Yesterday Theo began discussing these 51 responsibilities. Today he will finish the rest of the responsibilities that he didn’t get to yesterday. You won’t hear a detailed breakdown of each responsibility, we’ve already done that throughout syndication school. The focus of these episodes is to help you figure out how to divide up these responsibilities among your team and business partners. If you enjoyed today’s episode remember to subscribe in iTunes and leave us a review!
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TRANSCRIPTION
Joe Fairless: There needed to be a resource on apartment syndication that not only talked about each aspect of the syndication process, but how to actually do each of the things, and go into it in detail… And we thought “Hey, why not make it free, too?” That’s why we launched Syndication School.
Theo Hicks will go through a particular aspect of apartment syndication on today’s episode, and get into the details of how to do that particular thing. Enjoy this episode, and for more on apartment syndication and how to do things, go to apartmentsyndication.com, or to learn more about the Apartment Syndication School, go to syndicationschool.com, so you can listen to all the previous episodes.
Theo Hicks: Hi, Best Ever listeners, and welcome to another episode of the Syndication School series, a free resource focused on the how-to’s of apartment syndication. As always, I am your host, Theo Hicks.
Each week we air two podcast episodes that are focusing on a specific aspect of the apartment syndication investment strategy. For the majority of these episodes – or series; right now we’re doing a two-part series – we offer a free document. These are PowerPoint presentation templates, Excel templates, PDF how-to guides, things that accompany the series or the episode, that help you grow, scale, start an apartment syndication business. All these free documents, as well as past Syndication School episodes/series can be found at SyndicationSchool.com.
This is part two of a two-part series entitled “The 51 responsibilities of the general partnerships.” In part one we first discussed the context of why we’re even talking about this, which I’ll get into in a second, and then we went into the first 28 roles and responsibilities of the general partnership, which make up the pre-contract phase, the “Hey, I wanna do apartment syndications” to “Oh my god, I have my first deal under contract.” All the various steps involved to get from that starting point to that first ending point, in a sense.
In this part we’re gonna talk about the remaining steps, roles and responsibilities 29 through 51. Again, taking a step back, to give context for why we’re talking about this, when you’re doing apartment syndications you are most likely not doing them by yourself. If you’re doing them by yourself, then this is not 100% relevant to you. But if you have a business partner, or multiple business partners, then you need to figure out who is going to do what. Who is responsible for what aspect of the business plan, and making sure that these are defined, so that everyone knows what their roles and responsibilities are, and everyone knows what everyone else in the partnership is supposed to be doing, rather than keeping it vague. The best way to do this is to know, from beginning to end, what all of these roles and responsibilities are.
You can go through all of these roles and responsibilities, learn more about these roles and responsibilities and what they entail… Which is not the focus of this series, because it would take 20 episodes to discuss this… Which is true, because we’ve actually done 20+ episodes on each of these specific tasks. So we’re gonna have a blog post in the show notes with the links to blog posts and Syndication School episodes where we go into more detail on each of these steps, so that we don’t have to focus on that in this series.
But again, the entire point of this two-part series is to list out in two episodes all of the main roles and responsibilities of the general partnership, so that you can take this information which is in this free document that you can download in the show notes or at SyndicationSchool.com, to assign each of these responsibilities to you or your business partner(s), so that you know exactly who’s responsible for what. Then at that point you can set up an accountability system, do weekly calls to make sure everyone’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing, things like that. But that’s, again, not the focus of this episode. The focus of this episode is to talk about the things that need to be assigned to people.
So in part one we went over the pre-contract phase, which is one through 28, so I’m gonna quickly just read those. I went into a little bit of detail on each of those, and kind of how to think about assigning these… But again, in the blog post there are links – probably 90% of these have links to some other blog post or Syndication School episode where you can learn more about how to actually execute this responsibility.
Really quickly, the pre-contract phase 1 through 28 is:
- Select Potential Target Investment Markets
- Evaluate Potential Target Investment Markets
- Select 1 to 2 Potential Target Markets
- Create Website
- Create Company Presentation
- Define Target Audience for Thought Leadership Platform
- Create and Grow Thought Leadership Platform
- Create an In-Person Meetup Group
- Create a Facebook Group And/Or Page
- Find, Interview, and Select Property Management Company
- Find, Interview, and Select Commercial Brokers
- Find, Interview, and Select Mortgage Brokers
- Find Business Partner
- Find a Syndication Accountant
- Find a Real Estate Attorney
- Find a Securities Attorney
- Find a Loan Guarantor
- Define Responsibilities for Each Business Partner
- Set Investment Criteria for Deals
- Set GP compensation structure
- Set LP compensation structure
- Create Investor Email List on MailChimp
- Find Passive Investors
- Build Relationships with Commercial Brokers
- Subscribe to Commercial Broker’s On-Market Email Lists
- Implement Marketing Strategies to Generate Off-Market Deals
- Underwrite Deals
- Submit and Negotiate the PSAs.
Again, for each of those in the last episode we kind of briefly hit on what each of those are and why you need to assign these to people… And the ultimately, the purpose on your end is to assign each of these 28 responsibilities to a member of the general partnership based on their background, their experience, what they’re good at and what they actually like to do.
Similarly, you’re gonna wanna follow the same process for the remaining roles and responsibilities, number 29 through 51. So we are going to go over 29 through 51 in the same fashion we went over 1 through 28 in the previous Syndication School episode. And again, for all the ones we’re going over today, only one doesn’t have a link to another blog post or Syndication School episode, just because it’s more of a checkmark thing… And I’ll mention what that is when we get to it.
So 29, who performs due diligence on the deal? Which is a pretty large role. This is the person who is responsible for once the deal is under contract, making sure all the inspections are done, all the reports are created, reviewing these reports, using these reports to update the underwriting or to confirm the underwriting assumptions, deciding if there’s some aspect of the due diligence that disqualifies the deal or requires going back to the owner/seller and renegotiating terms or the sales price. Again, I’m not gonna go into all the detail on the due diligence; that’s just kind of a general overview. There’s a link for more… I think we have like an eight-part series on doing due diligence in Syndication School. So who’s responsible for managing this due diligence process?
Number 30 is to create the investment summary. This is gonna be a long, 20, 30, 40+ page document. Usually it’s gonna be in PowerPoint format; we do have the investment summary template at SyndicationSchool.com for you to download… But this is gonna give you a general overview of the deal, of the property, the market, and your business plan for the deal. And then whatever else you wanna include; maybe a section on case studies of successful deals you’ve done in the past. This is a thing that you send to passive investors when you are announcing the deal. So who’s responsible for creating this investment summary? Most likely, someone who has had a hand in or is responsible for underwriting, because a lot of the information that is included in the investment summary – the majority of it in fact – comes from the underwriting. It’s all the assumptions made, the market research done, rental comps, financial analysis, things like that. Who’s making that document?
Number 31 is to announce the new deal to the investor list. When you have a deal under contract, you’ve got your investment summary done, you’re performing your due diligence… At the same time, you want to announce your deal to your investors, so you can start the process of securing commitments from your investors. This starts with an email that includes information about the deal… So who is writing this email? Who decides what goes in this email and what doesn’t go in this email? So overall, who’s responsible for creating this email. Most likely it’s gonna be the person who’s responsible for managing the entirety of the email list, so sending out all the emails to the investors…
Unless you want, again, to have multiple people, there’s gonna be one person who sends out the investment [unintelligible [00:10:29].24] 31, which is the announcing the new deal to investors, and maybe someone else is responsible for sending out ongoing email updates to the investors. Again, whatever you wanna do, but again, this is a specific duty, announcing the new deal to your investor list; you wanna know who’s gonna do that before you get to that point, and you’re not arguing over who’s making this email.
I guess a more general point to make is another reason why you want to define all the roles or responsibilities upfront is because you don’t wanna have to stop and have a back-and-forth negotiation or argument with the members of the GP each time you get to a new step in the process. Like “Alright, the deal is under contract. Now starting to do due diligence. Well, who’s responsible for managing this? Well, I don’t wanna do that. I underwrote the deal, so why would I have to do due diligence? You should do this.” You wanna have all this stuff defined upfront, so you don’t have to argue over every single step in the process as it comes up. You know from the beginning “Alright, Theo, you underwrote the deal. Now is my turn to take over and do due diligence.” Or “Theo, you underwrote the deal, so you’re also gonna do due diligence as well.” Again, all this is defined upfront. So that’s 31, announce a new deal to the investor list.
Number 32 is perform the new investment offering conference call or webinar. When you are doing the call or webinar, presenting the deal to your investors – who’s on that call? Who’s responsible for setting up the call in number or the webinar? Who’s responsible for creating the structure for a new investment offering call? Who’s actually gonna execute the call? Who’s gonna talk on the call? Who’s responsible for gather the Q&A from your investors? That’s what I talked about in the last episode – it’s not just perform a new investment offering conference call or webinar; there’s a lot of subcategories or subduties underneath that, that need to be assigned to people. For each of these, in reality it’s not for every single one, because some of them are pretty straightforward, like “Announce new deal to investors. Who’s creating that email?” But for something like 32, performing the new investment offering conference call, there’s a lot of other steps that go into executing that conference call. Maybe one person isn’t gonna be responsible for all of it.
So when you get to this point in the document, you’ll be like “Alright, what all needs to be done to actually execute the new investment offering call?” And then based on all those steps, who is gonna do what? Is it gonna be one person, or is this person responsible for the logistic aspect of it, but then this person is gonna present part one of it, and then another person will present part two, and this person right here is kind of just responsible for the Q&A; if a question is asked about the business plan, then this person answers. If it’s asked about the market – well, this person knows a lot more about the market… Things like that. So that overall concept can be applied to the majority of these roles or responsibilities.
Number 33 is sending the conference call or webinar recordings to investors. Pretty straightforward, but you’re gonna wanna send an email to your list of investors, because not every single person is gonna attend the webinar or conference call. So again, who’s responsible for sending out that information to the list of investors?
Number 32, create legal documents and send them to investors. To formalize their investment, they’re gonna need to sign a PPM, the operating agreements… So who’s responsible for making sure those are created? Who’s responsible for working with the securities and the real estate attorneys to make sure that these are set up on time, and then who’s responsible for making sure that these get to the investors, who’s responsible for making sure that these get to the investors? Who’s responsible for making sure that the investors are actually signing them? Things like that.
Number 35 is create the LLCs. We actually haven’t done a full Syndication School episode on this; I don’t think we have. We will in the future, but basically – there’s various LLCs that are involved in the apartment syndication process. There’s the general partnership LLC, there’s an LLC that owns the deal that the limited partners invest in, and maybe the limited partners have their own LLCs that they’re using to invest in the deal… But overall on the GP side there’s a few LLCs that you’re gonna wanna create; at the very least, one for the GP and one for the deal. So who’s responsible for making sure those LLCs get set up?
Number 36 – this is the only one we don’t have a link of to a blog post or to a Syndication School episode about, because it’s “Ensure passive investors’ money is transferred.” I won’t say it’s simple, but it doesn’t really warrant a long, drawn out, 30-minute episode or 1,000-word blog post. Basically, it’s just “Did the investors send their money or didn’t they send their money?” Or did they say they sent the money and the money got there, or did it not get there? So it’s kind of just a check box thing, but somebody needs to be responsible for making sure that passive investors are sending in their money… Because you don’t wanna sit at the closing table and no one’s looked at this, and you don’t have enough money to close on the deal.
Number 37, set up the operating bank accounts. Before you close, you’re gonna wanna have all your bank accounts set up. So again, who’s responsible for going to the bank and setting these up? There’s three main accounts. Again, we’ve got a link to that, so I’m not gonna go into what those operating accounts are. If you wanna learn more about those, make sure you click on that link in the blog post in the show notes; or if you’re watching this on YouTube, it’s also in the description.
Number 38, secure financing. Again, a very general, broad, large step. But who’s responsible for securing the financing from the lender, based on whatever assumptions you set while you were underwriting the deal?
So all the work that’s required to go into securing financing, which again, you can learn more about by clicking on the link in the blog post in the show notes – who’s responsible for each of those steps in that process?
And then 39, closing on the deals. Who’s responsible for the few days leading up to the actual closing date, plus the closing date? Who’s responsible for managing that entire process? Who’s the person that the broker is going to be contacting, the title company is gonna be contacting, who’s wiring the funds, who’s signing the documents? Things like that.
So 29 through 39 – those are the contract to close phase. The last phase, 40 through 51, is going to be the post-closing phase. These are essentially the asset management duties. So who’s gonna be the asset manager will most likely be doing most of these responsibilities, but then the person who’s the investor relations will also be doing another portion of these responsibilities as well. So number 40 is create the investor guide. This goes in tandem with 41, which is notify investors of closing.
In order to notify investors of closing, you’re gonna send out an email to your list of investors. Obviously, who’s responsible for sending out that email list? Who’s responsible for deciding what goes into that closing email?
One of the things that you’re gonna want to include is an investor guide, which is a separate document that they can download, that kind of answers FAQs about investing in the deal; when they get paid, tax timing, things like that. So who’s making this document? Who decides what goes into this document and who’s making sure this document goes to the investors and is sent to the investors? So that covers 40 and 41 – creating the investor guide and notifying investors of closing.
Number 42 is sending monthly recap emails to investors. Who’s responsible for gathering information from the property management company, that is used to create these monthly recap emails? Who’s decides what goes into these monthly recap emails? Who drafts these monthly recap emails? Who reviews these monthly recap emails, and who ultimately sends these monthly recap emails
Number 43, sending quarterly financials to investors. Who’s gonna get the financials from the property management company? Who decides what financials to send, and who ultimately sends these to the investors?
Number 44 – sending the K1 tax documents to investors. Again, who is responsible for gathering these K1s, or who’s responsible for making sure that the accountant is sending these K1s to the investors? Who’s responsible for letting the investors know when they’re coming, how the K1 process works? Things like that.
Number 45 – this is kind of general, but answering incoming questions from investors. In all of your emails or in all of your communications with investors, when you say “If you have any questions, you can contact this person”, who is this person? Who do you want your passive investors to direct their questions to, and then who’s responsible for making sure that these questions get answered?
Number 46, oversee the property management company. Again, this is basically the asset manager. So who is the asset manager? Weekly performance call with the property management company – again, the asset manager most likely. Frequently analyze competition to set rents, 48. Number 49 – frequently analyze the market to determine when to sell. So for 48 – who is responsible for doing rent comp analysis on an ongoing basis? If it’s a property management company, who’s responsible for reviewing that and deciding if it makes sense to increase rents, to reduce rents, to do specials…
Similarly with frequently analyzing the market, when to determine to sell, number 49… Who’s doing that? Your property management company might be doing that, but if they’re not, or if you also wanna do that, who’s reaching out to brokers and getting a broker’s opinion of value, and then ultimately, who decides when to sell the property? Is it gonna be at the end of the hold period? Is it gonna be if you can hit a certain return threshold to your investors? What’s that return threshold and who decides what that return threshold is? This is a very important step, because you may wait until exactly five years to sell, but maybe you wait more than five years to sell; maybe you sell after 2-3 years. Ultimately, you need to have a process for how you’re gonna determine when to sell and if one person has the ultimate decision-making power to determine when to actually sell? So this is a very important thing that you wanna define upfront, because it’s probably something that if you wait until after you’ve closed, you’re probably not gonna be able to come to an agreement on when’s the right time to sell.
Number 50 is to ensure the correct distributions are sent on time. So who’s sending distributions to investors? Most likely your property management company. Who’s responsible for overseeing the property management company to ensure that they’re sending out the correct distributions on time? Who’s the person that’s gonna notify investors when these distributions are coming? And things like that.
And then lastly, who is overseeing the sale of the asset? Basically, the entire process that you did on the front-end, interacting with the listing broker and the seller – who’s gonna be that version for your deals? So who’s gonna work with the broker to essentially go through the entire process of selling the deal? So from listing the deal to actually doing all the due diligence on the deal, to closing on the deal?
Number 29 to 51 – for all of those, except for number 36, ensure passive investor money is transferred, there are links to blog posts, to other Syndication School episodes. You don’t have to find all these yourself if you don’t want to. We wanna make it easy, because we went over a lot of information, and I was not able to go into detail on all of these, because again, it would be a 20 or 30-part podcast series, which I don’t have a problem doing, but I don’t want you to have to sit through all that again, because we’ve gone over all of this before in blog posts and in Syndication School episodes.
So the next step for you is to download the free document that has all of these listed out, download that blog post that you can click on the links to go into more detail on some of the responsibilities you’re unclear about, and then ultimately the goal is to assign each of these roles and responsibilities to a specific member of the general partnership, and then from there you can set up some sort of accountability system, meeting frequency, to make sure that the members of the GP are actually executing these roles and responsibilities.
That concludes this two-part series, the 51 responsibilities of the general partnership. To listen to other Syndication School episodes about the how-to’s of apartment syndications and to download the free documents and the free blog posts in this case, visit SyndicationSchool.com.
Thank you for listening, and I will talk to you tomorrow.
