raising private money?
[00:02:45] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Yeah, listen, if you’re looking to price-raise private money today, you should have started two years ago. It’s all about relationships.
And the way it works is there is no quick way about it. When I started, I was asking my friends and my family, and not a single person invested with me because frankly, they didn’t know me as a real estate investor, as a multi-family investor. So it takes a long time to nurture and really Speak with people and connect with them.
Ultimately, they’re not investing in your deal. They’re investing in you. They have to trust you as a professional, as an operator, and as a person that knows what to do with their money. Because like I said, I went to my friend that I know him for 30 years and I know he has money. And I asked him for $50,000 for a great deal with great returns, by the way.
And he said, no. He made up some weird excuse and I, now I understand why, because he’s I don’t know you as the real estate investor. I know you as a friend, as I was a graphic designer 10 for the past 10 years. And he is like, why would I invest with you? Really the thing that you’re looking for is to create trust and of course credibility.
One of the big things that you should present yourself as is a credible investor. You should know where you investing, and also you have to be able to answer all the questions that the investors have. So one of the things that if you’re looking to raise now, Yeah, be ready. And also, don’t throw out all this terminology out there, because typically when you’re speaking with investors, they don’t care about IRS and NOIs and things like that.
Most of ’em don’t even know what they are, what they mean. Because who’s my typical investor is an attorney IT person a lawyer, right? So they don’t know this terminology, so you have to be able to explain it to them in simple language. So if you can explain it to a five-year-old, that’s how you should explain it to your investors.
[00:04:58] Jay Conner:
Your story that you just shared on starting out on raising private money reminds me, and I’ve learned it so many times I know it, and the worst time to be trying to raise private money is when you need it for a deal.
[00:05:17] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Because people feel it, right?
They feel it. They feel that desperation. It’s like when you’re desperate and you’re trying to get a girl or a guy and they feel it, but even yeah, I’m all right. Then they’re like, oh, wow. I should really be talking to ’em. So it’s the same thing. Don’t be desperate and at the same time, be confident in your skills and your deal
[00:05:39] Jay Conner:
Absolutely. And there’s always gonna be deals. Always gonna be deals. And I teach and I practice, the money comes first. Focus on raising the money. I’ve got eight and a half million dollars Vlad, and I’ve never asked anybody for money. And people ask me all the time, they say, Jay, how in the world have you got all that private money?
And you never ask anybody for money? And it’s really simple. I put on my teacher hat and I teach people what is private money, and how they can get rates of return safely and securely. So I teach them what self-directed IRAs are. My wife, Carol Joy, and I. Right now we’ve got 47 private lenders that are funding our real estate deals.
And you know what, Vlad, not one of them had ever heard of private money. They had never heard of self-directed IRAs and how they can use not only their investment capital, but they can also use their retirement funds. They can transfer over to a self-directed IRA company and then loan that money out to us.
And you said a ne another very important word. And that’s the word trust, right? Yeah. So they’re investing in you, they’re really not investing in the deal. They’re investing in you and your knowledge. And so again, I put on my teacher hat. I teach ’em my Private Money Lender program. And so now it’s not about chasing, it’s not about begging, it’s not about selling.
Vlad, the old traditional way of borrowing money, you went to the bank or the mortgage company, you got on your hands and knees, you put your hands underneath your chin, and you said, please fund my deal. Please fund my deal. But not in this world. In this world of private money, it’s all about not asking for a mortgage, but it’s all about offering a mortgage.
[00:07:34] Jay Conner:
I started raising private money for my deals back in 2009. And if I talk about private money and this particular deal that I’ve got that’s under contract without even trying, I’m sounding desperate. I’m, and I’m not even trying to sound desperate, but I am.
So we separate the conversations of teaching private money while it’s all about, and then when we have a deal to fund. I’ve never even put pitched a deal now. Not like you, you’re into the TED Family, you’re into like 500 units of Mod family. I focus on single-family houses. And so when I’ve got a single-family house to fund, I simply call ’em up, tell ’em I got good news.
I can now put your money to work. I’ve got a house in Newport with an after-repaired value of 200,000. The funding is 150,000. I know they got it cause they already told me, and I let ’em know we’re gonna close next week and they need to wire their funds by next week. So nowhere in that conversation am I asking?
I’m actually serving them because I taught ’em about it and now I’m able to put their money to work. So when you started raising private money, so do you raise private money? I would assume you raised private money for syndication or for a fund, right?
[00:08:50] Vlad Arakcheyev:
It’s syndication.
[00:08:52] Jay Conner:
So when you’re raising money from your investors for the syndication How do you like to start?
And I get this question all the time and this is the same whether you’re raising money for syndication or you’re raising money for a one-off what we call on a single-family house. How do you like to start a conversation? With a potential private lender that you haven’t talked with it about before.
[00:09:16] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Sure, yeah. It’s, it should be very natural in, instead of just going into a pitch and be like the 1980s, car salesman like, oh, look at this engine. No, you’re just going natural and saying, Hey, listen, this is what I do, and just have a conversation, not a single time throughout the first conversation.
I pitch a deal or say, Hey listen, you should invest with me, or something like that. If they ask, what do you do? I’m like, yeah, I buy large multifamily and we buy it using a syndication model. I don’t even use the word syndication, I use the word group because it’s easier to picture and imagine syndication.
That might be one of the lingo that a lot of people don’t know. So when, and they’re like oh, how does that work? So in many cases, I just teach people how it works because in many cases when I say, Hey, listen, we purchased 50 million apartment complexes. They’re like, whoa. How’s that possible?
How can you do this? So it creates interest, but then at the same time, I back away and I say, Hey listen, a lot of my investors reinvest with me because they see the potential and they see the safety here when it comes to large multifamily. So some spots open up, but a lot of my previous investors reinvest and that’s it.
And I ended with that. And I may be able to ask, Hey, listen, if you wanna receive my newsletter, Receive it. It’s not a pitch fest. And you think just a few things that are happening in real estate that I think is really cool. And that’s it. That’s how we leave it off. And most likely in a week or so, I schedule another call to say, do not promote myself, but the story, what am I all about and how do I start?
And things of that nature, so that, that’s exactly how I go about it without actually pitching, but just telling a story of potential profits or maybe tax savings or maybe lean on something that, that might, that, that they might be looking for. So that’s how we start about it.
[00:11:28] Jay Conner:
Vlad, you said a couple of things here that are just really important.
First of all, you said the word story. People buy into stories, right? They can relate to their story. And speaking of that, do you ever, I know some people don’t. Do you ever post on social media? Quote unquote. Stories are like, Hey, here’s a complex that we recently, invested in, and here’s the story, and here’s, how it’s progressing and all that.
Do you ever like story case stories on social media?
[00:11:59] Vlad Arakcheyev:
You know what, all the time, social media, a lot of people don’t utilize it. We do. Social media is free advertising and you should take advantage of social media. In addition, posting pictures is one thing. But posting videos is huge, but because people like to see videos, especially shorts, we are all busy, right?
We don’t have time to watch, 30-minute videos sometimes. But short, 62nd stories of something really cool that happened, like for, I’ll give you an example. Recently we were doing an upgrade. To the outside of our apartment complex in Kansas City. So we did the before and after that video got so many hits.
It’s unbelievable because you know what, it’s not only interesting to an investor just because it’s really nice to see the vision. Of what it was before and the potential of what it is now.
[00:12:54] Jay Conner:
I love it. I love it. And I love the before and afters. How often do you post on social media for, people to see what’s going on?
[00:13:02] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Sure, yeah. I try to post at least three times a week. I do Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and now YouTube. And TikTok. So it all depends on the type of media you post, but I try to go three times a week, even sometimes more, because not only I don’t post just real estate stuff as I go for an appointment or something to see on my motorcycle.
And I’m like, oh my God, look at this. I just took a beautiful ride on the motorcycle. So it goes, hand in hand together, not just leaning on real estate and me just being like a robot, but just being a person. Hey, listen, I took a nice bike ride. Look at this beautiful view here. And here I am at the real estate appointment.
So this type of stuff, I try to keep it fun and engaging for people.
[00:13:52] Jay Conner:
Absolutely. I love it. Vlad, let’s go ahead and get everybody our audience, those people that wanna raise private money. I’ve got a free gift right here. For our audience that wants to raise private money and get it fast for your real estate deals, you can download this private money guide for free at www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide.
That’s www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide. Download this for free and this will get you on the fast track to getting private money for your real estate deals. Now Vlad, let’s change gears here, and let’s talk about Zontik Ventures.
What in the world is Zontik Ventures just, Zontik sounds like some Russian wrestler that’s like going to tear you apart in the ring.
[00:14:54] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Zontik just means umbrella in Russian. But how we came up with it is because whatever you want. It’s almost like a karma type of thing.
It’s a play-on type of thing. So if you put good energy out there, good energy will come back to you. So Zontik kinda is good energy when you just kinda, if you want a good day without any rain and you really want it, you will get it right. So it’s the same thing. Like it’s gonna cover you and it’s gonna cover your investments or your real estate or it can be anything.
Absolutely. So it’s really good energy. So a play on the words.
[00:15:38] Jay Conner:
Gotcha. Your company is Zontik Ventures, www.ZontikVentures.com. Zontik Ventures is where someone can come and invest with your company and be a passive investor or a passive. Private lender, right?
[00:16:02] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Absolutely. Yeah. Even though we d we don’t publicly advertise the deals on our side. We just literally want to have a conversation with you. We’re not here to sell anything. In many cases. I just try to educate and teach people about it. Other investment opportunities because most people, what do they know, solve their 401ks, right?
Savings accounts, stocks, that’s it. They don’t know anything else or are not being told. So when they tell people that you can invest, Their 401K and move it into a self-directed ira, invest in a syndication, or do a 10 31 into a syndication, it opens their minds. They didn’t even know it was possible. So I literally just want to have a conversation and show the opportunities that multi-family investing has.
Absolutely. It’s just I’m there to have a conversation and maybe you’re looking to subscribe to my newsletter. So my newsletter’s pretty cool too. I keep it very light, incredibly light, and super fun. Whatever I come across, I post it. I’m there and people seem to enjoy reading it yeah.
[00:17:13] Jay Conner:
Where can people go to subscribe to your newsletter?
[00:17:18] Vlad Arakcheyev: Yeah, it’s on the bottom of my site, www.ZontikVentures.com. And all the way on the bottom it just says subscribe and you just click there, put your email and name and that’s it. I’m not gonna spam you, I’m not gonna overload you with information and things like that. Just, once a month it’s something fun.
In addition, a really cool book or a podcast that I listened to or read, I just put there on the bottom in the media section. I think people like it. Like I’m ready to read something really interesting, something about underwriting, and I’m like people might like that. So I just put it out there and people might just check it out.
It’s not about me. Just something really interesting that I read or saw.
[00:17:58] Jay Conner:
So what kind of feedback, first of all, how long have you had the Zontik Ventures opportunity for your investors?
[00:18:09] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Yeah, sure. It’s not too long because we’ve been doing it without the company. We thought that we can raise money, just me, by myself, but multifamily is a team sport.
I can’t do it by myself. There’s a team behind working with us, approximately 12 people in Texas. We invest in Houston and Dallas. We also invest in Kansas. And the last two investments we’ve done in the Carolina market. In Boone and Columbia. Those are really nice markets. They have a lot of growth opportunities and in my opinion, one of the safest down there where the Sunbelt area may be Midwest, you have huge growth and it’s landlord friendly.
That’s why we like those opportunities. So we’ve been doing it kinda. All by ourselves. Without realizing that the power is in the team. So we combine our forces, and now we’ve been doing it for nearly two years, I believe. Yeah. And we have a team in Texas. There’s another team in the Kansas market.
We’ve been taking down deals in, even in this environment, people are, I would say, holding back or thinking there’s a lot of, You don’t know what’s gonna happen, the rates and everything, but ultimately if it’s cash flow, I don’t care about anything else cuz its cash flow, it’s producing money back to my investors.
My investors are happy. We are doing monthly distributions, starting day one and everybody’s winning.
[00:19:39] Jay Conner:
I love it. Yeah. Speaking of Boone, North Carolina, I love Boone, North Carolina. My wife and I live down on Boost on the beach, on the beaches of North Carolina, but my dad is up in a small community right outside of Boone and oh, it’s just absolutely gorgeous up there.
Love the area. Love the area.
[00:20:01] Vlad Arakcheyev:
It is, yeah. It’s beautiful. We can’t complain at all.
[00:20:05] Jay Conner:
I can see why you are investing up there. What type of returns are, is your goal for your investors? To get typical returns.
[00:20:15] Vlad Arakcheyev:
I’m just gonna speak about the deal that we closed 30 days ago. It’s in the South Dallas.
We were targeting a 19% return. Of a five-year. It’s a five-year hold, and it’s, as I said, it’s paying out cash on cash immediately of 7%. So just hypothetically on a hundred thousand dollars investment, you’re looking at like $8,000 a year. And then of course there’s a there’s a huge return when we sell the property.
In addition, we do cost segregation, so we depreciate the property and you get the K one forms at the end of the year. And all, most of it, most of that gain is written off by that depreciation, but speak with U C P A, but that’s, that. That’s it. Yeah. So we do cost segregation on all our properties.
We depreciate them and, it’s a win-win for everyone for sure.
[00:21:14] Jay Conner:
Since you have been working with private lenders and investors over the years, What are some of the feedback that you’ve received from your private lenders that tells you why they love doing business with you?
[00:21:31] Vlad Arakcheyev:
One of the big things some people cannot invest in stocks, for example, right?
So they have a very sensitive type of work and they just can’t invest in stock. So their money is stuck in like savings account. And savings are not paying anything. So people like, oh my God, this is awesome. I didn’t know it was possible. Look at this. And I can produce these types of returns.
In addition, a lot of people that invest in 401k, can’t touch that money until they turn 60. So when you invest in syndication in five years, they’re looking to double that money. So they’re like, oh my God, why can’t, why didn’t anybody tell me this? I’m like here you go. But so the funniest things I’ve been telling, I’ve been when I’m speaking with people, they go, Is that for real?
How? How is this possible? And I try to explain, listen, syndication every single day, and they’re like, no, I don’t. I’m like, look, when you go to the movies, right in the beginning, you see this beginning, it says Sony, MGM, paramount. I’m like, those are the companies that got together, pulled their money together.
To make this movie. It’s movie syndication. This is exactly what it is. So we do the same thing, but what apartments? So there’s no difference. We pool our money, P active investors, passive investors money, pool it together, and we buy an apartment complex and then we bring it, bring up the value, and sell it for profit.
There you go. Exactly. As movie syndication.
[00:23:09] Jay Conner:
That’s a great analogy I’ve never heard real estate or commercial syndication compared. To the making of a movie. But it actually is a great example. It’s a great analogy.
[00:23:20] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Because people see it. They just it, they might be afraid of word syndication and it’s not, I, if you think about it, that’s investing a group of people investing their money together, pulling their money together to buy something.
And the asset is there. You can technically go there, you can touch it, and they’ll be like, yep, I own this. That’s it’s perfect.
[00:23:42] Jay Conner:
Let’s go back for a minute and let’s speak to our audience that are real estate investors, or they want to be real estate investors getting their first deal, or they’re wanting to get that first private money lender.
If you knew too, if you knew back when you started, what you now know today. What would you do differently? What biggest lessons were learned?
[00:24:05] Vlad Arakcheyev:
You know what? I would start sooner and faster. Would not, do not be afraid to go big. That’s number one. Because the only thing that’s limiting you is your mind. If you don’t know how to do something, find somebody that does.
That’s all I, let’s say you don’t have the money. Find somebody with the money and just. Join forces together. It’s all about the team here. And also, one thing that I would always say, learn sales and negotiations. Nobody teaches you this. Nobody is teaching you how to ask a proper question and really get to the bottom of why a person is selling or what are they really looking for.
And I’ll give you an example. So I was, When we were buying a property in Kansas City, I, the seller did not wanna speak with me. But I didn’t know. I thought it was like, why not? He didn’t believe me at first, right? I’m calling here from New Jersey, buying a property in Kansas City, and he didn’t believe me, but we figured out what it was.
He didn’t wanna sell to anyone except for local people. He wanted to stay, he wanted because he’s 70 years old and he’s I care about the community. I want this property to go to somebody that’s local. And my partner, Joe, he’s local, he lives in Kansas City for 20 years. So it’s a win-win. So it’s a correct question.
You have to ask to get to the bottom of why are they really looking to sell or what are they trying to get out of. So yeah, negotiation sales, check it out.
[00:25:41] Jay Conner:
Great advice Vlad. And so one more time. Vlad’s website is www.ZontikVentures.com. And be sure and get on over there and check out his newsletter.
And learn how you can get high rates of return safely and securely in the world of syndication. Vlad, thank you so much for taking the time to join me here in Raising Private Money.
[00:26:09] Vlad Arakcheyev:
Of course. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And please reach out. I’m here to pass on what I’ve learned and if you’re looking for a connection, I’ll connect you with somebody who I know, or at least that can help you if I cannot.
[00:26:27] Jay Conner:
Thank you so much, Vlad. There you have it, my friend. Another amazing episode of Raising Private Money, and in order for us to continue to keep having amazing guests like Vlad, we need your help. Be sure and subscribe and if you’re listening on iTunes, be sure and follow. If you’re watching on YouTube, be sure and click that bell for notifications so you don’t miss out on any of the upcoming amazing episodes of Raising Private Money.
I’m Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority, the host of your show. Wishing you all the best, and I’m looking forward to seeing you right here on the next episode of Raising Private Money.
[00:27:11] Narrator:
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.
