Andrew Brewer, a real estate developer and the owner of IronGall Investments, joins our host Ash Patel to discuss his strategy for development in one of the nation’s hottest markets: Austin, Texas. His former career as a stationary engineer led him to real estate development, and in this episode, Andrew details his due diligence process, the right time to raise capital, how he works with local municipalities, and more.
Key Takeaways:
- His Competitive Edge: Andrew targets hyper-local projects in the Austin area to maintain a competitive edge. He carefully invests only in the city's fastest-growing submarkets — communities seeing major growth and development of their own job centers beyond just being commuter towns into Austin. By focusing on these localized markets with increasing housing demand, Andrew maintains a competitive edge vs. out-of-market investors.
- Being Diligent with Due Diligence: Andrew's ideal land contract includes 4-5 months of due diligence with two months to close, plus 30-day extensions on both. This allows time for necessary third-party reports like geotech studies, endangered species assessments, utility mapping, and meetings with the city planning office to confirm allowable density. He prefers to sequence reports by risk level rather than paying for everything upfront, avoiding sunk costs if a deal-breaker emerges.
- Working with the City: Andrew invests in both raw land and land zoned for multifamily. He aims to maximize density, but scales based on target demographics and pricing. While cities generally don't oppose his projects, he avoids battles by targeting locations aligned with their future land use plans. He secures variances to tweak development requirements, but ensures the overall project conforms to the area's designated use.
Andrew Brewer | Real Estate Background
- Owner, Developer | IronGall Investments
- Portfolio:
- Multifamily, townhomes, mobile home parks, RV parks, single-family subdivisions
- Based in: Austin, Texas
- Say hi to him at:
- Best Ever Book: Michael Collins, by Tim Pat Coogan
- Greatest Lesson: Make sure that you are very careful when choosing a partner and make sure that the people you partner with can actually deliver on what they say they can do.
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Transcript
Ash Patel (00:03.87)
Hello, best ever listeners. Welcome to the best real estate investing advice ever show. I'm Ash Patel and I'm with today's guest, Andrew Brewer. Andrew is joining us from Austin, Texas. He is a real estate developer at Correalea Properties LLC, where he develops multifamily townhomes and single family subdivisions. Andrew's portfolio consists of an assortment of properties throughout Texas. Andrew, thank you for joining us and how are you today?
Andrew Brewer (00:33.653)
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
Ash Patel (00:36.062)
It's our pleasure. Andrew, if you would, before we get started, can you give the best ever listeners a little bit more about your background and what you're focused on now?
Andrew Brewer (00:46.674)
Yeah, for sure. So I have a degree in history and anthropology, was double major in college, and of course, that had so much applicability to real estate. So after I graduated college, my first professional position out of college was as a stationary engineer. For those of you listening that don't know what that is, it doesn't actually have to do with creating new types of paper.
It's a stationary engineer in relation to something that is stationary, like a building, as opposed to marine engineering. So like large ships, battleships, transport barges, things like that have things like boilers and whole infrastructures and systems inside them that keep everything moving, provide power to move the ships, electricity, pumping water, purifying stuff, and just all that kind of stuff. Large buildings have that as well.
Like all those same systems, it's just, they don't move, they're stationary. So I worked in large commercial facilities in the Bay Area in California, which is where I grew up. So the last facility I was working at was a $200 million facility, consists of 197 residential units on eight ground floor commercial spaces. So it was a high rise, 27 stories, was an entire city block. So I was in charge of that facility. I started there as a utility engineer, worked my way up to being the assistant chief engineer of the entire facility. And also while I was working as a stationary engineer, I worked as a consultant on construction defect litigation lawsuits.
So facilities that I worked in, if for some reason building wasn't built to specifications or it's thought that maybe it wasn't, there can be a lawsuit involved where either the residents in my case, the building I was working in was managed by an HOA. So in this case, it was the residents or the HOA on behalf of the residents suing the original builder or can be just like an owner after a period of time, you start to see issues with the building that should not be occurring quite so quickly.
Obviously older buildings have maintenance issues after 20, 30, 40 years or whatever, but there's a 10 year window for construction defect because generally the issues that would be coming up with construction defects should not be presenting within 10 years. So if they are, you know, you can, you can go and sue for that. Um, so worked as a consultant there as well. Um, and then, you know, after, you know, finishing up lawsuits there, did reconstruction, um, on facilities.
So worked, you know, as a project manager also in, uh, in reconstruction projects. So that gave me a really good baseline into, you know, the kind of the backend of how, you know, construction works, construction defect, what goes into managing large facilities as a stationary engineer. You know, I was involved in maintaining all of that large equipment, you know, boilers, generators, HVAC units, electrical, plumbing, all that kind of stuff that goes into a large building.
And also getting, you know, kind of a background look into what large scale asset management looks like, having to coordinate with property management, residents, and just got a lot of hands-on experience there. At the same time that I was doing that as my W-2 position, I had always been interested in real estate investing, got turned onto that by my wife when I was in college. And so we started using our money to buy properties of our own. So I was purchasing single families and small multifamilies in Kansas City, investing out of state, and just kind of realized that wasn't for me.
I never lost money or anything, but it was more work than I anticipated. It was hard to juggle that with my full-time job, especially being out of state and being so early in my career that I wasn't making a crazy amount of money at my W-2. I didn't have a lot of vacation or benefits. So I did that for a while, but then just with a lot of encouragement through my wife, decided like, hey, why don't I put these two skill sets together?
I have the knowledge from operating a large asset, but then I also have this knowledge of, as an investor and someone that's bought my own properties, I understand what an owner or investor wants to see and what metrics they're looking at when purchasing a property. So I just put those two together. I moved out to Austin, Texas, and I began developing properties out here and acquiring properties here. That's still what I'm doing today.
Ash Patel (05:57.59)
Did you start out in development or purchasing existing properties?
Andrew Brewer (06:04.31)
Um, I started purchasing existing properties. So, you know, that's what I was doing in Kansas city. Um, I liquidated that portfolio in order to, you know, kind of reinvest in Texas. Um, because I had invested out of state in Kansas city and realized that wasn't something that I really wanted to do. You know, I liquidated that portfolio. And when I moved to Texas, you know, it was like, I'm going to invest here in my own backyard as of right now.
I pretty much primarily invest in Austin and San Antonio. I live in Austin, San Antonio is about a two hour drive. They're both very large markets with ample opportunities. So that's where I invest now. When I got here in Austin, I actually started my career in Austin by developing properties. I have a development partner I connected with. He grew up building spec homes with his parents. His parents have spec home building company and they had done some land subdivision.
So he had kind of the, you know, the knowledge on real like ground up development and subdivision, although on a much smaller scale. And then I had the experience of, you know, redevelopment and large scale project management on a more commercial scale. So we were able to, you know, kind of put our two skill sets together to develop, you know, larger properties.
So at this point, you know, what we develop, you know, whether it's single family, town homes or multifamily will be you know, larger projects, you know, generally in the, you know, $20 million plus range for, you know, apartments and townhomes, subdivisions, you know, and maybe the five to $15 million range, generally, you know, 80, you know, 80 to 100 units are up, you know, so we have projects that are, you know, 100 units, 330 units, 125 units, you know, things of that scale now is what we're doing.
Ash Patel (07:59.962)
Andrew, you mentioned that you weren't making a lot of money. Where did the money come from for your portfolio in Kansas City?
Andrew Brewer (09:23.766)
The capital for my projects was a combination of my own equity and then I also raised equity. So, my wife and I live very frugally. We shared rooms, rented rooms, ate beans and rice, three meals a day for years to save up a good chunk of our own capital. And that's what we invest in Kansas City with. We did not have outside investors for our properties in Kansas City. Granted, they were much cheaper properties.
Once we started developing these larger projects here in Austin, we had a bit of a track record already, and we started raising some capital for that. We continue to do that. You know, we either syndicate or JV the large deals that we do.
Ash Patel (13:31.626)
Tell me about the first time you raised capital.
Andrew Brewer
Yeah, so the first time I raised capital, my partner and I, we found a deal. We went out, put it under contract. It was a little scary for us because it was a much bigger project than we had done before. But we felt confident in our skill set. So we decided to pull the trigger and go for it. We knew that we didn't have the capital to take it down or the experience. And we were going to need to partner with a more experienced group.
So we did some research there and identified a group that we thought was going to be a good fit here in Austin. It was a group I had actually passively invested with before. So we put the deal under contract, did our due diligence and our research, put together our pitch deck, went out to lunch with them. Kind of nervous going into that lunch meeting. I was really trying to impress them. And they grilled me about stuff. Thankfully I was prepared for that.
And they, you know, went, you know, talked about it, came back and said, you know, hey, we, you know, we'd actually love to partner on this deal with you. And so that, you know, that kind of got our foot in the door, you know, there's, you know, that kind of law, the first deal. And I feel like that, you know, really kind of played out in this deal. So they came onto the team with us and we went out and, you know, we raised capital together and, and then we were, you know, we're kind of off and running that way.
So that was how we raised for that first deal.
Ash Patel (15:13.786)
Andrew, over the past few years, you saw asset prices, multifamily in particular, climb very high to the point where you can buy used properties for more than what it would cost to build. And now that pendulum has shifted, there's a lot of development going on. There's this new trend of build to rent where the investors end up purchasing a single family home, a town home that is essentially turnkey.
It's managed by the developer or the property manager. So it's a passive investment and you get to play landlord as a passive investor. What are your thoughts on that? And are you doing anything to capitalize on the build to rent trend?
Andrew Brewer (16:00.422)
I'm not really doing anything in the build to rent space. I've found it difficult to make those deals pencil, at least here in Austin, San Antonio, land prices are really high in Austin. I mean, they have better deals now, but for the last few years, it's been really, really hot here in Austin and hard to get the numbers to work because you get lower density on a built to rent project. So I haven't really done much in that in that space. I've been sticking more to higher density stuff like multifamily and townhomes.
Ash Patel (16:38.342)
You are in one of the most sought after real estate areas in the country. How do you maintain a competitive edge?
Andrew Brewer (16:50.01)
Um, I maintain a competitive edge by, you know, being pretty hyper local in the projects that I target. Um, you know, Austin's pretty hot, but you know, like any market, you know, there, there are hotter spots and not quite so hot spots and, um, you know, real estate's very, you know, hyper local to, you know, to quote, um, you know, some, you know, another kind of big syndicator in the space.
So I'm very careful about the sub-market that I'm in and making sure that I'm only investing into growing sub-markets. If you're familiar with the Austin area at all, there's downtown Austin, then there's a lot of smaller markets around that, places like Round Rock, Leander, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, Maine, or all these little towns that are also seeing a lot of growth. Some of them are commuter communities into Austin. Some of them have strong job centers you know, like Taylor and Round Rock have a lot of jobs there. So those are good places to invest in that are within the Austin MSA, but they're not in Austin.
So I look for, you know, for markets like that, where there are a lot of jobs coming in, there's a need for housing, maybe there's, you know, some constriction development is historic or I'm sorry, Texas is historically very development friendly, but you know, that's changing in some parts of Austin, that can be a good thing or a bad thing, you know, if it gets less development friendly, then you know, there's more supply and demand and balance. So those can be good areas to target if you can get something through.
So really it's, you know, it's looking to the sub market and making sure that sub market is not being overbuilt. There are some sub markets in Austin where, you know, they just have so many projects that have been approved that it's going to be hard to fill them all. Whereas in other sub markets, you're seeing not enough. So it's just being very careful about, you know, kind of what's going in and where.
Ash Patel (18:43.342)
How do you find your land acquisitions?
Andrew Brewer (18:50.102)
Um, I find land, um, through brokers or just kind of, you know, through my network. Um, you know, I have brokers bring me deals and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, um, you know, I also just have a, you know, a larger network here in Austin that I've built over the last four years or so of, you know, either people that have land or know somebody that does, or, you know.
You know, just like whatever, you know, people, you know, they just kind of, you know, people send stuff. People also know me as a developer at this point. So and there's less people in development than there are in like multifamily acquisitions, for instance. So for a lot of people when you know, they get a lead for development, and that's not really their niche, whether you know, they're like a flipper or multifamily guy, you know, they send it to me and either to partner or wholesale it or something. And you know, I'll take a look from there.
I mean, that's really where I get a lot of my leads from is, you know, referrals or people sending me properties that they don't quite know what to do with.
Ash Patel (19:52.89)
Andrew, let's demystify development for our best ever listeners. You find a piece of land, you get it under contract. Can you walk us through that high level process? How much due diligence time do you put on this contract before any of your money goes hard?
Andrew Brewer (20:12.806)
Yeah, so, you know, my ideal contract would be four to five months of due diligence with two months to close. So I'm generally looking for, you know, 120 days, I would say at minimum 120 days of due diligence, 60 days to close. And then I like to try to put in a couple extensions there. So maybe 120 days of duty, DD with a 30 day extension on DD, and then 60 days to close with a 30 day extension closing.
And I do that because there's a lot more or the due diligence takes a lot longer, you've got to get a number of third party reports, things like, you know, you know, a geotech study, a phase one, possibly like an endangered species report. You know, you've got to get utility maps, you've got to do, you know, concept site plans, you know, make sure that you can get the density that you need, you got to meet with the city at least once or twice.
There's a lot of steps that you have to take. I'm not a big fan of taking those steps all at once because they all cost a lot of money. And so if any of those things don't pan out, like if you've just gone out and spent, you know, three grand for this, five grand for this, 10 grand for that, and two grand for that, and like all of this money up front and one of those things doesn't work out, you know, then you're out all of that money.
So I tend to do things in steps, you know, I'll say like, well, you know, I think the biggest hurdle here is gonna be you know, dealing with the city or I think, you know, I'm afraid there might be an environmental issue. So I'll take, I'll address the highest risk factor in my opinion, first on that specific deal. Um, and each one of those things can take some time, you know, it could take three weeks to get an environmental study. It could take three weeks to get a geotech. It could take a month for your engineers to turn around a concept site plan. It could take a month or two for you to get a meeting with the city. So there's just a lot of you know, lead time that you need in due diligence. And that's why I ask for, you know, that 120 days with an extension. I generally pay an option fee upfront, you know, that might be depending on the contract price, you know, a couple thousand bucks. And then earnest money is generally about 1%.
That does not go hard until after the due diligence period. And the due diligence extension I get generally all pay a little bit more of the option fee, like maybe another thousand bucks for that due diligence extension. And then that will extend due diligence out. Once that's over, then, you know, earnest money is hard, but you know, it's typically been four to five months. If I can't get it figured out in four to five months, I, you know, I'll just drop the contract, you know, be out two, three grand plus whatever I've spent in DD. And that's just, you know, cost of doing business. You know, it costs money to, you know, to do it right, really.
So I build that in, that's the risk capital. I put up the risk capital myself before I start bringing in investors. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. I pretty much have it done by the end of the day. Yeah.
Ash Patel (23:19.306)
That's very helpful in terms of dealing with the city I'm assuming you want to build as much as dense as you can Do you often get pushback from them or do you often find lane that's already zoned? multifamily
Andrew Brewer (23:36.314)
Um, I've done straight raw land. I've also done land that's, you know, zone for multifamily, uh, in terms of density, like I'm often looking to maximize density, but I'll say that it depends on the kind of project you're putting in. You know, if you're trying to put in a project where maybe you're going to sell for a bit more per unit, um, or you're targeting different client base, you might not necessarily want things to be like the most dense that you can get, uh, because, you know, drive your price down. If that's not the market you're in.
So that's a consideration. Really, I don't find a lot of that I get a lot of pushback from the city, but that's because I'm very targeted in, you know, where I'm going. So I don't I don't ever try to go against the city. You know, if the city has an issue with whatever project I'm putting in, I'm not going to fight them on it. If I go to the city and they're like, hey, I know you want to build, you know, 20 units per acre of multifamily here. Like we don't want multifamily here, I'll just say, hey, that's fine, no problem.
I'll drop the contract and go look somewhere else. I'm not trying to go to war with the city. Um, all cities have a future land use plan that you can generally find through calling their development department. And that'll tell you what the city wants to see where. So if you just follow that generally, you know, you don't hit a crazy amount of pushback.
Ash Patel (24:54.086)
Yeah, I'm not an advocate of going to battle with city leadership. However, do you not try to push for a variance or get to know some of the politicians in that area? You're hyper local. So I'm imagining you're in just a handful of municipalities. Do you try to build relationships with them and try to see how far you could push?
Andrew Brewer (25:22.998)
Um, kind of, you know, so I do build relationships with the city, but, and I do have a lot of projects that have variances on them, but you know, the overall, um, like the overall project has to align with the city. You know, I haven't really seen a city that's going to change its entire land use plan just to put in whatever project I want to put in there. So when I'm requesting a variance or trying to get something that's a little bit out of scope it's still like aligning overall.
You know, the city's future land use plan doesn't say like, I want this exact project. It just says like, I want multifamily in this area and I want commercial in that area. And I want like some kind of transition thing in between or something like that. And so as long as I'm conforming to that, you know, I'll ask for variances around, you know, the specific development requirements, but make sure that the project overall fits, you know? So maybe it's like, the city says they want multifamily here.
I'm gonna put a multifamily project here. I'm not trying to put like retail there or something. So it conforms to the land use plan, but maybe there's like a code in the city or something that says, hey, you can only get 20 units per acre or something. Maybe I'm trying to target 22 or 24. And I try to come up with something around that by like, hey, maybe instead of just doing straight multifamily zoning, I'm gonna do a PUD, which will give the city a little bit more control over what I'm gonna build.
But at the end of the day, it's still a multifamily project. So it's still conforming to the overall plan. And that's typically a lot easier to get because when you go to planning and zoning and city council vote, whoever it is that you're working with doesn't have to go in there and say, hey, we're trying to approve something that's completely outside of what's in the plan.
You know, we're approving something that fits in the box, but there's just, you know, maybe a little bit of wiggle room in there. Um, so I, I've, I found that's kind of the way to do it. Cause at the end of the day, people voting out of our city council members and they don't know anything about development. So, and they get in and out like every year. So, you know, hard to develop a relationship there with somebody that's just going to get voted out in a year.
Ash Patel (27:23.478)
Got it.
Yeah, a side note, best ever listeners, anywhere we have more than one property, or even sometimes if we have a larger property, we'll donate to any city council person that's running for reelection. I don't care what side they're on, if they've got an election coming up and it doesn't take a lot of money, $500,000 and you will get their attention. I think it helps. I think if you've got a fair amount of property in one particular municipality, you will get their attention, get to know the politicians, right? It certainly helped us quite a bit in the past. Andrew, once you've got the property under contract, what are the next steps?
Andrew Brewer (28:21.498)
Once the property is under contract, I dive headlong into due diligence. Generally, at the same time, I will also start putting out soft feelers to my capital partners and my larger team that I do the deal with and just let them know, hey, I've got this deal under contract. It has passed the initial smell test. I think we can do something here. I'm doing the due diligence right now.
If this is something that you're interested in, let me know, start taking soft commitments and frame it along the lines of like, if it were to be this thing, would you be interested? And then once I get through due diligence and have that pitch deck built out and everything, then I'll go in for like a hard commitment, hey, like this is now what it is. I have the firm numbers, I've done all of the I've done all the due diligence, I've got the firm underwriting, we've got lending lined up, let's start working towards getting capital in and closing. Typically, the last 90 days or so of the project are doing that, getting that capital in, getting legal docs drafted, and working towards closing, closing out financing if we have it. And then we close, and by the time we close, I aim to
Basically the entire project modeled out to where we're not planning the project anymore. We're simply executing a list of tasks that we've done ahead of time. So by the time we close, we're just starting to check off boxes and going through the process.
Ash Patel (30:00.37)
Andrew, what's the hardest lesson you've learned in all of your real estate development career?
Andrew Brewer (30:08.062)
Hardest lesson I've learned has been make sure that you are very careful with who you partner with and make sure that the people you partner with can actually deliver on what they say they can do. I had a partnership very early on that kind of went south. It was a development deal. Thankfully, it was all my own money, did not lose any investor funds, but learned a lot there.
You can't just trust anybody. People will really puff themselves up even if they seem to have a track record you don't always know how true it is or what part they played in making those properties on their track record a success so just be very careful there who you partner with really vet your partners very carefully and always underwrite everything at market price was I guess the other thing that I've learned even if you know you have a partner that comes in and says oh I have a contracting company I can do this for, you know, way cheaper than so and so.
I mean, if they can't do it, and you're relying on that discount in order to make the numbers work, and you have to, you know, exit that partnership or bring in somebody else, and you don't have the budget for it, like you can be in trouble really quick. So just be very careful, be very careful about your numbers and who you partner with there.
Ash Patel (31:21.95)
Is there a good tip to qualify a potential partner?
Andrew Brewer (31:29.046)
Um, I mean what I like to do is I'm just very blunt, you know I you know, somebody sends me their track record or whatever, you know I'll just straight up get on a call with them and just say like hey, you know I see you have these properties in your portfolio. Like what exactly did you do on this? What exactly were you responsible for? um, and I just kind of You know really try to hammer on them and get them to You know be very open. I you know, I kind of I know all the double speak at this point, people saying, oh, I have all these assets under management, and I just kind of go straight in like, oh, that's great.
Well, okay, you've got all of these assets under management. What do you do on those assets? What are you responsible for? How much of these deals do you own? Did you find the deal? Are you managing the deal? Or did you just raise some capital? Or what is your role? And that's generally what I do is I just ask, I'm just very, very upfront and blunt with my line of questioning. I don't try to dance around, you know, anything.
And, you know, like in my opinion, if, if somebody's going to try to dance around the question and not really answer it straight, it probably means there's something to hide there. And if that's the case, I don't really want to be in business. If, you know, somebody can't just come out and be very honest with me about what their role is. I mean, even if it's not a big role or something like that, like just, you know, tell me what it is upfront.
And I strive to do the same thing when people ask me.
Ash Patel (32:55.095)
Yeah.
You shared some very valuable advice. I've been there myself and it's so great having a partner, somebody to share tasks with, somebody to bounce ideas back and forth with. And a lot of times we become enamored by a potential partnership that we fail to ask those questions until we learn those hard lessons. So thank you for sharing that. Andrew, are you ready for the best ever lightning round?
Andrew Brewer (33:26.13)
Yeah, for sure.
Ash Patel (33:27.614)
Alright, what's the best ever book you recently read?
Andrew Brewer (33:33.73)
Um, best ever book I recently read was, uh, Michael Collins by Tim Pat Coogan. It's a biography of Michael Collins. He was an Irish revolutionary hero. Um, pretty, you know, pretty interested learning how he built out his organization. Not exactly business per se, but you know, a good, a good case lesson in building an organization, um, and everything he had to do there. So very, very interesting, not real estate related, but still a good read.
Ash Patel (34:02.662)
Andrew, what's the best ever way you like to give back?
Andrew Brewer (34:09.594)
I like to give back just by talking to people, giving advice, connecting with people. I had some people that gave me advice early on in my career and I like to try to pay it forward. It's just my opinion and my experience. I don't claim to know everything, but I love trying to help people when they're having a problem if there's a way that I can.
Ash Patel (34:38.438)
Andrew, how can the best ever listeners reach out to you?
Andrew Brewer (34:44.05)
Yeah, if you want to get in touch with me, they can find me on Facebook or on LinkedIn, or they can visit my websites. You can go to www.IronGall, I-R-O-N-G-A-L-L, investments.com, or www.distance, the number three, development.com. And you can reach me at either of my emails, either Andrew at Iron or Andrew at Dist
Ash Patel (35:09.978)
Andrew, you've got an amazing story. I thank you for sharing some of your experience with us. I've got to ask you, when you graduated with your history and anthropology degree, did you have plans on pursuing that line of work?
Andrew Brewer (35:26.394)
I didn't really, like I didn't really know what I wanted to do at that point. I really love history and anthropology, so that's what I studied, but I didn't really have any intention of ever like going into those fields. I discovered real estate investing, you know, when I was in college and kind of had always wanted to do that, see if I could figure out a way to do that in no small part because of my wife's encouragement. But yeah, it didn't really ever plan on becoming an anthropologist or a historian. I just, I love history and anthropology. So that's what I did, you know, study what you love, right?
Ash Patel (36:02.09)
Well, listen, hey man, you did a great job pivoting. You've had a great career. So thank you again for sharing your story with us.
Andrew Brewer (36:12.658)
Yeah, thank you for having me on. Happy to be here, happy to share.
Ash Patel (36:17.238)
Best ever listeners, thank you for joining us as well. If you enjoy this episode, please leave us a five star review, share this podcast with someone you think can benefit from it. Also follow, subscribe and have a best ever day.
