Ashley Garner brings over 30 years of multifamily experience, concentrating on reliable workforce housing throughout the Carolinas.
With three decades of experience, he has operated hundreds of units across multiple markets, shaping his firm, ABG and Associates, underwriting, and long-term investor model.
Charles Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast; I’m your host, Charles Carillo. Today, we have Ashley Garner. He brings over 30 years of multifamily experience, concentrating on reliable workforce housing throughout the Carolinas.
With three decades of experience, he has operated hundreds of units across multiple markets, shaping his firm, ABG and Associates, underwriting, and long-term investor model. So Ashley, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Ashley Hey, Charles. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. Appreciate it.
Charles You know, we were just chatting earlier. You got some snow in the Carolinas. Um, so that’s that’s exciting. But um, before we jump into what you’re doing now, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, both personally and professionally, uh, prior to get involved in real estate investing?
Ashley Yeah, I’d be happy to. So prior to real estate investing, I was, uh, in grade school. I mean, really, so, so literally, I grew up kind of in a mom and pop version of what I do now. Um, my, when I was in, uh, back then, we called it junior high. But in the mid nineteen eighties, my dad started buying old houses near the campus of a major university. And we would internally subdivide them, renovate them, and make them into, uh, multiple apartment units in these big old houses. And then we would rent them out to college students. And so I grew up with the hammer and the shovel and doing all that stuff. And then as I, you know, I grew up, I guess I went into the operations and the management and the acquisitions and legal and things like that. So, uh, and then when I became a of adult age, I don’t know if I grew up or not, but I became of adult age and started buying things on my own account. I started probably the way a lot of people start with single families, duplexes, triplexes. And then I realized that, hey, this thing really works. It’s an amazing, you know, the potential to achieve that financial freedom goal is actually real. And but I realized that, um, I was I like to say I was going to be mathematically eliminated from achieving my goal if I didn’t somehow pick up the pace. And so I started buying more unit count, like a ten unit, then thirty two, then thirty five, and then the most recent one we bought was one hundred and ninety six units. And that was just less than a year ago that we bought that. So that’s kind of what brings us real quickly, brings the last forty years up to today. And, uh, our intent is to keep buying properties at two hundred unit size or larger, uh, until we get at least to one thousand units, and then we’ll reevaluate.
Charles So when you were starting out with your with your family. And that was similar because my dad was a real estate investor and he self-managed everything, and he bought like maybe his first six plex a few months after I was born. So it was like elementary school. It was a whole different education for me of learning, and it was D-class property apartment. So it was even a very tough, much tougher than college kids. Um, but tell us about how that, like some of the things that you picked up there, maybe some lifelong lessons that you’ve kind of brought through to what you’re doing now? And I imagine, um, when you’re talking to other investors that you’re helping getting started or when you’re talking to any passive investors that you kind of take into your business today.
Ashley Yeah, sure. Well, so the business is basically the same, whether it’s a single family rental or it’s a two hundred unit complex or, you know, class D versus class A, the spreadsheet is the math is the same. The basics of the game are the same. Um, so but but for me, in order to scale, like I said, when I met Mathematically Eliminated, I meant that, you know, if you’re making two hundred and fifty dollars a unit cash flow each month and you have ten units, well, that’s that’s good. And that helps you pay bills. But that doesn’t get you multigenerational wealth. It doesn’t get you to quit your day job. And so you have to do enough of it that you can achieve those things. So you have to scale. And in order to scale, I had to learn to put the hammer down. I had to learn to delegate management and all of these types of things. So in order to scale, I had to build a team instead of just doing it all by myself. Uh, that’s probably the biggest change. And then of course, the we can talk about the financing and the raising of the capital. Those are two different things also as you scale up. But the main part of it is really I had to learn to let go and build a team and trust them to do their job.
Charles Yeah, it’s an important thing. Remember the first time I hired a third party property manager and it was something my dad never did. And, um, so when I did that, and it was. Yeah, I mean, it it’s, you know, you just have to be comfortable with it. It’s a weird thing, you know what I mean? But, uh, you now are can focus on making more money and finding more deals, you know what I mean? And it’s a little different thing, but it’s nice to have a little bit of, um, not being on call, like twenty four over seven as a property manager, so.
Ashley Yeah. You know, I had, uh, I went through a phase where I actually, as a part of ABG and associates, I had, uh, ABG management. And so we managed all of our units. And at that time, you know, there were it was pushing three hundred or more units we were managing and which, you know, is big to some and small to others. But to me, at the time it was big. And so I had an employee, I had the software, I had the whole thing. And what I realized was that it was costing me the same roughly ten percent, whether I whether I had that company myself or whether I outsourced it. And you have to value your own time. So my time is worth money. And even though I don’t like right myself necessarily, a paycheck, I was spending a lot of time on that. Plus there was a lot of stress involved for me. If the if the toilet leaked or if the sewer line backed up, I somehow was still involved on a Saturday night even though I had an employee or if the employee called in sick. Blah blah blah. And so I realized for me that I could outsource it to a third party cost me roughly the same money, but my existence was much less stressful because of it.
Charles Yeah, that’s one thing that I see. I always kind of think twice to myself when I have people on the show, and some people are, you know, they have large portfolios in one specific area. And I get that, you know, the vertical integration, I understand that, but it is such a tight margin business. You know what I mean? And you’re consistently looking for new people. Because if you are, I mean, you’re just consistently looking for new handyman, new people to deal with. I mean, these aren’t really highly paid people, so, like, they’re maybe not the most responsive and reliable and most, uh, in many cases. So it’s something it’s just a very difficult business to run. I was like, if you’re going to do any part of it, like if you’re going to pick out where you want to actually do some vertical integration, I would say it’s like I would buy like an HVAC company and plumbing like mechanical company and or like I think, um, you know, or do something with like construction, become a contractor or whatever it might be. But like with HVAC, the amount of those, you know, your techs come out, they’re well paid people and it is very expensive per hour to do that. And that’s something where you’re like, now I can like it’s not ten percent. It’s like thirty percent that I can shave off. You know what I mean? Ten percent. It’s not it’s not worth I mean, property management is a thankless job. No one ever calls you and thanks you for it. And, um, you know, I don’t know. It’s a difficult business.
Ashley Yeah, that’s very right. You you only get the phone call when there’s a problem. You’re right.
Charles Right. Yeah.
Ashley Yeah. Good point.
Charles But, um, so with what you’re doing today, and, um, can you tell us a little bit, kind of like what you. So going into what you’re doing now. So you’ve gone into larger properties. I know you started maybe like ten, twelve years back, you started with a ten unit property and you’ve moved that now into doing almost two hundred unit deals. So can you kind of break down your firm’s current investment strategy and philosophy of what you guys are doing?
Ashley Yeah. So really, our kind of our focus area is the state of North Carolina. Doesn’t mean we wouldn’t go out of it, but North Carolina checks all the boxes that that we need as an investor, that we need it to check. And there’s more than enough opportunities so that we, you know, we kind of stay focused right there. So that’s one thing. And like I said earlier, you know, ideally two hundred units or larger size wise. and then from then, we’re probably in the midst of an evolution on our our criteria a little bit. So the, the one hundred and ninety six unit property that we just bought, it’s more like C-Class workforce housing and a smaller market. And while the returns are very, very, very good, um, and it’s strong operationally, we realized that it was not quite as easy to raise capital for, and it was not quite as easy to finance. There were less options for those things. And so we we’re, we’re evolving in our, our profile of our investor to a more like, uh, family office, high net worth investor, a little more savvy. We find that those investors really value a little bit larger market and a little bit newer asset class. So we’re we’re kind of shifting our goals up a little bit, if you will, to bigger markets and maybe class B plus to A assets.
Charles Is that what you’re finding when. So when when you were financing, tell us a little bit about kind of the challenges that you had from financing deals previously and what you’re doing. Because I imagine with those smaller deals you maybe were doing seller financing or banks or credit unions locally. Um, what how is that kind of evolved into what you’re doing? Are you getting agency debt or are you still using, um, local banks and lenders?
Ashley Yeah. So um, like the ten unit place, the thirty two unit place were all kind of local banks and and those I still have those both of those loans. Well the ten unit I’ve refinanced three or four times. It’s been a wonderful story. And the other one, the thirty two unit, I still have the original loan. It’s like three point two five percent and it’s a fixed interest. Now the downside is it’s full recourse. But then the thirty five unit We assumed a Fannie Mae small balance loan. It was already in place and we assumed it. And then the the larger property, we ended up taking it to a HUD. Two twenty three F loan, which we’re actually getting ready to close that refi in about a month. Um, but what we found on that one was a real lesson for us. So we started out pursuing Fannie and Freddie, and we could have gotten the debt. Well, actually, Fannie wouldn’t even do it because the market was too small and they didn’t like the market. Freddie would do it, but they would only do it at like sixty percent loan to value. So you’re buying a twenty two million dollars property. You know, the difference between an extra twenty percent of capital you’ve got to raise is a huge number. And, uh, that was it just made everything harder. You know, you could you had to raise more money. You couldn’t borrow as much. The terms weren’t quite as good. So everything is just a little bit tougher. It doesn’t mean we couldn’t do it. It just was harder. So that’s one of the reasons that we’re looking at different, um, slightly tweaks in our criteria because we just have there’s so many more, um, packages available, if you will.
Charles When when you’ve, um, when you’re taking over that deal, you assumed one. Right? And, uh, an agency debt deal. Um, what kind of what issues have you found with working with agencies? Because I’ve had before, and it’s definitely a much more, uh, more involved process than getting a bank loan, right? I’ve. The banks really don’t bother you if you just. You’re writing your check. You know what I mean? It’s, um, the agency lenders are much more involved with your deal. How have you found that?
Ashley Oh, yeah. So, yeah, the reporting requirements, uh, you know, the resume requirements, the, the requirements that they put on your property managers. The reserves that they they require you to have, everything is is stepped up a notch. And really this HUD loan. Excuse me. Um, we’re getting ready to close that after. It’s been a good, solid ten months of the you know, the application process is ten months long, ten months, which just blows your mind. I mean, it’s going to be amazing because it’s a thirty five year loan with a thirty five year fixed interest rate, thirty five year amortization. So it’s a it’s an unbelievable product when you get it. But you definitely have you definitely go through the wringer to get it.
Charles I didn’t know it was ten months. I’ve spoken to people before and they said it was six. Um, can you talk about a couple of the. I know there’s a couple caveats with it. Um, the famous ones being that you can’t do quarterly distributions, I believe it’s twice annual distributions you can do to your investors. Um, what other things are there that might, um, be different from other lending type programs.
Ashley Well, I know one thing was the amount of reserves that they require us to have in place. So, uh, so repairs prior to closing. There are lots of things that they want. They want everything, right? Then they’ll close and then, you know, it’s a thirty five year loan. So they’re going to have a lien on this property for, you know, three and a half decades. And then so you know, that all of the roofs will need to be replaced by then all of the hvacs will need to be replaced by then. So they they say, all right, well, you’re going to have to have a really big stack of cash in the bank with us on reserve so that we’re sure that you’re going to be able to keep this asset in the condition that we want it. And so I personally like that because now it’s all it’s like a forced savings account. It requires much less self-discipline. When you know it’s there. And so I think it gives comfort to our investors as well. Uh, so I don’t I don’t consider it a bad thing. It’s just, you know, some people don’t like to be told what to do. And if you’re going to do a HUD loan, then they’re going to tell you, yeah, we’ll do it. But but this is what you have to do to get it. And so we’re we’re okay with that.
Charles Interesting. Very interesting. Uh, you know, type of program. Um, the one of the things, I guess with agency, when everybody says agency, they’re always they always make a note of the recourse or non recourse. And I understand banks are recourse lenders. Um, they can go after your personal assets. But it’s also one of the things too. I mean you know the agency lenders have their own kind of like blacklist too, that they put people on. I mean, it’s, it’s you’re, you’re, you’re and then like there’s carve outs in there too. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff. It’s not just like you sign it and if something happens, you’re done. Like there’s a lot of recourse. I don’t think that’s spoken about too much. And people just like broadly say, oh, your personal assets aren’t like liable. But I mean, you’re going to have a very negative situation if you don’t pay a bank loan as you would an agency loan. I feel, you know what I mean. You probably won’t be doing any more too many of those anyway, or any more agency loans in the future.
Ashley Yeah, you’re right, from what I’ve heard. And I hope I never find out. But from what I heard, if you get on the wrong side of the agencies, then, yeah, it’s pretty much game over as far as using them for financing. Um, yeah. You’re right. Theoretically you’d at least still have your own personal house to live in. They can’t come and take it. Uh, but doing business with them in the future would probably not be an option. So it’s definitely. There definitely are penalties if you don’t perform.
Charles Yeah, it was one of the things that we had with a property we sold a few years ago that was, uh, Fannie Mae and, uh, we sold it. Everything was fine and it was going through Covid. We sold it during Covid and we said we were going to do X amount of units. It was maybe like X minus, maybe like ten units that we didn’t renovate. And after we sold it, everybody got paid off. And still issues with Fanny and stuff like that. And um, you know, use them since uh, but it’s something that it’s like, you know, it’s just like, man, like every, you know, everything is the, you know, just you didn’t you didn’t you gave him a business plan and you’re like, well, how do you renovate units during Covid? You know what I mean? Kind of a thing like that and all these different things. And it doesn’t really matter. You have to whatever you tell them or whatever’s happening, you have to do it all the way to the end to have completely no issues. And it was like, you know, everybody made money on the deal. And they’re going to, you know, they’re putting their money back out on the street. And we had to pay prepayment penalty because interest rates went down and all this stuff like this. But yeah, it’s um, there’s a lot more than just non-recourse and recourse is what I’m trying to, I guess, talk to people about. But, um, going back to what you’ve got going on with, um, tell us about, like, what you’ve got going on with sourcing deals because you’re, you know, larger deals. Now, I imagine you’re going through brokers with your smaller deals where you sourcing those direct to owners. How are you doing that?
Ashley Yeah. So I have done it kind of all the ways I’ve done it. Uh, the ten unit place I bought off of the MLS, it was listed by a residential broker who really didn’t know anything about multifamily or what what they were doing. Uh, so I’ve done that, uh, the thirty two unit place. I bought it direct to seller as a result of a paper like snail mail mailing campaign that I did. He got the letter, he called me up. Uh, we did the, you know, we we did the courting dance for three or four months, and sure enough, was able to buy it. Um, and then the others have been through, like, large commercial multifamily brokers. So I’ve done it kind of all, all different ways. It’s all about relationships, though I will say that that every, every one of those situations were because I created a relationship somehow, some way with a human being. It wasn’t just, you know, find something on the computer or drop out of the sky. There was a relationship behind it.
Charles Do you have money sitting in the stock market and you’re worried about it? Or worse, you have money sitting at the bank not keeping up with inflation. My name is Charles Carillo, founder and managing partner of Harborside Partners, and since two thousand and six, I’ve been investing my money and my family’s money into income producing properties. These are real assets, real properties with real addresses that produce real cash flow. At Harborside Partners, we provide passive investors who love real estate with a turnkey investing solution. If you want to put your money to work in real estate but can’t find deals, don’t have the time to get funding. And the last thing that productive people want to do is manage real estate. We find the deals, we fund the deals, and we manage the tenants, the termites and the properties. Partner with us at invest with Harborside Calm. That’s invest with Harbourside Calm. Go to invest with Harbourside Calm. If you love real estate, you like the idea of passive income and believe that income producing properties will appreciate over time. Go to invest with harbourside com that’s invest with harbourside. Com. Yeah. Yeah. When you’re doing that direct to mail um, you’re starting that relationship with them. And I mean, you’re probably not buying that property anytime soon. You just want to know in the next year or two years, whenever they’re selling it, um, many years down the road that they’re going to call you first. You know what I mean? And that’s kind of how that whole thing works. And some people are ready to sell sooner than later. So it’s, um, you know, but yeah, it’s like you said.
Ashley Yeah, those things are a timing. Those those types of things are definitely a timing issue. And you have to be consistent. You know, with your periodic contact. Because if I send you a letter, one letter ever in your life and the one day you get it, you’re not ready for it. Well, it’s kind of a waste of money. But if I send you one every three to six months for the next three or four years, then maybe there’s a chance I hit you at the right time.
Charles Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting. Everybody has different life events that happen and, uh, stuff changes, you know what I mean? So, um, for the good and bad in people’s lives and, uh, you know, you might be there to take that asset off their hands when they’re ready to dispose of it. Um, what would you say would be some of the things about being focused on one state, one market? I mean, how does this ever work with what are the advantages that you have found with that? And would you ever think about expanding your target market? You mentioned it in the intro a little bit, but I mean, what would you found are those advantages of just focusing on one place pretty narrowly?
Ashley Um, the advantage of the focus is that we really have that market niche specific knowledge, and we have the team like we’re if it’s anywhere in the state of North Carolina, we’re plug and play like boom, make it happen. Like the attorneys are there. The contractors are there. The property managers there, I just like. Insert the property into the system. Um, so that’s definitely an advantage. Uh, plus all those relationships that we talked about that are are very strong and kind of cover most of the geographic area. Uh, that’s a definite benefit than if we were just saying, you know, we’re going to focus on everything south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi. It’s just too for us. It’s just too big of a market. Um, now, we would certainly consider like, we’re we’re looking at the Greenville, Spartanburg, South Carolina area. Maybe, uh, certain parts of Georgia on I-85, that kind of stuff. But still, that’s pretty that’s pretty close to where we are still. And we would consider that. But frankly, it would have to be a pretty good deal, because there’s enough good opportunities right here in North Carolina that we really until we run out of those, I don’t see any reason to chase something somewhere else.
Charles And how do you explain that to is. I mean, as I’m a passive investor as well, not just an active multifamily investor, if I’m speaking to someone and just kind of how you explained it, where you’re plugging in a new property. So like everything’s all set, there’s not going to be a change of management. There’s not going to be an issue with finding contractors or anything else that might have that comes up. Um, I mean, you’re pretty much just we’re just I’m kind of just riding on your coattails on that, you know, seventh property or whatever it is in that market that you’re putting me into. And it’s we’re not reinventing the wheel. And I think that’s a very strong place to be in when you’re speaking to passive investors versus someone that’s like, oh, we have one asset here. We have three assets here. We don’t have anybody on the ground here. We don’t really you know what I mean? It’s not as vetted as well. And when I’ve passively invested in deals where there’s a really where they have where they have a pretty strong portfolio on the ground nearby, the asset, whatever that might be, fifteen, thirty minutes, whatever. Um, that’s when it’s it’s worked out the best I found.
Ashley Yeah. Yeah, I certainly would agree, uh, that I think that definitely makes us attractive to people who live outside of the area, because now they know they can come in and benefit from the work we’ve done to build that system. And, you know, I was just talking actually with, uh, yesterday with someone, a general partner, somebody who does what we do on a much larger scale. And they are based in the Midwest. And so the conversation was basically about coping on deals in North Carolina. And that’s really what we bring to the table. I mean, we’re we’re way smaller than they are, you know, much less infrastructure. But we have the local knowledge, we have the relationships and those. And that’s something that they can benefit from us and we can benefit from from their scale. So yeah, it’s a pretty big deal.
Charles Yeah, I think being really focused on one market allows you to know those rents inside and out. You know exactly what the real rents are. You’re not like searching for comparables all the time. You know, you know, you know, cost of utilities is per unit. I mean, you know, insurance, um, it just makes everything work a lot easier when you’re into one local area. I have found over the years of buying real estate, um, as you mentioned before, when you’re buying real estate initially and you’re saying, well, you know, it’s really hard to for that generational wealth at two fifty a unit that you’re making, um, many people are doing something else on the side. And I know for you, you were a real estate broker. Um, can you tell us a little bit about, other than upfront money while you’re building out your real estate portfolio? But how did being a real estate broker assist you with becoming a successful real estate investor?
Ashley Well, one specific example is that that ten unit place that I bought off of the MLS, you know, I would have never seen that or I would have seen it too late if I wasn’t kind of behind the scenes in the real estate on the brokerage side of the business. Uh, so that was a that was a direct benefit for sure. And I’d say the other is that I have had, you know, twenty years of developing a database of creating a, a trustworthy, uh, reputation. Uh, so now a lot of those people that I have put in my database, if you will, over the last twenty years, those have become investors in the, in the, uh, in the multifamily business. Uh, and maybe I met them by my team selling them a house, you know, fifteen years ago. So that, again, that relationship, that’s been a big part of it. Um, and I, you know, I don’t know, one one byproduct that the tax benefits, by the way of being a real estate professional in the eyes of the IRS. Is is monumental. I mean, the money that that saved me by investing in real estate is offset. Basically any income that I make from the brokerage side of things. Um, and I have a team of people that works for me on the brokerage side. Like, I don’t actually get in the car and show buyers around or list houses. The team does. But, you know, I get some of my income comes from that source.
Charles Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. The other thing to, uh, to make note of for anybody listening is that you found a ten unit on the MLS, and I’ve purchased some commercial multifamily off the MLS as well. I bought a mixed use property off the MLS. So yet make sure you’ve got some sort of subscription to the MLS. Um, or have a broker or real estate agent that’s sending you these deals because a lot of people, they don’t know how to sell them, you know what I mean? You go to your local brother in law that’s selling houses and, you know, tell them to sell your ten unit and they don’t know where to put it. So
Ashley That’s right.
Charles it’s
Ashley That’s exactly
Charles one of those things.
Ashley right.
Charles MLS does have some treasures on there. If you look in there and no one else can deal with anything with it, you know what I mean? Especially once they get over like five units or four units and there’s no more home financing allowed for it. And people are like, well, I don’t know how to deal with this anymore. And that’s where you can come in and kind of really level the playing field a little bit.
Ashley Yep. Amen. Well said, I agree.
Charles So Ashley, as we’re kind of wrapping up here, um, decades and decades of experience in multifamily investing, what would be some of the common mistakes you see real estate investors make?
Ashley Um, well, uh, two are are right at the top of my list. Number one. Um, thinking that you have that. So saying I’m going to make this investment and I’m going to manage it myself. Now, I don’t have a problem with you managing it yourself, but if you manage it yourself to, quote unquote, save the cost of the property management. In other words, you don’t have that ten percent line item in your spreadsheet and you think it’s a good deal only because you’ve put a zero where that ten percent should be. That’s a mistake because you number one, you don’t value your own time. And so you, uh, you think you’re basically buying yourself a job, uh, by doing that. But but worse than that is that someday it’s highly likely, if you own it long enough, that you’re not going to want to manage it anymore yourself. Maybe you get sick and you can’t do it. Or maybe you decide you want to move and live near your grandkids across the country, but you don’t want to sell the asset. And so if you’re forced into, uh, hiring a third party manager and you don’t have that number in your budget, well, guess what? You’re you’re now in financial trouble and it’s not a good investment. So I think when you’re doing your underwriting, you have to leave those things in the spreadsheet. You have to say, I’m going to, I’m going to leave in here ten percent for property management. And if I if I manage it myself, then that’s just gravy. But at least I know it’s a good investment. Um, that’s that’s a big mistake. And, um, that I see and the other one is being undercapitalized. If you have if you don’t have enough cash to weather the storm, you know, you say, well, I just will just we’ll just turn units as they come available. And so I don’t need a bunch of CapEx reserves. Well, then inevitably something happens and, you know, maybe and we live in hurricane territory, so maybe a hurricane comes and you say, well, I’m going to get insurance. Well, that’s fine, except that it takes six to nine months to get paid out. And what are you going to do in the meantime when your tenants don’t have a roof over their head? If you don’t have the ability to get through stuff like that, or even on a smaller scale, just, you know, whether a hard time or a bump in the road and you can’t pay your, your bank bill or your light bill then then things get kind of tough and it’s not as fun. Uh, so I’d say make sure you have enough cash.
Charles It’s a lot of good. A lot of good information there. Um, having a reserve funds and making sure your property cash flows and, um. Yeah, the other thing too, with your ten percent, um, putting the property management. I think the other thing too, is if you’re forced to sell it and you’re selling it to a sophisticated buyer or a more sophisticated than you buyer, um, they’re going to pencil it in and there goes your value. You know what I mean? So
Ashley Great point. Yeah.
Charles real estate I mean, people always say it’s a non-liquid, which it isn’t. It’s not liquid. But you can always there’s always ways of making liquid. Obviously you could sell it, but also you could refinance it, things like this. And this is what the bank, um, this is what all lenders and when you’re selling it and buyers are going to look into it and making sure those numbers are there. And when you’re buying it from a mom and pop, you’ll get a deal. And if they’re self-managing it, or they’ve got some weird setup where, you know, they had someone living there and they’re doing this and you kind of have to clear that out, and you have to put in that ten percent and know that, like, this is what I’m going to be paying for it, not what they’re paying for it in that situation. And I think that’s something too. People are like really relying on past numbers. And it doesn’t really it’s not really indicative of what’s going to happen for you in the future.
Ashley Yeah, that’s an awesome point that that’s a that’s maybe even more important than what I said. But yeah, that’s that’s your future value. Same. Same with vacancies. Right. You have to have a vacancy number in there even though. Well, I’m, I’m sure this thing will rent like crazy. It’ll never be vacant. But the the bank’s going to make you have seven percent at least in there. Uh, and so if the spreadsheet doesn’t work, you’re not going to be able to borrow the money.
Charles Yeah, I like I like how you said seven percent because the, you know, the overlying factor when you see a lot of these people put together. Um, proformas, it’s really it’s five percent vacancy and three percent, you know, the straight line increase in rents and none of that stuff ever happens. You know what I mean? I know someone just phoned it in. They’re like, oh, this is just like set in the spreadsheet. So we’ll just use it. And you’re like especially on smaller properties, man, you’re not having a five percent vacancy. And it’s just one thing. You’re like, no, it’s it’s not a thing.
Ashley Yeah. And those red growths, you know, we’ve we’ve lived this for the last couple years because the rent growths haven’t been there. I mean, we’ve we’ve been lucky enough to we haven’t had much of a decrease on most of our properties, but it’s been a lot of pressure on rents. If you have if you have your spreadsheet that you have to bank on a five percent rent increase or even a three percent over the last few years, you’re in trouble.
Charles Yeah,
Ashley Yeah. For sure.
Charles definitely. Ashley, thank you so much for coming on. How can our
Ashley For.
Charles listeners learn more about you and your business? ABG.
Ashley Sure. Uh, so I think the easiest way is to go to our website, which is ABG Multifamily comm. And from there you can find all the different ways to connect us, and two of which are YouTube and LinkedIn. And we’re pretty active on both of those outlets.
Charles Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. Um, looking forward to connecting with you here in the near future.
Ashley Yeah. Thanks, Charles, I appreciate it.
Ashley Garner brings over 30 years of multifamily experience, concentrating on reliable workforce housing throughout the Carolinas. His work with ABG & Associates reflects a steady, practical approach.
With three decades of experience, he has operated 300+ units across multiple markets, shaping ABG’s disciplined underwriting and long-term investor model.
Ashley’s background blends operational excellence, niche market specialization, a lean, fast-moving organizational structure, and a relationship-driven capital strategy.
HNWI and family offices value his transparency, simplicity, and focus on durable, recession-resistant cash flow.
Partners choose ABG for its 30+ years of operational discipline, North Carolina workforce housing focus, and lean team that moves fast and preserves yield.
The firm invests alongside partners, prioritizing alignment and durable returns.
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