Chase Calhoun is a real estate investor, developer, and licensed general contractor who owns and operates a portfolio of over 75 residential units and leads development efforts focused on build-to-rent communities, infill new construction, and heavy value-add projects. Chase’s companies handle development, construction, acquisitions, leasing, and property management in-house. 

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Charles:
Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast; I’m your host, Charles Carillo. Today, we have Chase Calhoun. He is a real estate investor, developer, and licensed general contractor who owns and operates a portfolio of over 75 residential units and leads development efforts focused on build-to-rent communities, infill new construction, and heavy value-add projects. Chase’S companies handle development, construction, acquisitions, leasing, and property management in-house. Chase, thank you so much for being on the show!

Chase:
Thanks for having me. So

Charles:
You have an interesting story coming out from, I believe it was the West Coast coming into central Arkansas. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, both personally and professionally prior to getting involved in real estate and launching your own firm?

Chase:
Yeah, absolutely. So I am married to my beautiful wife, Brenda. I’ve got two kids, a 13-year-old and a two and a half going on, 3-year-old with a another one on the way. So it kind of exciting times for us personally. As you mentioned, I’m, I’m originally from the west coast, so California specifically. I always ask people not to hold it against me. But that’s where I was. I was born and raised. We moved to Arkansas, central Arkansas eight years ago. It’s kind of an interesting story. I always, I always joke around, tell people we got lost and this is where we ended up. But it, it’s kind of a long story, but I had wanted to get into real estate investing in California. Kind of missed the opportunity when I should have been buying everything I could back in oh 8, 0 9 and 10. And then when I was ready to go was able to find a contract type position. I was working commercial insurance shop at the time in Little Rock that would pay me the same as they did in California. And so we kind of knew nothing about Arkansas and the fact you could buy cheap houses and the rent seemed decent. And so we made the the leap and got started in investing.

Charles:
Nice. Very nice. Was there any kinda reason that you chose, how did you just kind of get onto real estate as an investment kind of vehicle?

Chase:
Yeah, so I, you know, it’s funny, it’s like most real estate investors story. I read Rich Dad, port Dad when I was like 15 or 16 and which is a business book and not necessarily a real estate book, but everybody reads that I want to start getting invested in real estate. And so I read that book, I got really interested in it and I spent a ton of time just researching you know, looking at properties, trying to figure out how to get started. I know like huge resources like BiggerPockets that helped me along the way. I didn’t find those <laugh> at the time. And so it was like just kind of trying to learn what I could when I could. But it wasn’t until, like I said, about eight years. I think it was 2017 when I made that jump, decided I was gonna do it for sure.

Chase:
And then Little Rock is where we chose, I wish there was some, like, you know, I did a bunch of research. I made the super calculated decision and, and this is why we chose Little Rock. It, it’s worked very well for us. We’ve been very blessed that we ended up here. But it was more of like, Hey, where can you send me that you’ll pay me the same amount of money where I can buy houses for cheap? And it was, they, they rattled off probably a couple dozen, you know, places where they had a need for work and Little Rock was one of ’em. And so it’s just, we, we did kind of end up here and it’s worked out very well for us. Yeah,

Charles:
You’re going from probably the most least landlord friendly state to probably the most landlord friendly state. So

Chase:
For a real

Charles:
Investor it was a very smart move.

Chase:
Yeah, yeah, it was great.

Charles:
So tell us a little bit about kind of, you have a number of different businesses. You guys are doing infill development, you are doing heavy value add deals, you’re doing some single family, I believe flip still, you’re doing multifamily stuff. Tell us a little bit about your different businesses and what your current investment strategy is.

Chase:
Yeah, absolutely. So it’s more along the way. Like I said, when I first started, when I first got started, it was just me, just real estate investing in, over the last several years, especially the last couple years, it’s it, we’ve started separating everything just to make it a little bit more clean. And so we have Chase Calhoun Real Estate which is a real estate sales, but mainly a, a third party and internal property management companies that handles all of our, our property management for our portfolio, plus a handful for you know, third party customers. And then we have Apex Professional Construction, which is a standalone, you know, fully licensed commercial and residential general contractor. So we’re licensed home builders, but we also hold an unlimited commercial license. We do do a little bit of investment type commercial projects. And then we have Apex real estate investments, which are internal rental portfolio.

Chase:
Our rental portfolio, I, I, I mean I think it’s morphed over time as we’ve pivoted a lot of that to market depending dependent, a lot of it’s been interest rate dependent. And so early on we started with a lot of heavy, heavy rehab value add projects, both single family and, and small multifamily up to like, I think 12 unit type complexes. We could never get, at least a couple years ago we couldn’t get the big ones to pencil and, and kind of rightfully so I’m glad we had held off on those. But literally anything from like, you know, we’re gonna have the tens move out and do full renovations on an old like 1980s small apartment complex through like these small multi-family buildings or single family houses got basically destroyed by a tornado and we’re gonna go and rebuild them kind of from the ground up.

Chase:
That’s what we did for a long time. And I would say over the last year or two I’ve been pivoting pretty heavy into ground up new construction, build the rent just I see a lot of opportunity in it in the future. We, we tested our first couple well four or five years ago just building straight up new construction rental properties and they’ve done very well. And so as we scale, I just see that it’s a much like cleaner path for us to scale than the heavy, the heavy rehabs. And there’s just from a tenant class and low maintenance and all those kind of things, it just seems to be a really good place especially going into this tougher environment. So

Charles:
With with kind of being hyper-focused for you on one market, I mean, how does that, how does that work and do you feel it really gives you a, a leg up being for you central Arkansas is that, would would you would say very beneficial for a real estate investor just being on one market and all in on that or these other, or maybe these, you have other investors that might go to two or three different markets. They’re balancing this, they’re balancing the property management on it, they’re balancing all these different things. For you, it seems like you’ve been very successful just working in one area. Yeah,

Chase:
I, I really enjoy being hyper-focused in one area. I think it, it allows us to get, not just to be experts in this market, but to be kind of, you know, one of the bigger like investors in the market. We’re, we’re known and people are coming to us with deals and, and also like we’ve seen a, I would say this last year has probably been the hardest. I’ve seen it when it comes to like leasing in the, just the operations side of management. And I think we’ve been able to really excel because we’re here and because we’re hyper-focused on this market where I’ve seen a lot of people struggle. And I’ve had this conversation several times with multiple investors over to the last year where they’ve got properties in multiple markets and it’s just really hard for them to have their, their leasing and operations dialed in if they’re not super familiar with what’s going on here on a regular basis.

Charles:
That makes perfect sense. When you said you were going into more Roundup development instead of heavy value ads you were saying before, I think you just mentioned it, it was a better tenant class, I mean a probably a more credit worthy tenant you’re getting. What type of properties are these? Are these apartments, are these build to rent like townhouses or regular houses? I mean, what are, what are these units and properties you’re, you’re focusing on?

Chase:
Yeah, we’re building a mix right now. So we’re building, and I say that we’re building mainly single family and small multi-families right now. So single family homes and duplexes. I like to call ’em town homes ’cause a lot of times they’re a little bit nicer than just a traditional duplex. And then we’re doing some higher end town home type duplexes depending on the area we really build. When we’re looking at areas we will, we will build, you know, not in in horrible areas, but as long as they’re like a, you know, a c plus or B type area, we’ll build in them. It’s just we’re gonna build a product type that fits well with that area so we don’t wanna build something too nice and price ourselves outta the market. So it’s really like, what, what rents will this, this area bear? And then we will build something that’s kind of tailored for that market specific.

Chase:
But we’ve had a lot of good luck with smaller single family homes and then the duplex town home style re more recently. I love at some point to build some, some larger or mid-size multi-family stuff, but there’s a lot of guys here locally who are doing like the larger class A stuff very, very well. And I, I have zero interest in trying to come in and compete with them because it’s just not gonna, it’s not gonna work well for us. But the single family and small multifamily has been a great market for us. I do think that, I think our nation’s gonna continue to become more of a renter class and I think especially young people are still gonna wanna step up from an apartment to a house or like a townhouse that feels like a house at some point. And so that’s why I see the, the value in these right now because it’s at some point they’re gonna outgrow that like class a resort style, you know, apartment living and they’re gonna want a house, but they may not be ready to buy right now. And so it’s, we really wanna build, build a housing product that’s gonna work as a next step for ’em.

Charles:
Interesting. Yeah, I would imagine the other benefit too with with these nicer properties is that you’re having a high retention rate. I mean, I would imagine multiple years instead of maybe, you know, some landlords in multi-family are just happy when that second lease gets signed, 12 month lease gets signed and they get someone there for 24 months. But here, I would imagine it’s going 2, 3, 4 years that you’re getting it. So it cuts down dramatically on make ready costs and other costs. People are making it a home, not just a place they’re living in currently.

Chase:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Charles:
So let’s talk about like the vertical integration because this is obviously much easier when you’re in one market. Can you tell, walk us through, because when speaking with other, we have syndicators of all different sizes, investors of all different sizes that some, some have in-house property management, some have thousands of units and still use third party management. Walk us through kind of when you made the decision or into becoming vertically integrated and kinda really bring in your management construction in-house.

Chase:
Yeah, it, so it’s kind of twofold reasoning for me when, when I first started, a big reason that I started self performing on the construction projects and the management is because even though there’s a lot of opportunity in central Arkansas, the availability of like high quality vendors that I’d be able to hire to do those things for me was very limited. And so it, there just wasn’t a lot of good options at the time, especially at a smaller scale. And then the, the other side of that is, is when I started getting, especially on the build to rent side, when I started getting more interested in that, I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity to attend some like, you know, some events that have much larger operators at ’em and almost all of the larger platform operators that are in this space are completely vertically integrated.

Chase:
Some of ’em will still parse out their construction but usually it’s very controlled when they’re doing it. And so it, at the end of the day, like we look at ’em and treat ’em as separate entities and separate p and ls, but it’s like, in order for our construction company to be successful right now, like we have to be able to help some of our, even our customers when we’re doing ’em for customers and especially our internal units, they have to lease well and, and be managed tight. And so it’s like if we don’t have control over both pieces of those, it’s just a little bit harder I think for us to be successful in this market. I think there’s some markets where you absolutely can go out and there’s, there’s rockstar property management companies and, and you don’t necessarily have to bring it all in house, but I think for us, in order for them to both be successful, they both have to be running it kind of like a very high level. And so that’s a big part of why I decided to vertically integrate or bring kind of all the pieces in house. Yeah,

Charles:
That makes perfect sense. And what I’ve found over the years is it’s not a hundred percent and or kind of thing. When I started investing it was something where we started off with like triplexes and it was kind of scattered. It was all scattered, you know what I mean? And so when I self-manage ’em and then when I brought in a third party manager for them but the thing though that I found was that I would speak to other landlords in the area, and you can still do it today if you go to any local real estate meetups and it’ll be something that was you have some people that like, well, we’ll keep our management and we will keep we’ll do some of the management house and then what we’ll do is we’ll have this contractor out here do some of our construction or we have a third party manager, however they’re using our, this handyman over here that’s ours that’s on salary and this one over here.

Charles:
So there’s all so many different ways then I think investors can kind of set it up where it works best for them, where they’re outsourcing things that are kind of a hassle that maybe don’t really yield a lot of money or savings versus where it’s like the construction or if you were you know, if you were had an HVAC company that you had a really good relationship with and they gave you a great discount utilizing these vendors you had on that property, having the property manager call them, it’s another way of really saving money. So it’s, I think it’s like for smaller investors, they don’t have to make the switch right away. It’s really just kind of parse out stuff as they start growing. But what, what do you think about that when, I mean, is it worth bringing, like when, when do you think it is for a small landlord to start bringing on and start kind of bringing some of those tasks in house and maybe away from some of those other vendors?

Chase:
Yeah, I think, I think with the management it, it’s a little bit, you know, it’s valuable for like new investors. Maybe it’s their first couple investment properties to, to manage them themselves just so they can learn. ’cause It’s, it’s a tough business and so I think you learn real quickly whether or not you want to do it or not. I think for any investors, especially smaller investors, if this is not, if it’s their goal is not to go like full-time real estate investor or build a full-time real estate investment company, it does not make sense for me for them to try to build out and self-manage over like just a unit or two. I think if you’ve got somebody that’s like a successful business owner in a different type of business or a high W2 income earner, like they’re, they’re far better served really focusing on what they do best and, and making money and continuing to find deals and invest than trying to deal with the day-to-day like tenants and toilets and stuff.

Chase:
‘Cause It can be very frustrating. I think if you decide to go full bore with it and you start to get some volume, once you get past that like, you know, 20 or so units, you gotta really start look at it bringing on some help to help you manage it. And so I think that’s the biggest thing for me is whether or not this is something you wanna do fulltime and build a full-time business out of it or, or whether you’re trying to do something else full-time and just invest for troop like passive income. I think you’re better off hiring a property management company. And then I would say the same with the, the construction company is like, the problem with the construction company is it’s a lot to learn. We’ve had to learn, we spent a lot of money on education by learning stuff the hard way and, and messing stuff up.

Chase:
And so it’s just like just trying to jump in and learn like roundup new construction or heavy heavy rehab, that can be an expensive learning process. So it’s same thing if you can find a reputable builder who’s reasonably priced and, and like really like transparent with their costs and what they’re charge, what they’re truly charging you, that’s hard cost versus overhead versus profit. Like, I think that’s usually a better, that’s a better bet for most people unless they’re already in the construction industry and just trying to make that trade and, and kind of go into new construction versus the rehab stuff. Yeah,

Charles:
For sure. No, that makes, that’s a lot of great points there. I think when I was when speaking to smaller investors maybe that they’re, they’re doing it all themself and they’re 10, 20 units plus 30 units. I think the goal is really when I’ve spoken to them, it’s like, hey, get as big as where you can hire a full-time or part-time handyman. And that like really alleviates a lot of hassle, you know what I mean? Because now you have someone that’s like almost dedicated to your properties, even if you have a property manager that’s calling them, this takes care of a lot of the costs and a lot of the headache if you have one person that’s like on call for your properties, you know what I mean? And now you’re not calling plumbers trying to do this, do that. You have one person that’s like going out and taking care of a lot of these small issues that can be rectified. The majority of them can be rectified with someone that’s knowledgeable to a certain degree. So, but it’s very interesting how all that works. One thing with, with your growing all these different businesses becoming vertically integrated, obviously systems is something that comes into place becomes very important. Can you let us know some of the systems that you have put in place over the years that kinda allows you as an entrepreneur to kinda step back from your business not have to work 24 7 with it without everything really falling apart?

Chase:
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say especially the last, you know, maybe two years as we’ve gotten larger systems and kind of organizations become something that’s been very important to us and very, very top of mind, like that’s something we’re spending a ton of time on continuously. One thing that we, we we started at the beginning of 2025 is, is operating on EOS. And so that’s something that’s been very valuable for us, especially as a multi-entity business. So it allows us to be a little bit more organized in the way that we’re operating and just giving clear like, you know, company or department wide meeting, you know, meeting tempo plus a just all across the board meeting tempo for our leadership team. And then, and then technology, like I think technology’s advancing it like a kind of a ridiculous rate, but, you know, some of the stuff that we switched over to that’s a little bit painful sometimes to switch over, just like more robust property management software.

Chase:
So we have a minute AppFolio last year and even though it was a little bit of a headache to switch over to them, once we get it in place, it it, it’s like a force multiplier we can take on more having something like that in place. And same thing on the construction management side. I mean there’s, several years ago it was just like the schedules and, and you know, scope of work and order of operations all just up in my head and, and then it’s trying to systematize that and, and bring in software that makes that easier. So we went to like Asana, which was a just kind of a general project management software that we tailored to construction projects and are in the process now of switching over to Buildertrend, which would be like a much more robust construction project management software that allows us to really track everything from or of construction operations to timelines to accounting, et cetera.

Chase:
And so it’s just, that’s been a lot of it. And then documenting, you know, this last, especially these last six months, there’s been a lot of documenting SOPs. It’s something that always sounded boring to me but as we scale and we bring on more people and we’ve gotta train, it’s like, you know, documenting the way that we do things well. That way when we bring on people, like, and I’ll give you an example. We just brought on a virtual employee that lives in South America like she’s awesome, she’s a rockstar and she, she does really well when we can just say, Hey, here’s the SOP on how we do this. Let us know if you have any questions. And it’s amazing how well she’s able to pick it up just based off that SOP and it just helps us kind of train and move faster. Nice.

Charles:
Yeah, that’s an important thing. I have a reminder in my just kind of daily notes is to do screen shares and screen videos of stuff they’re doing and I, you always forget about it and then you’re like, you’re halfway through like, I gotta remember this for next time. You know what I mean? And it’s, it’s one extra step. But now I mean we, you know, we, we have Zoom and it’s like they have a thing called like zoom clips and you can now it’s easily just like click it, it’s like just recording your screen and you can just go through it and you can talk as you’re doing it and it’s much easier, obviously someone could put these into like checklist down the road, but it’s much easier once that happens. You can just say, Hey, go into this folder and then drive and you can, you can see this video for doing it and it makes it a lot easier, a lot less questions when you do it that way because if you were writing it out and you hadn’t really documented by video, there’s gonna be things you’re gonna miss and there’s gonna be things that you were, were doing that weren’t done before.

Charles:
You know what I mean? Or that need to be done before going to the next step. So I always find like documenting through screen videos, stuff like that was something that we’ve, we’ve utilized and especially with virtual employees, it’s fantastic. So

Chase:
Yeah, it’s, it is very valuable. It’s something we, we we’re constantly I guess touching base on the, the thing. So for my employees that work for me, the thing I always, the way I always explain it is if, if you get sick next week and this thing that you do that’s super important to the business needs to get done and I have to do it and I haven’t done it in two years, like I need to go in there and read and watch a video on how you’re doing it so that I can step in and handle it for you. And I hope that I never have to step into the goal is to build the business so that it can operate without me. But if I had to, it needs to be like, you know, understandable enough that I could jump in there and do whatever. It’s, so Yeah,

Charles:
That makes perfect sense. So kinda going back to when you guys were getting started and you’re starting to scale, ’cause there’s, there’s an, you know, there’s investors whether there’s entrepreneurs that are listening that you know, they don’t know what would be their first step into taking some things off their plate as they’re growing, they have something else going on, they have a full-time job or another business. What would you say were some of the first key hires that gave you the most freedom in the beginning of, and this could be for starting a business or just if you’re a starting real estate investor.

Chase:
Yeah, absolutely. It, it’s tough when you’re starting out because you, I see a lot of new investors struggle with this because they, they want to do as much themselves as possible so that they can either make more money or have like more left in the deal or more to reinvest, which I get like that’s how it was when I started. I was literally doing everything. And so one of the first kind of key hires that I made because we were doing a lot of heavy construction projects, I think flip style renovations, like big full renovations was a like kind of field construction person that was, knew how to do a little bit of everything. But most importantly I could start ’cause I was still working at the time, I could start delegating just simple tasks and it’s tough at first and it can be frustrating ’cause it’s like I could go to Home Depot and pick up some materials myself and it would cost me nothing.

Chase:
And if I send him, he’s gonna waste an hour or two going to Home Depot because gonna lolly gag and, and talk to everybody at Home Depot and stuff like that. But if I could pay him two hours worth of his time to do it and me not have to do that, that frees up my time to go focus on learning that next step. And so that field person was like that. I would say that was the first key hire for me going down that path. And then really like the, the hard part was forcing myself to allow him to one, help with some of the, the construction stuff, but two, some of those more just go for running around type tasks. Even though I knew it was like I was spending money to have him kind of, you know, go to Home Depot and, and buy a soda and hang out for a little bit, it was worth it.

Chase:
And then for me it was really once I hit a certain number of units and ’cause we had these big construction projects going on, plus we were managing, I would say 20 plus units is making that leap even before it probably made sense financially to hire somebody in-house to help with the, the property management. ’cause Again, for that to be done well, it takes a lot of time. And really bringing somebody in in-house to start managing that. And then again, as we grew and start taking on more and more just bringing in like construction project management, you know, help and more help on the leasing side. And then more recently it’s been like growing a leadership team and, and you know, offloading, bookkeeping and accounting and it’s, I continue to see like almost everybody that we hire can do whatever. It’s, their job is better than me and, but I think entrepreneurs’ first instinct is that they are gonna be able to do it better than anybody else. And what I found is usually the opposite is just finding the right person to take over in those roles. And when I think the sequencing is when is usually what people struggle with. Yeah,

Charles:
I think I, I had a mentor years back when they were telling me about those first few hires and they’re like, if it’s, you just have to be comfortable with them doing it at like 75% or 85% efficiency. I don’t know, I think what the number exactly was, but the whole thing is that they’re not gonna be as efficient as you. And knowing that, you know, if you’re paying ’em $20 an hour or $25 an hour and you know, and they’re going out there and part of that is wasted, whatever it is, then you’re like, well is it still worth this 50 bucks you paid for them to do this versus you spending this, you know, hour to do an hour and a half? And that’s kind of like the realization you have. But yes, with stuff coming down to like bookkeeping and these things that I find just toter the worst things ever to do yeah, it’s, it’s just like, oh, get this out of me, you know, away from me as fast as possible. And those were like the main hires I had done initially when growing businesses was just like bookkeeping, obviously accounting, it’s all like, you know, I don’t want any part of any of this. I’ll review some stuff, I’ll hit the buttons to send the, the pay bills, but it’s something that’s like, I don’t wanna deal with anything reviewing any of the bank statements and putting stuff into QuickBooks. So

Chase:
Yeah, it, it’s tough and especially as we scale, it gets hard. Like, I I can honestly say like when earlier on or a couple years ago when I was just hustling doing everything myself, it was like, it was easier in a way. And like, I may have made a little bit more like kind of vertical or earned income because I was handling everything myself and didn’t have any overhead. But there’s really, for us to continue to grow at the pace we want to grow, there’s no way to do that yourself. Like you have to build out the teams and the systems to be able to take you to that next level. It’s just, it’s a where we’re at today, it’s just a non-optional thing. Yeah.

Charles:
So one thing Chase, I I, I, you know, years back, a friend of mine gave me this book and it was called 10 X is Easier, two x. And I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, but in that it’s kind of like why I brought it up and something I didn’t talk to you about before that we’d speak about, but it was something that, it sounds exactly like that where it’s just you gotta, if you wanna step back from the business, I film and have a little bit more freedom. You can’t do it like two x you know what I mean? You really have to build out a true business and these are the things that you have to do. You have to, you have to delegate, you have to get people taking care of, of roles, especially the easiest ones are the ones you don’t wanna do, like bookkeeping for me. But the thing though is that it’s one of these things where what is, what is your thought on that and how it comes and comes full circle for what you guys are doing? Yeah,

Chase:
I I think it’s amazing. I think it’s Ben Hardy, right, is the author of that 10 x two X. So he just wrote a new book called Science of Scaling, I believe. It’s, it’s great. It’s very similar. But it’s, it’s one that he recently published. I got the opportunity to li listen and talk about it in person at a very small event and, and then read that book recently. And I totally agree it gets a little bit scary because he’s, he’s like, Hey, just go take your 10 year goal and, and bring it into two years. And if you shoot for that, like it’s gonna get, it makes that stuff easier. But it, it really is true. I think as we continue to scale it’s scary because you have bigger swings and cash flow and stuff like that, but it’s the, the bigger we can grow, I think the easier that gets.

Chase:
One thing that we haven’t talked about yet, one thing that we haven’t done yet is, is raise capital. So everything we’ve done has just been kind of internal and, and that’s definitely can be a limiter for us because of capital. And so the next like you know, the step that would make the most sense for us next is to go out and raise capital for some of these larger projects. And it really does, when I look at it through that lens, like that’s still that’s something we’ll probably be working on this year. And, and it kind of like what you’re talking about, if we can go from, you know, instead of doing two or three infill lots, we go do an entire subdivision. And that would require us bringing in capital partners that, you know, it’d be a win for them and a win for us, but that would allow us to scale much more rapidly than trying to do it, do it at a smaller scale. So I do think there’s something there with the, the kind of, the harder and the quicker you scale the better off you are. But what he talks about in that new book, ’cause you gotta figure out what’s, what’s limiting you from scaling at that speed. And then that’s what you gotta work on breaking through.

Charles:
I remembered it just when you were talking about the new software that you’re bringing that was more robust and that was something where, you know, you don’t wanna do that because no one wants change or likes change, but it’s kinda like what has to happen, you know what I mean? You kinda look and you’re like, I don’t really wanna do this higher or do this, but it’s kinda like these are, these are the key people that you need to bring in to make it work and that’s gonna disrupt a little bit about your time. It’s gonna make you work more and make less initially, but you have to look for that if you’re gonna do the 10 x thing. So it’s that’s kind of what I found out over the years. But so many years that you’ve been, I mean, using your own capital building properties renovating properties, you know, what are some common mistakes you see real estate investors make? And it could be multi-family investors, it could be any part of the real estate investing spectrum.

Chase:
Yeah, I think especially for newer, I would say newer and even investors that have been doing it for a little while, one of the biggest mistakes I see, and this is something that I had continued to make for a really long time, is, is underestimating the scope and the cost of renovation work. And I think that’s very applicable to both multi-family, large multi-family, small multi-family flips single family buy and hold investing, kind of whatever you’re doing. But if you’re buying something where you’re trying to add value through some type of improvements or construction work I think that investors really need to be realistic with themselves on what it’s gonna cost and get a true picture on that before they go into the deal. And so I think a lot of investors will look at a deal, they’ll get excited and they’ll say, well, I wanna do this, this and this, that’ll help me, you know, increase the rent by this much and then the deal works, but they don’t spend enough time figuring out what it’s gonna actually cost.

Chase:
And I think because of the, and they in a way kinda lie to themselves and, and almost don’t keep track of it close enough to know where they’re really at on it. I think because we’ve, we’ve hammered so hard on the construction side, we’ve gotten really dialed in on our costs. Like we, we don’t want to be surprised by additional construction costs, but early on that was like a mistake that I made over and over again. It’s like, we’re gonna buy this. There are renovation budgets, $80,000, it’s gonna be worth this much once done, it’s gonna cash flow, it’ll be great. And then we get in there and it’s not $80,000, it’s $110,000, now we’re scrambling trying to find the extra cash to finish the project or going back to the bank. And, and so I think it’s just better to be really tight on your, your numbers on the front end and trying to avoid those, like kinda those panic over juice if at all

Charles:
Possible. Yeah. I had a mentor of mine tell me, you know, just do really fat deals and it was like, if, if you start like, and you can catch yourself doing it as a real estate investor, I found where you’re like, oh, you know, I can do this, I can, you know, sharpen the pencil here, do it there, and you’re like, hold on, <laugh>. It’s like, now we’re getting into, ’cause this is where reserves, ’cause if you’re going over on budget, pretty much it happens in, I would say the majority of real estate investing no matter how how experienced someone is, it’s just how it works. You don’t know what’s behind the walls, but that’s why we have reserve funds, you know, and when you start like moving numbers around and trying to like save money here and do stuff before you’ve even really bought the property, reviewed what’s going on and know a hundred percent, I think it’s one thing that you’re like, you know, just hold up. You know, we have to, we have to really go in with a lower number to take out any of these variables that we might not know about. Yeah,

Chase:
I always say it costs what cost and so just make sure you know what it’s gonna cost because you’re not gonna be able to get it, get it for cheaper usually once you’re, you’re into it, if anything, it’s gonna be more expensive.

Charles:
Definitely. Definitely. So Chase, as we’re wrapping up here, what would you say over your years as an employee, as an entrepreneur, as a real estate investor with several different businesses, what are the main factors contributing to your success? Yeah,

Chase:
I, I think the, the, a couple things. I think deciding where you want to go. So maybe setting some goals around what you’re, what you’re trying to achieve, that’s probably gonna change over time and that’s fine, but at least have somewhere where you’re, you know, you’re heading the, probably the biggest one for real estate investing I think is like, you just gotta start. It’s probably gonna be the wrong way. It may not be the best deal. It’s probably gonna change a bunch of times if you continue doing this. But like, you just gotta gotta go. You gotta get the first deal done. Like that’s a super important one. And then if you’re gonna maintain in this career and down this path, like it, there’s gonna be times where it’s hard and stressful and so you just can’t quit. Like you gotta have the grit to continue going and not quit and figure it out.

Chase:
You’re gonna learn a bunch through those times and then that’ll kind of bring you to that next point. And then just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, something else hard is gonna happen and you’re gonna have to figure that out and not quit and get through that. But I see where I see a lot of the really successful investors that I look up to is just, they’ve been in the game for a really long time and they never quit. And there was a lot of guys who probably could have been more successful than them, but they, they gave up after a couple years ’cause it got hard. So I think those were kind of the key key things for me. Yeah,

Charles:
I think the other thing too is like you were saying, you might not do it the right way when you start, and if you listen to any kinda seasoned real estate investor that’s been there for two decades, plus you will hear how their investing strategy and criteria have changed, how they’ve been most successful and kind of what fits in their buy box the most and what, what they do. And it, it’s definitely different usually than what they started out with, you know, different classes, different size properties, whatever it is, and they realize where they made money, where it was less hassle and kind of where they’re focusing.

Chase:
Yeah, absolutely.

Charles:
So Chase, how can our listeners learn more about you and your businesses? Yeah,

Chase:
Absolutely. You know, I hate, hate to say it like this, but like social media seems to be the, the common theme nowadays. And so probably Instagram on social media would be the easiest one. It’s Chase Calhoun realestate, I think is the Instagram handle. We’re also on YouTube with the same, the same handle. We’re put, trying to put out as much content as we can. That’s just, you know, stuff we’ve learned and, and what we have going on, that type of thing. And then we do have a website, so it’s chase calhoun uh.com or apex professional construction.com for the construction company. Okay.

Charles:
Well thank you so much for coming on today. We really appreciate it and I’m looking forward to connecting with you here in the near future.

Chase:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

 

Links and Contact Information Mentioned In The Episode:

• Chase Calhoun Real Estate

About Chase Calhoun

Chase Calhoun is a real estate investor, developer, licensed general contractor, and founder of multiple vertically integrated real estate companies based in Central Arkansas. He owns and operates a portfolio of approximately 75+ residential units and leads development efforts focused on build-to-rent communities, infill new construction, and heavy value-add projects.

Chase is the owner of Apex Professional Construction, a licensed commercial and residential general contracting firm, as well as Apex Real Estate Investments and Chase Calhoun Real Estate, which together handle development, construction, acquisitions, leasing, and property management in-house. His vertically integrated model allows his team to control costs, maintain quality, and execute projects efficiently across the full real estate lifecycle.

His current focus is on scaling build-to-rent subdivisions and ground-up residential development, while also helping other investors structure, underwrite, and execute new-construction projects. Chase is known for his disciplined approach to underwriting, conservative leverage, and emphasis on long-term cash flow rather than speculation.

Chase lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with his wife and children, where he continues to grow his businesses while sharing practical insights on real estate investing, construction, and entrepreneurship.

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