Episode #210 Managing a Large Real Estate Portfolio with Emma Powell

On this episode of The HyperFast Agent Podcast, host Dan Lesniak interviews Emma Powell, a real estate photographer turned investor that manages commercial real estate properties. Listen to hear how Emma’s previous experience with photography and marketing are assisting her success in managing her large real estate portfolio. Emma also details why the payoff of managing large commercial properties is worth the increase in effort, and how she’s working towards her investing goal of passive income. 

Episode Highlights: 

• Emma is currently living in Salt Lake City, Utah after moving from Austin, Texas. Her husband is in the tech field, and Emma finds that the cities that are thriving in the technology sector, are also thriving in investment opportunities.
• Emma was a real estate photographer in Austin for eight years. She always had an interest in real estate investing, and knew it was something her family should be doing, but didn’t make the transition until the move to Salt Lake City three years ago.
• The lack of desire to start a brand new photography business in Salt Lake City, and going to local networking events where she met a lot of real estate investors, is what prompted Emma to jump right into investing.
• Emma was able to utilize her skills and experience in real estate photography, digital marketing, home renovation, and contractor management and turn it into an opportunity that paid more than the side hustles she was previously doing. The current goal is to make enough to retire her husband.
• Emma describes the impetus and experience behind her first deal in September 2018.
• Due to the higher margin potential, Emma landed in commercial real estate investing.
• Emma discusses raising capital in order to close her first commercial investment property.
• That experience now has people reaching out to her for advice on their own projects.
• Emma discusses tenant empowerment and how that helps reduce vacancies in her properties.
• Why does Emma prefer single family or large commercial properties over duplexes, triplexes, etc?
• You have to think about efficiencies and standards if you want to manage a large portfolio.
• There are two kinds of deals that come to you: the deal that you look for and the deals that fall in your lap through your network.
• Emma outlines the types and key markets of the deals that she looks for, and why she seeks those particular properties out.
• Emma provides her answers to the HyperFast Round.
• Emma’s end goal is to get to passive investing. She is doing active investing to get her closer to that goal within the next 10 years.

3 Key Points:

1. Vacancy is what kills real estate investing and management. Finding ways to minimize vacancy is the key to real estate management success.
2. In order to manage a large portfolio, you need to consider efficiencies and standards.
3. There are two kinds of deals that can come to you: the deal that you look for in the niche you desire and the opportunistic deal that falls in your lap through your network.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “It has always been a goal of mine for so long, but it just always felt out of reach.” – Emma Powell
• “The hustles I had at the time didn’t make enough to justify the time I spent away from my kids and my family.” – Emma Powell
• “It wasn’t until you changed your environment, got around people doing it, where you got to the point where you did it.” – Dan Lesniak
• “The amount of effort to close a 50 unit is 5x the amount of a single…..but for 10x the reward.” – Emma Powell
• “You just need to take a look at what you’re already doing, and how that translates over to what you want to be doing.” – Emma Powell
• “Vacancy is what kills these things.” – Emma Powell
• “At the beginning I didn’t have a niche; I didn’t know what I was doing.” – Emma Powell

Resources Mentioned:

• Learn more about Hyperfast Academy; Get Dan’s 100 tips HERE
• Dan Lesniak (Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram) 
• Emma Powell (website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook Group, Instagram)
• Bigger Pockets Podcast

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