Boutique Education Investment Firm
Freestyle Capital Group is a boutique investment education firm. Melanie McDaniel, President and Founder, is an apartment buyer, who owns a 24-unit apartment in Norfolk, VA with two partners, and is a Limited Partner (LP) in an apartment syndication in Huntsville, AL. She was a real estate agent for two and a half years and worked mostly with investors. She worked with people who were buying single-family homes to flip or rent, small multifamily homes to house-hack or rent, and up to six unit commercial multifamily buildings to rent. She has an investor training and networking meetup group that still runs to this day. The group started as a small meetup at a local coffee shop, and grew to over 500 people, with up to 75 showing up for the latest meetup. Her real estate agent team back in Virginia is still following in her footsteps, running the meetup to provide value to the investor community. They are still serving her past clients and growing the investor education community. She is super grateful to have had experience as an agent, but when she set out to be a real estate agent, it was just a stepping stone to becoming full time in apartment syndication.
From Melanie McDaniel, President and Founder:
“I am what is called an active investor, meaning I invest but I am active in the General Partnership (GP) of the projects I invest in. In 2015 I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. That book was the pivot point in my life. I started listening to the BiggerPockets Podcast and reading investing books. I even did the Rich Dad, Poor Dad “guru” training program. I spent a lot of money doing that, but I learned a lot. I have been learning about investing since 2015, so I’m five years into intensive and intentional learning. Early on in my studies, I was exposed to apartment investing, and thought that apartments were pretty awesome. When I first learned about it, apartments seemed very big and unreachable, but I knew that’s where I wanted to go. Scaling was huge for me, and I saw the benefits in the economies of scale. I grasped the concepts of why apartments would be awesome, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to dive into apartments, so I started as a real estate agent to ease myself in.
Two partners and I decided that we wanted to work together to figure out this apartment thing back in 2018. One of them had told me they liked an apartment analyzing product called the Syndicated Deal Analyzer by Michael Blank. Fast forward a few months and a conference later, I was enrolled in his coaching program. It took almost a year to buy the 24-unit apartment, but with application of what I learned, I was able to get it done with a couple of partners.
As I went through the coaching program and learned about the apartment buying process, I learned that I didn’t love running numbers, I didn’t love schmoozing brokers, I didn’t love looking for deals, and I didn’t even love the due diligence process. What I did love was teaching investors about apartment syndication and introducing this asset class to people who had no idea it existed. When I talked to people outside of my real estate circle, I came across people who had no idea this existed, and they had no idea they could participate if they had. Only the ultra wealthy and their friends have been exposed to this opportunity. Syndications are private placements, so unless you know they exist and have someone to invite you to invest, the opportunity isn’t available to you.
What is the Purpose of Freestyle Capital Group?
I want to get the word out about this awesome asset class, but I am regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. What I do is provide education and invite people to join my free investor club, which is where I can meet people one-on-one to start a relationship with them. I need to have a substantive relationship before I can present an opportunity to a potential investor, so it is up to me to make sure investors are sophisticated enough to make an excellent investment decision based on their own circumstances. That can take some time. The exception to this is if an investor is accredited.
I align with partner-operators who I have met and trust, and who have an excellent track record for their past projects, who have great relationships with their current investors. I take great responsibility to vet and interview these partners as an extra layer of protection for any partner-investors. I have a few partner-operators, because each operator may only do 1-4 deals per year. I want to have access to more than four opportunities per year. I only choose to invest in the best deals, so even if one of my partner-operators has an opportunity, it may not meet my strict criteria.
It is my job to make sure each and every investor that chooses to partner with me is ready to go when an opportunity comes along. Some of these deals get fully funded in a matter of hours, definitely the best are funded in only a few days. It is important for investors to be mentally and financially ready to make a decision in a matter of hours, so my job is to help people down that path.
People often ask how I get paid, since Freestyle Capital Group is a free platform. When I present an opportunity, I become part of the General Partnership and get paid as an active member of the syndication. As a GP member, I am with my partner-investors every step of the way through the life of the project.
The value I provide to my partner-investors, is that I find and vet the best Operators, I hire a professional third-party underwriter for the deal itself, and I conduct extensive market research. I want make sure the investment is conservatively underwritten with long-term financing, and has many exit strategies. My goal is to provide value and take a little bit of the stress off of my partner-investors so they don’t feel like they have to do all these things on their own. I encourage a certain level of due diligence from investors, but hopefully my extra layer of vetting brings a little more peace to a decision.
My vision for Freestyle Capital Group is to stay small and boutique. I want to really know my investor-partners and operator-partners so we can all grow together.”
Are you still looking for the best way to attain to the level of financial freedom? There are quite a number of opportunities out there to choose from. But do you want to get there in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of hassle? If so, there is one in particular that you need to know more about.
Recent Comments